Joe Biden, Senator from Citibank (oops, DELAWARE), to Run for President

One wonders if liberals' Russia brain damage will ever heal or if this shit is permanent.

That's the lesson you take from leftist media absolutely botching this story?

this, from a comment on the salon story, seems like a good point:

One place that journalists should look to see if Reade's story is credible is whether there is any record of Reade's having filed a written complaint in 1993 with a department on Capitol Hill that was supposed to handle sexual harassment claims. Reade has claimed that she did file such a complaint. If it could be found, it would establish that at least parts of her account are accurate. Members of the media also should do interviews with the people who worked in Biden’s office in 1993 who Reade claims to have told that Biden sexually harassed her.

That's the lesson you take from leftist media absolutely botching this story?

That's the lesson I take from several million dipshits using "she praised PUTIN" to impeach a sexual assault allegation.

You need to unfollow a lot of twitter profiles

“several million” in fact

find it really, really hard to give a shit about this, one way or another, in the middle of a pandemic tbh. if her story is true I hope she is doing okay

simon is correct that biden’s “single-payer didn’t work for italy” comment is disqualifying. most other countries are mounting the sort of concerted response that we are most certainly not, and in light of that, this mealy-mouthed bullshit about ways people can sign up for a shitty plan that includes premiums and deductibles, or enroll in medicaid if they are fortunate to live in a state that expanded access, or any other number of labyrinthine maneuvers to secure coverage that is certain to be precarious and inadequate, rather than saying “cover everyone now, waive all coinsurance now” is putting politics above advocating the needs of real human beings who have been left behind by our current bullshit patchwork healthcare system and will continue to be left behind, the kinds of people I see in my hospital or clinic on a daily basis. state the fucking problem.

I’m sorry that was all one sentence but I am really angry and scared!!!! our hospital is already nearing capacity and the peak in boston is several weeks away. we are already burying people in their twenties and thirties. my friends and colleagues who are trying to fight this thing are falling ill. many of my staff have been furloughed. it’s a fucking crisis, treat it like one

"that's a little too harsh" says nominee

give me some hard or believable evidence

I cited actual votes cast by voters and you think this is not hard or believable evidence concerning the most prominent policy issue through the entire campaign. OK. I give up.

alert the Save A Dem caucus, Jeeves

p4reene:

An electoral strategy of declining to attack your opponent for failing to contain a crisis that has already taken thousands of lives may seem counterintuitive, but it is very much intentional. As my colleague Osita Nwanevu has written, the Biden campaign seems to be worried that Americans will “rally round the flag,” juicing Trump’s approval ratings and making it politically dangerous to criticize him. (As usual, Democratic strategists are treating “public opinion” as a natural phenomenon, not something campaigns could affect if they tried.)

But that sense of paralysis—of not knowing how or whether to criticize the president for not taking the warning signs seriously enough back when he could have limited the spread of the coronavirus—is also the inevitable result of decades of capitulation and learned helplessness. A generation of Democrats have ceded ground to the other side at every crisis point, somehow coming to believe it would be either gauche or counterproductive to try to take advantage of one....

https://newrepublic.com/article/157119/joe-biden-wasting-crisis

Inspiring.

JOE BIDEN: “We cannot let this, we’ve never allowed any crisis from the Civil War straight through to the pandemic of 17, all the way around, 16, we have never, never let our democracy sakes second fiddle, way they, we can both have a democracy and ... correct the public health.” pic.twitter.com/ufXFh5cAtY

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) April 7, 2020

Remember when we all spent six years making fun of the now seemingly innocuous "is our children learning"?

Potatoe.

This is literally the opposite of leadership.

If he cared, he should've joined Bernie BEFORE the election in calling for it to be postponed. https://t.co/B0QVGA8ZgA

— Briahna Joy Gray (@briebriejoy) April 8, 2020

Rly hate this guy, hope he dies soon

but by all accounts Cuomo will recover

🐦[This is literally the opposite of leadership.

If he cared, he should’ve joined Bernie BEFORE the election in calling for it to be postponed. https://t.co/B0QVGA8ZgA🕸
— Briahna Joy Gray (@briebriejoy) April 8, 2020🕸]🐦

There's was still an election for a state supreme court seat iirc

other things on the ballot besides president

xp

xxp Yes, maybe Biden should also drop out in November when the second wave of this hits, why have elections?

everything is Sanders' fault says Tombot's gnostic gospel

thank you mr biden, i am a sanders supporter and i would like complete decarbonization and dismantling of american empire https://t.co/wrH7Jh4klo

— the fluids drinker (@AllezLesBoulez) April 8, 2020

very moderate demands!

"I would like"

citizens can't demand shit at the moment

this twitter person is not someone I know but it's basically where a lot of people I consider my peers seem to be at

pic.twitter.com/9lugnYYEld

— Mary Ellen (@alissacaliente) April 8, 2020

confidential to alfred I m/l only know queer and trans people

I hope you and your friends know that voting is just one component of political action. The field for promoting social change is open all day long, every day of the year, from today until election day in November, and far beyond. Making good use of that possibility is a much better focus of your energy than the essentially empty and impotent gesture of not voting. As symbolic acts of resistance go, not voting for president is about as effective as casting a write-in vote for the ever-popular Mickey Mouse. It goes unnoticed, carries no force and changes nothing.

there's no form of political power in this country that doesn't leverage voting

but Aimless is 100% correct

Yup even if you do get the person you want into office you have to then hold them accountable, and sometimes you can even get the person you don't want to do the thing you want.

as we've been over many times, voting is not an expression of personal ethics, it is a tool for achieving political ends

I would hope that by suspending his campaign, Sanders still intends to use his influence with his enthusiastic voting bloc to draw concessions from the Biden campaign in terms of party platform and Biden's positions on future policy. But if the impression gets solidified that Sanders can't deliver any votes for Biden, then Sanders will lose whatever leverage he gained from the couple million votes that were cast for him so far.

if only there were a better voting system that allowed for an expression of personal preferences AND achieving political ends

but no, the way we do it in the united states is the only way to do it, apparently. it always amazes me how there is zero discussion of different voting systems in this country. we don't have to be stuck in this miserable rut

I hear you (and imo the Democrats should make enfranchisement their #1 issue) but different voting system discussion would probably just be a tease like here in Canada

it always amazes me how there is zero discussion of different voting systems in this country

I've been having that discussion for more than two decades now, but it is hard to gain much traction when every organized and effective political entity in the nation is required to invest heavily in the present system in order to accomplish its goals. the inertia is so massive as to be nearly impossible to divert to a radically new direction.

Karl - not zero! We see people discussing different systems all the time. The thing is that the people discussing it are not people who have the power to put reforms into place.

Unfortunately the way forward is to win elections (by which I mean, win them as they are currently constructed), attain power, then put those reforms into place. Being out of power while saying that "the system" keeps you out of power is a sure path to irrelevance and the continuation of your grievance. There are decently mature movements in the US for ranked-choice voting, but their impact has been muted.

Will a completely shitty "lesser of evils" election change that? I dunno, but it mostly hasn't yet.

On enfranchisement, this seems like a very good idea: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/4/8/21209306/election-2020-vote-by-mail-wisconsin

it just seems like it's never something that a politician pushes, and it's never part of party's platforms. there seems to be very little public pressure for them to talk about it more. it's just quiet.

for example, now seems like a perfect time for the DNC to rethink voting models, at least for the primaries. They can run the primaries however they want, correct? And they just ended up with a "consensus" candidate that is embarrassing garbage, and didn't actually seem to be many people's _favorite_ candidate, more like their 2nd to 7th choice that for some mysterious reason was the last option remaining.

Bernie should refuse to pass on his delegates unless election reform (or at least primary elections) is on the table

what primary election reforms do you envision?

seems like getting rid of caucuses is a good idea...

it just seems like it's never something that a politician pushes, and it's never part of party's platforms. there seems to be very little public pressure for them to talk about it more. it's just quiet.

Why would the DNC rethink voting models? Everything worked out exactly in their favor.

but aren't those decisions made at the state party level anyway? I don't think reforms could be enforced from the top (not even sure what the top is here... the DNC? the nominee?) down.

xps

... because the current system benefits them.

yes, i know! that's why sentence two is in there: someone has to MAKE them do it, and unless i'm missing it, i'm not sure where that effort is coming from

eventually, bread riots

but aren't those decisions made at the state party level anyway?

well, who decides which states get to go first, and who gets to go last? maybe it makes sense to give the first votes to states that have figured out how to update their voting systems beyond the 19th century

the DNC can presumably not certify delegates from any state party that doesn't conduct the kind of election they want

they should all go on the same day. and then there should be a second round.

second round is superfluous with ranked choice voting

the state by state stuff is charming but anti-democratic. it makes the whole thing about "momentum."

I suppose you could run off the top 2 just so people who might not have coped with the ranking process can have another whack at it but it's not really necessary