"... Americans deserve to know and see that they have a vice president who is trusted by White House and administration officials to take over, should anything happen to the president.
Instead, we have mostly seen the opposite. She is hampered by Mr. Biden’s unpopularity, to be sure, but she has also not become the successful public face on any major issue.... Mr. Biden’s declarations that he will run again seem only to encourage his opponents.... Democrats, if not other Americans, would benefit if Ms. Harris was able to bring a compelling and varied set of experiences and ideas from her time in the White House to a competitive Democratic presidential primary race, giving more solid choices to voters and adding substantively to the debate.
The 2024 presidential campaign in any case is likely to be unusually ugly, fought not only over familiar contentious issues, but with many Republicans willing to repeat, without shame or embarrassment, Donald Trump’s lies about the validity of the 2020 election — and thus the legitimacy of American democracy. ... Mr. Biden must not only find a way to infuse his party with enthusiasm and fresh purpose, but fulfill an urgent obligation... to hasten, and advance, the education, and authority, of his vice president."
Writes Jeffrey Frank, author of "Ike and Dick: Portrait of a Strange Political Marriage," in
"Kamala Harris Is Stuck" (NYT).
I elided a lot of material about the relationship between VPs and Presidents over the years. Frank thinks the Biden/Harris relationship is especially weak and Biden's age (and covid infection) make the strength of the VP more important than usual. But I don't expect to see Harris's stature improve, and I can't picture her doing well as a candidate for President in 2024, so it's just as well that Biden keeps saying he's running for a second term.
And I really wish Trump haters would move away from characterizing his criticisms of the 2020 election as "lies" and attempting to intimidate anyone who wants better election security — calling them a threat threat to "the legitimacy of American democracy." Put your efforts into improving the accuracy of our elections, not denouncing the people who are telling you that they're worried about the legitimacy of American democracy.
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91 comments:
The left made a deal with the devil during the 2020 campaign: Kamala made Biden look the fool, but when all the candidates shot at each other during a debate they anointed Biden as the "winner."
Bloomberg and Bernie Sanders and AOC and and Pelosi and Schumer and John McCain and Joe Manchin in bed together! Oh, the horror of seeing those naked bodies!
When the left's "Team Propaganda" effort breaks, the break will be severe and some people will spend 40 years wandering in the wilderness. You can't fool yourself without damaging yourself.
Harris is an example of the California Democrats who do not need competence to be elected. We all know how she got her start in politics. We all know that James Clyburn, an old style political fixer, got Biden to promise blacks for VP and the Supreme Court, regardless of merit.
This resulted in the cackling word salad expert and the non-biologist Supreme Court nominee. Democrat politics at its best. I see the speech writer for Harris just quit. Did she really write those word salad speeches ?
Remember "Trump haters" have congenital TDS and like a scratched record just keep repeating themselves. Their only "new" idea is to spend more money.
The 2024 presidential campaign in any case is likely to be unusually ugly, fought not only over familiar contentious issues, but with many Republicans willing to repeat, without shame or embarrassment, Donald Trump’s lies about the validity of the 2020 election — and thus the legitimacy of American democracy.
American journalism in the year 2024.
It's like reading Soviet journalism in the 1930s.
Put you efforts into improving the accuracy of our elections, not denouncing the people who are telling you that they're worried about the legitimacy of American democracy.
Oh I think you miss the point. Accuracy to the Democrats looks like this:
1. National polls show Democrats outnumber Republicans.
2. Republicans who win national elections do not reflect the will of the people.
3. This happens because a sufficient number of Democrat votes were "suppressed".
Therefore, improving the accuracy of elections means changing the rules until only Democrats win national elections.
Sure, Kneepads is stuck in the utter incompetence and stupidity of the Biden Administration, but she was already stuck in her own incompetence and stupidity. It is like being buried up to your neck and shit, then someone comes along and dumps more shit on you.
Hillary 2024- its coming. Hopefully, she will drop dead before then.
"Put you efforts into improving the accuracy of our elections,…"
Their actions say they don't want to. Their motives are yours to surmise.
Another person thinking the VP is a logical candidate to succeed their President.
Since 1812 and the 12th Amendment, we have had 2, count 'em 2, incumbent VPs successfully run for president. We have had 2 others, Nixon and Brandon, successfully run after sitting 1-2 terms. Neither had a successful presidency
I've been hearing this nonsense about the VP being the logical successor since Nixon in 60. What is it with these people?
Of the VPs who did become president after death or resignation, none, other than Cooledge and perhaps Roosevelt (YMMV) had anything approaching a successful presidency.
The Vice-Presidency is a legislative branch position (Senate president) and most VPs have come from a legislative, not executive, background. People without executive experience don't make good presidents. They may (or may not) have great ideas and policies. They almost never know how to implement and manage them.
Give it up, Kamala. You have reached the pinnacle. Actually, you reached it years ago. You should be a lawyer in a strip mall in Reseda doing wills, divorces and drunk driving cases.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
Harris should be given a platform to show her skills and shine??
SHE HAS. In fact, the issues that rightly should be piloted by the president have instead been given over to the vice president. And she has crashed and burned on EVERY project given to her.
She has shown no capacity to be Vice President. Not even close. What makes this writer think she's gained some secret knowledge that she could suddenly share, and show a talent, not seen previously, for intelligent comments, thoughts, leadership, or vision that isn't cartoonish and stereotypical. We're talking substance here. She's shown none.
And do not forget: This was exactly what Democratic voters were seeing back in the primaries leading up to the 2020 election. Kamala Harris was among the first to drop out. She did so because she performed to horribly, and was polling in the basement, with no one willing to send money to her campaign. Democrats already knew she was a bust, but were overrode when she was named VP (based on skin color and vagina). Now the rest of the country has to play along with this?
They can't have Kamala at the D nominee in 2024. It would be a rout. It seems to me they have two options to get rid of her- a bribe or a threat. She will either be enticed out of the way or threatened. If they do run her it is a sign that D leadership is throwing in the towel and surrendering 2024 to clean house of progressives and will come back as a more moderate party. Think of their road back from McGovern.
If they do get rid of her they can try to run Newsom but he's not viable nationally. Pritzker is a joke. I can see PA's Tom Wolf being asked to run as a moderate, even though he is not a moderate. I can also see a non-traditional savior- Mark Cuban. I still think General Miley is interested. The D's may be fooled into thinking he would be perceived as a statesman acceptable to blue collar whites. He has positioned himself well for the D's as a woke General so they could twist progressive arms to get him support through the primaries and then pivot to the middle in the election.
As long as DeSantis is the R nominee the D's are screwed.
And I really wish Trump haters would move away from characterizing his criticisms of the 2020 election as "lies" and attempting to intimidate anyone who wants better election security as threatening "the legitimacy of American democracy."
Everybody wants voting to be easier and more transparent; everybody knows there's nothing they can do to make those things happen.
Her problems are that she is really bad at public speaking and she just lacks good political instincts. A good politician can talk about a problem in such a way as to turn a crisis into an opportunity. After Biden dumped the border problem on her, she could have held meetings, taken tours, issued reports, and elevated her profile while stuffing the problem down Biden's throat.
Harris, though, inevitably just spits out something superficial (or even incomprehensible) and then runs and hides. The public knows nothing about her and has no reason to trust her. She doesn't matter. It's not clear that she even really wants to be here.
Yancey Ward: "Hillary 2024- its coming. Hopefully, she will drop dead before then."
It would be fun to watch all the FakeCon "true, principled 'conservatives'" (wink wink) continue to rhetorically contort themselves to present the "Conservative Case for Hillary and Permanent Democratical control of Government at ALL levels!".
We see that very thing on this blog daily.
Remember how the 2020 Dem Iowa caucuses couldn't declare a winner because of "problems" with a newly introduced phone app for tallying? I'm sure they didn't like the result they actually got, and decided "never mind" and moved on to the next state. Clyburn was brought in to anoint Biden in SC, and we should have realized then that playing with vote totals was totally on the bingo card for 2020.
What's up with the fairy godmothers? I thought they were going to take care of things.
I have yet to see any Democrat identify a single strength. During he lifetime. I have had bosses, whose shortcomings were numerous,but I could see their talents. Even the Dems can’t find a talent to praise.
The number of times anyone at the NY Times was worried about "the legitimacy of American democracy" being questioned by Democrats after 2000 and 2016: 0.00
The Democrats have a fantasy going on that they're the bestest, brightest, and most capable and competent people ever - despite failure after failure after failure.
Harris isn't doing a good job as VP? Obviously she needs to be promoted - THEN she'll magically become capable, competent, and the second coming of... well, whatever successful President you can imagine. Maybe Roosevelt, extending the Great Depression well beyond what it would have normally been, would be a good role model for her...
Come to think of it, the Dems seem to enshrine economic failure as a standard operating model - and if they can't have it occur naturally, they'll do what they can to initialize it.
That maneuver is called a pump and dump.
Americans deserve to know and see that they have a vice president who is trusted by White House and administration officials to take over, should anything happen to the president
The problem is, we dont' have that
We instead have an "Affirmative Action" hire, and total loser.
As others have repeated pointed out, she HAS been given chances to show off any skills she has. The problem is that she does not have any positive skills above the one on one level
"hasten, and advance, the education, and authority, of his vice president."
This assumes she is educable. No evidence of that, much to the contrary. Giving her "authority" she cannot put to good use would make Biden's bad situation worse. Even he is not that stupid.
"Kamala Harris Is Stuck"
Well, she was stuck from the moment Joe made her his affirmative action pick. One day she accuses him of being really its, the next she runs with him, making it very clear she was a political w$%*e.
"But I don't expect to see Harris's stature improve"
Right. There's no there there.
"And I really wish Trump haters would move away from characterizing his criticisms of the 2020 election as "lies""
I really wish! They should be better! Why aren't they better?
They'll only move away from their BS if and when the nice women of America call their BS consistently and act on it--voting against them, time after time. "I wish" laments won't cut it.
Mr. Biden must not only find a way to infuse his party with enthusiasm and fresh purpose, but fulfill an urgent obligation... to hasten, and advance, the education, and authority, of his vice president.
O brave new world. That has such people in't! It's like he's been in a coma for the last 18 months -- or years. Biden and Harris have each demonstrated what they are capable of, and it isn't much.
If you write a book about Nixon and Eisenhower, you have to face the fact that Ike didn't boost Nixon's 1960 campaign, and you have to ask yourself whether he was capable of doing so. Was there some psychological block that led Ike and subsequent presidents to choose mediocre vice presidents and to demean and humiliate them publicly? If Eisenhower couldn't bring himself to promote Nixon as a worthy successor, what would make you think that Brandon was capable of grooming Kamala for higher office?
Hated as he is now, Lyndon Johnson probably did a lot to convince us that the Senate and the Vice Presidency provide useful experience and competent candidates for the presidency. It's not true. Johnson had been "Master of the Senate." Most senators are only play actors pretending to be important when they aren't.
It all sounds bizarre. Surely the authors know as well as the rest of us that none of the things they are saying about Biden and Harris have any relation to reality.
But they *ARE* lies. A conservative can be for greater election security and still recognize Trump's lies and his obscene rejection of this duty to uphold the Constitution.
They misspelled suck.
Democrats still repeat without shame or embarrassment that the Russian Dossier isn’t a hoax. Democrats still claim protesters killed a Capitol Hill police office on Jan. 6th without shame and embarrassment. I see no reason why Trump supporters need show any shame or embarrassment for giving back what they are expected to take. Democrats created the rules of play. They were warned about using those rules.
“ But I don't expect to see Harris's stature improve...”
Why should it need improvement? She was chosen by Biden and elected by the people because she possessed the necessary and sufficient qualification of being a Black woman. As far as I can tell she still is one, and if that’s good enough for VP it should be good enough for P.
Kamala Harris is what she has always been. No amount of Op-Ed’s is going to make her a better Vice President or candidate. Your own party refused to give her votes in the 2020 primary, yet she was elevated to Vice President. Again, you were warned. Yet show no shame and embarrassment for ignoring the warnings.
Guess what? Economic news comes out this week. You were warned. Democrats will have the opportunity to show shame and embarrassment. Will they?
A CYA piece after having had a "oh s___t what did we do to ourselves?" moment.
Biden joins the long line of men who have "failed to position her for success." Boo hoo.
I don't understand why any sitting Vice-President should be viewed as the de facto nominee for the Presidency when their opportunity to run arrives. The nominees for President pick their running mates for all sorts of reasons, and competence for office is probably at the bottom of that list of reasons, if included at all.
Given Harris' failure to utter even one substantive, intelligent or astute comment on any topic in her role as VP to date, (not quite half through this term), she should have to prove her bona fides and compete with other aspirants to be picked as the nominee. I suspect she would not make the cut.
Blogger RMc said...
Everybody wants voting to be easier and more transparent; everybody knows there's nothing they can do to make those things happen.
Don't include me in "everybody". I know that elections can be honest and transparent. I've voted in 15 or so. What states need is to adapt Puerto Rican Rules:
1) Secure Govt issued Voter ID card, not valid for any non-electoral purpose
2) Paper ballots marked with pen.
3) Indelible, invisible, ink checked before and after entering the polling room.
4) Voting in person on election day. Very limited absentee ballots and only for reason. No early ballots at all.
5) Hand count of ballots in the polling place immediately after polls close. That number reported publicly. We do another count of all ballots in San Juan which is used to certify results. Any discrepancies are investigated.
We don't even have jokes about dead people voting, multiple votes etc. They do not make any sense here, it is physically impossible.
Caveat: For the 2020 elections, they did open up absentee balloting more widely. No excuse was needed. We had some suspected shenanigans but not too serious. Still, no reason to have made the change. We also went to scanning machines but the hand count of the paper ballot was still the controlling count and it was not a problem.
We consistently have very high percentages of eligible people registered, and registered people voting. Among the highest in the US.
Sadly, honest elections are no guarantee that we won't get really shitty politicians. As in, would make a Chicago alderman blush.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
It is not like the Vice-Presidency has been taken seriously as a position ever. I suppose there have been good Vice-Presidents, but generally the position was used to try to attract voters from swing states or balance out the ticket for different factions in the party. I am not sure what they were expecting, but then again this is the NYT, the land where journalists were born yesterday.
This is even more true for Harris, who was explicitly and publicly selected because of her race(s) and sex. The fig leaf of qualifications was overtly ignored. Then again, she had the same actual qualifications as Biden: she is good at navigating the political landscape to get elected and is otherwise incompetent and corrupt.
Althouse wrote:
And I really wish Trump haters would move away from characterizing his criticisms of the 2020 election as "lies" and attempting to intimidate anyone who wants better election security — calling them a threat threat to "the legitimacy of American democracy." Put your efforts into improving the accuracy of our elections, not denouncing the people who are telling you that they're worried about the legitimacy of American democracy.
I would marry this paragraph if I could. It is so so so so good.
And I really wish Trump haters would move away from characterizing his criticisms of the 2020 election as "lies" and attempting to intimidate anyone who wants better election security — calling them a threat threat to "the legitimacy of American democracy." Put your efforts into improving the accuracy of our elections, not denouncing the people who are telling you that they're worried about the legitimacy of American democracy.
GA did that. So Dems called them "racist" and "Jim Crow", and got MLB to pull the All Star Game from Atlanta
Simple question for you:
What was the last proposal to improve election security that Democrats supported?
Not "proposal to make it easier to vote", whether or not your vote was legal, but a proposal to make it more likely that your vote won't be stolen via someone else's fraudulent vote?
Has there been even one such proposal in the last 50 years, anywhere in the US, that had any meaningful Democrat support?
I dont' know of any
If Trump haters truly hated Trump, they'd have seized his priorities and run so hard with them that there's be nothing else to wish for. The Wall would be finished and ballot fraud would be a capital offense.
Don't put too much trust in the electorate.
Do not underestimate the potential for tens of millions of people to eagerly cut their own throats in voting for Harris over a certain You-Know-Who dinosaur who lost* last time and is obsessed with the past and gaining personal vindication over what is good for the country and who promises only four more years of constant drama.
* Whether the loss was legitimate or not is irrelevant. He lost. HE is not president. In fact, in going against the Deep State Swamp, he repeatedly lost. And he repeatedly appointed disloyal losers to his own team. Even if he was right on all the issues. For which he has our eternal thanks and a "now, go away."
Trump supporters are a threat to our democracy!
That's the prototype of the Democrat's rallying crying, usually heard on the lips of a CNN talking head, i.e. an alleged journalist rather than an official partisan propagandist like Karine Jean-Pierre.
Our democracy, our democracy... the adjective is always "our", never "democracy" generally. Why "our democracy"? And how can so many people repeat the same formulation verbatim? Is "our democracy" the Inner Party's approved phraseology? I wish Peter Doocy would ask Ms. Jean-Pierre for clarification, not that he'd receive anything resembling clarification in reply, but for the reassurance that I'm not the only one concerned about "our democracy".
You see, democracy is a very slippery term -- heck, a greased eel has the traction of a Massey Ferguson 5455 by comparison -- particularly since the stipulations offered by Lenin at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Given that the official name of the Kim autocracy in North Korea is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea I'm leery of anyone using that term without immediate and direct reference to the Constitution of the United States, or to the 1689 Bill of Rights, or to le Cinquième République... you know, a document that makes clear who the we implied by our are, and what prerogatives and limitations they enjoy and abide by.
Absent any explanation I can get a firm grip on intellectually, I'm inclined to believe that "our democracy" as a system of government would be difficult to distinguish from a loaded Luger pressed to my temple.
How do the D's dump the first black, female VP?
They don't....
How does Kamala demonstrate competency by the 2024 political season?
She doesn't.
Instead we'll get fawning write ups. We'll get screams of racism on any criticism. We'll get "odd" ballot box totals.
With Kamala I doubt it will be enough.
"Everybody wants voting to be easier and more transparent" says RMc.
Not me! It's way too easy now!
RMc said...
Everybody wants voting to be easier and more transparent; everybody knows there's nothing they can do to make those things happen.
No, we don't.
I dont' want voting to be easier than it already is.
If your'e not willing to register 6 weeks before the election, and not willing to show up on Election Day, get in line if necessary, and then vote, then I dont' want your vote.
Absent "physically can't get out, but still mentally competent" or "won't be in the State on Election Day, you should have to put the minor effort into going down to your polling place and voting.
Because if your vote isn't worth that to you, then there's no possible way you've actually bothered to become informed enough to have a worthwhile vote.
What's that? There are incredibly long lines at your polling places every time?
Then I guess you need to get out, and vote for people competent enough to create polling places with a capacity to match their expected usage.
Generally speaking, the worse run polling places with the longest lines are in places run by Democrats. If your'e one of the Democrats in those places, you might want to put some effort into at least voting in competent Democrats to represent you.
And if it's not possible to find any competent Democrats, you might try branching out
In fairness to Ms. Harris, I'm not certain she's "failing." She's not supposed to throttle illegal immigration because it's a Biden priority, and she has succeeded at failing to do so. Through a Democrat lens, I would think this qualifies as success.
And I really wish Trump haters would move away from characterizing his criticisms of the 2020 election as "lies" and attempting to intimidate anyone who wants better election security — calling them a threat threat to "the legitimacy of American democracy." Put your efforts into improving the accuracy of our elections, not denouncing the people who are telling you that they're worried about the legitimacy of American democracy.
Oh god.
They need voter fraud to maintain their power.
It is obvious to everyone that the Regime in DC promotes and protects mass voter fraud.
But Ann is too status conscious to day that out loud.
Only icky Trump supporters say crazy things like the 2020 elections were obviously corrupt. Wouldn't want to be like them. They aren't "normal."
Kamala can’t even run her own staff effectively. Many have voted against her with their feet, leaving their posts, starting just a few months into her VP-ship.
I'm old enough to remember when GHWB was going to balance Reagan's excess exuberance, when Al Gore was going to be "Mr. Government" to balance Billy Jeff Clinton's lack of experience, when Dick Cheney was going to be the steady senior hand to guide W.
All I can think of is that Dan Quayle is smiling a rueful smile somewhere for the same reason Jimmy Carter does but doesn't feel guilty about it.
The political winds would likely be against Harris in any event. If Biden is so infirm and unpopular as to not seek reelection in 2024, the experiences of Hubert Humphrey and Gerald Ford argue that she'd be running at a considerable disadvantage. If by some unlucky miracle Biden survives until 2028, since WWII only a single VP (GHWB) has combined with a two term president for one party to control the White House for over eight years. Harris has more than one reason to hop Biden kicks the bucket while in office.
Harris' book about criminal justice reform is all you need to know about her. Trying to pose as a prosecutor concerned about crime, she vaguely re-hashes all the worst leftist ideas about prison abolitionism. Very lightweight stuff, short and forgettable and derivative. It even has big print.
She doubtlessly had a ghostwriter (politicians all do) and still couldn't produce. That should have been a big red flag.
Still, I expected her to be more successful in person. But she failed every test as a politician. Who would Biden replace her with, now that the Democrats are under thrall to the radical left? Stacey Abrams, I'd imagine. She has a personality and seems to have a relatively normal emotional range -- for a crooked politician. So what if she didn't pay her taxes for years, then lied about it?
I’m just so relieved that no one’s be held accountable for the false claims about the validity of the 2016 elections.
She's stuck, because SHE isn't doing her job. WHERE is she for the open border?? WHY isn't she helping the overloaded border patrol. All she wants to do is say her progressive little poetry and have photo ops because she is the first woman of color who was selected just for that reason alone to become vice president. She sucks.
With apologies to Col. Potter - - HORSE HOCKEY
...And I really wish Trump haters would move away from characterizing his criticisms of the 2020 election as "lies" and attempting to intimidate anyone who wants better election security — calling them a threat threat to "the legitimacy of American democracy." Put your efforts into improving the accuracy of our elections, not denouncing the people who are telling you that they're worried about the legitimacy of American democracy.
Democrats would rather demonize those who question the legitimacy of American democracy than make it transparent. I think that on some level, they know that they benefit from cheating, so they're afraid to clean-up the system.
The problem with better election security is that it runs counter to the Dem machine. Harvesting and mail-in ballots allow them better control of getting the vote out. They want to make sure that their guys vote and vote the way they want. You can tell that it is counter to their goals because they abject to any form of audit, chain of customer or validation.
It is interesting that the Dems would rather have the cloud of suspicion over the election remain rather than prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was fair. Usually obfuscation is a sign that there was cheating and it is better to have the suspicion of it than the proof of it, though it is better to have the proof it was NOT than to have the suspicion. that tells you that they think there was enough cheating to swing the election.
Remember that in 2000, there as a wade audit of Fl that proved Bush actually did win. There was no such "investigation" in 2020.
To solve this election doubt, we need verified ballots, full chain of custody, and random audits by accounting firms (who do audits all the time) of random voting precincts after every election.
Why do the Dems oppose that?
She is hampered by Mr. Biden’s unpopularity...
Conspicuously absent is any mention of the VP's considerable unpopularity, because "journalism."
As I recall, Althouse thought from the press coverage that Harris was the very early DC media favorite in 2019. I'm not saying she was wrong, but how could they have misjudged her political skills so badly? Was it just: black and female should win? Did she show off her gravitas in private meetings?
How did she get the Dem nomination to the Senate?
Althouse said: And I really wish Trump haters would move away from characterizing his criticisms of the 2020 election as "lies" and attempting to intimidate anyone who wants better election security — calling them a threat to "the legitimacy of American democracy." Put your efforts into improving the accuracy of our elections, not denouncing the people who are telling you that they're worried about the legitimacy of American democracy.
The opportunity to address all of this was between November 2020 and Jan 2021. The US Supreme Court’s decision to not hear the Texas vs. Pennsylvania lawsuit was probably the nail in the coffin for federal election integrity in the United States.
The Electoral College was meant to prevent one corrupt, populous state from controlling the rest of the country. But when you can target swing state Democrat run population centers (Maricopa Co., AZ, Fulton County, GA, Detroit, MI, Madison, Milwaukee, Racine, & GB WI, & Philadelphia, PA), you can beat the system on a national scale.
And it provides plausible deniability to claim there was “no WIDESPREAD election fraud”. It doesn’t have to be widespread.
Federal, State, and Local Courts showed us that there is nowhere to seek relief after election fraud is committed.
That’s how the country ended up with January 6th. Now the J6 committee is trying to ensure these fraudulent election tactics can remain in place. They'll put you in jail if you get in their way.
Shorter NYTimes: It's not her fault!
Why hold someone who is Democratic and Female accountable, after all?
Wasn’t she elevated on the basis of sex and race and also on have been given a “head start” in CA? What else did anyone seriously expect.
If she had what it took, she would already be president.
This was just one more horrible decision by Joe Biden in a long string of them. This morning he was on TV declaring that "gas prices are still too high" after focusing on raising them day one of his administration, and sternly warning banks not to lend money for fossil fuel development in the US just a couple of months ago, and taking refineries off-line during the pandemic... permanently.
To be fair, Kamala Harris raised the glass ceiling. Take a knee, blow, females by Nature. Males by Nature, , too, who are groomed under the Rainbow of political congruence and inclusion.
We instead have an "Affirmative Action" hire, and total loser.
Affirmative discrimination under diversity [dogma] (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry), inequity, and exclusion (DIE).
Her most frequently displayed "talent" is the weird gesticulating she does with her hands. She always keeps them up at breast level and moves them (her hands) about as if she want to grab her breasts and plop them on a produce weighing device at the grocery store. It is so off putting to me.
One reason that she was set up to fail at the border was that any solution with eve the tiniest chance of working was off the table before she started, and the Democrats can't say out loud what their real policies are.
Look at how incredibly passive that is....
Harris failed in her pursuit of her Presidency because she was unpopular.
She's now had the opportunity - for 18 months - to solve that issue.
Every single time she's had an opportunity to speak, to make appearances, to take stances, to enunciate policy...
EVERY SINGLE TIME.
She's made herself worse. While not accomplishing a damn thing.
It's time to call a spade a spade.
"Harris is an example of the California Democrats who do not need competence to be elected."
This is an excellent point. There's a lot of talk about gerrymandering within states, but the big states like California and Texas exercise horribly outsize influence on national politics.
She is cute and would likely liven up a party.
Everybody wants voting to be easier and more transparent; everybody knows there's nothing they can do to make those things happen.
No, we don't.
I don't want voting to be easier than it already is.
If you're not willing to register 6 weeks before the election, and not willing to show up on Election Day, get in line if necessary, and then vote, then I don't want your vote.
Ah, you want real, serious voters, the kind that go the extra mile, the ones that are real citizens!
Yeah, that would be nice, but it ain't happening. Adults stopped acting like grown-ups about two generations ago, so you have to cater to the population you actually have, not the one you wish you had. Voting in a democracy should made as easy as possible, if for no other reason than to tamp down complaints about how "unfair" and "exclusionary" elections are. Let every eligible voter vote. This is America, right?
But. The other side of letting everybody vote is CHAIN OF CUSTODY. Every vote should be fully visible to everybody at all times; none of this "we found these votes after the water pipe blew up and now such-and-such is ahead by a hundred votes" nonsense. All votes in pen and ink, carefully examined by one Republican and one Democrat, and placed in the proper pile. Then another Republican/Democrat duo does the counting, in full view of everybody, including cameras feeding live to the internet. And anybody who tries to pull a fast one (especially in a swing state/district) goes to Federal prison for a long, long time.
But this won't happen -- can't happen -- because the people in charge of these things won't let it happen. They prefer the rigged game, because both sides think they are smarter than the other side and know how to rig the game better, rig it just enough in their favour. If you make elections squeaky-clean and honest, well, that takes things out of their hands, doesn't it? And the "wrong" candidates might get elected!
Woe is us.
The opportunity to address all of this was between November 2020 and Jan 2021. The US Supreme Court’s decision to not hear the Texas vs. Pennsylvania lawsuit was probably the nail in the coffin for federal election integrity in the United States.
Yup. There is no unscrambling the egg now. The mob scared the judges enough to win by default. The next question is whether we can trust the fall election and 2024.
You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
He writes as if Joe Biden were a conscious, thinking adult with the ability to form and carry out rational plans. How did a reporter from the NYT get so completely out of touch? Joe Biden is a stumbling vegetable.
why do we need competence in politicians? if also wish for politics to remain boring
Mark said...
Don't put too much trust in the electorate.
"Do not underestimate the potential for tens of millions of people to eagerly cut their own throats in voting for Harris over a certain You-Know-Who dinosaur who lost* last time and is obsessed with the past and gaining personal vindication over what is good for the country and who promises only four more years of constant drama.
* Whether the loss was legitimate or not is irrelevant. He lost. HE is not president. In fact, in going against the Deep State Swamp, he repeatedly lost. And he repeatedly appointed disloyal losers to his own team. Even if he was right on all the issues. For which he has our eternal thanks and a "now, go away."
Tens of millions of people will vote for any democrat. Government employees, their family members, government contractor employees and their families, people on government assistance and people who cynically benefit from woke ideas and programs and grifters. I guess that is about 45% of the electorate. That is why the Left works so hard to avoid honest elections and election laws.
The Democrats have no one to replace Biden.None. But thanks for admitting in a back handed way the Trump was right. Since there is no chance of Biden becoming a moderate and actually competent between now and Election Day in 2024 and there is no other Democrat with those qualities, Trump if he runs probably wins. However this time Trump has to choose a credible stand in for president who is both competent and will follow the Trump policies which is what the Republican voters want.
Lessard said...
But they *ARE* lies. A conservative can be for greater election security and still recognize Trump's lies and his obscene rejection of this duty to uphold the Constitution
1: Allowing Democrats to steal the 2020 election would have been a violation of his Constitutional duties. Fighting it is not
2: No honest vote counters shut down vote counting on election night while there are still votes to count
3: Having kicked out the poll watchers and press, no honest vote counters would then start counting votes again
Anyone who cared watched the video of the Democrats in Fulton County, GA, doing just that. And miraculously finding just enough votes to flip the State to Biden
Democrat Counties in WI, MI, PA, and GA all did #2. No results that came out of them after the shutdown can possibly be trusted. Trump was leading in all 4 States before the shutdowns
So, it's not possible for an honest and informed person to believe that Biden honestly won the 2020 election.
Given that, what are Trump's "lies"?
with many Republicans willing to repeat, without shame or embarrassment, Donald Trump’s lies about the validity of the 2020 election — and thus the legitimacy of American democracy.
Just FOAD already.
I don't understand why any sitting Vice-President should be viewed as the de facto nominee for the Presidency when their opportunity to run arrives.
At this point in the process, it is all name recognition.
VPs do almost nothing that is not ceremonial. Kamala cannot even do that very well.
but she has also not become the successful public face on any major issue....
wouldn't she need to show at least minimally competence in Some field?
I mean, besides being a cocksucking whore?
any solution with eve the tiniest chance of working was off the table before she started
Emigration reform and immigration without pressure.
the Democrats can't say out loud what their real policies are
Redistributive change (e.g. welfare, Obamacares). Democratic gerrymandering without borders. Diversity [dogma] adversity and leverage. Labor arbitrage (they're not alone). Compensation for the wicked solution.
Donald Trump’s lies about the validity of the 2020 election — and thus the legitimacy of American democracy.
Isn't it amazing how the entire MSM, Democrat party, and RINO establishment, has been lying about the 2020 election, reading off the same script, chanting the same phrases, over and over every chance they can?
Refusing to make reasoned arguments. Refusing to have an audit of the votes. Refusing to even listen to opposing arguments. Just screeching over and over.. SHUT UP LIAR!
The Biden presidency just shows you don't need an exceptional person to run a Democrat Administration. The MSM is your propaganda arm and covers up your mistakes. Your cabinet heads, the Democrat Judges, almost all the Federal Employees, and the D House and Senate leadership are all on the same team, believe in the same things, and march in lockstep like Robots.
Kamala Harris would be just as good - or just as bad- as Biden. Joe is simply irrelevant.
Given what a good job Harris had done with the tasks she has been put in charge of handling, I don't understand why the Democrats aren't excited with promoting her for President in 2024. For instance, look at the great job she has done in resolving the crisis at the southern border. Do you see grid-lock at that border? No, you don't. It's wide open for all comers. Harris was a great success in handling the problem.
their agenda is the destruction of the country, you could put a horse like Caligula and it wouldn't make a difference,
Isn't it amazing how the entire MSM, Democrat party, and RINO establishment, has been lying about the 2020 election, reading off the same script, chanting the same phrases, over and over every chance they can?
Refusing to make reasoned arguments. Refusing to have an audit of the votes. Refusing to even listen to opposing arguments. Just screeching over and over.. SHUT UP LIAR!
William Shakespeare had a phrase to describe it. "The Lady doth protest too much."
The 2020 election should have been open to skeptical analysis from all sides. The results were so bizarre. A serving president with a high degree of success during his four years in office got 11.3 million more votes than he did four years earlier. But his opponent, who barely campaigned, got 15.4 million more votes than the Dem candidate four years earlier, and 11.8 million more votes than Obama in 2008.
On its face, this was an absurd result. That the unpopularity of Trump with Dems, dissenting Repubs, and independents drove that many votes in the midst of a pandemic to defeat a president who got 11.3 million more votes in his second campaign seems extremely unlikely, and that is the heart of why Trump has been able to drag this controversy forward. Also, the shiboleth imposed by the media ("Do you agree that Joe Biden won the 2020 election?" or "Do you dispute that Joe Biden is the POTUS?") is absurd if you want to discuss the outcome of the election. Then, to cut off all discussion with "Over 20 lawsuits were tossed out and that must prove something" is also to avoid any real discussion. Suffice it to say that those legal challenges were neither well conceived nor timely. No court was going to throw out the vote talleys after the fact.
The official results, which seem absurd, were the result of something--maybe the shenanigans that Mollie Hemingway describes in her book "Rigged". Maybe it was a function of the voters misunderstanding (or understanding all too well) the quirks of Donald Trump's bizarre personality. But whatever happened, we are stuck with Joe Biden. And it looks like we are also stuck with Donald Trump.
This country needs to turn the page. Ron DeSantis vs. J.B.(Jabba) Pritzker in 2024. The aggressive Iraq veteran from Yale and Harvard Law vs. the confident heir (Duke, Northwestern Law) who was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. Let the chips fall where they may.
Perhaps NYT writers like this one are just amusing themselves by cynically writing what's required in an over-the-top way which they know cannot be detected as over-the-top by their editors who have become dulled to false notes. [Democrats... would benefit if Ms. Harris was able to bring a compelling and varied set of ... ideas from her time in the White House ...] In a similar way, Kamala's speech writers keep producing speeches on a third grade level without Kamala noticing. Probably they tried to write good, standard stuff and she denounced it as boring and kept calling for simple and so now they do simple for her. ["Space is great"]
Who exactly decided it was the "Most Secure Election Ever"? Who was the first to spout those words. And, how many days after the November 2020 election did they state such a thing? I know Barr was pretty quick to do so, even without any investigation. Who else was saying it and what evidence did they produce to back up their claims?
Michael K said...
The opportunity to address all of this was between November 2020 and Jan 2021. The US Supreme Court’s decision to not hear the Texas vs. Pennsylvania lawsuit was probably the nail in the coffin for federal election integrity in the United States.
Yup. There is no unscrambling the egg now. The mob scared the judges enough to win by default. The next question is whether we can trust the fall election and 2024.
No, the next question is whether we're going to force them to be more honest in the fall and 2024.
Are you signed up to be an election judge / poll watcher? Are you from a State where the big city "vote counters" are going to try to steal the election? Are you planning to be outside their doors, protesting, making sure they know that the Dems aren't the only side that can come up with mobs?
Pre covid, there were places where Antifa got rowdy, and the good guys decided to fight back. Antifa would get their butts kicked, and then the local gov't would tell the cops to start enforcing the law, keeping Antifa from preventing conservative events.
Because they'd rather have the event with no Antifa butts kicked, than a bunch of Antifa butts kicked, and the event still happening.
Where will you and your friends be on Election Night?
if your answer is "Twitter", then your'e the problem
RMc said...
Ah, you want real, serious voters, the kind that go the extra mile, the ones that are real citizens!
Yeah, that would be nice, but it ain't happening. Adults stopped acting like grown-ups about two generations ago, so you have to cater to the population you actually have, not the one you wish you had.
No we don't. Because it's entirely legal to pass election laws that require pre-registration and Election Day voting.
And the people this "disenfranchises" won't be able to vote to reverse it
Maybe there really were that many people who are so done with Trump that they would vote for a half-dead guy who never left his basement. Maybe the half-dead guy's political operation did a great job in cheating and stealing the election.
Either way, that election is over. And also, there's no crying in politics! No crying. Only a weak-ass p*ssy keeps whining years later.
Trump lost. Fair or unfair, he lost. Which by Trump standards means that he's a loser. He had his shot.
A good politician can talk about a problem in such a way as to turn a crisis into an opportunity. After Biden dumped the border problem on her, she could have held meetings, taken tours, issued reports, and elevated her profile while stuffing the problem down Biden's throat.
This. The kabuki drill is very well known. Announce a “listening tour” to “hear all sides.” Highly publicized meetings with carefully selected and vetted representatives of various stakeholder groups: US citizens who live near the border, obviously; CBP agents; people who claim to speak for undocumented immigrants (is that still the PC term); farmers who need seasonal immigrant labor; etc., etc. Set up a Blue Ribbon Commission. Take testimony. Try pilot projects. Drag. It. Out.
It’s not a 40 hour week job, but she’s not even up to this little bit.
The spectre of Hillary having another go at it in '24, brought about by her twittering over the past several days, brings new mirth to the "repeating Trump's lies about the 2020 election" mantras of the effete lib journalistic class.
Hillary carping endlessly about 2016 versus Trump carping endlessly about 2020; man, will that ever be great. lol.
And yet, neither one of them has invested much of their fame, energy and influence towards the cause of election integrity/security for the future. Funny, that.
"And I really wish..."
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
Don't you wonder why nobody in the political arena other than the deplorables has called for reforms to address the legitimacy and credibility of elections?
When more voters than the entire African-American population of the country believes that the election was illigitamate, shouldn't that be priority #1?
Instead those people (we) are told that they are wrong, liars, wackos and conspiracy theorists, that all their concerns have been "debunked", and that mail in voting is just peachy--and it will be ramped up in the next election.
Bender said...
Maybe there really were that many people who are so done with Trump that they would vote for a half-dead guy who never left his basement. Maybe the half-dead guy's political operation did a great job in cheating and stealing the election.
Either way, that election is over. And also, there's no crying in politics! No crying. Only a weak-ass p*ssy keeps whining years later.
Oh, you mean like the Mueller "Trump Russia collusion" hoax that went on until 2 1/2 years after Trump won?
Oh, you mean like the J6 whining bullshit?
If you want to find a "weak-ass p*ssy", look at the people still whining about J6.
But so long as they try to rewrite the past, we're going to be here to stop them.
The election was illegitimate. The procedure teh4 Dems used to steal that election should never be accepted again. Any other attempts should also be crushed, in the Courts if possible, with violence / destruction if necessary.
If people regularly start turning off their cell phones, coming up their license plates, going to open "ballot drop boxes", and pouring gas into them each night, Dem mules won't be able to drop off fake ballots.
Or, you know, they could set up secure drop boxes where people can't drop things in at night, be they ballots or bombs.
Either approach works. But only the Dems can do the securing
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