I think getting rid of him will be enough.

Russ is right about this, Elizabeth.

Should Biden win the presidency, the biggest mistake he could possibly make would be to turn a blind eye to the lawless presidency of Donald Trump, ignore the lessons of history, and repeat even a few of the mistakes of Gerald Ford... the only man who ever lived who served as both vice president and president without ever being elected by the Electoral College of "We the People" to either of those offices.

I still stick by my original guess — Biden will pick Georgia’s Stacy Abrams to be his running mate. She’s young, dynamic, intelligent, black and female... she will compliment Biden perfectly and give the Democrats their best ticket possible.

She's also a Wisconsin native. Good pick, Russ. She's been at the top of my list for a long, long time; however, based on things Biden has said recently and several other minor little clues, it seems to me like Biden has already made his decision with a little help from his friend Barack Obama.

It seems to me like it's going to be the tag team of Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar... with Biden explaining it was a hard decision so he's decided to choose several of them: Klobuchar for VP, Harris for AG where her talents are most needed, Abrams filling the role of __________? Not sure just yet, but Abrams' talent is in organizing so she'll fit in lots of roles... take your pick.

I've always thought that Democrats would have to tag team Trump. Joe should announce a tag team including Harris, Klobuchar, Buttigieg, Yang, Sanders... 3/4 of them, for sure, and he seems to be already dropping hints:

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1250929465091338240

Harris should be his pick for Atty General...because the DOJ will definitely need a strong prosecutor running it after this administration gets removed! Lots of prosecutions are a coming!

This! :)

How do you see that course of action working in the overall plan to unite the country? Or, do you think that has always been just a political slogan?

Political slogan? Liz, this administration has turned a blind eye to major acts of corruption committed by many of those closest to the president and by the president, himself. These crimes need to be addressed.

I know, we need the country to “heal” after Trump. They said the same thing after Nixon....and they let Nixon off the hook and avoid being held accountable for his crimes. Guess what? That didn’t help the nation heal at all! It simply showed that rich people do not face the same justice system that the rest of us must face!

I think Trump being held accountable is going to be a key factor in helping our country heal. I think once Trump is out of office and his supporters are given the evidence to see for themselves, prosecuting that corruption WILL bring us together — giving us a common villain to be mad at!

I was surprised that Joe committed to choosing a female VP candidate. No disrespect to the other possibilities but Joe needs to pick from the above four ladies to avoid the "Palin Effect" - choosing someone unqualified to take over if something happened to Joe.

First off, Biden won't be filling any position in his administration based on how unqualified they are. Ahem.

The women out there who ARE qualified on the terms deemed critical by Biden will surprise you.

Lots of prosecutions are a coming!

How do you see that course of action working in the overall plan to unite the country? Or, do you think that has always been just a political slogan?

I think the next AG is going to be very busy helping to put a potentially great country back on track.

That's a very dangerous path.

But, what do I know … my favourite has already been axed because he is a man.

… and altogether far too late in deciding to endorse him.

Harris should be his pick for Atty General...because the DOJ will definitely need a strong prosecutor running it after this administration gets removed! Lots of prosecutions are a coming!

Re ". . too white . ." How can that be?? She claims to be an Indian!!

Most likely pick would be Kamala Harris with Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer a close second. Next either Amy Klobuchar or Tammy Duckworth.

I was surprised that Joe committed to choosing a female VP candidate. No disrespect to the other possibilities but Joe needs to pick from the above four ladies to avoid the "Palin Effect" - choosing someone unqualified to take over if something happened to Joe.

However, without elections, there would potentially be nobody in the House of Representatives, including a speaker...

My understanding is that there is no requirement that the Speaker actually be a serving Representative - the Speaker can be anybody the House chooses (although it has always been a currently elected Rep.).

So there's an argument that the Speaker would remain the Speaker until replaced in a vote by the House; and that therefore Pelosi would still legally be Speaker of the House.

"I would bet it is going to be Kamala Harris. Biden said it would be a woman who shared the stage with him during the debates.

Please tell me he didn't say that."

What Biden has definitely said:

1) He announced during the March debate that he’d pick a woman as his running mate.

2) Biden has been clear he wants someone considerably younger and ready to assume the duties of the presidency should health problems or other unforeseen circumstances arise.

3) Biden also wants a running mate ideologically aligned with him and someone he can work well with. Some of his advisers, including House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC), are publicly pushing Biden to select a woman of color.

Getting frequent mention are: Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Stacey Abrams, Sen. Catherine Masto of Nevada, and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms.

i don't know if she'd love to, but she did answer unequivocally.

Maddow: “If he asked you to be his running mate, would you say, ‘yes’?”

Maddow: i... am so happy you just gave me a concise answer to that.

ha.

JL

He's actually the very best you can hope for at any time on any day of the week and twice on sundays, as they say.

Please tell me he didn't say that.

Unless we're talking about Jennifer Granholm.

"So, Senator Warren has said that she'd love to be Biden's running mate.

HA!

Well, it's not where I'd put her."

I would bet it is going to be Kamala Harris. Biden said it would be a woman who shared the stage with him during the debates.

Also, did anyone notice that the U.S. Postal Service is on the verge of collapse? Trump doesn't want to give them any money because they do deliveries of packages for Amazon, and Trump has an ongoing feud with Jeff Bezos.

Do you know what will happen to rural communities, medical supply deliveries and the economy if the Postal Service grinds to a halt!

THERE'S your possible NEXT STORY

However, in the event that no election was held, it wouldn't allow Trump to remain president, as the president's term legally ends on January 20, regardless of whether another president is elected prior to that. By that same turn, the VP's term would also have ended, so the road of succession continues down to Speaker of the House.

However, without elections, there would potentially be nobody in the House of Representatives, including a speaker, so the line of succession would fall to the president pro tempore of the Senate, which is currently republican Chuck Grassley.

However again, the lack of elections would leave 1/3 of the senate seats open, and the governors would almost certainly make appointments to fill those vacancies, and, according to the video at least, there would be enough democratic governors making appointments to likely flip control of the senate to the democrats, thus changing the president pro tempore of the Senate to Democrat Pat Leahy, who would then be the next in line for the presidency. Fun!

"The establishment Dems are united- so what?"

They are NOT establishment Dems, they are the rank and file.

To call ordinary voters "establishment" does them a great disservice.

Hillary Clinton WAS establishment. Bernie Sanders clearly is not.

Biden is somewhere between the two. He's the best you can hope for right now.

To take the position of all or nothing like you are doing, is to do what the Tea Party Republicans did in the House, and get the same result, NOTHING.

90 percent of what you want is better than nothing.

HA!

Well, it's not where I'd put her.

No worries,Elizabeth, you did just fine.

I know EXACTLY what you mean. :)

Okay, what follows is my summary on the WHO presser today. I understand that there are no word/character limits around here so, below are my transcriptions of the most important answers to questions … because this stuff is so very important ...

There were many questions about how the WHO will be impacted by the withdrawal of US funding and Dr. Tedros explained that the WHO will be conducting an assessment on that and will make the official conclusion public in due course.

Then there was a question about how the WHO defends itself in the wake of various criticisms from the president of the United States. And, on this, Dr. Ryan took the lead:

WHO will be examining all of the actions taken by everybody in this; so, in that sense, the idea of having a defense at this point seems rather strange.

In the first weeks of Jan, WHO was very, very clear - we alerted the world on 5 January. Countries around the world, including the US, began to activate their incident management systems on 6 January.

Through the next number of weeks the WHO produced multiple updates to countries including briefing multiple governments and scientists around the world on the developing situation and that is what it was - a developing situation.

The virus was identified on 7 January and the genomic sequence of the virus was shared with the world on 12 January.

We're dealing with a completely new virus. In the initial reports in which there were no mentions of human-to-human transmission it was a cluster of atypical pneumonia or pneumonia of unknown origin. There are literally millions and millions of cases of atypical pneumonia around the world every year. And, in the middle of an influenza season, sometimes it's very difficult to pick out a signal of a cluster of cases. In fact, it's quite remarkable that such a cluster was picked out - 41 confirmed cases ultimately in a cluster in Wuhan. (I wonder if this is a clue to something)

There is always a risk with a respiratory pathogen that it can move from person to person. We've seen with MERS, for example, it can spread from person to person but in very particular environments - in an occupational environment and in healthcare environments; and when WHO issued its first guidance to countries on 10 January, the WHO was extremely clear that respiratory precautions should be taken in dealing with patients with this disease; that labs needed to be careful in terms of their precautions when taking samples because there was a risk that the disease could spread from person to person in those occupational/healthcare environments.

There is a difference between viruses in the potential for human to human transmission. For example, avian influenza H5N1, can spread from person to person but it doesn't spread efficiently in community settings; it can spread in specific settings like in family, occupational and healthcare environments but it doesn't tend to spread efficiently at the community level.

The determination at this early stage was NOT whether human to human transmission was occurring. The determination was whether the virus was spreading efficiently at community level outside those specific environments. And, that is not an easy determination to make and one has to make that very carefully.

We'll be very happy when the after action reviews come about. [Dr. Ryan will be] very anxious for those after action reviews to come because WHO does them after every outbreak response and he'll be delighted with his teams and he looks forward to that engagement to look and see where we can do better and improve our response.

With regard to flight restrictions - [Dr. Ryan] has certainly been on the record on a number of occasions saying that the imposition of flight restrictions by countries is the sovereign right of any member state.

WHO does not control the law on this. WHO's only function under the International Health Regulations (IHR) is to challenge member states who put in place flight restrictions to ensure that they have a public health justification for imposing those restrictions and that WHO is bound then to share those justifications with other countries who may be affected by those flight restrictions.

That is the role of WHO - to ensure that restrictions on flights are public health-based, evidence-based and limited to controlling the disease, have a balanced impact on travel and trade and are short-lived and only of a duration needed to control the public health event of concern.

That is the framework - the IHR is a framework negotiated by 194 countries and WHO simply implements that framework on behalf of its member states.

There were multiple sources of reports on 31 December regarding a cluster of cases of atypical pneumonia in Wuhan, China. In fact these reports emanated from a publication on the website of the Wuhan Health Authority. It was from that publication that many agencies including WHO picked up on that and there was a flurry of communications between various agencies to verify that signal. It was WHO then who moved to formally verify that signal through its country office with the government authorities in China.

Budget questions aside, we are laser-focused on doing a very important job right now and that is suppressing this virus and saving lives. The doctors and scientists and researchers at the WHO and around the world need the space and support and solidarity to do their jobs.

On a question of mental health during lockdowns - that is an important consideration; restriction of movement and stay-at-home orders have been quite isolating for people and all the more isolating for people who are already isolated or vulnerable.

While lockdowns in their own right are not a solution, population-wide physical distancing measures have served to suppress some of the transmission in countries where there has been rapid escalation of cases - sometimes as a result of not being successful in containing the disease in the first place.

terms of transition strategies, those restrictive measures need to be replaced with control measures - strong public health intervention, case finding, testing, isolation, contact tracing and quarantine, community engagement and in some ways a new norm - all of us are going to have to adapt to new ways of behavior, new ways of interacting with each other while we continue to suppress the virus and while we search for a vaccine and other therapeutics that will help us to truly suppress the number of cases and the mortality associated with this virus.

Governments must work really hard now to accelerate the massive investments needed to put in place a strong public health infrastructure, community engagement and education, and in having a hospital system capable of dealing with cases. If we do that then we will be able to make our way out of these draconian lockdowns.

Finally, the Director General of the WHO, Dr. Tedros made the following important point:

Global solidarity in the fight against this virus is of utmost importance. Unity at national level leads to regional cooperation and then global solidarity which can really help to fight this virus more effectively and efficiently.

Science, solutions and solidarity.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EPO9CcnW4AEScve.jpg

The article was a bit misleading on some things.

For example, Senator Biden is a firm believer that there is a right to privacy embedded in the constitution. There is no politician of any strip who supports a woman's right to an abortion more than Biden, bar none.

Biden won't nominate anyone for the Supreme Court who does not believe that there is a right to privacy.

Dedicated to Elizabeth Miller

Those are some very encouraging signs. Which appear to be on the rise, she says while knocking on her head.

my father in law is a staunch republican, and he saw through donald from the get-go. if i recall correctly, he cast a 2016 write-in vote for mitt romney.

JL

that's where pie comes in!

1. They never believed Trump had a chance at winning so they voted for him because they just couldn’t stomach voting for Hillary; or

2. They are lazy and chose to vote a straight Republican ticket and that meant Trump had to be included.

One thing all of them now share: REGRET!

None of them will vote for him in 2020. Many of them have apologized for voting for him and for not heeding the warnings Devon and I had tried to make them realize before they voted!!! That alone should be a great indication of how horrible Trump’s presidency has been — I mean when have you ever had family members admit that YOU were RIGHT and they were wrong about political matters??? It’s a first for me!

My point is that there really should not be a way for Trump to be re-elected except through voting irregularities (cheating). He barely won in 2016, and it is unlikely that he’s gained supporters over the last three years. This should not be taken as me suggesting that we don’t have to take this election seriously...far from it...but I do take some solace in knowing that many voters who supported Trump in 2016 won’t make that same mistake in 2020!

Oh, I see!

Signed-

Cynical in Country-Cali

I truly hope he won't refrain from using phrases such as, "Don't forget, folks, that GOP stands for Greed Over People, " and the like. This is Joe's election to lose, and if he manages to do so I'm going to abandon my lifelong affiliation with the Democratic Party and spend the rest of my days helping DSA grow. For Joe blowing this election would verify to me that the two parties exist only to make us think that we have a real choice.

Um, the common denominator is Hillary Clinton?

Southern District of New York aka the prosecutors

I'm out here, Elizabeth!

Alas, Joe's election is not assured, and not just because everyone was wrong about 2016. Trump may start a war (against Iran? North Korea?) gambling that the spineless GOP** won't invoke the 25th Amendment or otherwise not support him. It's my understanding that Trump cannot call off the election, so that's reassuring. But Trump knows he is in deep kimchi once he's out of office, so I cannot put anything past the bleeper.

**Wisconsin just affirmed that GOP stands for Greed Over Patriotism, or Greed Over People

I believe that this is the first time I have used the "Heh" word.

Signed-

Society for the Use - not Missuse - of the word Heh

[40] [41]

Well, Elizabeth, this screed from the Lincoln Project sure makes me appreciate Joe Biden more than before. And with my ascendant Progressive Wing (aka "The Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party") watching over him come January 2021, I can be more hopeful that Joe won't sell America out to Big Money, as did Bill Clinton and to a degree Obama did.

I am sooo looking forward to Trump leaving office in January. I betcha our country will be just as eager for an incoming Democratic President after Trump as we were for Obama after loser George W. Bush, the last awful Repug President foisted upon us by the Electoral College. And the beautiful thing is that SDNY will be waiting for Trump the moment he's out of office. Heh.

Indeed!

So, there is no way that he can possibly be re-elected, right?

Not too likely, based on Trump's dangerously ignorant response to it, so far. Things could change, I suppose ...

And, at this point in time, it got just about as much attention as it deserved.

And, the common denominator there is what, exactly. :)

Remarkable … or, inevitable, as the case may be. :)