NEWS: The Sanders campaign researched whether Warren could be both vice president and treasury secretary at once.
The answer was yes: https://t.co/asT6fCgOKw
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) January 18, 2020
The Sanders campaign researched whether Warren could be Vice President, treasury secretary and damage control all at once.
— JohnCammo (@JohnCammo) January 18, 2020
The media starts talking about Warren’s sterling debate performance, and suddenly it occurs to her competitors that she could very well be a useful second banana…
At event in Newton, Iowa, a voter asks about a report @JoeBiden wanted @ewarren to be his VP if he had run in 2016 and if she would join a “centrist administration.”
Warren doesn’t directly answer the Q, instead talks about her record standing up to the financial industry.
— Kevin Robillard (@Robillard) January 17, 2020
This is that 2016 report, which also suggested Biden thought Warren would be a good VP pick for Clinton: https://t.co/xwmkVs13Fx
— Kevin Robillard (@Robillard) January 17, 2020
Warren is a little bit more direct in the gaggle: “I’m not looking to be anyone’s VP.”
— Kevin Robillard (@Robillard) January 17, 2020
Still looking for the offer from Buttigieg’s team, but maybe he’s young enough not to automatically assume that any woman would automatically be flattered to be offered a job as his backup. Because Bernie and Biden both have the feeble, misogynistic ‘in my day’ excuse. Unlike, I suspect, the Bernie / Biden staffers who thought it would be smart marketing to put it out there at this point in the race…
Clownshow Mike, demonstrating their ‘rationale’:
Apparently manipulating the delegates system isn’t bad when it helps your guy. https://t.co/xmO0UESOB0
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) January 18, 2020
In the UK, the office of prime minister evolved from the fact of the head of government also having charge of the treasury.
Even today, 10 Downing Street is the official home of the first lord of the treasury.
So what seems simpler than ?? is just making Warren the president. https://t.co/mdGF9rrcTj
— Greg Greene (@ggreeneva) January 18, 2020
Kent
Um…..how about making Bernie Secretary of the Treasury? Since he knows so much about economics. And the really hard math stuff, like percentages.
[snark]
Gin & Tonic
That would imply that Wilmer would in this scenario be President. Which will not happen.
hells littlest angel
@Kent: And his wife would be his closest adviser.
Kent
@hells littlest angel: I mean, it’s not like he’s doing anything useful in the Senate, unlike Warren.
Amir Khalid
That Biden and Sanders want to make a deal with Warren to get her delegates tells me they think she’ll have enough of them to deal for. That means they think she’s going to be a real contender for the nomination. If they are right, her best move is of course to refuse any such deals.
I’m a bit surprised that Biden’s and Sanders’ people are letting this get out. It only strengthens Warren’s position as a candidate, at their own guy’s expense.
Kent
@Amir Khalid: It makes them look desperate. And it certainly won’t win them any Warren supporters because it is insulting to be even talking about it before the first votes are cast.
Mike J
There was someone on twitter (sorry, no idea who) who said, sure make a woman do two jobs instead of the one should she have,
CaseyL
This seems to be a good place to re-up a comment I made in an earlier, half-dead thread:
Has anyone else seen the latest explosive shit Sirota took on Twitter? A long, long series of tweets all aimed at accusing Biden of wanting to cut SocSec. It’s a strange tweet thread, in that 60%-odd of it are Sirota tweets; hardly anyone else paying attention. Then some Purity Ratfuckers chime in on how Biden is an evil corporate Dem and only Bernie can save us.
It’s a lie, by the way. A few non-cult stalwarts in the thread let Sirota know what they think of him, with “piece of shit” being among the nicer remarks.
The purity of the disinformation, the venom, the sheer hatefulness on display … it’s like psychopathic performance art. Bernie & Co. really and truly are the leftish version of Trump’s malignant tribe. It’s nauseating and horrifying to behold.
dmsilev
@Amir Khalid: You’re assuming that there’s any truth to the story. The Warren/Biden story is based on ‘a report’ that an attendee at a rally heard; that’s thin at best.
Amir Khalid
@dmsilev:
All news reports are true. I used to be a reporter myself, so I know.
//
Felanius Kootea
@Kent: I think Elizabeth Warren or Joe Biden should pick Bernie as their Secretary of Labor.
chris
@CaseyL:I saw a bit of that and didn’t bother to read because Sirota. Now I have also come across this tweet from the WAPO so YMMV. I figure it’s still early in the game to be worried about stuff like this but Sirota is sleazy and bears watching.
Barbara
@chris: I think we have all had decades long experience “contemplating” cuts to Social Security — because a lot of knuckleheads have forced us to contemplate such cuts. Not advocating, not proposing, not even suggesting, but contemplating.
Mike J
@Felanius Kootea: I was thinking Ambassador to Ulan Bator.
mrmoshpotato
I’ve been researching since May 2016 whether Wilmer would’ve been a great forest knitter, or could still be a great forest knitter. The answer has been and still is yes!
mrmoshpotato
@Kent: He could do great things for the only problem this nation has – INCOME INEQUALITY!
Kent
@Felanius Kootea: What does he know about labor?
debbie
Condescending pig.
debbie
@Felanius Kootea:
I see him at HUD. //
Jinchi
I think it’s become traditional that candidates drop hints that a strong rival would be a great VP. It’s a way of signaling to their supporters that it’s safe to switch teams. It’s not surprising that both Biden and Sanders would try it. Securing her voters would go a long way to winning the race.
And while I’d love to see Warren as president, I’d rather she stayed Senator Warren than become VP. Particularly to Sanders or Biden, either of whom needs to pick a significantly younger running mate to offset concerns about their own age.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@chris: I read the column. The decades “long track record” consists of a proposal to freeze cost-of-living increases in 1984 (probably a bad idea, but I was in high school, along with a guy I just found out is about to be a grandfather, Born In The USA and Purple Rain had just come out, by which I mean it was a long fucking time ago), and things Biden is “said to have advocated” and “seems” to have supported.
One of our regular Jacobin subscribers who swears up and down the flagpole they’re not for Bernie this time had a hysterical mini-rant the other day about all the terrible things Biden would do to the social safety net, etc. In true Berner fashion, this person thinks we’re electing an absolute monarch who will rule by fiat
Bruuuuce
@Felanius Kootea: How about 15th assistant to the juniormost aide to the Undersecretary of Labor? He might learn something about labor then, though the London bookies would give long odds against.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jinchi: IIRC Bubba floated a Clinton/Obama ticket in ’08
Jinchi
They’re trying to give her a “good game” clap on the back before the competition has really begun. I don’t think it will work either.
Kay
She definitely would. “Fight hard and dream big” doesn’t mean “be an idiot and pout” :)
She won’t be screaming about “rigging” at the convention, either, I can assure you.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mike J:
A dear friend of mine is a former Canadian Ambassador to Ulaanbaatar. He and his wife loved their four years there, became very involved in Mongolian culture, and have been back on visits as private citizens more than once. It’s not the ends-of-the-earth hardship posting you might imagine. (Of course, Wilmer’s quite capable of making a hardship of it….)
mrmoshpotato
@CaseyL:
Couldn’t have put it better myself.
Ohio Mom
I found this amusing:
At the end of the clip, Michael Moore shudders at the thought that at a deadlocked convention, the party “could bring in someone who didn’t run as a compromise, (shrug) Sherrod Brown.”
Does he not know how to the left (and effective) Brown is? That Sherrod wouldn’t be a compromise, that would be a huge gift to the group that is split between Warren and Bernie.
MM could do a lot, lot worse than Sherrod (who I believe is committed to serving Ohio as a Senator, anyway). Talk about tunnel vision.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kent: He knows how to avoid it, from what I’ve heard.
Felanius Kootea
@Mike J: It would be nice to have him far away in Mongolia. I like this idea.
Felanius Kootea
@Kent: He certainly knows how to exercise the citizens of rose twitter. That’s a form of labor. I think.
CaseyL
@chris: And here’s what Politifact says about that:
Sirota et al are lying liars who lie.
HumboldtBlue
Here is a Tango to enjoy while the madness deepens.
Here is a hilarious tale as only James Acaster can tell one.
Another Scott
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: As Billin mentioned earlier, the early-mid ’80s was the time of the Greenspan Commission and all the doom and gloom about Social Security going bankrupt because of short term, and long-term (baby boomer retirement), issues. There were lots and lots of proposals.
It looks like all we thought we knew about the Greenspan Commission is actual hokum (from 2011):
Hmmm…
As always in politics, there’s no deal until there’s a deal. Biden talking about a freeze (or whatever) can’t be taken in isolation. What was he hoping to get in return? Similarly, Obama’s “Grand Bargain” wasn’t a sign of his secret desire to gut Social Security, it was an attempt to see what the GOP would give in return. It’s a bargaining tactic, not a sign of their black-as-coal souls…
What did they vote for? What did they sign? What did their colleagues think at the time? What did Claude Pepper (he of “Keep your vile hands off Social Security” fame) think at the time?
(Politics, how does it work??!)
Cheers,
Scott.
HumboldtBlue
I just tried to submit a comment.
And it didn’t appear. This one did, but I also didn’t include any links.
Fuck it.
chris
@Barbara: You’re right, of course. An annoying habit of yours ;-)
Another Scott
@HumboldtBlue: Make sure you click the “Text” tab in the Comment editor if you’re including links.
(If you don’t see any tabs, “click here to refresh” (just above the toolbar in the editor) before you start typing.)
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Uncle Cosmo
@Mike J: Special Envoy to the Kuiper Belt – no, wait, make that the Oort Cloud. If he wants to come home for holidays, Jane can fucking well pay his way back out of all the cash she sucked out of that college she bankrupted.
And Sirota, that fucking Stalinist, is in dire need of being hit by an out of control 18-wheeler.
mrmoshpotato
@Uncle Cosmo: Special Envoy to Alpha Centauri. And if he objects, put him on a mission to bring back Voyager I and II.
As for the 18-wheeler, one that’s full of trash?
Mike J
@SiubhanDuinne: I wasn’t wishing hardship on him, just that he be far, far away.
Bruuuuce
@Mike J:
Like the Rebbe blessing the Tsar, in Anatevke.
Amir Khalid
Testing link function.
lahke
So, is Cole secretly running @41 Strange? Because why else would the latter be showing off little birbs? (many efforts to successfully use stupid phone to copy this link have defeated me. Or maybe it’s not the phone that is stupid. Trust me, he said “birb”).
mrmoshpotato
@Amir Khalid: What kind of strange sports field was that? ?
Bruuuuce
@lahke: Yep. “Birb” is a thing, so much so that the Audubon Society had to address it
Mnemosyne
I’ve thought for a while that I would love to see Warren as Treasury Secretary. Not only could she do the job, and do it well, the banksters would shit themselves sideways. Win-win!
Amir Khalid
@mrmoshpotato:
It is Anfield Stadium, on one of the most solemn occasions in the history of Liverpool FC: the 25th anniversary memorial service for the 96 fans who died in the Hillsborough tragedy.
Anne Laurie
You may know this already, but… Sirota is Sanders’ “senior advisor / speechwriter.” While he was interviewing for that position, earlier in 2019, he was *also* writing virulent, fact-challenged articles on other Democratic candidates while posing as an ‘independent, non-aligned journalist’. Other political operatives said his hiring reflected poorly on the profession, and on Sanders’ judgement, and there were remarks that any other candidate would’ve rescinded the job offer. (You can imagine how thoughtfully Sirota responded, of course.)
Sanders has un-hired other less high-profile aides when their previous histories of racist / sexist / dishonest comments were ‘unearthed’, but he said that nobody could prove that Sirota’s underhanded behavior had damaged other candidates, so he didn’t see any reason not to embrace such an ‘effective & experienced operative.’ That lost Sanders some semi-sympathetic media commentors, because ‘just win, baby’ sounded more like Trump than a potential Trump challenger….
Anne Laurie
If Warren’s not gonna be President, she should stay in the Senate, where she could very well end up replicating Teddy Kennedy’s ‘Lion of the Senate’ effectiveness.*
*without, of course, sharing any of Teddy’s unfortunate personal behavior.
mrmoshpotato
@Amir Khalid: Well, I was trying to make a soccer joke there…
lahke
@Bruuuuce: Ah, then Cole was echoing a meme rather than being cute on his own. Darn, it was so endearing when he found the hatchlings.
Jay
Jay
Les’s lawyer has now joined in the trolling,
In particular, trolling All the President’s Free and Paid Lawyers,
Jay
Stuck in moderation @#52
cool, wound up deleted in less time than I could note it was in moderation,
new glitch?
new feature?
CaseyL
@Anne Laurie: Sanders attracts awful people, and unleashes them on his rivals. He thinks this keeps his own hands clean. It doesn’t.
Aleta
Is there a name for this kind of ‘reasoning’ ?
(It’s a post from a super pro-BS twitter account tonight.)
Maybe I could awkwardly describe it as drawing a biased conclusion from an unshakeable wrong assumption — but is there a term for this kind of argument?
I notice it more lately. “All-guns-Yes; Any-taxes-No” types seem most inclined to argue this way, so maybe it’s related to rigidity.
It’s disturbing from Sanders supporters.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: Let’s not make the same mistake Obama made again, raiding the Senate and Governors for cabinet positions. Senator Warren can do a fine job in the Senate.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I’ve seen this before and it’s a misconception.
Out of a 15 member cabinet he only appointed 3 Senators: Clinton, Salazar, and Kerry. All of their replacements still hold their seats.
He only appointed 2 sitting Governors: Sebelius and Napolitano. Both were in the middle of their 2nd terms and term limited.
There was no harm.
J R in WV
@Ohio Mom:
Yes, and I love Sherrod Brown too. But if he takes a different federal office we lose a senator. This year especially.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Anne Laurie: That’s a nice thought. But Teddy passed over a thousand bills in his nearly 50 year career. That’s just not going to happen today with the republicans filibustering everything and because of Warren’s advanced age.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
All these desperate, hysterical attacks and lies by Sanders and his camp can only mean his internal polling is in the toilet.
eclare
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: I like this reasoning.
Amir Khalid
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Or it’s just how he rolls. Or both.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Disagree.
sab
@J R in WV: I live and vote in Ohio, and I can’t think of any Democrat who could be elected to replace Sherrod Brown if he left the Senate. His replacement would be a Republican and almost certainly awful.
Amir Khalid
@Aleta:
Going by this list of fallacious argument types, I’d say it was a tu quoque fallacy.
Aleta
@Amir Khalid: Thanks
(I wonder what the word is for an argument that makes you tear your hair out.) (joke)
Aleta
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Their latest frantic burrowing in the silt re: Biden (paraphrasing: ‘we didn’t edit the video’ and ‘Politfact never said we edited the video —so Biden is lying ‘) also feels like a diversion from 1–what he said to Warren and 2–the lie they put out in their campaign newsletter about what Biden said about Soc. Sec. .
Here’s what Politfact wrote earlier in January, which Biden was referring to:
prostratedragon
A little night music:
prostratedragon
[Sigh]
And this week in the annals of accidental plagiarism,
To cleanse the brain, a Brazilian sings of the persistance of cultural memory:
Anya
@Aleta: I saw this yesterday when Jeet Heer tweeted a Politico article “Biden charges Sanders camp ‘doctored video’ to attack him,” with “What do we call it when someone makes a serious claim which is contradicted by the evidence/ Ideally a short word the can fit in the headline?” I didn’t click on the politico article because I am not about that life but I have assumed Jeet knew what he was talking about and this is why he was calling Biden a lier. I don’t get it. How does he accuse Biden of lying if the context is clear and Biden was making fun of the granny starver? Is there no one to trust these days?
Baud
@Anya: Was he calling Biden or Bernie the liar? I didn’t see the tweet.
Anya
@Baud: I thought he was calling Biden a lier. Based on the replies, everyone read it that way. Here’s the tweet: https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/1218703608394305537
Baud
@Anya: I can’t tell. I don’t use Twitter much, but I didn’t think Jeet was in the Bernie camp.
Anya
@Baud: I don’t know, I follow him and I think he’s totally in the Bernie camp. He’s not unbearable about it but he’s always defending him and calling out anyone who says stuff about him but I never see him call out the Bernie camp.
Baud
@Anya: Thanks. In that case, I guess he was attacking Biden here.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Re making deals for another candidate’s delegates: In the 2008 Iowa caucus, Obama and Richardson had a deal whereby if Richardson wasn’t viable, his precinct captains would take his voters to Obama. I didn’t know about it ahead of time, and I’m not sure how many other people did. I did hear Richardson’s voters arguing about it during the caucus.
WaterGirl
@HumboldtBlue: Your other comment got marked as Spam. Not sure why because there were only 2 links the I could see, so it wasn’t anything you did.
I believe there may be occasional youtube links that contain a certain sequence that triggers a comment to be marked as spam. It doesn’t happen very often, but it does happen occasionally.
Your comment is there now at #33.
Anne Laurie
Don’t look at Jeet’s tweets very often any more, but I get the impression that he’s not so much Bernie-biased as he’s afraid that too many of his ‘professional’ on-line ‘friends’ are deeply in the St. Sanders cult. When I see his tweets on other peoples’ feeds, he seems to be trying to walk a line between rolling his eyes at the Bernista excesses, while still frantically signalling that BOTH SIDES!!! …
Shalimar
@Anya: It reads to me like Jeet is calling out Politico for not being willing to use the word “liar” in their headline when that is clearly what Biden is calling Sanders. Obviously that is not how it reads to most people.
WaterGirl
@Felanius Kootea: How about Secretary of All Talk, No Action? For Bernie, of course.
*with a possible substitution of “shout” in place of “talk”
WaterGirl
@Jay: Your comment with 8 links threw you into spam, because it’s over the limit of 7 links in a single comment. Once you’re in spam, your comments don’t go through without intervention.
WaterGirl
@Aleta:
Wouldn’t the more obvious explanation be that Bernie Sanders is dishonest?
Shalimar
@WaterGirl: No one else knows 100% what Sanders said to Warren behind closed doors, but they are definitely being dishonest about the Biden quote. So, yeah. To me, they’re just reinforcing that Warren is more trustworthy.
Bruuuuce
@WaterGirl: Occam’s Razor would suggest so, but how could anyone thing Sanctus Bernardus of the Great White (Flight) North would be anything less than perfect?
West of the Cascades
So on this theory, there’s nothing wrong with Warren’s VP, Kamala Harris, also serving as Attorney General?
Kathleen
@CaseyL: I read on Twitter (don’t have link) that Justice Dems spent money on Facebook ads with the same message about Biden and Social Security. The tweet also posted the Politifact response, which was “False”.
Baud
@Kathleen: It was a planned attack against Biden. I outlined it in a thread yesterday. The Bernie team essentially worked with the Intercept to attack Biden on Social Security.
Robmassing
That hypothetical President Sanders would consider giving Warren powerful positions in his hypothetical administration shows that he . . . thinks highly of her, no?
artem1s
If Biden or Wilmer wants to prove they are willing to put a powerful woman in place as their second? Why not ask Hillary to serve. Admit that you could use her experience and that she is the obvious choice to be a heartbeat away from the WH. She already has a 100 day plan in place and the Dem platform is pretty much written. If you are actually willing to choose a qualified person who would be up to speed on day one, then she is a natural choice.
If they don’t win the nomination, I think Warren and Harris know that staying in the Senate or taking a powerful cabinet position is more desirable than the VP spot. Personally I think Warren should stay in the Senate, but could see her as Commerce or Treasury Sec – or hell, Fed Chair. Harris would be great as AG but I’d rather she be majority/minority leader. Stacy Abrams is an obvious pick for a high level cabinet position too. But any offers to Warren, Harris, or any of the other candidates is just a cover for eliminating the competition and weak appeals to women voters. This isn’t a Reagan/Bush deal in the making. This is the MSM trying to keep the horse race going after IA and NH and thru Super Tuesday.