"Biden did the right thing granting clemency to 37 federal death row inmates."

Writes Russ Feingold (at The Hill).

With this courageous action, President Biden has lived up to his promise as the first president to openly oppose capital punishment and secured his legacy as a champion of racial justice, compassion, and fairness.

If he's truly opposed to capital punishment, he should have commuted the sentences of all 40 federal death row inmates. That would have taken more courage. The 3 excluded from this show of empathy were the 3 most famous. Applying principle to them would have kicked up a much bigger political storm. So where is the principle?

President Biden has shown clear moral leadership by commuting these 37 federal death sentences. Not only does this action effectively fulfill his 2020 promise to end the death penalty at the federal level, it should also serve as a model and an incentive for state leaders to follow suit.

No. The "37" says it all. You need to save all 40 before you can claim "clear moral leadership." The real test would be sparing those last 3: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Robert Bowers, and Dylann Roof.

That would be difficult. That would take courage.

"The guy we’re running against, he is — he’s not for anything, he’s against everything."

I believe — based on this Hill article — that was yesterday and not at a campaign stop but at Biden's own campaign headquarters.

How can it be that Trump is not for anything? He's for a strong southern border, for example. Obviously, that can be rephrased into being against something: He's against an open border. What does Biden think he's saying? Was there some longer, more specific speech that enumerated good things that Biden supports and that Trump is against, and Biden decided to ditch the enumeration and substitute "everything"?

Meanwhile, Trump would like you to know he looks like Elvis. He's for Elvis. That's not nothing.

It worked for Bill Clinton:

"Who Said It: Cuomo or Your Ex?"

Headline for an amusing quiz format — in New York Magazine — presenting 15 of Cuomo's most absurd quotes, mostly defenses for his bad behavior, e.g., "In my mind, I’ve never crossed the line with anyone, but I didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn." 

On the list of 15: "I love you" — from his planning-to-resign speech. After you click the right answer, Cuomo, you see: "Yes, this is from Cuomo's resignation. But if your ex did say it, I’m sure he, like Cuomo, tried to excuse shitty behavior by then saying, 'And everything I have ever done has been motivated by that love.'"

The 15th entry is unlikely to be something your ex could have said: "EXCELSIOR!" When you vote "Cuomo," it says: "Yes, Cuomo said this toward the end of his resignation speech. I don't know what to tell you." 

Are people thinking that was nutty? I know why he said it. It's the same reason Wisconsin's Russ Feingold once ended a concession speech with "Forward!" It's the state motto.

By the way, here's my blog post about Feingold's speech, in 2010, after he lost a Senate race to Ron Johnson. Feingold also raised his hand in the air in a manner that, as I said at the time, he must have intended to represent the "Forward" statute that appeared on a plinth at the State Street pathway to the state capitol. I say "appeared," because that statue was torn down during the riots last summer and there's still an empty plinth where that venerated statue once stood:

The New York State motto "Excelsior!" means "ever upward." For those who know what "Excelsior!" means, in the context of Cuomo's predicament, it sounds like a dirty joke.

Here's a list of the state mottoes. The best and most famous one is New Hampshire's, though don't try just tweeting it. I might get you banned. The most mystical is North Carolina's — "Esse quam videri" ("To be rather than to seem"). 

Other uses of Latin to elevate state mottoes: "Cedant arma togae" ("Let weapons yield to the toga," Wyoming), "Montani semper liberi" ("Mountaineers are always free," West Virginia), and "Si quaeris peninsulam amoenam circumspice" ("If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you," Michigan).