Harris is a talented politician and she does hail from my State of Kalifornication. But I think she's just a little too unseasoned compared to Susan Rice to be my choice between the two.

Both are women, and women of color, so that checks two critical boxes. Rice is more ready to be President than Harris, and has the same "associated with Obama" thang as does Joe. I think that makes her a slightly stronger political choice of the two.

Remember, the Repugs will continue to do everything they can to suppress the vote, especially the vote of people of color (who have no place in the GOP.)

SO getting these folks super energized is crucial to not only the Presidential race but all up and down the ballot.

Rice and Harris.

Signed-

Nothing but helpful in Southern California

Elizabeth, no need to abuse alcohol to excess on election night. Although having the next couple of days off work to watch the results and exit polling results come in is a good choice. I write this because,

(1) We're going to have a pretty good indication (from pre election polling) as to whether the race will even be close. I'd wager that it won't be a question of if Joe wins but rather how bigly Joe wins, and whether Democrats take the Senate or not. And whether Trump gets even 8% of the black vote as he did in 2016. I still think it's Joe's race to lose.

(2) Alcohol isn't the appropriate choice, for it will likely amplify your fears (they say that judgement is the first thing to go when you're getting drunk.)

May I suggest a fine cannabis product? Indica makes one fall asleep on the couch so I'd go with the more energizing Sativa (better for the head and it won't make you go to bed.)

If'n you can get it for $5 a gram, so much the better!

Bombs away!

Well, Susan Rice is the only one who makes sense to me.

I'll be extremely disappointed if Harris is the choice.

Howeve, Biden knows far better than me who his running mate should be, so ... I defer.

Good points. But I'd bet it won't be "the United States" but "the state of New York," iffn' ya know what I mean...

You don't think they're after Trump, do you? *snicker* Yes, sir. I might have mentioned that a time or two hundred since 2017:

... because when people think the game is nearly over, it'll just be getting started... and in the end, some of the Red team is going to jail.

These little town blues are melting away
I'm gonna make a brand new start of it in old New York
A-a-a-nd if I can make it there, I'm gonna make it anywhere
It's up to you, New York, New York. :)

[Wednesday, August 9th, 2017 at 12:35 UTC]

You know, I read that quote in someone else's article (Washington Post maybe?) in the last few days, and the accuracy of the prediction struck me, too. Thanks for providing the original source...

-CW

Yep, and yep.

Nice talking point, too.

:-)

[3] -

Both pretty good. I liked the first one better, seemed more visceral.

John M from Ct. [4] -

No, no, no.

Here's more what I had in mind:

Trump ignores all data, all reports, and all of what his negotiation minions tell him. Instead, he watches TV. When he sees himself and the GOP bearing the lion's share of blame and gets frustrated over all the "Family X is now being evicted after losing their $600 a week" news reports, and when he hears all the economists saying the third quarter is not going to save him politically if a relief bill doesn't pass, then he has a tantrum. He calls his minions in and tells them to put a bill on his desk no matter what it costs and no matter what Pelosi puts in it.

That's when things will start to happen. But it has nothing -- nothing -- to do with Trump actually reading or understanding anything. Sorry if I somehow gave that impression!

SF Bear [5] -

You simplified the process even more. And you're most likely right, too.

BashiBazouk [7] -

Thanks for the link! Now that's what I like to see -- comments from people who follow things like Medieval history online on a regular basis! And, no, I'm not kidding, I am being completely serious. Comments like these seem like a breath of fresh air, if everyone knows what I mean...

:-)

John From Censornati [10] -

I know -- especially after that Axios interview, right? The look on Trump's face when someone dared to contradict his nonsense was priceless. And we'll see that look plenty of times during each and every debate, that's my guess!

TheStig [11] -

Should that have been "no leaning"? Just askin'...

Kick [20] -

Good points. But I'd bet it won't be "the United States" but "the state of New York," iffn' ya know what I mean...

LizM [30] -

The reports are that he's down to Harris or Rice. I personally don't believe these reports, though. The closer we get to an actual announcement, the more they try to misdirect everyone so it'll be a big surprise. That's the way it usually works, although it might be different this time around.

-CW

Over five decades, the GOP has transformed into something I no longer recognize.."

Mind you, AEI is an organization that no one would confuse with "Liberal."

Nothing has been more striking or significant than the transformation of the Republican Party, from a moderately conservative party to a very conservative party to something else entirely.

...America’s crisis of governance has been driven by a party that my colleague Tom Mann and I, long before Trump, described as an insurgent outlier in American politics. “It is ideologically extreme,” we wrote in 2012; “scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”

http://www.chrisweigant.com/2020/08/06/a-mail-in-voting-concern-nobodys-mentioned-yet/

-CW

Who's on Biden's short list - I haven't been following along.

That's a campaign as ad that writes itself!

Kick wrote:

If I were JB, I wouldn't agree to the standard three presidential debates unless Trump agreed to release the standard amount of tax returns.

This is a superb idea! Joe does not have anything close to Cheetogod's motivation to debate in the first place. He could hang out in the basement for the next 80-ish days and I don't see it costing him any serious chunk of votes.

Joe (or Lincoln Project -- my God I have the highest respect and appreciation for their good works) should hammer on Trump's promise to release his tax returns after audit, and hook it to Joe's willingness to debate.

He's going to do things that nobody ever would ever think even possible because he's following the radical left agenda:

* Take away your guns
* Destroy your Second Amendment
* No religion
* No anything
* Hurt the Bible
* Hurt God
* He's against God
* He's against guns
* He's against energy, our kind of energy.

I don't think he's going to do too well in Ohio.

~ Donald Trump

https://youtu.be/F3XvzZ9qeys?t=48

*
This definitely fits my definition of "desperate." Well, I will say that Trump is correct that "nobody ever would ever think" it's "even possible" that Biden (or any mere mortal) could "hurt God." Cue the "Go Fund Me" pages to raise money to protect God "Almighty." Did y'all Christians hear that? Donald Trump thinks your God can be hurt by a mortal; y'all paying attention out there? If Biden can "hurt God," isn't that the kind of man we want/need sitting in the Oval office?

Why doesn't Trump just tell the gullible rubes that he thinks they're infinitely ignorant and terminally stupid and save himself a whole lot of time and screaming? Just saying.

nypoet22 wrote:

geez man, excusing assassination?

~unforgiven

Kind Sir, I am in no way, shape or form excusing assassination. Although assassination has been a time dishonored part of American politics, there can be no excuse for political assassination, no no no!

I am, however, definitely encouraging it.

It'll be the Trumpettes who lack said protection that will be SOL. I can easily see someone like Bill Barr finding himself at the wrong end of large caliber handgun, which he deserves IMO.

We wish them all a long life and not a single untoward ending among them. Death is the path of least resistance... so cheers to their good health and long and infinitely harder living. The wheels of justice turn slow, but turn they do and turn they are. :)

You-know-who is not trolling Republicons. He told me so. But aside from that, I'm backing Big Money Joe and I don't care if he raises more money than any politician in the known universe ever has. Drumpf's gotta go.

May I assume that there will be ample funds in this relief bill for health systems and public health architecture?

You may assume whatever you want, but don't be surprised if people confuse you for a member of the Trump cult of gullible Trumpanzees. ;)

Of course, the CARES Act provided $100,000,000,000 for such funding, but I have no idea what'll end up in this latest bill. It better extended the census.

Big Money Joe should be itching to get on a debate stage with Fat Donny, but there's no way he should agree to any changes in the debate schedule. He's in the driver's seat and it'll rattle the orange one to be told no.

I know, right!? Here we go again with the BS "debate games" where if the opponent doesn't agree they're "afraid to debate"... such standard election year BS drivel and spew. If I were JB, I wouldn't agree to the standard three presidential debates unless Trump agreed to release the standard amount of tax returns.

You really have to wonder about Word Salad Don's campaign advisors. Do they really think it's a good idea to give him more opportunities to look foolish?

As long as Trump doesn't have to read anything, he can lie his way through anything and insist he's correct. The gullible rubes eat that crap up.

Meanwhile, if Trump is required to read:

* Trump's Best Words: 2019 Edition

* Trump's Best Words: Coronavirus Briefing Edition... 1917!

And in the end bleeping Trump is gonna end up holding the soap bar with both tiny hands in the prison shower. So there's that to look forward to.

Oh, I wouldn't count on that "prison and soap bar" scenario if I were you. Remember that rich people in America generally can wangle their way out of prison by cutting deals and money exchanging hands. On the rare occasion you see a billionaire in prison it will be because he swindled a bunch of other rich people: Bernie Madoff, for instance.

Trump has the issue of his obvious mental illness with which to bargain his way out of prison also. Additionally, I cannot imagine the United States putting a former president in prison. House arrest? Yes. Prison? I can't picture it. Having said all that, I do hope I'm wrong. :)

Interesting and certainly explains the Trump spawn. Nice pictures too that make the demons easily identifiable: They're all... [rephrase] they all have horns. :)

noob.

*scoffs*

deserve's got nothing to do with it.
~unforgiven

It'll be the Trumpettes who lack said protection that will be SOL. I can easily see someone like Bill Barr finding himself at the wrong end of large caliber handgun, which he deserves IMO.

You really have to wonder about Word Salad Don's campaign advisors. Do they really think it's a good idea to give him more opportunities to look foolish?

If Trump is trailing this bigly in the polls when the "to debate or not to debate" decision time comes, Trump absolutely will debate Joe.

First, in Trump's mind he never looks foolish. And second, the debates would be his last chance to change the trajectory of the election so he'd really have no choice but to give it a shot.

BTW, why do you take the extra keystrokes to type Big Money Joe but you don't type Big Money Donnie? Did I miss the news that Trump has, in desperation, decided to do One Demand?

Heh.

Ever since Trump tried to split this hair, the White House has fallen back on distinguishing "universal mail-in voting" as what Trump was originally talking about. But he wasn't

My pedantry should never be taken as suggesting that Trump is right about anything. I assume that there's no point in trying to fix what the bad guys say. It's unsalvageable. If I ever think he's said or done something right, I say so explicitly.

https://www.npr.org/2020/07/30/896656747/when-does-census-counting-end-bureau-sends-alarming-mixed-signals

The US is quite obviously in desperate need of a massive investment in its health systems and that goes double for its public health architecture.

Now is the time to be making this investment ... not sometime down the road, if ever.

May I assume that there will be ample funds in this relief bill for health systems and public health architecture?

Big Money Joe should be itching to get on a debate stage with Fat Donny, but there's no way he should agree to any changes in the debate schedule. He's in the driver's seat and it'll rattle the orange one to be told no.

You really have to wonder about Word Salad Don's campaign advisors. Do they really think it's a good idea to give him more opportunities to look foolish?

I've learned that there's always at least one silver lining to even the worst situation. Sometimes you have to look very hard with creativity but it (or they) are always there.

Coronavirus has exposed the myriad problems America has after 40 years of Reaganism®. And thanks to Trump beating Hillary us Progressives are awake and outraged.

A Hillary victory would've been more of the Corporatist baloney Slick Willy and subsequently Obama gave us. America will end up a far better place (and sooner) because of Coronavirus and Trump.

And in the end bleeping Trump is gonna end up holding the soap bar with both tiny hands in the prison shower. So there's that to look forward to.

I just read the Atlantic piece on the US response to Pandemic I. (sorry, I won't get to the Biden piece tonight)

Hopefully, some very important lessons are being learned about what it means to be an American and how to build back better, far better than the normal that paved the way for a less than heavyweight virus to ravage the country.

While reading, a strange idea kept popping in and out of my head. What if this novel coronavirus ends up being the thing that sets America on a new course toward a more united country - less politically polarized, more caring and equitable, with better health systems and more social justice? What if all nations similarly built back better?

I will always remember the wise words of Dr. Tedros, the Director General of the World Health Organization, mostly because he has been repeating it almost every day since the beginning ... the antidote to this virus is global solidarity and national unity; solidarity, solutions, science; quarantine the politicization of COVID-19. Words to live by.

I will take issue with just one assertion made in this piece:

"The United States has correctly castigated China for its duplicity and the WHO for its laxity ..." The Atlantic staff writer on science, Ed Yong, doesn't explain what he meant by 'laxity' but, in any event, it was an extremely poor word choice to describe WHO and betrays a certain ignorance with regard to the operational structure of the WHO and the role it plays in protecting global health.

Suffice to say that when all of the after action reports are written and dissected by the WHO and by all of its member states, WHO's response to Pandemic I under the strong leadership of its DG will stand up well as compared to the rest of the world and most especially well when compared to the US response.

But I do question your unending application of agency to the president. As you tell it, or call it, he is the one who is going to read the labor reports, understand the importance of avoiding a second dip in the economy in the fall, and pressure his party to cave to the Dems in order to preserve the slightest chance of his re-election.

Really? Trump is a political mastermind, even now? He reads reports? He calculates employment curves vs. popularity and polls? He decides to put on the screws or to wait it out?

I don't believe it for a second. My take on your commentary is, right ... but.

But stop saying it's Trump doing all the coordinating of the resolution that is to come, and likely come soon. It's his staff, both White House and campaign, that are going to do 1) the reading 2) the calculating 3) the odds-judging 4) the political bean counting and 5) the simplification of the entire issue into a five-minute briefing along the lines of, "Sir you have to do A or you'll lose this fall because B, C, D.* (*A, B, C, D, are simple declarative sentences using only nouns and verbs, and employing vocabulary the president has already shown he more or less can cognitively react to.)

At that point of course the stable genius nods and gets on the phone and does A - unless he screws it up, again. A is probably what you said: Mitch, make the deal that Nancy and Chuck want so I can have a signing ceremony by Wednesday, and I don't care what it costs. If you don't do what I say, I'll rip you and all you guys apart on Twitter and Fox. Losers. Listen, I've read those reports and thought about it a lot and I know I'm right.

And his staff goes out and gets drunk. Again.

If nobody shows up in this comments section I could slam a pot of coffee and keep writing. Hit me up!

If that's the case I betcha every-stinking-last-one of them voted for Trump's Tax cut in 2017. In fact, I doubt that any sitting Repug ever voted against any of these disasterous giveaways to the rich.

And I'd hope and expect that any Democrat running against said Repugs would endlessly hammer them with the following, er, Talking Point:

You know, Senator [insert GOP Senator name] was always ready to give his/her rich Masters a budget busting tax cut. But when it came time to help regular Americans
literally survive the Trump Virus all of the sudden they care deeply about the deficit.

As always, people, use this talking point responsibly!