Classic:
Biden: “If every investment banker in New York went on strike, nothing would much change in America. If every plumber decided to stop working, every electrician, the country comes to a halt. I mean, literally, not figuratively, literally, it comes to a damn halt." pic.twitter.com/aI09Xl11NP
— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) October 10, 2020
The Very Serious Media Village Idiots, on the other hand…
Biden is again asked why voters don’t deserve to know his views on court packing. He responds: “The only court packing going on right now is going on with Republicans packing the court right now … I’m going to stay focused on it so we don’t take our eyes off the ball here." pic.twitter.com/E9H5rIXMX2
— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) October 10, 2020
I’ve seen more journalists complaining about Biden not indulging hypotheticals than I’ve seen cover Trump’s recently uncovered massive tax fraud. https://t.co/7Wojg9ofMH
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) October 10, 2020
The fact that you consider those things equivalent is the whole fucking problem. https://t.co/dpGOjCmQtY
— Tentin Quarantino (@agraybee) October 10, 2020
No, it should not be framed this way, as Democrats have expressed a different rationale, namely: If McConnell proceeds to apply different rules than he did in 2016, he will have effectively stolen at least 1 seat. A reasonable response to this would be to expand the court. https://t.co/GiOT8Yvyon
— Mangy Jay (@magi_jay) October 10, 2020
if you are insisting that a dem president and a dem congress should be forced to swallow an unrepresentative, SCOTUS that will block any attempt at progress, that’s the argument you’re making. that dems are simply placeholders until the GOP cheats themselves into another win.
— GETFUCKINGMADABOUTITmachine (@golikehellmachi) October 10, 2020
not all politics reporters, sure, but most politics reporters thinks the country is center-right and that IT IS THEIR JOB to ensure they portray a center-right country in their reporting.
— GETFUCKINGMADABOUTITmachine (@golikehellmachi) October 10, 2020
The political press doesn’t give a shit about Biden’s answer re: court balancing. The point is to be seen “hounding” Biden in order to have CYA insurance against claims of liberal bias. It’s de facto favor-trading with Republican sources.
— Nobody (@isquithian) October 10, 2020
Biden blowing off the political press entirely is entirely the press’ own fault for rewarding transparency by fucking the EMAILZ chicken to death https://t.co/s42AIfFa1d
— Dave Hyde, Boat Suppressor (@x_t_pd) October 9, 2020
Baud
It’s always interesting to see when the press decides not to act like stenographers.
PsiFighter37
Investment bankers would never go on strike because there are no unions at big banks. I’m an employee at one, so I can speak from professional experience. In fact, if any banker were to try to go ‘on strike’, they’d simply be fired and replaced very easily the next day. It probably speaks to the fact that they are not quite the Masters of the Universe they make themselves out to be.
MattF
My ‘not surprised’ look.
debbie
Like the GOP “swallowed” the ACA. //
dmsilev
‘My answer is in the same filing cabinet as Trump’s health-care plan.’
germy
Same thing with all the political pundits on TV. Life would go on.
craigie
He should answer the question then. His answer should be “Maybe”.
MisterForkbeard
@Baud: Well, they’re still stenographers. Just not for Biden.
germy
And their owners don’t want to pay a penny more in taxes than they have to.
MisterForkbeard
@craigie: I think “It depends on whether or not Republicans steal a 2nd Supreme Court seat – maybe you should go ask them about that.” is not a bad place to start.
But then, the press won’t do that because it’s great when they’re attacked by Trump but appalling when a Democrat mentions that they’re not actually doing their jobs.
West of the Rockies
OT, but remember 27 years ago when some were worried that Kanye would somehow assure Trump Part Duh?
RandomMonster
@germy:
And vastly improved at that!
gene108
@PsiFighter37:
I think it’s more in line with what happened a few years ago, when teachers in various states (NC, WV, OK, etc.) went on strike for better working conditions and wages. Their strike really ground things to a halt for so many in those states.
If all the investment bankers, and all the people, who want their jobs decided to stop doing investment banking, so there is no more investment banking going on in this country for a few days, most folks probably would not notice.
germy
Yutsano
@MisterForkbeard: Only Republicans have the natural right to their statements, and the press is therefore obligated to accept them at face value. Democrats are required to have agency, so they must justify anything a Republican is accusing them of. Any variation from this norm will always go against The Narrative, and the one thing the main stream press CANNOT DO is go against The Narrative. Otherwise no more fancy DC cocktail parties and turns on tire swings.
Also: isn’t Biden saying here what we’ve been telling him to say? Or am I missing something?
Baud
@West of the Rockies:
Is there some Kanye news today?
germy
Speaking of the New York Times…
Baud
@Yutsano:
Biden’s doing great.
My personal suggestion is to simply state that we’ll do anything we have to to make sure people’s health care and civil rights are protected.
Yutsano
@germy:
Adjusted that fer ya good sir. In fact they’re waiting for negative tax rates while anyone making less than $40,000 a year has a 95% tax rate.
Baud
@germy:
What’s going on? The tweet was not clear.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
They published a full-page op-ed by Bret Stephens saying that they shouldn’t have published the 1619 Project (which was the best thing they’ve ever done, IMO). I didn’t read Stephens, so I can’t tell you what his “argument” was.
germy
gene108
@MisterForkbeard:
I cannot decide, if the media are the people, who hang around bullies cheering them on or abuse victims, who do not realize they are being abused, with regards to how they cover Republicans.
McConnell shafting the Garland nomination was treated entirely as political theater, and not a serious threat to what a peaceful of transfer of power is really about. The winner and loser of the election agree to play by the same set of rules, and McConnell keeps changing those rules.
It’s part of the reason Trump so seamlessly took over the Republican Party. Trump, like McConnell, has no moral core other than accumulating power and wealth.
Aleta
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
I downloaded the 1619 project and never got around to reading it.
Seems to have hit a nerve so I assume is good.
germy
@Baud:
Attacking the 1619 Project.
NotMax
“Thank you. I’ve already answered that question and refer you to that response.”
WaterGirl
@germy: I have no idea what that’s about, and that was a REALLY long article at the link. What are you saying about 1619 and the NYT?
edit: Or, what Baud said.
germy
@Aleta:
elm
@Baud: NYT paid Brett Stephens to shit on the NYT 1619 project.
germy
@WaterGirl:
See comment #21
Jeffro
It’s funny that David Leonhardt is busy trying to justify this latest version of “both sides” considering he had an update at the end of last week about “violence on both sides” that included, 9 paragraphs down, a note about how 38 of 42 recent politically-inspired murders were by right-leaning perpetrators.
(plz take my word for it; I’ll dig up the link in a sec. I remember it clearly because my TCNJ dad sent the Leonhardt thing to me as his idea of ‘balanced’ and I flipped right the fuck out about it)
38 of 42. 90% of the murders are by the right-wingers, but it’s “both sides”. That’s the kind of uphill climb Democrats have with our national snooze media.
And the lighter version – in his own words! – is that trumpov’s DECADES OF TAX FRAUD, VIRUS “BUNGLING” that cost 200k+ American lives, and BLATANT RACISM is something they’ll get around to covering once they get an answer from Uncle Joe about “court packing”
F. These. People.
Baud
@elm:
Are they hiring people to shit on Bret Stephens? People need work right now.
Ruckus
I posted about 4 hrs ago that ActBlue was at 7 billion 123 million.
It’s just went over 7 billion 128 1/2 million. Over a million an hour.
germy
@Aleta:
I thought their platform was the I’M WITH STUPID tee shirt?
RSA
Jack Shafer: “Let the record show that any Democrat who declines to answer the court-packing question should be credited with being in favor of it. Problem solved.”
Has Jack Shafer written that President Trump, who declined to condemn the Proud Boys, is in favor of white supremacy? Not that I’ve been able to find. Nice double standard.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
At least read the Nikole Hannah-Jones essay. She makes you see American history from a whole new point of view.
elm
@Baud: You have to go to his house and do it in front of his wife and kids.
gene108
You know Biden was probably involved, being on the Senate Judiciary committee ‘n’ all, in helping Obama pick judicial nominees. How many qualified people did Biden see not given the time of day, because of McConnell’s scheming?
Obama’s legacy is Biden’s legacy, too. Joe must really be pissed, and is doing a great job keeping his cool.
Ohio Mom
Yes, Joe knows politics. That is why I am expecting him to pursue a pretty progressive agenda once he’s in the Oval Office. That is the tenor of the times and a politician’s politician follows what the times demand.
As for the Supreme Court, who knows? Barrett could fizzle out, someone else could keel over next February (please God, you know who I’m thinking of). I think the answer Joe gave on the tarmac is the only possible response.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
The FTFNYT must have found a great sale on apostrophes.
raven
Zack Prescott is done, really done.
BlueGuitarist
Republicans in Arizona expanded the state supreme court from 5 to 7 in 2016. Republicans in Georgia expanded the GA state supreme court from 7 to 9 in 2017. Media should give that more attention along with the the Republican packing Federal courts below SCOTUS. And, as Joe says, Republicans are packing the court right now.
Jeffro
@Jeffro: here’s the link
Compare – 7th and 8th paragraphs down
Oh so it was “people” who drove into protestors…”people” of no particular political affiliation, I guess? Just drove right into all those BLM protestors in the streets in a bipartisan way?
9th paragraph down:
Thanks Dave! 9 paragraphs in before we note the obvious here.
johnnybuck
I think Biden should just say “we’ll see” and leave it at that.
Jeffro
@raven: yup – that was just gruesome.
Another Scott
@Aleta: Donnie’s told us what his 2nd term will be:
Everything else is details.
Grr…
We have to vote the monsters out!!
Our local voting location (NoVA) finally opens on Wednesday the14th at 1 PM. We’ll probably drop off our ballots in the box shortly thereafter.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@johnnybuck: Agree.
raven
@Jeffro: Reminded me of mine.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
I’m so behind in my reading.
Ruckus
@zhena gogolia:
I can tell you what his article is about even without reading it. The FTFNYT published the best thing they’ve ever published and he’s pissed for 2 reasons. One, it’s the truth. Two, his name wasn’t and didn’t belong on it.
Ned F.
when asked about packing the court, just say, no, I don’t think so. And later, as Republicans have taught us, we can change the rules as they did, twice, no problem. The very serious people have been awfully unconcerned.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Biden sticking to point is basically saying “y’all dumbasses can keep asking the same dumbass questions, I ain’t answering em”.
It’s something he watched happen constantly as VP. I’ve mentioned this before but I actually know a former WH Correspondent and said correspondent bitched about that approach constantly during the Obama years.
Which told me the Obama Administration was doing something right. Just like Biden is. He knows the Feckless Beltway Media Corpse are stenographers only for Repub talking points so more or less ignore em when they badger.
Yutsano
@SiubhanDuinne: Wait…that Twitter account is connected to the FTFNYT??? Jesus, Mary, and Jehosephat!
Jeffro
@raven: Ugh. Sorry for you both!
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
Reader comments must have been on fire.
raven
@Jeffro: Maybe his is a dislocated ankle. Mine shattered both bones into 18 fragments.
Uncle Cosmo
@germy: All the fuckers have left is
Srsly, a month ago a supposedly intelligent former classmate** of mine told me that if Joe didn’t die in office he’d resign so that Kamala would become POTUS.
It’s all they have left. We should treat them as we should treat all authoritarian arseholes & laugh in their faces.
** Elementary school in the 1950s but it still counts.
Jeffro
@Ned F.:
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
No need for Biden to take any heat here – let surrogates point out the hypocrisy of the GOP for the next three weeks, get elected, and then yeah, punish them for enabling trumpov’s corruption for so long.
(in addition to doing what’s right, lighten the courts’ workload, etc etc)
trumpov losing the WH is the first of many “prices” he should pay for being a shitty president* and a completely corrupt person.
The GOP having to stand by and watch Biden & Co expand the federal courts, to include SCOTUS, is the price they’ll have to pay for their enabling of trumpov.
They’re always welcome to try and earn a majority of Americans’ votes and then nominate judges in the future. They could try that for once, instead of suppressing votes and changing the standards every time it benefits them.
Captain C
@elm:
“Hey Bret, can you shit all over that thing we just won a Pulitzer for? We’ll give you an entire page.”
Matt McIrvin
I guess this is the closest thing to a Hillary emails that they’ve got. But I don’t see Biden’s poll numbers plummeting over it.
Yutsano
The Lincoln Project is shrill. Again.
Jeffro
I think he will, too. Not sure who will be more surprised at the progressive agenda – Dems or the GOP – but I also don’t care, it needs to happen!
Matt McIrvin
@Uncle Cosmo:
Well, I’ve seen liberals wishfully claiming the same thing–they just think it’s a great idea. (I think it’s the kind of thing pundits endlessly speculate about that never happens.)
debbie
@Baud:
It was monumental. (It’s the kind of reporting the NYT used to produce on a regular basis.) It’s also why Trump is demanding “patriotic education.”
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
He could die. He won’t resign.
Uncle Cosmo
@Jeffro: I note in passing that the yogurt-like acronym TCNJ is back sans definition. “Trashy conservative nut job” or somesuch, amirite? :^p (You may recall that I asked WaterGirl to put it in the BJ Lexicon but she said that it’s not used often enough to justify that – since no one uses it but you.)
Mallard Filmore
@johnnybuck:
“We’re looking at it strongly, and we’ll see what happens.”
(No, don’t do that.)
Captain C
@Uncle Cosmo:
That sounds like a supposedly intelligent former classmate of mine who this time last year was convinced that Hillary Clinton was poised to jump into the Democratic primary (and steal it from a certain Independent’s rightful grasp). When I pointed out she had said she was done running for everything, he started frothing about what a power-hungry, deceitful [gendered insult] she was, so I told him we could talk politics again when he stopped acting like a cultist.
(edited to point out the classmate was supposedly intelligent, not supposedly a former classmate of mine)
debbie
@Yutsano:
Nice. They’ll be featured on 60 Minutes tonight.
topclimber
@PsiFighter37: I think it is more like if they just stopped working, even without calling it a strike, no one would notice.
Only piling on because you seem to be the kind who can take it.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: I remember them saying it about Bill Clinton! That he’d just resign out of the blue in 1999 or 2000 to give Al Gore a “head start” and the advantage of incumbency. Presidents don’t do this unless they’re resigning in disgrace, and Bill Clinton certainly wouldn’t have considered himself as doing that, regardless of what the media thought. I think it would also get a really negative reaction from the general public, like a bait and switch was being pulled on them.
Keith P.
@Uncle Cosmo: That kind of stuff cracks me up, for the very petty reason that Harris was my first choice, and Biden was my second. So it’s like the “court packing” thing…just makes me shrug my shoulders and go “so what?” 30 years of Gingrich-style politics does this to a person.
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
He got you to read to the 9th paragraph. Would you do that if you weren’t pissed at the prior 8? OTOH, If you hadn’t been pissed off at the first 8 graphs would you be mentioning his name and the story so that others will read it and give him eyeballs?
He’s in the business to sell what he writes. His boss is in the business to have him write what the owner wants or at least what the editor thinks the owner wants. It’s often not the truth. Seemingly far more often than when it is.
Kent
I will say that the Dems have been pretty incompetent about answering this question. How I would have answered it in the debate is as follows:
The party that is REALLY trying to pack the Supreme Court is the Republicans. They are doing this by changing the rules for Trump that were previously in effect for every other presidency in history. Prior to Trump, every Supreme Court nominee by every other president required a 60 vote margin which meant that every other president needed to seek bipartisan consensus for their nominees. Every Democratic nominee in the past received bipartisan support because Democratic presidents worked to find nominees that would be acceptable to a wide range of Americans. Prior to Trump, every Republican president also sought bipartisan support for their nominees and received it.
Trump and McConnell have completely abandoned this 250-year tradition of seeking bipartisan support for Supreme Court nominees and since 2016 they are trying to pack the courts by simply trying to jam through the most partisan right-wing nominees on a raw party-line vote without even attempting to find any middle ground with Democrats. It is a blatant abuse of of power and the opposite of what Americans support.
If Trump had sought to find a more moderate nominee that a number of Democrats could support then we would be in a different situation. There are no doubt many fine conservative judges that Democrats would find acceptable, if only they had sought to consult with Democrats to try to find a middle ground. They did not even try to do this. There has not even been the tiniest attempt to seek bipartisan support for this nominee and achieve 60 votes as we used to always do before Trump. Instead they are just trying to pack the courts on raw party line votes.
That is the court packing that you reporters should be writing about. It is fundamentally different from the way that every single other president and Congress has operated in the history of the country
Ruth Bader Ginsberg was confirmed by the Senate with a 96-3 vote with the support of the vast majority of Republicans. That is the way things used to be done. Trump and McConnell are just ramming through their nominee without seeking a single Democratic vote in an attempt to pack the Supreme Court with the most divisive and extreme nominees they can find. Which is something a majority of Americans simply do not support.
Matt McIrvin
@Captain C: Just a few weeks ago, some of the political betting markets STILL had Hillary Clinton as one of the non-negligible possibilities for being elected President in 2020. Which tells you about the people who bet in these markets.
Chetan Murthy
@Ruckus:
What percentage of readers get to the 9th paragraph? I’d bet vanishingly few. No, what he achieved, was to misinform most readers, while covering his ass if anybody actually calls him on it.
There’s a name for this kind of misinformation: “doublespeak”.
Matt McIrvin
@Jeffro: The Republicans got the vehicular-attack idea from ISIS, and they’re trying to legalize it.
PsiFighter37
So – if Biden actually does win by 12%, what are the surprises that we pull of in a) the Electoral College, and b) the Sneate?
Baud
We can’t even think about packing the Court unless we get the Senate.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Biden channeling his inner Jimmy Hoffa
Aleta
@germy: He seems excited he came up with building on the word ambition to get to failure.
Yutsano
@PsiFighter37: In the EC: Texas and Alaska.
In the Senate: Doug Jones keeps his seat and Mike Espy wins.
Tony Jay
Reporter – “Joe, do you support court packing?”
Joe – “Of course not. What a question.”
Fast forward to after President Biden and the majority Democratic Congress expand the courts and pass legislation to lighten up their workload.
Reporter – “But you said you were against court packing.”
Joe – “I am. And now we’ve expanded the Judiciary the courts won’t be so packed. Next question.”
Ohio Mom
The 1619 Project is in part a grand unifying theory explaining many things about our country that are completely screwed up, including why we have suburban sprawl, why we have such an outsized prison population, why our version of capitalism is so harsh, and why our social safety net is so skimpy and still does not provide universal health coverage.
Is this lens (that the legacy of slavery influences just about everything) the only lens through which to understand the US? No, of course not.
But that is true of any academic lens we use to make sense of things. Most things are, as they say, overdetermined. That say, suburban sprawl has many contributing causes does not mean you get to ignore one of them because it makes you uncomfortable.
Jeffro
@Uncle Cosmo: TCNJ – four little letters that trigger so much ?
The Moar You Know
@Uncle Cosmo: I heard all the same shit about Jerry Brown. Biden will serve two full terms and leave with honor and dignity. And then Kamala will serve two as well. And the GOP can choke to death on that for all I care.
J R in WV
@Yutsano:
NO, it is not. It is associated with the Union — the Guild of organized editorial staff at the NYT. Wife was member of the Newspaper Guild union at The Associated Press, elected to nation-wide local’s second highest office.
Not the same as The AP, in wife’s case, nor of the FTNYT in this case. Surely some people at your federal job are union members!? Same thing…
Jeffro
@Chetan Murthy: yes – thank you
Calouste
@topclimber: Keep in mind that the stock market is only open 6 1/2 hours a day anyway. No one would notice if they cut back to 2 hours a day or 2 days a week. Commodities markets maybe need to be open 5 days a week, but stock markets no way.
Ruckus
@Chetan Murthy:
That was my point. He pissed of Jeffro enough that he read the entire article, knowing that most people wouldn’t. But that’s what his editor and the owner want. They want a slant or it wouldn’t be in there. They hire people who will write how they want them to, about the events of the day. If they wanted absolute truthful writing, that’s what you’d see, rather than crap like this. At least it was in the 9th graph. As we all know most often it’s never said at all.
Jeffro
@Matt McIrvin: oh I know that – I’m just shocked to see a ‘mainstream’ reporter casually throwing it out there that 50 people have tried/succeeded in running over protestors in the streets and then just kinda leaving it at that.
like, how many 2A nuts in Richmond got run over? How many of those Michigan militia nuts got run over as they were leaving their assault on the capital? Ze-ro
germy
@Ohio Mom:
Well said.
Chetan Murthy
@Ruckus:
Uh, no. Your point was that by obscuring the facts, delaying them until the 9th para, the author and their editor were getting @Jeffro to read all the way down — and give them eyeballs. But that’s not at ALL what they’re doing, b/c they well know that hardly anybody reads down to the 9th para.
What they’re ACTUALLY doing, is misleading most readers, while giving themselves cover if they’re called on it (“hey, we told the truth in para 9! We can’t help it if people don’t read carefully!”) And again: there’s a name for this: “doublespeak”.
And no, that wasn’t your point. Not at all.
Jeffro
@Tony Jay: love. this. plan.
Chetan Murthy
@Chetan Murthy:
@Ruckus: Succinctly, your argument is that the 9th para is there to be read, to ensure eyeballs get that far. Mine is that the 9th para serves exactly the same purpose as the fine print on the bottom of the EULA, or the fast legal disclaimers at the end of the pharmaceutical commercial: to cover their ass, and to -never- be read or understood by laypeople.
sdhays
Case in point, the AP got to the bottom of that burning question “Did Joe Biden have someone giving him answers into an earpiece during the debate.”
To hell with these fuckers.
Uncle Cosmo
Not happening. Joe’s got too much work cleaning up the mess Orangecandyass has left the country in to get you wusses your rainbow-shitting blue unicorns – since you represent about 1% of the electorate and have the political acumen of tree moss.
Uncle Cosmo
@Keith P.: “So what?” is that they can’t lay a glove on Joe so they have to scare people about the scary woman who’ll take over as soon as Biden keels over or quits. Which I predicted practically the minute he announced he was going to pick a woman for VP (“as soon as he names his running mate they’ll be running against her”) – not that it’s going to help them all that much.
Tony Jay
@Jeffro:
Just because they want to refer to rescuing the courts from Republican fuckery as court packing, it doesn’t necessarily follow that Democrats are obliged to refer to rescuing the courts from Republican fuckery as court packing.
Get a majority. Use it. Breeze past the anklebiters. It’s not like a single thing Democrats can do will ever meet their yo-yo standards anyway, so might as well go big and hit them over the nose with the New Rule Book.
The day that the Labour Party over here internalises this truth will be a great day, so an example from your side of the pond would be much appreciated for the hard of politicking.
hueyplong
@Uncle Cosmo: There you go again, speading a bunch of hopey rainbows like some internet Mary Poppins.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
that phrase should go into history books explaining the 2016 election, like “Remember The Maine” or “the Return To Normalcy”
Uncle Cosmo
@Jeffro: Hey, I’m not the FPer who laughed it out of the Lexicon because no one but you uses it. And I’m still laughing because it sounds like yogurt.
Yutsano
@Uncle Cosmo: Congress will determine what new laws will get passed. Not Biden. But what Biden can and will do is clean up the executive branch (especially the DoJ) and get people in there to try to rebuild our international standing. This is why I hope he would try for two terms and then Kamala gets two. A long standing Democratic stability in the Oval Office is going to help there.
Ruckus
@Chetan Murthy:
No, the 9th graph is there to give them cover that they actually printed the facts. You are correct that it’s in the 9th graph because most won’t read it.
Some days my writing doesn’t seem to convey the message in my brain. But my brain works the way it works. Maybe that’s why I’m a machinist and not a world renowned author.
Jeffro
@Uncle Cosmo: my friend…get some help
LongHairedWeirdo
I think that’s a misstatement of the true problem. I think *all* political reporters either
a) *believe*, or
b)feel they must act as if they believe,
…any dumbass statement supported by enough important Republicans is what they sincerely believe is true.
The Republicans advance some positions that are either stone-cold, dull-headed, stupid; or outright bad faith, with no intention to be truthful, other than by accident…like, “the impeachment was partisan, and not based on objective, damning, truths”.
That reporters don’t point out the simple, objective, truth – there is no competent, good faith defense of the President’s behavior, and while you could argue about removal from office or not – not very convincingly, but you *could* – you *could not* argue it was unworthy of impeachment.
And that failure has undoubtedly lead to the deaths of tens of thousands of people, since a President Clinton would have controlled Covid-19, and at least a President Pence would realize the political upside of containing the spread, and not worked at making it actively worse. (“President Clinton” because back then, you know what one of those bad faith arguments was? That her e-mails were a big deal, and could have been criminal.)
Skepticat
We can’t think about accomplishing anything unless we get the Senate.
Ken
“I’m releasing that plan in two weeks. It’ll be great, you’ll all love it.”
“It is what it is.”
Any other greatest hits suitable for repurposing?
Jeffro
@Ruckus: I think you two are agreeing, which is good
let’s all go celebrate by watching Lincoln project talk on 60 MINUTES about how they got under trumpov’s skin and enjoy it…it’s almost as easy as throwing around an acronym, if ya know what I mean (and I think you do ?)
Baud
@Ken:
We’re going to pack the court and Mexico will pay for it.
Another Scott
@Tony Jay: +1, and an excellent way to put it.
Someone else recently made the point that one has no obligation to accept ‘arguments’ that are not made in good faith.
We have to be clear eyed about where we are and where we need to go. Sometimes GOP votes will be needed, but an awful lot of the time Team D will have to be willing to take their majority and govern with it. They will automatically get the blame – that’s a given. What matters is what they’re able to accomplish for people – not whether some political reporter with an axe to grind makes kind mouth noises occasionally.
tl;dr – Burn the tire swing!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Ken
Wait, Republicans are pushing the idea that Biden will resign? Have they not noticed the karmic pattern that every false accusation against the Democrats for the last thirty years has come true of Trump? They just upped the odds Trump resigns by a factor of a thousand or more.
Immanentize
What is really meaningful?
I just had the best very large bistro sized bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup that I have ever had.
✌️✌️?
ETA. YES, MADE.
Ken
TMRB, BNOAPS!
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
I think I do……
Tony Jay
@Another Scott:
Yup. They are not your friends. Will never be your friends. Are professionally incapable of being your friends.
If politics is just show business for ugly people, it’s useful to understand that politics reporters are paid for promoting the stars of the GOP studio system, not the groundbreaking artists of the Democratic Indy scene.
Sm*t Cl*de
@germy:
“Der Führerprinzip” sounds better in German.
Ruckus
@Ken:
Secrets man, secrets!
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: You made it? Recipe, please. My chicken noodle soup is never outstanding. And I am generally a pretty good cook.
Immanentize
@WaterGirl: willing to. Easy really. But does involve some effort. To the modern ear, that maybe sound in conflict….
Let me just say, Yum!!
ETA. People just fuss too much when cooking.
Viva BrisVegas
Yeah, I don’t understand this need of liberal/progressive parties across the Anglosphere to just accept the terminology of the Right.
“Court packing”, why accept it, why legitimise it, why use it? Why not “Court Reform” or “Court Workload Balance” or “Court Rebalancing”?
We had the exact same thing here in our 2013 election. A Carbon Price mechanism was created by the Labor government of the time. The conservative opposition and the Murdoch press presented it as a “Carbon Tax”. Headlines, Tax = Bad.
There was no tax, it was a carbon trading system. The Labor Party decided it had better things to discuss than definitions and was beaten in a landslide.
Orwell had it right, if you control the terms of speech, you control minds. The Right knows this. The Centre (which is defined as Left by the Right) does not.
Puddinhead
@Immanentize:
Steven Seagal: I just read the greatest script I’ve ever read.
Rob Schneider: Who wrote it?
Steven Seagal: I did.
Geminid
@Ken: now I’m getting SAD. (That’s Severe Acronym Dysphoria.)
Sm*t Cl*de
@Jeffro:
If Kleinfeld really thinks that pogroms happen spontaneously, she needs to find some other line of work where ignorance and stupidity are less damaging.
Immanentize
@Puddinhead: I doubt he did, but smart man!
Danielx
@RSA:
Villagers.
Fuck them.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Programming Note:>
TCM running Walter Matthew/Jack Lemmon double feature
Currently: The Front Page
At 10 PM Eastern: The Odd Couple
Tony Jay
@Viva BrisVegas:
Bingo.
How hard can it be to sit a bunch of professional word- fondlers in a room and say “define this idea in as positive a way as possible” then pass on what they produce to likeminded folk? Doesn’t that sound simple?
It’s not ‘court packing’, it’s ‘court rebalancing’ or ‘judicial moderation’ or simple ‘court modernisation’.
“What’s the opposite of modernisation, pal? You want to live in the past or something?”
It’s not hard. People like easy to remember phrases they can hang bigger ideas on. Give them to them, or the other bastards will.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: I fail to see the problem here, you open the can of soup, maybe had some water, heat it up…Enjoy!
Steeplejack
WaterGirl
@?BillinGle-ndaleCA: You missed the part where he said really good soup. :-)
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: I knew that was going to depress me. Great chart, though. Hard to miss the point there!
Steeplejack
I will note that Amy Coney Barrett is sitting in a stolen seat now. Obama nominated Myra Selby to the U.S. Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit on January 12, 2016. McConnell never let the nomination proceed—for over a year—and Barrett was installed on November 2, 2017.
J R in WV
I don’t think we even need to change anything about the current Supreme court.
We just need to pass federal law establishing the principles the Supreme Court has recognized in the past. Like (1) make womens’ right to control their own bodies the law of the land, as well as (2) Obergefell for same sex marriage and equal treatment for gay folks, (3) Griswold for birth control which could be rolled into (1). And so forth. Legalize Pot, with a federal excise tax and rules for pesticide content, etc.
I would think a week for each new law establishing freedom for women’s health, equality for gay folks, etc. If Republicans complain, refer them to Amy Covid Banner’s approval.
Once these fundamental freedoms are legal, as well as interpretations of the Constitution, that would establish them under the law as well as interpretation of the constitution. And, if I’m not mistaken, the congress can establish specific laws as not reviewable by the courts. So there you go. Not reviewable by virtue of being fundamental freedoms inherent in the constitution and our democracy, and as defined in both the law and the constitution.
Article III, Section 2 states “… the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.”
So we need to pass these laws with such exceptions as the congress shall make. Voting rights also too!! Plain English for all this. Get Senator Warren and Congresswoman Porter to write these bills, with their staff.
Patricia Kayden
Poptartacus
Goddamm right
FTFNYT
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: It requires time and effort, but not mad skills?
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: First depressed,
notnow pissed! That is galling.sdhays
IANAL, but this is pretty clearly bullshit, even if that was what the Founders intended. When the Supreme Court can waltz in and declare major portions of the VRA unconstitutional because 5 Supreme Court “Justices” have decided that racism is over, overturning the bipartisan recent will of Congress, no Conservative Supreme Court, at least, is going to allow some “butt out” clause to make an otherwise unconstitutional law unreviewable – and we wouldn’t want that anyway, to be honest. An important part of our system of government is the government, including Congress, being answerable to the Courts.
Villago Delenda Est
Reference Jennifer Epstein and Jack Shafer: My nym, again and again.
Wipe them out. All of them.
Villago Delenda Est
@LongHairedWeirdo: At the present time, the Village is hard wired for Rethuglicans. They identify with Rethugs because they’re all being paid six to eight figures to put forth corporate, Rethug friendly propaganda. They are not honest brokers. They are no fourth estate as Franklin imagined it.
No quarter for them.
Original Lee
@J R in WV: Say hi to your wife for me, a retired Newspaper Guild member.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: You and me both.
randy khan
@Kent:
I have just one thing to say: That is waaaaaaaay too long.
Patricia Kayden
patrick Il
@Kent: The court packing began in 2000 when the court picked GWB largely because they were concerned about Gore’ s appointments. Sandra Day O’conner said it explicitly.
trnc
Wait a minute – I have heard from well placed republican sources (we’ll call one “senator from Utah” so as not to blow his cover) that we are a REPUBLIC, BY GAWD, and that majority rule is tyranny. Ramming through 3 Supreme Court Justices with a barely majority vote would be tyranny, so that’s obviously unpossible.
No One You Know
@Kent: TL, DR. Make it fit on a bumper sticker or in 15 seconds. Being right doesn’t work if you take too long about it.
J R in WV
@Original Lee:
Thanks, I will. Where did you belong/work? She visited AP Guild shops all over the country, back when the AP was actually a couple of thousand reporters, talking about the last contract, what they wanted to get in the new contract.
My mom was rightfully worried that the company would harass her, but was under the impression that she did union work while being paid by the company, which isn’t how that works at all, of course.
The union paid her salary, benefits, and expenses when she was at HQ working on the negotiating team, which meant I could go to the big city and stay in her tiny sub-let apt and walk the mean streets of the Big Apple. Or traveling to various offices, like Nebraska in the winter, etc. Deluxe life…I avoided the trips to the upper midwest or rocky mountains in winter.
The AP is a pale shadow of it’s once strong presence behind the news business.