That Poll-Asked Look, Con't

The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll has Trump up by nine, and while that's a major outlier, the fact is the GOP plan to impeach Biden while Trump burns down everything to martyr himself over his four trials. It may be working.

 

President Joe Biden's job approval rating is 19 points underwater, his ratings for handling the economy and immigration are at career lows. A record number of Americans say they've become worse off under his presidency, three-quarters say he's too old for another term and Donald Trump is looking better in retrospect -- all severe challenges for Biden in his reelection campaign ahead.

Forty-four percent of Americans in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say they've gotten worse off financially under Biden's presidency, the most for any president in ABC/Post polls since 1986. Just 37% approve of his job performance, while 56% disapprove. Still fewer approve of Biden's performance on the economy, 30%.

On handling immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, Biden's rating is even lower, with 23% approval. In terms of intensity of sentiment, 20% strongly approve of his work overall, while 45% strongly disapprove. And the 74% who say he's too old for a second term is up 6 percentage points since May. Views that Trump is too old also are up, but to 50% in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates.

Such is down-on-Biden sentiment that if a government shutdown occurs at month's end, 40% say they'd chiefly blame him and the Democrats in Congress, versus 33% who'd pin it on the Republicans in Congress -- even given the GOP infighting behind the budget impasse.

 

Yeah, that's right, Biden will get the blame if the government shuts down. I almost have to ask if the poll took place in a GOP party meeting at this point, but if any of this is remotely true, we're going to give this country away to the fascists because ground beef is $5 instead of $4 a pound.

The crosstabs are...not good. 74% of Americans think the economy is bad, with 87% angry about gas prices and 91% thinking food prices are bad. Hell, at this point a clear majority is upset about the unemployment rate being lower than it was under Trump, 57%. 

 

Some 29% of Americans believe Joe Biden stole the election anyway. Only 60% believe he won legitimately, and the big one, only a third of Dems would back Biden for a second term. That's been true for over a year now.

 

On the other hand, this weekend's NBC News poll finds Trump and Biden tied. 

Looking ahead to the 2024 general election, the NBC News poll shows Biden and Trump tied in a hypothetical contest among registered voters, 46% to 46%.

In June, Biden held a 4-point lead over Trump, 49% to 45%.

According to the new poll, Biden is ahead of Trump among Black voters (76% to 14%), voters between the ages of 18 and 34 (57% to 34%), whites with college degrees (56% to 34%), Latinos (51% to 39%) and women (51% to 41%).

Trump is ahead among rural voters (67% to 31%), men (51% to 40%) white voters (51% to 41%) and whites without college degree (63% to 32%).

Among independents, Biden gets 42%, while Trump gets 35%.

Notably, Biden leads Trump by 18 points among those who “somewhat disapprove” of the president’s job performance (49% to 31%). And nearly 1 in 5 registered voters who say they have concerns about Biden’s age still vote for him over Trump.

In other hypothetical matchups, Biden holds a 1-point lead over DeSantis, 46% to 45%, well within the poll’s margin of error. 

The other good news in that poll, a solid majority oppose the impeachment inquiry against President Biden and it's not even close, 56%-39% against.

The bad news is that given third party candidates, Trump pulls ahead.

In a multi-candidate field including third parties, Trump gets 39% from registered voters, Biden gets 36%, an unnamed Libertarian Party nominee gets 5%, an unnamed No Labels candidate gets 5% and an unnamed Green Party candidate gets 4%.

 

So yes, third party spoilers are just that, and while I don't expect any third party candidate to get more than 1 or 2 percent nationally, it would be enough to throw the election to Trump.

Still, between that Washington Post poll and columnist David Ignatius calling for Biden and Harris to step aside for 2024, you'd be forgiven if you thought the Post had it in for Biden in order to cover a competitive open primary, which the GOP is most certainly not.

Vote Like Your Country Depends On It, Con't

Vice President Kamala Harris is leading the charge for the Democrats getting out the vote in 2024 with a college tour starting next week in Virginia.

 

Vice President Kamala Harris will soon be hitting the road for a monthlong college tour, traveling to more than a dozen campuses across eight states. The trip underscores both the value Democrats are placing on younger voters and the more forceful role Harris is seeking to play on key issues like abortion access ahead of the 2024 election, after weathering two years of scrutiny and low approval ratings.

The vice president's "Fight for our Freedoms College Tour" begins on Sept. 14 at Hampton University in Virginia. It will focus heavily on mobilizing young voters -- some of whom have expressed less than favorable views of President Joe Biden -- in states including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Wisconsin and Virginia, with additional campus visits and details to come.

News of the tour, first reported by ABC News, comes as students return to school for the fall semester.

Young voters proved to be a key constituency for Democrats, boosting candidates in the last midterm and presidential election cycles. In 2020, for example, Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia in nearly 30 years -- with voters younger than 30 accounting for 21% of the returns, up from 15% in 2016 and backing Biden by more than 10 points, according to exit polls.

This year, however, Biden has faced low favorability marks from younger voters, according to ABC News/Ipsos polling.

In her tour, Harris is expected to visit a broad range of campuses, from four-year state schools to community colleges, technical colleges, apprenticeship programs and historically black colleges and universities, or HBCUs.

"This generation is critical to the urgent issues that are at stake right now for our future," Harris said in a statement.

"It is young leaders throughout America who know what the solutions look like and are organizing in their communities to make them a reality," she added. "My message to students is clear: We are counting on you, we need you, you are everything."

As vice president, Harris has more recently been leading the administration's work on reproductive rights, reducing gun violence, addressing climate change and voting access -- issues that advisers expect to be central to her message as she meets with the students across the country.

 

This is a very, very smart move by the Dems here to tap VP Harris as the face of their college GOTV efforts, and especially making sure that tour is going to HBCUs like Hampton U.

There's a reason why red states are doing everything they can to keep college kids from voting at all.

Last Call For The GOP Circus Of The Damned

As Greg Sargent points out at the Washington Post, there's a lot of damage that House Oversight Committee chair Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio can attempt to inflict on the espionage Act case against Donald Trump.

 

First, he can harass the prosecution by casting a wide net for documents. On Friday, he sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding internal communications about the FBI decision to search Mar-a-Lago, apparently untroubled by the indictment’s striking allegation that Trump hid reams of documents from his own lawyer before the search.

The Justice Department will most likely respond that divulging sensitive information related to ongoing investigations and prosecutions is against department policy, as it did to a similar GOP demand earlier this year. Whereupon Jordan’s committee will probably issue a subpoena, which the department will most likely fight.

Then what? Presumably the House will come under pressure to hold Garland in contempt. But would that pass? Does House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) really want Republicans representing districts that President Biden carried in 2020 to vote for such a naked effort to derail an apparently damning prosecution? Moderate Senate Republicans have been muted, a possible tell about where their House counterparts will land.

If the case against Trump keeps marching forward and Jordan’s antics produce little, it’s plausible that MAGA Republicans could demand the threat of a government shutdown to defund or otherwise hobble the prosecution.

Republicans could theoretically try to add an amendment to that effect to one of this fall’s spending bills, says Brookings Institution scholar Sarah A. Binder. But it would probably lack the votes to pass the House. “I’m highly skeptical such a move would succeed,” Binder told me.

Of course, Republicans can employ all these moves merely to spin up a miasma of generalized corruption around the prosecution.

“They’re going to want to sabotage the credibility of the case in the minds of the jurors,” Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, told me. Swalwell suggested that the goal is a “cloud over the case” and a jury “tainted in favor of Donald Trump.”

In this, Jordan can count on the right-wing media, which will treat any and all bits of information he generates about the prosecution as damning proof of its irredeemable corruption. These sources are already smearing the indictment with deranged conspiracy theories.

To be clear, congressional oversight of law enforcement is an essential component of the rule of law. Republicans could theoretically conduct this in good faith and possibly produce genuine evidence of prosecutorial misconduct.

But Jordan’s track record is awful. He has relied on FBI “whistleblowers” who peddle conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. He has issued subpoenas designed to persuade conservative parents to feel like FBI targets when they aren’t. He has harassed academics who study disinformation to pretend that conservatives are being silenced.

Above all, Jordan’s committee seems devoted to creating the impression that he is striking great blows against the Biden administration on behalf of MAGA nation and its persecuted masses, and especially on behalf of Trump himself.

But if the prosecution of Trump advances, MAGA Republicans might demand not performative strikes but real results. If so, the GOP split will deepen between those who want to go through the motions of defending Trump without aligning themselves too firmly against the rule of law, and those who want the House to treat the fantasy of Trump’s persecution as a genuine MAGA emergency, and act accordingly.

 

Between Jordan and Judge Aileen Cannon, the case is going to take a brutal battering before it even can be tried. As it is, the MAGA response for the events of the last few days is to file impeachment articles (again!) against both President Biden and VP Harris.

This has a long way to go, but the GOP is going to be trying to wreck this every chance they can.

Last Call For Documenting Both Sides

With news that a voluntary Justice Department search of President Biden's Delaware residence turned up more classified documents from when Biden was a Delaware senator, the effort to paint Biden's full cooperation as worse than Trump's year-plus long cavalcade of lies, mistruths, and efforts to illegally keep hundreds of documents is underway in our "liberal" press, and the latest polling is showing that it's working as intended.

Strong majorities of Americans believe that both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump acted inappropriately when it came to their handling of classified documents, but in weighing their severity, a plurality of the public believes Trump's actions were more serious, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds.

Over three-quarters of the public, 77%, feel that Trump acted inappropriately in the way he handled classified files, while 64%, say the same of Biden. Condemnation expectedly aligns along party lines, with 96% of Democrats saying that Trump's handling of classified documents was not appropriate compared to 47% of Republicans.

More than eight in 10 independents (83%), believe that Trump's behavior was inappropriate, per the ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted using Ipsos' KnowledgePanel.

Reaction to Biden's actions on this matter similarly varies by party, with 89% of Republicans saying that Biden's handling of classified documents was not appropriate compared to 38% of Democrats and two-thirds of independents (66%).

Both Biden and Trump are under heavy scrutiny due to the discovery of classified files located amid personal items or in unsecured facilities, instead of housed at the National Archives where they belong, though there are key differences in each case.

Earlier this month, reports revealed that a small number of such documents were found in November at an office Biden kept in Washington, D.C. More documents have since been found in his Wilmington, Delaware, home.

The White House maintains that aides immediately contacted the Archives upon learning of the Biden documents and are cooperating fully with the Department of Justice. Trump, on the other hand, faces allegations from the DOJ of obstruction of justice, after his team allegedly left out key details and made multiple unfounded or false claims with investigators during initial efforts to retrieve classified documents stored in his Mar-a-Lago home.

Both now face special counsel investigations appointed by the Justice Department.

The poll was conducted before the Saturday revelation that DOJ investigators found additional classified documents after a consensual FBI search of Biden's Delaware home.

 

As a result, the Villagers have already declared Biden's 2024 run dead and buried, and are openly speculating on whether or not That Horrible Cackling Bitch Kamala Harris™ will even bother to run.

 

Republicans seem to think this is a plot to force Biden out of office and are counting the days before his resignation...after his inevitable impeachment.

A lot of people have decided that Biden and Harris are done.

I'm not one of them, of course. Biden followed the law.

Trump still hasn't.

That's the difference.

 

Last Call For Biden, Still Ridin'

Joey Aviators is the Big Eight Oh today.

Join us in wishing President @JoeBiden a happy birthday! 😎 pic.twitter.com/GCswAnfE4q

— The Democrats (@TheDemocrats) November 20, 2022

 

Biden is the oldest President in US history, however you want to think about that.

People in their 80s lead countries, create majestic art and perform feats of endurance. One entered the record books for scaling Mount Everest. It’s soon time for Joe Biden, 80 on Sunday, to decide whether he has one more mountain to climb — the one to a second term as president.

Questions swirl now, in his own party as well as broadly in the country, about whether he’s got what it takes to go for the summit again.

The oldest president in U.S. history, Biden hits his milestone birthday at a personal crossroads as he and his family face a decision in the coming months on whether he should announce for reelection. He’d be 86 at the end of a potential second term.

Biden aides and allies all say he intends to run — and his team has begun quiet preparations for a campaign — but it has often been the president himself who has sounded the most equivocal. “My intention is that I run again,” he said at a news conference this month. ”But I’m a great respecter of fate.”

“We’re going to have discussions about it,” he said. Aides expect those conversations to pick up in earnest over Thanksgiving and Christmas, with a decision not until well after New Year’s.

Biden planned to celebrate his birthday at a family brunch in the White House on Sunday.

 

It's up to other Democrats to make the case that Biden, or if he does decline, the first female VP in history, Kamala Harris, shouldn't be the standard-bearer in 2024. And so far, I've seen absolutely nothing compelling in that regard.

Nothing. Even if you believe Biden is too old, Harris is the veep, and we beat Trump with that ticket, handily. Stop pretending the Democrats didn't have the best midterm defense in decades under them, either. If they are so very unpopular, why, if it wasn't for Supreme Court interference in gerrymandering in Southern states, did we keep the Senate and almost retained the House?

Let's remember who the real enemy is here.  It's not Joe.

Indepen-Dunce Week: We're The Kids In America

The big question in November is if the record number of voters under 30 that powered Democrats to wins in 2018 and 2020 will bother even showing up in 2022, and they demand that Biden and the Democratic leadership be as passionate about defending abortion rights as they are, or else they will stay home and the country over to the GOP.

A debate is raging inside the Democratic Party about whether it’s giving its base — especially those under 30, the generation that most strongly supports abortion rights — enough motivation to keep voting for the party, as federal Democrats struggle to meaningfully push back against the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

The fear is that an already deflated Democratic base won’t show up in November, particularly the youngest voters, who smashed participation records in the last two elections and backed President Joe Biden by a 25-point margin in 2020. Some Democrats stress that the Biden administration and Congress need to do more to show their rage — and willingness to take significant action — to mirror the passion seen among young people, three-quarters of whom support abortion being generally legal.

“There’s a fine line between the recent events pushing someone to never vote again or pushing someone to vote with that righteous anger and bring friends with them,” said Maxwell Frost, a 25-year-old Democrat who is running for a Florida congressional seat. “It’s up to our leaders to decide which direction that’s going to go in. When they show they’re in the fight, using all the resources to fight for the most vulnerable in our community … but we need more right now.”

That sentiment was echoed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who tweeted that Democrats “cannot make promises, hector people to vote, and then refuse to use our full power,” ticking through a list of potential actions the party could take, including moving to expand the Supreme Court, opening abortion clinics on federal lands and repealing the Hyde Amendment.

Days later, Vice President Kamala Harris pushed back on that frustration in front of a room full of donors, defending Biden’s urging to vote in November: “I know some people are saying, ‘stop talking to us about the elections. We know.’ Don’t trivialize the significance. We can’t afford to,” because Democrats’ margins in Congress are razor-thin.

A big step in defusing the disagreement came when Biden confirmed last week that he would support a carveout to the Senate filibuster rules in order to codify in federal law the same access to abortion that was previously protected by Roe v. Wade. That move was a “step in the right direction,” said Carmel Pryor, senior communications director of the Alliance for Youth Action.

“However, ensuring momentum in the fight for control of Congress requires more action,” Pryor continued. “There’s a lot of talk about Roe strengthening the multigenerational coalition and, sure, there’s potential, but we need to see action taken now. This is an emergency that can’t wait until November.”

To be clear, the chances of a filibuster exception actually coming to pass are slim. Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) both indicated they don’t plan on backing such a carveout.

Even so, Democrats said this kind of “political theater” is what voters, especially Gen Z, need to see to “value signal” that they’re “willing to fight for them,” said Terrance Woodbury, a Democratic pollster. He cited Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s effort to bus migrants from the Texas border to Washington, D.C., in the absence of federal action on immigration, calling it an example of a vivid action that effectively riles up the Republican base. Democrats, Woodbury continued, could be considering their own version of such attention-grabbing actions now.

“Can you imagine seeing hundreds of mobile clinics deployed from Washington to [the] states?” Woodbury added.

Chuck Rocha, a Democratic strategist who focuses on Latino voters, a demographic group that skews far younger than most racial groups, echoed those concerns, noting that he’s “found in focus groups that just saying, ‘[I’m] fighting for it,’ is not enough any more.”

“They are tired of us saying, ‘we’re fighting,’ but not delivering shit. What can you do tangibly to make a difference to do something about this?” Rocha continued. “We are good at bringing a policy book to a fist fight, and I worry about young people not showing up to vote because of it.”

 

If there is anything that the "DO SOMETHING" kids have learned from the GOP, it's that those who are willing to burn down the country in order to play the long game usually end up winning, no matter how many folks get hurt in the process. If you're 25, you figure you have time to wait out the 70+ something Dem leadership and the 70+ something Republicans and then take over when they're gone.

They figure they have time for a 20+ year fight on civil rights, abortion, and climate change, but sacrifices have to me made. The article basically asks if these kids are already so cynical that they're willing to let the GOP go literally scorched earth for the rest of the decade, and then try to fight them when they can gather a coalition of survivors.

It sure looks like it. If AOC's performative, legislation-free approach is what under-30 voters demand, and that they won't lift a finger otherwise at the voting booth, then maybe it's time for a dog and pony show to rally the troops.

If everything Biden tries from an executive order standpoint is immediately shot down by the Roberts Court, and it will be, the Biden White House still has to, you know, try, is the argument.

Is it better to go down swinging, even if you keep hitting foul balls into the crowd and take a few folks in the crowd out and that's the best you can hope for?

I don't know. All I know is I still plan on voting, in a red state without abortion, in order to try to change things. Maybe that's the real foul ball analogy, swinging in the vain hope you connect and hit a home run, but at long as I get a chance at the plate every November, I'm taking it.

Last Call For Black Lives Still Matter, Con't

VP Kamala Harris visited the African American History Museum in Washington DC today, surprising a class of students as America observed our first federal holiday for Juneteenth.

Children and their families greeted Harris, the first Black woman to serve as the nation's second-highest executive, with cheers as she entered the room.

"Happy Juneteenth, young leaders," a smiling Harris told the children.

Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when enslaved African Americans in Galveston, Texas, were the last to learn President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation two years earlier, freeing them from slavery. The date achieved federal holiday status last June, when President Joe Biden signed into law the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act.

"Today is a day to celebrate the principle of freedom," Harris told the children ages 4 to 10, "and think about it in terms of the context of history, knowing that Black people in America were not free for 400 years of slavery, but then at the end of slavery -- right? ... when the Emancipation Proclamation happened, that America had to really think about defining freedom ..."

"I would argue, it is our God-given right to have freedom," she added. "It is your birthright to have freedom, and then during slavery freedom was taken. And so we're not going to celebrate being given back what God gave us anyway" as the group voiced agreement, one person saying, "Amen."

She continued, "let this be a day that is a day to celebrate the principle of freedom, but to speak about it honestly and accurately, both in the context of history, and current application. That's what I'm thinking about today."

 

Republicans in several states of course have made laws where students and teachers actually did "speak about it honestly and accurately" about Juneteenth and its accompanying history "both in the context of history, and current application" the teacher would immediately be fired or worse.

 

It's no coincidence that she said this.

 

Black Lives Still Matter.

 

 

Last Call For Ending The Fed's Blackout

The first Black woman to serve on the Federal Reserve Board will be Biden nominee Lisa Cook, a Michigan State economist, after Kamala Harris broke the tie in a 50-50 Senate vote where of course, just as with Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, every single Republican voted against the extremely qualified Black woman.

The economist Lisa Cook was confirmed Tuesday as the first Black woman on the Federal Reserve Board in a historic moment for the central bank as it tries to stabilize a recovery that serves all Americans.

Cook was confirmed by a 51-to-50 vote in the Senate, with Vice President Harris casting the tiebreaking vote. No Republicans voted for Cook, and Democrats, who hold a razor-thin majority, had delayed moving forward on her nomination until they could assemble all 50 of their members to back her.

Cook is among the country’s preeminent economists and teaches at Michigan State University. Her research has focused on macroeconomics, economic history, international finance and innovation, particularly on how hate-related violence has harmed U.S. economic growth. Her work has analyzed how patent records show that the riots, lynchings and Jim Crow laws that targeted African American communities in the late 1800s and early 1900s hurt Black people’s ability to pursue inventions and discoveries at the time.

“If there is something that impedes the rate of arrival of ideas, you’re going to slow down the economy,” Cook said on the “Planet Money” podcast in 2020. “It’s not just for that period. And it’s not just for Black people. This is a cautionary tale for all economies.”

Cook also worked on the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers during the Obama administration and has held visiting appointments at the National Bureau of Economic Research, the University of Michigan and the Federal Reserve Banks of New York, Chicago, Minneapolis and Philadelphia.

President Biden has sought to assemble the most diverse Fed board in the agency’s 108-year history. And Fed experts say the package of nominees the White House recently named goes a long way toward fulfilling Biden’s promise to make the Fed more reflective of the country it serves.

 

Republicans lost their shit over this, to the point where Mitch McConnell held a press conference and  warned President Biden that he should pull Cook's nomination as a Black woman on the Federal Reserve or else. Republicans were able to stall the vote for three months, in fact.

But it's Cook's historic macroeconomics work on the billions lost through racism that Republicans can never tolerate. It's too bad though, Cook will be on the Fed anyway.

Biden did that.

A Hail Mary For Voting RIghts

With voting rights legislation facing a tough, if not impossible vote this week in the Senate, Democrats are considering a Hail Mary pass to try to save the bill from GOP destruction.

Senate Democrats are scrambling for a Plan B to pass voting rights legislation after Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) announced last week that they would not vote to change the Senate’s filibuster rule despite the pleading of President Biden.

Now some Democrats are discussing a novel approach to circumventing a Republican filibuster that may allow voting rights legislation to pass with 51 votes without changing the Senate’s rules.

These Democrats, including Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), are exploring the possibility of forcing Senate Republicans to actually hold the floor with speeches and procedural motions.

They hope that the Republican opposition may tire itself out after a few days or weeks and that Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) may be able to then call for a simple-majority vote on final passage and skip the formal procedural vote — known as cloture — on ending debate.

"There are a couple of paths here. Do we go down the path and do a long debate until it's done and then have a simple debate?" Kaine told reporters last week.

"We wouldn't need a rules change to pass the bill by simple majority if the debate is over. Theoretically, you do not need a rules change to pass a bill that's on the floor, you just have to allow debate to occur," he added.

The strategy has gained more attention from Senate Democrats in recent days as it’s become crystal clear that Sinema and Manchin won’t vote for a more straightforward rules change to lowering the procedural threshold for ending a filibuster from 60 votes to 50.

A second Democratic senator confirmed that colleagues are reviewing the idea of forcing Republicans to stage a talking filibuster to block voting rights legislation.

“We’ve discussed it,” said the lawmaker, who explained that if Republicans don’t occupy the floor with speeches and procedural motions, voting rights legislation should be allowed to come up for final passage under the Senate’s rules.

The problem with this approach, according to Democrats familiar with the discussion, is that it hasn’t been attempted in decades and no one is quite sure how it would play out procedurally.

Cloture votes to end debate in the Senate have become so routine that it’s become second nature to expect the floor is being tied up in debate when a controversial bill is pending.

More often, the floor is usually empty or has only a few members milling about while the clerk reads off the roll of senators’ names during a quorum call.

James Wallner, a former Senate Republican aide and expert on Senate procedure, says that Democrats could pass voting rights legislation with a simple-majority vote if they’re willing to put up with a lengthy battle on the floor.

“Democrats don’t need 60 votes at all. They’re in 51-vote territory. They can move to table any amendments that Republicans offer to the bill,” he said.

 

The two problems are of course "would the Dems be able to outlast the GOP on this?" and "WHo would be the 51st vote". The second question has an answer at least: VP Kamala Harris, who would have to be on hand for the entire battle.

 

But can the Dems pull this off? I don't know. I do know that right now, the bill is 100% doomed.

 

It's worth a shot.

Ridin' Over Biden

President Biden will be in Georgia today to announce he's backing Chuck Schumer's plan to eliminate the filibuster for voting rights legislation, but the reality is that voting rights activists in the state simply don't give a single damn about what Biden has to say on the subject anymore.

SO MUCH FOR UNITY — Democratic leaders hoped to spend the week before Martin Luther King Jr. Day presenting a united front for voting rights legislation and blasting Republicans as undemocratic.

So much for that.

Multiple high-profile voting rights leaders are planning to skip President JOE BIDEN’s speech on the matter in Atlanta today, dismissing the address as too little too late. “We’re beyond speeches. We’re beyond events,” said LATOSHA BROWN, the leader of Black Voters Matter. (h/t Sam Gringlas from NPR’s Atlanta bureau)

“We do not need any more speeches, we don’t need any more platitudes,” former NAACP of Georgia President JAMES WOODALL told NYT’s Nick Corasaniti and Reid Epstein. “We don’t need any more photo ops. We need action, and that actually is in the form of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, as well as the Freedom to Vote Act — and we need that immediately.”

STACEY ABRAMS won’t be there either, citing a scheduling conflict.

At the same time, Democrats are facing growing doubts within their own ranks about nixing the filibuster to pass the voting bills. Burgess Everett reports that Sen. MARK KELLY (D-Ariz.) is undecided on what to do while Sen. JON TESTER (D-Mont.) admits he’s not crazy about a filibuster “carveout.” That’s aside from Sens. JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.) and KYRSTEN SINEMA’s (D-Ariz.) long-stated opposition.

WHAT BIDEN WILL SAY TODAY — Look for him to crank up the heat on the party’s voting push, calling the next few days “a turning point in this nation,” and posing a question: “Will we choose democracy over autocracy, light over shadow, justice over injustice?”

“I know where I stand,” Biden will say, according to a preview shared with Playbook. “I will not yield. I will not flinch. I will defend your right to vote and our democracy against all enemies foreign and domestic. And so the question is where will the institution of [the] United States Senate stand?”

Biden, whose support for the filibuster has softened since taking office, is also expected to reiterate that he backs “changing the Senate rules to ensure it can work again … Because abuse of what was once a rarely used mechanism that is not in the Constitution has injured the body enormously, and its use to protect extreme attacks on the most basic constitutional right is abhorrent.”

A White House aide says Biden will again invoke Jan. 6 and will “describe this as one of the rare moments in a country’s history when time stops and the essential is immediately ripped away from the trivial, and that we have to ensure Jan. 6 doesn’t mark the end of democracy but the beginning of a renaissance for our democracy.”

I don't see how treating Biden like garbage helps advance voting rights. I seriously thought Stacey Abrams had better judgment than to dismiss Biden with a "scheduling conflict" when she's sure as hell going to need him later this year for her campaign rallies for Governor. 

But apparently we're right back to 2010 when "Obama failed us" after passing historic legislation.

I absolutely understand the frustration and anger. But as Jonathan Capehart points out, the actual villain remains Mitch McConnell and the other 49 GOP senators blocking any and all voting rights legislation.

The reality though is that for all the righteous anger in the country, Schumer doesn't have the votes to change the rules. There are still Democrats who refuse to play ball, and it's not just Manchin and Sinema, but Kelly and Tester and even Jeanne Shaheen.

That's not Biden's failure, but it is a failure of the Democrats.

It might be the bridge too far this time. Capehart reminds us that we still have the vote in 2022 to punish Republicans across the country, but most Americans don't care to do so, or they outright support the GOP.

As I keep telling people, the Civil Rights era was an aberration of American history, and that era is now almost certainly over.

Insurrection Investigation, Con't

A year after the January 6th insurrection, we have to remember that not only was the attack on the US Capitol building going on, but that there were multiple pipe bombs found in Washington DC that day as well. We still don;t know who was behind the attempted bombings, but we now know that one of the potential victims was VP Harris herself.

Then-Vice President-elect Kamala Harris was inside Democratic National Committee headquarters on Jan. 6, 2021, when a pipe bomb was discovered outside the building, according to four people familiar with her movements that day.

Capitol Police began investigating the pipe bomb at 1:07 p.m., according to an official Capitol Police timeline of events obtained by POLITICO. The timeline says that Capitol Police and the Secret Service evacuated an unnamed “protectee” at approximately 1:14 p.m, seven minutes later. The four people, among them a White House official and a former law enforcement official, confirmed that Harris was the Secret Service protectee identified in the timeline, which has circulated on Capitol Hill.

Harris’ presence inside the building while a bomb was right outside raises sobering questions about her security that day. It also raises the chilling prospect that the riots could have been far more destructive than they already were, with the incoming vice president's life directly endangered. Federal law enforcement officials have faced harsh criticism for failing to anticipate the chaotic scene around the Electoral College certification one year ago, despite receiving a host of warnings about possible chaos.

The DNC bomb threat was neutralized at 4:36 p.m., according to the timeline. Another pipe bomb discovered at the RNC was neutralized at 3:33 p.m. No suspects have been arrested so far in relation to the bombs.

The FBI has described both bombs as “viable” and said they “could have been detonated, resulting in serious injury or death.” Authorities say both bombs were placed by a single suspect the night before the Capitol attack. The RNC bomb was placed in an alley behind the building, and the DNC bomb was placed near a park bench. The FBI recently issued a new call for help seeking the suspected pipe bomber, who was captured on video in the vicinity of the DNC and RNC buildings.

Harris’ DNC evacuation on Jan. 6, as authorities raced to respond to the bomb threat, has not been previously reported. She occasionally used party headquarters to conduct nongovernment business as the vice presidential nominee and later in advance of the Jan. 20, 2021, inauguration — a standard practice for elected officials in both parties. Aides had previously declined to reveal her location during the attack, citing security reasons.

Harris alluded to her absence from the Capitol during the breach as she delivered televised remarks Thursday, though she was cryptic about her location.

“I had left, but my thoughts immediately turned not only to my colleagues, but to my staff who had been forced to seek refuge in our office, converting filing cabinets into barricades,” she said.

 

So the timeline of the investigation now includes the fact that if the viable bomb had been detonated when VP Harris was nearby, it could have been lethal.

It would have been an assassination.

All of the January 6th criminals have to be brought to justice, including the masterminds like Trump. But that also means the identity of the pipe bomber has to be discovered, and the person has to face justice as well.

Kamala Chameleon

It's hard enough trying to cat herd all the Dems in one direction these days, but the one thing that all Democrats seem to agree on is that Kamala Harris is somehow a "major problem".

Worn out by what they see as entrenched dysfunction and lack of focus, key West Wing aides have largely thrown up their hands at Vice President Kamala Harris and her staff -- deciding there simply isn't time to deal with them right now, especially at a moment when President Joe Biden faces quickly multiplying legislative and political concerns. 

The exasperation runs both ways. Interviews with nearly three dozen former and current Harris aides, administration officials, Democratic operatives, donors and outside advisers -- who spoke extensively to CNN -- reveal a complex reality inside the White House. Many in the vice president's circle fume that she's not being adequately prepared or positioned, and instead is being sidelined. The vice president herself has told several confidants she feels constrained in what she's able to do politically. And those around her remain wary of even hinting at future political ambitions, with Biden's team highly attuned to signs of disloyalty, particularly from the vice president. 

She's a heartbeat away from the presidency now. She could be just a year away from launching a presidential campaign of her own, given doubts throughout the political world that Biden will actually go through with a reelection bid in 2024, something he's pledged to do publicly and privately. Or she'll be a critical validator in three years for a President trying to get the country to reelect him to serve until he's 86. 

Few of the insiders who spoke with CNN think she's being well-prepared for whichever role it will be. Harris is struggling with a rocky relationship with some parts of the White House, while long-time supporters feel abandoned and see no coherent public sense of what she's done or been trying to do as vice president. Being the first woman, and first woman of color, in national elected office is historic but has also come with outsized scrutiny and no forgiveness for even small errors, as she'll often point out. 

Defenders and people who care for Harris are getting frantic. When they're annoyed, some pass around a recent Onion story mocking her lack of more substantive work, one with the headline, "White House Urges Kamala Harris To Sit At Computer All Day In Case Emails Come Through." When they're depressed, they bat down the Aaron Sorkin-style rumor that Biden might try to replace her by nominating her to a Supreme Court vacancy. That chatter has already reached top levels of the Biden orbit, according to one person who's heard it. 

She's perceived to be in such a weak position that top Democrats in and outside of Washington have begun to speculate privately, asking each other why the White House has allowed her to become so hobbled in the public consciousness, at least as they see it. 

"She's very honored and very proud to be vice president of the United States. Her job as the No. 2 is to be helpful and supportive to the President and to take on work that he asks her to take on," said Eleni Kounalakis, the lieutenant governor of California and a longtime friend. Kounalakis spoke with the vice president last Monday morning before Harris departed for a diplomatic mission to France. 

"It is natural that those of us who know her know how much more helpful she can be than she is currently being asked to be," Kounalakis said. "That's where the frustration is coming from." 

An incumbent vice president should be a shoo-in the next time the party's presidential nomination is open. But guessing who might launch a theoretical primary challenge to Harris has become an ongoing insider parlor game. Other politicians with their own presidential ambitions have started privately acknowledging that they are trying to figure out how to quietly lay the groundwork to run if and when Harris falters, as they think she might.

 

I'd say all this is CNN slander against the first Black woman veep, but as J. Jonah Jameson reminds us in the first Spider-Man film on the subject of slander, "It is not. I resent that. Slander is spoken. In print, it's libel."

 

The knives are definitely out for Harris, and in an America that treated Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as badly as they did, here in 2021 Harris is getting the worst of both. Everyone it seems wants to dunk on her, and while Joe Biden could actually put a stop to it among Democrats, apparently he doesn't want to right now.

I shouldn't be surprised by this. Nobody should. This is what happens to Black women with even a modicum of power, they are dismantled and destroyed, their careers ended. We've seen it time and time again, because it's so easy to do in order to clear the decks for others to come in, corporate, entertainment, political. Every time.

And I will do my best to every time call it out.

Last Call For Winning The Popularity Contest

Right-wingers are ripping their hair out over TIME Magazine's 100 Most Influential People for 2021. Sure, Trump and Tucker are on the list, but so are Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Stacey Abrams, and Nikole Hannah-Jones, author of the 1619 Project as director Barry Jenkins explains.

Nikole Hannah-Jones is larger than life. She must be, for how else can one describe a journalist who catalyzes the debate over how a nation teaches its history?

This may be the sum effect of Nikole’s greatest work—The 1619 Project, an analysis of the legacy of slavery in the U.S.—but it is certainly not the sum of her. The journalist from Waterloo, Iowa, contains multitudes. She is the most emphatic laugh, the consummate ally, the staunchest critic. On Twitter, she is Ida Bae Wells, an allusion to her most direct antecedent, the trailblazing journalist Ida B. Wells. In 1892, Ms. Wells spoke across millennia of Ms. Hannah-Jones when she said, “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.”

The light Nikole wields is titanic, a blinding beam that illuminates and scorches. In her light, the wounds of America’s original and subsequent sins are laid bare. With her light, the serrated flesh of this country’s past is both subject and predicate, a light wielded to both identify wounds and cauterize flesh.

In considering Nikole, my mind drifts to images of James Baldwin and Nina Simone smoking and smiling in an overly bright den. My mind goes here because like Nikole, Mr. Baldwin and Ms. Simone also wielded light and made plain a truth Nikole has lived—in shining her powerful and painful light in the preservation of Blackness, this wonderful woman is proof and testament to the unshakable spirit of Blackness.

 

In fact, there are an awful lot of Black folks on the list this year, Simone Biles, Meghan Markle, Naomi Osaka, Ben Crump, N.K. Jemisin, Sherrilyn Ifill, Shonda Rhimes, Tracee Ellis Roo, Lil Nas X, and more.

I'm glad to see things looking up.

Last Call For The Rights Thing To Try

Vice President Kamala Harris is making a final push to bring Republican senators on board with voting rights legislation, and while I understand the sentiment, I don't understand why anyone believes a single Republican in Congress will vote for anything involving voting rights that doesn't also include disenfranchising an equal amount of Black, brown, and Asian voters.

Vice President Kamala Harris says she is speaking with Republican senators on a key piece of voting legislation. During a phone interview with CBS News, the vice president said there is "no bright line" defining whom she speaks to about voting rights legislation. She said it's "a non-partisan issue" and "should be approached that way."

In response to a question about whether she had spoken with any GOP senators about S. 1, the sweeping voting rights bill that has been blocked in the Senate, she replied, "I have spoken to Republican senators — both elected Republicans and Republican leaders," Harris said, and she identified one GOP senator.

"I've talked with [Senator Lisa] Murkowski about this issue," Harris said.

Harris' office later clarified that the two had discussed infrastructure, not voting rights. A spokesperson for Murkowski did not respond to a request for comment.

S. 1 is not a bill that Murkowski favors — she has previously called the For the People Act a "partisan, federal takeover of the election system."

The Alaska senator is the co-sponsor of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which would essentially restore a portion of the act struck down by the Supreme Court. This bill also faces GOP opposition and has not yet been introduced, but the White House has expressed support for this legislation, too.

 

Oh, never mind, it's one GOP senator, Murkowski, and she won't vote for it. 

I guess we can keep wasting time with this, or go for reconciliation, which was always going to be the answer.

It's About Suppression, Con't

Texas Democrats are headed to DC to speak with President Biden, Vice President Harris, and Democratic senators as they fight tooth and nail to keep Texas Republicans from passing not just voter suppression laws, but election nullification laws.

 

Texas Democrats who killed a Republican elections bill with a dramatic state legislative walkout last month are heading to Washington this week to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris and pressure lawmakers on voting rights — part of a week of action that culminates in an Austin rally hosted by former Rep. Beto O’Rourke.

The push comes with Democrats’ expansive federal voting rights legislation on life support after Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said he’ll vote against it. Texas Democrats had previously called on their counterparts in Washington to pass the bill as a means of pushing back against restrictive voting laws being passed in many states. Manchin and other Senate Democrats have also voiced opposition to changing the Senate filibuster rules, which would be an obstacle for other voting rights bills.

The Texas legislators are expected to be on Capitol Hill on Tuesday for meetings with lawmakers from both chambers. It isn’t clear if that group of lawmakers will include Manchin or Sen. Krysten Sinema (D-Ariz.), another senator opposed to changing the filibuster. A person familiar with the Texas Democrats’ plans said neither senator was on the schedule as of Sunday, but they were trying to set up meetings. Manchin and Sinema’s offices did not respond to requests for comment on Sunday.

The Democratic state lawmakers are set to hold meetings with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who chairs the Senate committee with jurisdiction over the “For the People Act” and other elections-related legislation; and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), the lead sponsor of the Senate version of the bill. They’re also slated to meet with staffers for Texas’ two Republican senators, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn.

“I think it is important for senators to hear real world stories that are happening in states like Texas,” said state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, one of the Texas Democrats making the trip to Washington. “The discrimination we’re talking about is not accidental discrimination. We’re talking about purposeful and intentional discrimination.”

The group will also meet on Wednesday with Harris, who was recently named the administration’s point person on voting rights by President Joe Biden.

Meanwhile, O’Rourke — who narrowly lost a 2018 Senate run to Cruz before making a short-lived 2020 presidential run — is planning to host a rally focused on voting rights on Sunday in Austin, the state’s capital.

O’Rourke said in an interview that he wants “every senator up there to meet this moment.” And he said that while he was thankful that Biden spoke out against the Republican state legislation that Texas Democrats blocked last month, he wants to see the president “do more” in the push for Democratic voting rights bills.

“You need the most powerful man on the planet,” O’Rourke said. “He uniquely can call our attention and demand our focus on the most important challenge facing us, and then call us to action.”

O’Rourke also addressed a possible run for governor of Texas next year. “We’re going to see this through,” he said. “After we do that, I'm going to think through what it is I can do to serve here. And that might be running for office, and it might be supporting others who run for office.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has promised a vote on the “For the People Act” during the last week of the month, despite the opposition from Manchin and the additional obstacle of the filibuster. Manchin’s primary public complaint with the sweeping package, which would remake American election, campaign finance and ethics law, is that it doesn’t have bipartisan support.

 

Texas Democrats are begging for anyone in Washington to help them stave off the most fascist voting laws in the US, and frankly, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema still don't seem to give a damn.  That's not just a WV, AZ, or TX problem.

It's an America problem.

Big Effin' Family Matters

Needing a scandal to pin on the Biden administration, Team WIN THE MORNING has now declared open season on Vice President Kamala Harris's niece, Meena Harris, all but accusing her of trading on the Harris name just like Trump's family did, daring the Biden administration to respond.

“The Vice President and her family will uphold the highest ethical standards and it’s the White House’s policy that the Vice President's name should not be used in connection with any commercial activities that could reasonably be understood to imply an endorsement or support,” SABRINA SINGH, a spokesperson for the vice president, said in a statement.

But the policy has been trickier to enforce with Meena than some other family members, given how much Kamala’s image is intertwined with her business projects.

After Biden was officially declared the winner last November, transition ethics lawyers informed Meena that she could sell the rest of her Kamala-themed apparel but could not restock the items. Phenomenal’s “Kamala Harris Swimsuit,” “phenomenal Kamala Tank,” and “Kamala T-shirt,” that appeared on the site last fall are no longer sold.

“Kamala and Maya’s Big Idea,” which was published in June 2020 before Biden picked Kamala as vice president, poses further ethical knots. White House officials say that Meena would be prohibited from publishing that book now because it uses Kamala’s name in the title and her likeness on the cover, which is a drawing of a younger Kamala with MAYA HARRIS, Meena’s mother.

The book doesn’t violate the White House’s policies because she published it before Kamala became vice president, they say. It’s not clear if Meena continuing to accept royalties on the book is permitted, however. Asked if she is still accepting royalties, Meena did not comment.

In a statement, she said that “throughout the primary campaign, general election, and thus far in the administration, I have gone above and beyond to uphold legal and ethical standards.”

As Meena tries to follow the letter of the law, some Biden officials have long been worried about her following the spirit of the rules.

 

It's not just Harris's family getting these warnings, it's coming directly from President Biden for his own family as well.

 

In the midst of his campaign for president, Joe Biden took his younger brother, Frank, aside to issue a warning.

“For Christ’s sake, watch yourself,” Biden said of his brother’s potential business dealings, according to a person with knowledge of the conversation. “Don’t get sucked into something that would, first of all, hurt you.”

Biden, whose tone was both “jocular and serious,” according to the person, seemed to know then what is becoming plainly obvious now: His family’s business ties threatened to undermine an administration whose messaging is centered on restoring integrity in the White House.

Relatives’ money-making ventures, most prominently his son Hunter’s overseas dealings, have long dogged Biden. But it's taking on a new dimension now that he's in the White House.

Only a week into his presidency, Biden already has had to answer for matters related to his family. A law firm ad promoting Frank Biden’s relationship with the president caused a stir when it ran on Inauguration Day. A federal investigation into Biden’s son, Hunter, has invited scrutiny of just how strict a firewall he’ll keep between the White House and the Justice Department. And another of the president’s brothers, James, has previously come under fire for his business dealings.

 

Unfair as this all is, expect a lot more of this in the weeks and months ahead. And should Republicans win the House or Senate back in 2022, absolutely expect Hunter Biden and Meena Harris to be dragged up in front of angry GOP congressional grilling for hours, if not days.

Giving Joe A Grade So Far

 My long-time friend Imani Gandy over at Rewire News has shared her thoughts on the first week of the Biden-Harris administration, and even though Imani and I greatly differed on who we wanted to be the Democratic candidate, like all of us, she came to the realization that we had to beat Trump, and Joe Biden was who we chose to do it.

 

And you know what? If Imani's now sold on Joe's slam-bang first week of progressive policy choices and actions, then everyone should be sold on it. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are the real deal.

“I want a Biden presidency like I want a brick to the face.”

That’s what I tweeted in May 2019, a few weeks after Biden announced his candidacy. To say I was unenthusiastic about a Biden presidency would be an understatement. Throughout the primary, I routinely urged Biden to drop out. I wanted a progressive president. Someone who would not only undo the damage that Trump wrought, but who would also be forward thinking. I was drawn to Elizabeth Warren’s nerdy energy. She was the person for the job, in my estimation.

But Joe Biden? No way.

“What’s so irritating is that it doesn’t seem like Joe Biden wants to be president. He just wants to have been president,” I tweeted in December 2019. And I believed it. His decision to jump into the race struck me as a self-aggrandizing and feckless attempt at relevance, considering he first ran for president in 1987, right around the time I was obsessing over Cary Elwes and Robin Wright in The Princess Bride.

Ultimately, I thought his candidacy was simply a reflection of vanity. He didn’t really want to put in the work that being president after Trump would require; the presidency was simply the last notch that he wanted to be able to etch onto his political bedpost.

But Biden became the nominee, and I resigned myself to voting for him. I was not happy. Nor was I optimistic. I assumed that he would just be a maintenance president. Someone to turn the clock back to 2016, but not necessarily someone who would move the country forward. And after he won the election, his chatter about the need for unity irritated me because I don’t want to unify with Trump supporters nor do I think I should have to.

Well, it’s been less than a week of the Biden-Harris administration, and I have to say, I have been pleasantly surprised. For a man who is 78 years old and has been in government since government was invented—who compromised with segregationists and fought for their cause by sponsoring a bill that, according to civil rights attorney and then-director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund Jack Greenberg, would limit courts’ power to order busing as a way to desegregate schools—Biden has charged out of the gate swinging when it comes to the rights of people that the Trump administration either outright ignored or sadistically antagonized. He has done exactly what he should do to set the tone for this new administration, and if he keeps up this pace—and if progressives keep up the pressure—Biden has an opportunity to become a transformative president.

 

I agree completely. Biden wasn't my first choice either a year ago.  Now?

 

He's already shown that he's well on his way to being the person we need in the White House.

Last Call For Move, Mitch, Get Out The Way

With Vice President Harris swearing in both Georgia Democrats and her replacement, Alex Padilla, Democrats officially took control of the Senate this evening with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer now leading the Most August Deliberative Body and Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy as President Pro Tempore.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is officially Senate majority leader after the inauguration of Vice President Kamala Harris and the swearing-in of new Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.).

Why it matters: With a 50-50 Senate, Schumer will control a narrow majority with Harris as the tie-breaking vote. Democratic control of the Senate is crucial to President Biden's agenda, from getting his coronavirus relief proposal passed to forgiving student debt.

The big picture: After more than 20 years in the Senate, Schumer will be taking the position from Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who became majority leader in 2015. McConnell and Schumer met on Tuesday to discuss a power-sharing agreement for the new Senate and to sort out when to hold President Trump's second impeachment trial.

Context: The last time the Senate was divided 50-50 was in 2001, under former President George W. Bush. The Senate agreed on a power-sharing plan that gave Republicans "a narrow advantage on setting the agenda on contentious issues," Roll Call writes. 

Yes, but: The parties have become more divided since then and negotiations on how the power-sharing will work are likely to drag along, meaning Biden will not have any confirmed Cabinet members on his first day in office.

Details: Ossoff is Georgia's first Jewish senator. Warnock is Georgia's first Black senator. Padilla is the first Latino senator in California.

One fun thing: As Harris addressed "the certificate of the appointment to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of former Sen. Kamala D. Harris of California," she burst into laughter, adding: "Yeah, that was very weird."

New tags for our new Democratic senators. We'll need every one of them. And frankly, Chuck Schumer ain't Harry Reid, who was much better as both Senate Majority Leader and Senate Minority Leader than Schumer is capable of.

We'll see.

Hello Preisdent Biden And Vice President Harris!

 Damn but this feels good.

Joe Biden was sworn in as president of the United States on Wednesday, offering a message of unity and restoration to a deeply divided country reeling from a battered economy and a raging coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 400,000 Americans.

Standing on the steps of the U.S. Capitol exactly two weeks after a mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the building, Biden called for a return to civic decency in an inaugural address marking the end of Trump’s tempestuous four-year term.

“To overcome these challenges, to restore the soul and secure the future of America, requires so much more than words. It requires the most elusive of all things in a democracy: unity,” Biden, a Democrat, said after taking the oath of office.

“We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal. We can do this - if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts.”

The themes of Biden’s brief speech mirrored those he had put at the center of his presidential campaign, when he portrayed himself as an empathetic alternative to the divisive Trump, a Republican.

The inauguration itself, one unlike any other in U.S. history, served as a stark reminder of both the tumult that defined the Trump era as well as the pandemic that still threatens the country.

Amid warnings of possible renewed violence, thousands of armed National Guard troops circled the Capitol in an unprecedented show of force. The National Mall, typically packed with throngs of supporters, instead was filled with nearly 200,000 U.S. flags. Attending dignitaries - including former U.S. Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton - wore masks and sat several feet apart.

Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, became the first Black person, first woman and first Asian American to serve as vice president after she was sworn in by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court’s first Latina member.

The president spoke forcefully about the Jan. 6 Capitol siege when Trump backers breached the building, sending lawmakers fleeing for safety and leaving five dead, including a police officer. But Biden never mentioned his predecessor by name.

The violence prompted the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives to impeach Trump last week for an unprecedented second time, accusing him of incitement after he exhorted his backers to march on the building to press false claims of election fraud.

“Here we stand, just days after a riotous mob thought they could use violence to silence the will of the people, to stop the work on our democracy, to drive us from this sacred ground,” Biden said. “It did not happen; it will never happen. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.”

 

New tag.

President Biden.

God bless these United States.

Trump's Race To The Bottom, Con't

Throughout his term, Donald Trump's been throwing around the idea (well, racist Malkavian vampire Stephen Miller's idea) of abolishing the birthright citizenship provision of the 14th Amendment. He's been talking about doing this by executive order since 2018, and again in 2019, and now here in the scorched earth phase of destroying America before he leaves office, he's considering it again.

President Donald Trump is considering an executive action to target birthright citizenship in his final weeks in office, according to two sources who spoke with The Hill in a report published on Friday.

Birthright citizenship is the policy whereby anyone who is born in the US is immediately granted citizenship, regardless of whether their parents have citizenship or not.

It's guaranteed under the 14th Amendment, which states in part that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." More than 30 countries — mostly in the Western Hemisphere — have birthright citizenship.

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is an example of someone who received their US citizenship in this way. Harris's Indian mother and Jamaican father were not yet US citizens when she was born in California in 1964, but she became a US citizen.

Trump has been speaking out against birthright citizenship since his 2016 run for the White House, which was infused with anti-immigrant rhetoric. He brought the issue up again in a 2018 interview with Axios, in which he stated that he could issue an executive order to end the practice.

However, The Intercept reported in 2018 that this is "an idea rejected by an overwhelming consensus of conservative and liberal law scholars." A law written into the Constitution can only be ended through a new amendment.

Counter-arguments to birthright citizenship over the years say that the 14th Amendment has been misinterpreted.

"The Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment was clearly intended to guarantee that emancipated slaves would properly be recognized as U.S. citizens," RJ Hauman, government relations director at Federation for American Immigration Reform, told The Hill. Hauman's group is an anti-immigration non-profit.

"It is a fundamental misapplication of this clause that U.S.-born children of illegal aliens are granted automatic citizenship, much less the offspring of people who come here to simply give birth on American soil."

If the president finally issues a long-awaited executive order limiting birthright citizenship, it will be up to the Supreme Court to resolve this issue once and for all," Hauman said.

 

It's that last part that will eventually be the problem.  Biden could reverse the executive order, but I would expect immediately that states like Texas and Florida would sue to have the order reinstated. This is why Trump's been putting it off, he now believes he has a Supreme Court capable of making this decision permanent.

No, I don't know how that would work from a legal standing perspective either. Like I said, it's pretty asinine. I expect Texas will find a way to sue anyhow, it's not like evidentiary law means much in 2020 to conservatives anyhow. 

Still, the point is to send this to SCOTUS somehow, and to change the country forever.

And yes, this means that millions of American citizens would no longer be American citizens. Including the Vice-President. There's a reason for this: massive deportation roundups.

It's a terrible future, and one we may not yet be able to avoid.