64 thoughts on “Mayor Pete Challenges Biden”

  1. the warrior monk speaks

    the guardian:

    The former US defence secretary James Mattis has laughed off an insult hurled at him by Donald Trump.
    Speaking at a New York charity event on Thursday, the day after the US president demeaned him as “the world’s most overrated general”, Mattis joked that he took it as a compliment.
    “I’m not just an overrated general. I’m the greatest, the world’s most overrated,” he told diners at the annual Alfred E Smith Memorial Foundation dinner.
    “I’m honoured to be considered that by Donald Trump because he also called Meryl Streep an overrated actress,” he said. “So I guess I’m the Meryl Streep of generals, and frankly that sounds pretty good to me.”
    Trump lashed out at his former defence secretary on Wednesday during a contentious White House meeting with members of Congress.
    The meeting was intended to be a bipartisan discussion of Trump’s decision to pull US forces from northern Syria, but it broke up after a testy exchange between Trump and Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker.
    Before the walkout, Trump disparaged Mattis, who had argued as defence secretary that US troops were needed in Syria to prevent a resurgence of Islamic State fighters.
    Trump said Mattis was “the world’s most overrated general. You know why? He wasn’t tough enough.”
    “I captured Isis,” Trump went on to say.
    Mattis resigned last December after Trump said he intended to pull 2,000 American troops out of Syria. In his resignation letter, the retired Marine general told Trump he had “the right to have a secretary of defence whose views are better aligned with yours”.
    Since then, he has largely refrained from publicly criticising the administration, saying he owed the commander-in-chief “a duty of silence”.
    But he did save an insult for Trump at the gala.
    “I earned my spurs on the battlefield … and Donald Trump earned his spurs in a letter from a doctor,” Mattis said.

  4. by george, from law & crime:  George Conway Wonders How Anyone Can Set Aside ‘Morality’ to Be a Spokesperson for Trump

    […]
    While Dunn’s parents had said publicly that they would meet Sacoolas only if they had assurances she would return to the UK and be held accountable, President Trump extended a “surprise” offer for them to meet Sacoolas at the White House this week. This is what Gidley’s defense and Conway’s retort were about.
    “Gosh, whose version of this story should we accept? The pathologically lying narcissistic sociopath who says he’s a stable genius who does everything perfectly? Or these parents?” Conway chimed in.
    Others were quick to pick up on Conway’s tweet.
    Norman Ornstein, an American Enterprise Institute (AEI) scholar and a contributing editor for the Atlantic, quote-tweeted Conway and replied, “I cannot imagine the experience of checking your morality and decency at the door to be a spokesman for this monster.”
    Conway retweeted this, which is, you know, interesting because his wife is a spokesperson for the president.

     

  6. … or is talking for her and we get to read it. After all, in her “job” any utterance of anything that resembles the truth about her “boss” would be cause for her to immediately “resign”.

  9. In another world controversy, cooking pasta starting in cold water versus dumping it in boiling water.  The experts weighed in and decided it can be okay, but there are possible issues.  I have been known to do the cold water thing when I pack a lunch.  Say for chicken noodle soup or mushroom soup with noodles.  I will put the pasta, broken, into a container, add chicken broth and let is soak up the liquid during the hours until heating it for lunch.  I do prefer the boiling water because the pasta finishes uniformly.

  13. Mayor Pete goes after Biden???  To what end?

    SFB keeps talking about the Gooper base — there are fewer and fewer goopers registered. Soon he is going to have a 100% of nothing — well there will be Moscow Mitch and his loser cohorts

  22. my thinking is Pete poses a challenge for Biden’s centrist support. at the debate he went after warren’s liberalism to that end, because they’ve learned going after Biden directly tends to backfire. but in so doing he helps her by weakening Biden

  24. Amy got lotsa slots on the tube after she squashed Yang. She may get somewhere yet. However, an all female ticket is likely to go down hard among machomen and pseudomachomen.

  28. Very interesting reading and/or podcast

    Undark Magazine 

    This issue has burros, mobile contraception, addiction, concussion research, dangers from outerspace, women Nobel winners, and news of all sorts from around the web. 

  29. Craig
    I think she did well in the last debate and has the good neighbor advantage in Iowa — 
    I think she will be a surprise when actual votes get coun ted

  30.  “No I am nowhere near ready to climb on the Warren bandwagon.“

    Have fun on that Harris bandwagon that is going nowhere.

  31. Trump turned the U.S. Military into a bunch of bitches that hand over hard-won territory without a fight.
     

    “We’re looking for a few good men… to cut and run”

    “Join the Navy, cede the world!”

  32. i feel confidently that transgender service people can hand over territory, create power vacuums, and leave vulnerable allies to their slaughter just as effectively as traditional service people, and should be permitted to serve alongside of them.

  33. Poobah, until I see data that suggests there’s much improvement in Pete’s support relative to Biden I ain’t buying it.  Biden is 1 point below where he was on August 1 (32 – 29.4) and Pete’s exactly where he was then at 5.6.  Warren’s gone from 14.8 to 23.4 and Bernie!’s lost a point from 16.4 to 15.4. And as much as I hate to see it (notwithstanding her snotty ambush of Biden in the first debate) Harris has gone from 11 to 5.2 over that period. (Courtesy RealClearPolitics) The only big mo’ I see is Warren’s support increasing and Pete’s fundraising going gangbusters. 

  34. Trump had terrible fundraising and very low comparable available campaign funds in 2016, if you’ll remember, and still “won”.
     
    Of course, i doubt media outlets, in the reporting, counted the value of foreign assets working for him, or the value of all the free media exposure for shamelessly saying stupid shit.

    Oh, and now he gets to campaign for free on the taxpayers dime with his Nazi-style rallies. It’s good to be the incumbent.

  38. Bink, there were some estimates of the value of the free publicity SFB got from the networks back then, but I’m sure there was no reporting of any foreign aid the clown got.  I remember him dismissively telling one room of Jewish folks that he didn’t want or need their money.  I suspect he’s singing a different tune this time around when he meets with any group that has wealth.

  41. Can a transgender person surrender as MORALLY as a macho man ?
     
    That’s the question. (translated from the original German, Das ist hier die Frage.)

  43. Yeah, in an Ancient Greek army if you had a body and it could stop a spear, your sexuality was not an issue.

  44. Depends on the time frame you want to consider.  Biden’s lowest numbers in Iowa were last week at 18.  He’s up to 21.7 now.  What will effect will the last debate have?  Let’s see what the polls that come out next week say.  Pete was at 11 last week and is at 13 now.  His fundraising advantage will certainly help him in IA, but Biden leads in Nevada and South Carolina – half of the February primary states – and i f Pete is the measure, Biden has commanding leads there – at least based on the latest polls from those states although the Nevada polls are almost a month old now.  Will Pete pull off a miracle in Iowa and ride a tide into New Hampshire?  Maybe so – he’s still got almost 4 months to try and do that, but his NH numbers are not impressive – only Bernie! seems to be picking up any increased support there. I like Pete, but I don’t see it.

  45. republicans want a Pete & tulsi ticket so badly that they are giving them lots of campaign money. This is another reason why the DNC should raise the min poll % required to get into the next debate to between 12 and 20%. 
    Does anyone here have a friend in the DNC ? Can you alert them ?

  46. repubs cancelled their SC Primary, so they are in position to turn their people out to vote for Buttigieg and embarrass/weaken Biden. They’ll also be able to take over the NV and KS caucuses and tilt the AZ Primary. 
    1, 2, 3, 4, & Pete’s suddenly the new nominee. 

  47. I am not saying Pete wins Iowa. My point is he depresses the Biden vote which helps Warren. Same goes for Amy if she manages to catch fire. Three candidates splitting the centrist vote, along with Bernie sinking is Warren’s dream scenario, and Biden’s nightmare.

  48. more cracking in the GOPer dam

    wapo:

    2 p.m.: Republican lawmaker won’t rule out impeaching Trump, compares him to Nixon
    GOP Rep. Francis Rooney (Fla.) offered a damning assessment of Mulvaney, defended career diplomats, and said he’s not afraid of the president’s wrath.
    […]
    As for the political consequences of possibly voting for Trump’s impeachment, Rooney said, “I didn’t take this job to keep it. . . . I took this job to do the right thing at all times.”
    And Trump’s wrath?
    “What’s he going to do to me? I mean, he can say bad things, but it’s just what it is,” Rooney said. “There’s a lot of people around who are seriously concerned about being criticized by the president. Seriously. I just want to call them as I see it. I want to get the facts and do the right thing because I’ll be looking at my children a lot longer than I’m looking to anybody in this building.”

  49. Did not think we would get to this point but I am beginning to wonder if Mitch McConnell might just decide Trump will cost him his majority. That, and only that, will get Trump convicted in the Senate. 

  50. Poobah, shhh.  Don’t jinx it (although maybe you’re just priming the pump).
    I hear what you’re saying about Pete, but unless things change I think you see Biden, Warren, Sanders  or Warren, Biden, Sanders in IA with Sanders on the losing end of the stick.  It’s certainly conceivable that Pete beats Sanders there, which would be one hell of an accomplishment. From what I understand Amy’s been pounding it in IA and it’s not doing much for her, in fact her trend line is down.  And I am surprised about that.    

  51. I am stunned Amy cannot get traction in Iowa. 

    Iowa is the ball game folks. Whomever wins or surprises us there is on the way to the nomination. We can gripe about it, but that is how it is. Four weeks later nearly 60 percent of the delegates will have been chosen. Once again, Iowa sets the table. DNC deliberately designed a front-loaded process for an early nominee. 

  53. Craig – Amy is the one person who represents Iowa amongst all the Dems. 
     
    Now that the work day is over and I am trying to catch up on what idiocy has happened during the last two days, okay, three days, I find that the American government is in shambles.  Essentially we do not have a functioning government now.  There is the second branch, the Administration, which is not actually there, just some low intelligence diminished mentality freak tweeting out orders to the world.  There is the Congress which is under two levels of direction, one Russian, one American.  There is the third branch, the Court, which is now a political group under the freaky Russian control. 
     
    Yup.  I used to be proud to be an American.  Now . . .

  56. Well Tulsi Gabbard is kind of a Russian tool with her defense of Assad    
    but this is entirely unnecessary.    

  59. I am starting to look at all polls carefully no matter the headlines.  It’s not the “I’ve never been called”.  It’s not trusting the demographics of the people that they do call.  You have to really scrounge through the internals and even those tend to be suspect

    Who did they call?  Landlines? Cell Phones?

    What was the  political breakdown:  Right, left, Center, Progressive

    Was there a name recognition question?

    How were the genders weighted for likely voters (women vote more than men)

     

  61. if you didn’t click on this the first time i posted it, you erred, terribly.  Luckily, for you, there is such a thing as a “second chance”:

    YouTube thumbnail

    for LL

  62. craig,   Hillary was just reminding us about this little fact uncovered by mueller as reported by usatoday in feb ’18:

    A 37-page indictment resulting from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation shows that Russian nationals and businesses also worked to boost the campaigns of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Green party nominee Jill Stein in an effort to damage Democrat Hillary Clinton.

    The Russians “engaged in operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump,” according to the indictment, which was issued Friday.

     whatwith all the favorable coverage ms tulsi is getting in Russia media nowadays plus perhaps unexplainable funding (likewise about some others) for an unknown fresh face, she’s warning there may be a repeat of a little help from our frenemies this election.

  63. however, the reference to a return of Russian help in the election should have been made by someone other than Hillary who unfortunately is a lightning rod and GOPer favorite piĂąata.

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