Running Late but on the Way

Barring pot-sturing a-holes and the elephant in the House, that is.

Attribution: Aid to Ukraine by Vladimir Kazanevsky, Ukraine, PoliticalCartoons.com

Senate advances Ukraine and Israel aid after GOP blocked larger border bill (msn.com)

“This is a good first step. This bill is essential for our national security,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the floor after the vote. “Failure to pass this bill would only embolden autocrats like Putin and Xi, who want nothing more than America’s decline. Now that we are on the bill, we hope to reach an amendment with our Republican colleagues on amendments.”

He said the Senate would keep at it “until the job is done.”

While nearly all Democrats favor passage, Senate Republicans are divided on whether to approve the bill or filibuster it. They held a morning meeting to discuss their options and potential demands for amendments to wrap up passage speedily.

“I think if we get on it, we should use every lever we can to get the right amendment votes,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D. “Either way, it’s not going to be quick.”

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53 thoughts on “Running Late but on the Way”

  1. roadkill along the way

    Attribution: The Goon Squad by Dave Whamond, Canada, PoliticalCartoons.com

  2. meanwhile, here’s stephen

    The Supreme Court heard arguments in the Colorado ballot suit brought by an elderly constitutional scholar, the current president is no longer being investigated for stashing classified docs in his garage.

  3. and here’s jimmy

    Jimmy addresses the latest news, like Domino’s offering a Taylor Swift-themed feast for the Super Bowl, Rudy Giuliani claiming Trump’s campaign owes him $2 million and a special counsel finding President Biden guilty of mishandling classified documents.

  4. The Washington Post

    Putin, in rambling interview, barely lets Tucker Carlson get a word in

    Russian President Vladimir Putin spent the first 30 minutes of his two-hour interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson giving a revisionist historical tirade on the founding myths of Russia and Ukraine, the breakup of the Soviet Union and NATO expansionism.
    From there, admonishing Carlson when he interrupted, Putin pontificated on everything from the war in Ukraine and relations with the United States, the case of imprisoned American reporter Evan Gershkovich, and even on artificial intelligence.
    By the end of the conversation, it was clear that Putin had no intention of ending his brutal war against Ukraine. But Carlson, who was sacked from Fox last year, seemed ready to surrender. Putin offered to keep talking. Carlson, evidently exhausted by the Russian leader’s long-winded conspiracy theories and grievances against the West, thanked him and called it quits — far short of the media coup that he had been touting.
    Analysts said Putin’s choice to talk to Carlson was based partly on his perceived sympathy — the former Fox host has repeatedly dismissed criticism of Putin over the years — and the opportunity to appeal to the more MAGA reaches of the Republican Party during an election year. That could boost Donald Trump’s chances of reelection and convince Republicans to continue to block U.S. military aid to Ukraine.
    Carlson spent most of the interview in silence, or looking confounded.
    He did not ask a single question about Russia’s attacks on civilian areas or critical infrastructure in Ukraine, which have killed thousands. There was no mention of the war crime allegations facing the Russian leader or the forced deportation of Ukrainian children. Absent too were questions on Russia’s sweeping political crackdowns on Putin’s critics or the long jail sentences meted out to ordinary Russians staging antiwar protests.
    Instead, Carlson posed increasingly esoteric questions — including whether any world leader could be a true Christian — and at times appeared to goad Putin into alleging a U.S. deep state and promote other conspiracy theories.
    At several moments, when Carlson tried to interject, he was chastised by the president.
    “I’ll tell you, I’m coming to that. This briefing is coming to an end. It might be boring, but it explains many things,” said Putin in a condescending tone.
    “It’s not boring. [I’m] just not sure how it’s relevant,” said Carlson. Putin responded that he was “gratified” and appreciated that.
    Putin’s domination of the interview with Carlson was a stark contrast with a grilling that the Russian leader received from Austrian news anchor Armin Wolf, who won acclaim in 2018 by repeatedly challenging him and putting him on the defensive.
    [continues]

  5. March 1 and March 8 – Will the magat party get the shutdown they want? Or, will things get done to pass a budget?  Yup.  Doing taxes makes one hate things, like the congress.

  7. It’s gonna be Age vs. Crazy all the way to November…

    New York Time: Eight Words and a Verbal Slip Put Biden’s Age Back at the Center of 2024
    A special counsel’s stinging report and an uneven White House appearance captured Democrats’ fears about President Biden and fueled Republicans as they try to cast him as weak.
    — free link

  9. coming back to the podium after having responded to the old geezer questions, joe cogently and coherently added:

    Biden says Gaza fighting ‘over the top,’ pushing for a pause | Reuters

    WASHINGTON, Feb 8 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday suggested that Israel’s military response in Gaza has been “over the top” and said he is seeking a “sustained pause in the fighting” to help ailing Palestinian civilians.
    “I’m of the view, as you know, that the conduct of the response in the Gaza Strip has been over the top,” Biden told reporters at the White House.
    He added that he has been pushing for a deal to normalize Saudi Arabia-Israel relations, increased humanitarian aid for Palestinian civilians and a temporary pause in fighting to allow the release of hostages taken by Hamas.
    “I’m pushing very hard now to deal with this hostage ceasefire,” Biden said. “There are a lot of innocent people who are starving, a lot of innocent people who are in trouble and dying, and it’s gotta stop.”
    The remarks, some of Biden’s sharpest public criticism to date of the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, come as the Democratic president has come under increasing domestic pressure to press Israel to stop fighting.
    [continues]

  10. Pat, When he came back and started to give that coherent and nuanced answer I thought ohh good this redeems him. But then this happened, which has overwhelmed what else he said:

    Biden appeared to mix up the details of his diplomatic efforts, calling Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi the leader of Mexico.”Initially, the president of Mexico, Sisi, did not want to open up the gate to allow humanitarian material to get in, Biden said. “I talked to him. I convinced him to open the gate. I talked to Bibi to open the gate on the Israeli side.”

    Every time they play that clip, play this one:
    Trump: “Viktor Orban…He’s the leader of Turkey.”
    Orban is Hungary’s authoritarian leader.

  11. craig, gaffes have happened to him all his life and caused innumerable jokes along the line.  it’s almost become his “shtick” over the years.

    comparing his (speaking while burdened with a stuttering disorder) vs the loser’s (speaking while incompetent) performances reminds me of the old cartoon

    Ginger Rogers at Reel Classics: Article 2: Backwards and in High Heels

  12. Joe grieving for his son is not as disturbing as Plumpty grieving for no one. He thinks dead people are losers. 

  13. It was always going to be Biden’s age.They’ve been trying to find a way to get it rolling since Biden won the election.  Had it not been Hur now, it would have something else next week and something else the week after that because it’s the ONLY card they have to play. They’ll keep hammering it and trying to find people and ways to belabor it right up to November.   The republicans are petulant and determined little religious freaks and mean to have their way whatever the cost to America and Americans.  It’s time to fight.  
    Our old guy is an honest man with all his faculties intact. Their old guy is an evil piece of dreck who buries ex-wives on a fucking golf course and is also a traitorous slave to the Russian dictator whose goal is to destroy America with the help of a yelping pack of republican hyenas.

    No fight= No win. End of story.

  14. (Although the fight may wind up being against someone besides the evil piece of dreck. It may well be a different evil piece of dreck.)

  16. Buries ex-wives on a fucking golf course.   I mean, isn’t that just all-too-obvious?

    Maybe Geraldo can be hired to break in and find out what’s really in that coffin, so seemingly heavy though the woman was cremated.  Maybe this time he could find something.

  20. So, Mr. C, Biden mixed up the names of two world leaders i guarantee you only a small minority of Americans know.  Yes, i understand he is the PotUS, but how much you want to amplify a gaffe?
     
    He will make more ‘gaffes’ between now and November, we gonna do this every time he misspeaks?

  21. Without looking it up, i think the President (?) of Egypt is that Gen. Al-Sisi guy, and i’ll be darned if i know who the President if Mexico is.  Someone who can’t control cartels or the border is the best i can tell you there

  23. Did the former guy ever have even ONE “trusted advisor”—I mean, one who might be capable of knowledgeably operating on a global level, one not dedicated solely to feathering his own nest, or in inflicting cruelty and needless pain upon someone?

  24. Biden extricated our troops from a 20-year futile war IN 24 HOURS

    Remember wondering when that folly would ever end?  Biden ended it

  25. “trusted advisor”—I mean, one who might be capable 

    ‘trusted’ and ‘capable’ are mutually exclusive for fascist-guy
     
    He had a few ‘capable’ advisors like Mattis, Kelly, and Esper, and they all wrote books after his term about how their one goal while serving was to prevent evil-guy from destroying the country or launching a nuke

    He didn’t trust any of them

    ok ✌️

  27. Hur is a Republican.  Hur is a tRUMPsky appointee.   Someone needs to go up his backside with a microscope, because there was zero reason to add his opinion of Biden’s mental capability.   Zero.   This was a hit job.  

  28. I questioned Hur’s appointment, and I feel vindicated. Our AG needs to stop being so fricking “fair.”  Appoint career prosecutors who are not politically motivated fuhchrissake. 

  29. https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/09/politics/dnc-rfk-jr-campaign-fec-complaint/index.html
     
    “DNC alleges RFK Jr. campaign illegally coordinated with outside group on signature gathering operation”
    “Mr. Kennedy has stated that his goal is to appear on the ballot in all 50 states and DC,” the DNC wrote. “Mr. Kennedy and his campaign have also stated that this process is challenging and expensive. Rather than solving this problem by raising the necessary funds consistent with federal law, Mr. Kennedy and his campaign are trying to take the short cut of having American Values 2024 perform this campaign function for him.”

    “Registered as a hybrid PAC, with the ability to solicit unlimited contributions, American Values 2024 is prohibited from coordinating directly with Kennedy’s presidential campaign. But the complaint argues that coordination is required for the ballot access efforts by American Values and Team Kennedy, and thereby the group’s support runs afoul of campaign finance laws.”
     

    “In a call with reporters outlining the complaint, DNC officials tied American Values’ signature gathering operation to former President Donald Trump and said supporters of Trump are donating to the Kennedy-aligned PAC to prop him up as a “stalking horse,” specifically singling out donations from Republican megadonor Tim Mellon.”

    “What we’re witnessing with this scheme is the outsized illegal influence of individual mega donors like billionaire Tim Mellon, Donald Trump’s largest donor this cycle, who gave American Values the exact $15 million paycheck they said that they would need for ballot access,” DNC adviser Lis Smith told reporters on Friday. “This is an effort to subvert our election laws and prop up a stalking horse in RFK, Jr. We have no choice but to file a complaint.”

  30. “…could reopen a line of attack…”
     
    It was never closed. Biden’s Brain Farts is all I hear my peeps yakking about. 

  31. Our AG needs to stop being so fricking “fair.” 

     
    Pogo, you might be right. I have to wonder if we dodged a bullet on that Supreme Court appointment. 

  32. I’ll tell ya what’s a good tv show…..”Have Gun—Will Travel”
    Old Richard Boone set himself up in a great show. Good writing, great utilization of black & white, the protagonist (a soldier of fortune in a savage land) is fair, wise, learned, musically gifted, rich, lived the high life of culture in San Francisco, but then will turn around and put on his black cowboy duds and kick some ass for someone who’s powerless or downtrodden leaving peace and wisdom in his wake. 

    So far some pretty nice yarns. I mean he’s no Maverick…..but what the hey…..

  33. Paul Begala: “Look, I’m a Biden supporter. And I slept like a baby last night. I woke up every two hours and wet the bed. This is terrible for Democrats. And anybody with a functioning brain knows that.” (POLITICO)

  35. What’d he do….help get Clinton elected thanks to Ross Perot 30 years ago?   

    All that just to make that lame-ass joke. Hahaha slept like a baby—get it?

    Go wet the bed again, ya putz ya….

  36. the pundits are going to be saying “Biden’s old” for the next 9 months, might as well get used to it
     
    One prosecutor stating the plainly obvious isn’t a calamity

  38. “…you wet the bed and THEN wake up.”
     
    Bed-wetting is like drinking to blackout. You wake up and have no idea how that happened. 

  39. Speaking of old tv shows, earlier today on a different social media site, a youngster (maybe 18), posted about watching Highway Patrol.  Yup, that thriller from 1955.  At first I thought, JesusAlou are you X me?  Then I thought that something was there.  Seventy year old television shows are rare, few were recorded in any technique. When I was watching Sky King and Howdy Dowdy, and, Highway Patrol at night, I was a few years from being a blob of cells burbling away inside my mother.

    I have been seeing more and more of the kids picking up film photography, skills in the kitchen (somehow they have not grasped why we are happy to leave canning meat and potatoes to the pros), vinyl records, and sewing.  Watching those old programs is good.  They can see how we dressed, ate, cars, played, and most importantly we did not have computers, any computers, any LEDs, any of the modern life.  1955 was the beginning of modern America, prior most things were like the 1930’s, 1940-1, and post WWII.

  40. I have given this a lot of thought today and for starters get Biden away from the White House press corps, podiums and teleprompters, and in town halls engaging with average Americans. He is really good at that, probably his best forum. Sure he will goof and gaffe and so on but that’s the flip side of being authentic.

  42. Besides, we need to see greater numbers of regular joes and fewer magga peeps lined-up at rallies on our tv screens. We are not a nation of maggas. 

  43. And on a superficial but unfortunately important note, limit situations where we see him walking significant distances. His spinal arthritis is irrelevant to his duties, but the shuffling walk emphasizes his age. I have also noticed that when he is not facing bright lights or the sun he does not squint as much, so try to get him positioned mostly with backlighting.

  44. Stagecraft is an essential part of every “show.” That’s why Plumpty spends so much time on his hair and makeup. 

  45. I was stunned to hear how pissed off Neal Katyal was that Colorado botched their Supreme Court arguments.

    You know, in the thing that I was watching for was any indication anywhere about just how dangerous a ruling to overturn the Colorado Supreme Court was. We heard a lot from the court, particularly the chief justice, Justice Kavanaugh, Justice Alito, about how if you affirm the Colorado decision, it will empower states to mess with federal elections. And to be sure, that’s a risk. But what you never heard the Trump challengers really get at was the risk on the other side that this is a canonical part of our Constitution, forged after the Civil War, one of the most difficult times in our nation’s history. And yet we came together and said insurrectionists can’t be on the ballot. Not just about the Civil War, but going forward for all sorts of reasons. There was no discussion of that, really. Basically, you know, they allowed Donald Trump to read the 14th Amendment like a tax code, looking for a loophole here and a loophole there. And, you know, unfortunately, the stakes on the other side were not presented to the court today. And so I saw only one justice, really, Justice Sotomayor, who was really listening to what the Colorado challengers were saying. And it wouldn’t shock me if even she when push came to shove and she reads the transcript of this argument may come the other way. Now, you know, the justices could go back. They could read all the front-of-the-court briefs, which make a lot of these points and come up with the other side.

  46. The whole thing about gaffs by President Biden is that he has been doing them his entire life. We cannot say that someone who makes a gaff is “nuts”, no we can say that some people can make a gaff that is outstanding.

    I agree with getting Prez Joe out of the grinder and on stage in the wide, wide, world that is the U.S.A.  We are one of the largest countries on Earth and there is no reason to not have Prez Joe (notice the non-formal label) pressing the flesh in the places people live.
     
    The spinal problems will be a hindrance, I know I have it. Hard to make it a campaign talking point, but some young brain can come up with something.
     
    Visually comparing the two shows how far from this world sfb is.  Joe on the bike, fatso squashing a golf cart.

  47. https://newrepublic.com/article/178750/taylor-swift-gets-political-at-super-bowl

     
    “To be clear, the only evidence they have to suggest Swift may endorse Biden is that she endorsed him in 2020.”

    “To put that in political perspective, a March 2023 Morning Consult poll found that 53 percent of Americans identified themselves as Taylor Swift fans…”

    “More than three-quarters of her fans identify as Democrats or independents, suggesting the potential to turn out hundreds of thousands of voters.”
     
    ”Plus, Swift’s fans are highly engaged. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing last year to investigate Live Nation Entertainment’s near monopoly over the ticketing industry, thanks in large part to an outcry from Swifties.”
     
    ”No one speaks to more young women than Taylor Swift—which is exactly why the right is freaking out.”
     
    Because, yeah, there’s also the matter of Roe.

  48. POTUS Joe has always had a speech impediment.  Remember the really lovely moment he had with young man who had a similar situation, and how he encouraged him?
     
    Orange Adolf would never give anyone attention like that.  

  49. So, while we may or may not see Taylor at the Super Bowl, we won’t see an interview with President Biden.   I’m not sure if that’s the right thing to do, though.   Since he gave that little presser yesterday, it doesn’t look like he’s avoiding questions.   But, it’s a chance for a lot of folks to hear him. 
     
    Maybe Joe and Jill together would have been the thing to do.  Make it friendly. Make it family.  
     
    Oh, yeah. I heard a lowlife at the grocery store, talking smack about Democrats, and looking forward to the MAGAt convention. I’m envisioning giant, nazi flags behind Herr Lardass.  

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