"President Biden is set to break away from his summer vacation on Monday to fly to Hawaii to inspect damage wrought by wildfires...."

The NYT reports, in a presentation that is not supportive to Biden:

The asymmetrical photograph tips Biden into the lower corner. He looks small and weak. It's an unflattering view from the side, with his unround head bowed. He's headed into the weeds. But he's a man on vacation — hidden away at Lake Tahoe. 

Paragraph 3:

There's another debate tonight, and it's not too soon.

It's less than a week since the last debate, but everything's speeded up now. There's the South Carolina primary this weekend, followed by Super Tuesday. And last week it was all about piling on Mike Bloomberg, but now Bernie Sanders has blown up into a seemingly unbeatable beast. So does everyone who isn't Bloomberg still go after Bloomberg, or is it forget about Bloomberg, and everyone who's not Bernie goes after Bernie? Or is it more complex?

I don't think Bernie should go after anyone. He must defend and would do best to appear worthily presidential and above the fray. But is he capable of controlling his angry face and modulating his yelling voice? Doesn't matter. Let Bernie be Bernie. It's worked so far, and how could he possibly change at this stage? Stand your ground, Bernie. Your mere presence as the frontrunner is horrifying and flummoxing to all the rest of them.

Elizabeth Warren should have a secret alliance with Bernie. All the delegates she collects can be handed over to Bernie later. She could give him the majority he needs at the convention. As she collects delegates, the radical left position gains force, but it's less obvious than it would be if all of them went to Bernie. She's serving his interests, and he can make her his VP choice.

In any case, Warren is not allied with Biden, Bloomberg, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar. They're the moderates, all begging for the nonradical voters in a desperate, bungling stop-Bernie effort. Warren should attack all of them, especially Bloomberg. She's good at that.

And what should Biden, Bloomberg, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar do? Continually barge in front of each other demanding to be seen as the one person who's palatable enough to have a ghost of a chance against Trump? Or will they take a first-things-first approach and insist they're the one to stop Bernie?They probably have convinced themselves that to do one is to do the other. The reason to vote for B/B/B/K is that Bernie must be stopped in order to stop Trump. But it has to be one of them, not 4 of them, and so they will have to turn on each other.

Bloomberg has a special position: He can say that he should be the one of the 4, because he has his own money, and none of the others has stood out enough as a candidate to have a stronger argument than that. That's why Biden, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar all need to keep beating up on Bloomberg, and that keeps Bloomberg in at least as bad a position as Biden, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar. And it keeps the entire group from mounting a serious challenge to Sanders.

Maybe Bloomberg will rise to the occasion. Expectations are low now, after last week's debate fiasco. Surely, he's taken some coaching and has a more realistic idea of how to do a debate. He's incredibly arrogant, but he got an epic humiliation. And everyone's interested in seeing what he can do to make a comeback. And now now there's less hope than ever that one of the other nonradicals (Biden, Buttigieg, or Klobuchar) can get all the attention, he's got reason to hope he can be the one. And he's got the motivation to regain his dignity and the constant boost of knowing that he's the one with all the money.

UPDATE: I'm told Tom Steyer will also be in the debate. Oh! That is so dull. He does not belong there. I guess he hurts Bloomberg because it is just so ridiculous to have 2 billionaires who've bought their way on to the stage and will be standing there so long after all those governors and senators have slipped away.

IN THE COMMENTS: DanTheMan says:

The so called moderates need to go after Biden. If he loses in SC he’s done and a big chunk of moderates have to find a new home.

I'm picturing something in the form of an intervention. He needs it. So much damage he has caused.

"I don't have anything to say about the debate. Maybe I should just move on."

I say out loud after poking around on all sorts of articles — a fact check here or there, assorted quotes but not a complete transcript, the old "winners and losers" roundups, and I noticed I was drifting off into articles about finding an apartment in NYC and how to travel together as a couple and Kim Kardashian's regret that her shapewear doesn't have a "peehole." I rewatched this TikTok baby 10 times.

There's my son John's live-blog from last night. He continued long after I fell asleep, but ended in a way that confirmed the wisdom of taking the sleep route out of the tiresome ordeal:

Haven't been updating this post in a while, and I can just repeat what I said in the last debate: "I've been zoning out on the rather dry discussion of who's for what trade deals."

Stephanopoulos prompts each candidate to give a canned statement on child poverty. This debate hasn't had any drama for a while now.

And it's over. Not the most exciting debate, and I'd be hard-pressed to say anyone "won" or "lost" tonight.

I'll just say one thing I remember. I wanted to get hold of the transcript to do this more accurately, but memory alone will have to suffice for now. I remember Tom Steyer saying — on 2 different things — that they need to focus on how Donald Trump is and will be arguing for himself and have real and specific arguments to push him back. The 2 things are the economy and appealing to black people.

I don't know if Steyer or any of the others had any specific arguments, so to me Steyer's warning worked mostly as a prediction that all of these candidates are doomed. Maybe that's why I withdrew.

The economy is going great, and Trump is pointing that out and saying you've got to keep me. I know what the Democrats tend to say to this prompt: You people at the bottom need to feel resentful that others are doing better than you are, and we're going to switch everything around somehow.

As for black people, Trump offers specific programs aimed at improving conditions for black people and impugns the Democrats for mismanagement of American cities and for taking the black vote for granted. In response, the Democrats have taken the black vote for granted.

I just said I have rig fatigue, but here are Democrats saying their own party is rigged, so that's kind of interesting.

From The Hill:

The DNC on Friday said it would drop the donor threshold for the Feb. 19 primary debate in Nevada. The move could open the door for Bloomberg, a billionaire who is refusing any donations to his White House bid, to win a spot at the event.

Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) presidential campaign ripped the DNC over its new debate qualifications, saying it is supporting “a rigged system.”

“To now change the rules in the middle of the game to accommodate Mike Bloomberg, who is trying to buy his way into the Democratic nomination, is wrong. That’s the definition of a rigged system,” said Jeff Weaver, a senior adviser to Sanders’s campaign....

Entrepreneur Andrew Yang [tweeted] "The DNC changing its debate criteria to ignore grassroots donations seems tailor-made to get Mike Bloomberg on the debate stage in February...."...

Businessman Tom Steyer [said]... “changing the rules now to accommodate Mike Bloomberg and not changing them in the past to ensure a more diverse debate stage is just plain wrong..." 

PLUS: "I watched the debate in Iowa here two weeks ago -- the all white debate -- and the fact that the Democratic, the DNC will not allow Cory Booker on that stage, will not allow Julian Castro on that stage, but they are going to allow Mike Bloomberg on the stage? Because he has a billion f*cking dollars!"

AND: It's not just changing the rules for the debates: "DNC members discuss rules change to stop Sanders at convention/The talks reveal rising anxiety over the Vermont senator's momentum on the eve of voting" (Politico).

"Just want to say hi, America."

Just want to say hi, America.

— Tom Steyer (@TomSteyer) January 16, 2020

ADDED: This explains it:

https://t.co/Z0nodtXI9O https://t.co/bK04Sdj0y0

— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) January 16, 2020

What were those symbols written on Tom Steyer's hand?

It got some attention from viewers of last night's debate, and got him some good press. Here's NBC:

The design is called the “Jerusalem Cross,” and as Steyer wrote on Facebook late last year, he does it “every day to remind myself that ultimately, the truth always wins.”

Also: "to remind myself every day always to tell the truth."

What are you drawing on your hand every day? Well, let's assume you have to draw something on your hand every day — the same thing — kind of like getting a tattoo, but with more day-to-day mindfulness — what would you draw?

Remember when Sarah Palin wrote on her hand?

Here's the Wikipedia article on the Jerusalem Cross. Excerpt:

"There is a 'stop Warren' thing going on"/"Oh, well, that makes me want to be for Warren"/"Me too!"

Overheard at Meadhouse... as we look at this Drudge presentation...



... which I know from my minute analysis of the rejected handshake sequence that is 0:11:

Suddenly, EW's fingers burst open into full extension, as if to engulf Bernie's right hand just as it springs into a point. 

That is the most dramatic and most intimate part of the encounter. She wouldn't reach out to his hand when it was offered in the shaking position, but she sprang into receptive openness when he came at her with his aggressive pointer.

Right before that moment her hands were clasped together and held close to her chest, and immediately after that moment, she returned to the clasp. The extended hands can be understood as expressive of a desire to get her ideas out, but the visual is one of his aggressing and her pleading.

We talked about the sexual symbolism and the gender politics of this sequence and this particular freeze frame and who does this help? There are 2 men in the frame, and Steyer looks like the wise, lofty mediator, and he is looking toward Bernie. It does seem like 2 patriarchs are telling the woman she has transgressed.

Looking at the headlines at Drudge...

Warren Refuses to Shake His Hand...
MICHAEL MOORE: Stuck Knife in His Back...
#NeverWarren trends...

I saw a "stop Warren" effort, trumped up out of nothing, and my instinct is to become vigilant and protective as I see this happening in real time. But let me publish this post and make a separate post out of Michael Moore's attack.

A Washington Post juxtaposition: a grey seal and Tom Steyer wave hello (or is it good-bye?).

A screen grab from the front page of WaPo just now:



This is the sort of visual joke we often see on Drudge. I'm certain it's no accident. The seal is super-cute, and it was easy to find a photo of the politician waving and to put it just close enough to have an uplifting effect and not so close as to be ridiculous. Right next to the seal is a Playmobil toy holding up a flag. The flag raising is close to a wave, and the toy, the seal, and Steyer are all smiling.

Does this mean WaPo is nudging us to like Steyer? Okay, I'll read "Tom Steyer is surging in South Carolina and Nevada. Does it matter?"

Steyer’s ability to transform his personal wealth into a spot [in the next debate], while longtime elected officials such as Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) have been unable to qualify, is a source of growing friction in the party — especially at a time when income inequality is a heated topic among Democrats....

“Tom Steyer is doing what everybody should be doing,” said Johnnie Cordero, chairman of the Democratic Black Caucus of South Carolina, who has not endorsed a presidential candidate. “He is in the black community. He’s dealing with the people who you need to carry the state, at least for the African American vote.”

Black voters, who make up most of the state’s Democratic electorate, still back former vice president Joe Biden by large margins. But in the latest South Carolina poll, Steyer jumped to second place among that demographic, garnering 16 percent support — though Biden still commands 43 percent support.

Oh, well, there you have it. He's garnering.

"Warren Plays to Empty Hall."

That's the Drudge headline. It links to a tweet with 2 photos and the description, "ORANGEBURG — Elizabeth Warren takes the stage at an Environmental Justice forum in South Carolina before a sparse audience. Tom Steyer spoke before her; numerous rivals skipped it."

You can criticize Warren for not drawing a crowd, but everyone who skipped it also faces criticism. It was an Environmental Justice forum.

"Democrats are badly blowing it against Trump. A brutal new TV ad shows how."

Headline for a Greg Sargent column at WaPo. Here's the video he's talking about:



The ad has ordinary-looking people pissed off and saying things like:

Now you tell us to wait for the next election? Really? Really? Really? This is why we volunteered. Raised money. Went door to door. And voted in the last election. Our founding fathers expected you — Congress — to hold a lawless president accountable. And you’re doing nothing. Nothing. Nothing. He broke his oath of office. He’s defying you. Laughing at you. And he’s getting away with it.

Sargent comments:

Of course, Democrats aren’t doing “nothing.” But there is the risk that if their oversight is neutered and they don’t act, this picture of fecklessness will be the reigning one.

Is there a better way to handle this? Perhaps not. Because, at bottom, the core question is whether it is acceptable for Democrats to refrain from an impeachment inquiry in the face of corruption and misconduct they plainly believe merits one....

Plainly believe? It's not clear what they believe, even if they plainly say an impeachment inquiry is warranted. I think they most likely believe in winning elections. I judge what people really believe based on what they actually do.

I assume the Democrats believe in using the idea of impeachment without actually conducting impeachment proceedings and one reason they stop where they do is that they don't really believe what they are saying, that what Trump did warrants impeachment.

"Yet the current Democratic leadership has insisted that no one so much as mention the word 'impeachment.'"

"Instead, they have suggested using Mr. Trump’s abuses of power as bargaining chips in future negotiations. For too long, Democratic leaders have convinced their fellow elected officials that bland, nonconfrontational and incremental centrism is the way to win elections and make progress. In truth, it’s just the easiest way to protect the balance of power in Washington. But by trying to meet a corrupt Republican Party halfway, instead of taking clear stands for what’s right, they have failed to define the party and failed to protect their constituents.... Should the establishment refuse to give up conventional orthodoxy and take up impeachment proceedings when the new Congress convenes, freshmen members — many of whom ran and won because of their promise to stand up to the president — must challenge the establishment and demand a say over the agenda. An overwhelming majority of people in this country elected them to hold this president accountable. There is no majority without them.... Democrats must stand up for the safety of the American people and our entire democratic system."

Writes the billionaire Tom Steyer in the NYT, in "Why Democrats Must Impeach the President/They won the House by promising to hold Trump accountable."

The most-liked comment at the Times is: "Moving too fast on any of this will play right into Trump's hands. He thrives on exactly this. Don't immediately give him the power to accuse Democrats of overreach. This all seems like bad advice."

It's such patently bad advice that I wonder why the NYT wanted to print it. It gives energy to the "freshmen members" who are going to demand overreaching. And speaking of playing right into Trump's hands, Trump has been talking about wanting a new, softer tone and working together with Democrats to get things done. They shouldn't make it easy for him to say he tried and they wouldn't have it. The main argument against Trump has always been that he seems too wild and weird. To counter that, Democrats just need to be calm and normal. But that's exactly what Steyer is railing against.