Tag: 2020

[Bloomberg] clearly was not prepared for these rather obvious questions, perhaps because he is a cloistered plutocrat surrounded by yes men and toadies, or perhaps because there is no defense at all. He appeared very much like what he in fact is — a very rich man who is likely facing bitter, unfiltered criticism to his face for the first time in years.

Ryan Cooper writing for The Week.

While I’m sure we’ll get plenty of “why are they so mean to Bloomberg” takes today, I’d say his ~$500M attempt to buy his way into both the Democratic party and the White House are effectively over.

Welcome to the Bullshit Economy

This whole thing needs to be the one and only speech any and all Democratic candidates for President give over the next, oh, five months; but I’d even settle for just a paragraph:

The Iowa disaster is a sign that our economic structures are breaking down, that private enterprise has become a shell game, where who you know matters more than what you can do. The bullshit economy has bled over into politics, with the perfect president but also the perfect amount of grifting and consultant corruption and unbridled tech optimism. This has long been part of politics—anything with that much money sloshing around will invite a little corruption—but the combination of political grift, the ardor for public-private partnerships, and the triumph of ambition over talent has created a fetid stew.

Welcome to the Bullshit Economy

I am not interested in someone’s heartfelt account of their near-collision with actual integrity.

Charlie Pierce captures the essence of the whole Anonymous leader of The Resistance inside the White House thing. This is shameful, not brave or daring and should be characterized as such.

[Assuming] a wildly optimistic scenario in which Dems do about as well as they can be reasonably hope to do in the 2020 Senate elections and a majority decides to eliminate the filibuster, passing any legislation will require at least two Democratic senators who are refusing to even commit to endorsing the Democratic nominee in 2020. Medicare For All is not going to be passed in the next Congress. Joe Biden’s robust public option, for that matter, is not going to be passed by the next Congress. This is true no matter who becomes president. This is about establishing long-term goals and mobilizing voters — that’s it. So Warren’s plan is fine, Bernie’s plan is fine, and to act as if difference in minor details in them will have policy consequences for the next administration or should influence anybody’s primary vote either way is nuts.

Scott Lemieux, writing for Lawers, Guns, and Money. This seems so self evident as to be utterly banal were we living in any reasonable simulacrum of a shared reality, yet here we are. It’s almost as if those fanning the flames of this “disagreement” have motives that aren’t entirely pure.

I don’t care which party has the right ideas — or which party has the wrong ideas. I am very, very, very interested in civility.

The late Cokie Roberts, champion of civility uber alles. So long as the children are going into the cages in a polite, dignified fashion, the policy is, by definition, perfectly fine and above question.

Why Nancy Pelosi Won’t Impeach

Required reading from Elizabeth Spiers. Two particularly salient excerpts:

By implying that impeachment in the Senate is the point, Pelosi denies the importance of the process itself—without which impeachment in the Senate wouldn’t happen in any case. And others have argued better and more persuasively than I could that Senate impeachment isn’t the primary or best reason to do it. Referral to the Senate may be in fact be unnecessary and undesirable.

[…]

A slim minority—just 19 percent—of polled opinion supported Richard Nixon’s impeachment at the outset of the Watergate scandal, and by the end of the House Judiciary Committee’s televised impeachment hearings, a strong majority supported it. And that shift in opinion translated into a massive wave of Democratic gains in the 1974 midterm balloting.

Why Nancy Pelosi Won’t Impeach

Yesterday, Trump tried to attack me at his campaign rally by saying I abandoned Pennsylvania. I’ve never forgotten where I came from. My family did have to leave Pennsylvania when I was 10 — we moved to Delaware where my Dad found a job that could provide for our family. Trump doesn’t understand the struggles working folks go through. He doesn’t understand what it’s like to worry you will lose the roof over your head. He doesn’t understand what it’s like to wonder if you’ll be able to put food on the table. And he doesn’t understand that the longest walk a parent can make is up a short flight of stairs to their child’s bedroom to say, honey, I’m sorry. We have to move. You can’t go back to your school. You won’t see your friends because Daddy or Mommy lost their job. My dad had to make that walk in Scranton, Pennsylvania. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized how hard it must have been for him.
But he was not alone. This story isn’t unique to the Bidens. Too many people around this country have had to make that walk.That’s why I’ve spent my whole career fighting — and I will continue to fight — like hell so that no one ever has to make that walk again.
If you’re with me, I hope you’ll join my campaign and chip in what you can

Joe Biden, responding to Trump and showing that, even though I view his 2020 prospects as pretty dim, he can still bring it. The man understands the power of a simple, yet visceral appeal that is clearly drawn from experience and not some focus grouped amalgam of a “formative experience from my recent book.”

Even if it’s all true, does it disqualify him?

Kevin Cramer, sitting House member and currently running to be the junior Senator from ND, very neatly sums up the postion of the entire GOP on Kavanaugh. And, while we’re at it, it’s also their position on Trump, whether it be his many personal issues or the straight up treason of conspiring with a foreign power to impact the outcome of an election. But, yeah, both sides.