Talk about a roller coaster. My Conventional Wisdom survey of what all the allegedly smart people are saying in news media is that President Biden must withdraw soon. Maybe in the next few hours. His getting covid, however mild the symptoms, was kind of the last straw.
David Graham, who really is a smart guy, writes in the Atlantic,
At the start of the day yesterday, it was conceivable that Joe Biden might manage to hold on to the Democratic nomination for president. But this morning, things seem to be slipping out of his grasp.
The blows to Biden were both procedural and political: The Democratic National Committee delayed a pivotal vote that would have made replacing him more difficult, a prominent Democrat called for Biden to step down, and reports of behind-the-scenes maneuvering made clear that other top party leaders have lost faith in Biden’s candidacy, even if they aren’t willing to say so publicly yet.
The president’s strategy for riding out the calls for him to step down was apparently to survive until a virtual roll-call vote sometime in July. (Even this might not have been enough: Elaine Kamarck, a political scientist at the Brookings Institution and a member of the DNC Rules Committee, told me last week that she was skeptical that would have done the trick. “There’s work-arounds for all of these things,” she said. “Monday night at the [Democratic National] Convention is really the drop-dead night.”) But yesterday, the chairs of the committee said the vote would not occur until at least August 1. That means more time for more negative polls, more chances for the president to stumble, and most important of all, more rounds of significant defections.
This cannot drag on. Whatever happens needs to happen very soon so the Dems can get back to focusing on beating Trump. I’m also getting a sense that the pundits are settling on Kamala Harris as the nominee; no other candidate need apply. Which is okay with me, but let’s get on with this.
I’m also seeing a lot of grumbling that we’ve never seen any kind of medical report regarding Trump’s grazed ear. I assume this is because Trump refuses to allow any medical report to be released. It probably just says something like “minor abrasion” that would downplay his image as the heroic survivor of a vast assassination conspiracy. Of course, Trump never allows medical reports to be released. We have no idea what the state of his health is. But I think news media need to start hounding him about this. What is he hiding? (Maybe nothing, but you never know.)
Updates:
Bob Newhart, 1929-2024.
Republicans Do Think Trump Is Jesus
See Making A Messiah: Allies Cast Trump As Divine Commander Following Assassination Attempt by Sarah Posner at TPM. Disturbing.
Lou Dobbs, 1945-2024
Bye,
I am afraid you are correct. I suspect that Biden will leave the field. I am so bothered by the fact that all the white, male, scavenger oligarchs get to call the shots. As was posted elsewhere yesterday. immigrants are destroying the country; Murdoch, Musk, and Theil.
I’ll vote for whomever the elites allow but I give up. We are no longer even pretending to be a Democracy.
What I’m seeing is that House and Senate Democrats are looking at congressional polls and are terriied that with Biden at the top of the ticket it won’t be just him losing; they’ll lose seats in the House and Senate as well. And, frankly, if the Repbulicans get control of the entire federal government next year we really will be looking at another Reich.
"His getting covid, however mild the symptoms, was kind of the last straw"
Why is getting covid the last straw? He’s had covid before and survived, covid is pretty much a mild cold anymore, I had it no big deal? Anyone who pushes that nonsense is just looking for another pile of dirt to throw on his candidacy. If Biden withdrawals we will end up with Stump and all the wimpy liberal pearl clutchers who are so "frightened of a Trump Presidency" will be to blame. The man has covid big fucking deal, Stump got shot in the god damn head and you people don't ask him to step down. Unfuckingbelievable.
“Why is getting covid the last straw?” Nobody but me actually said that, and maybe I’m misreading the situation. But he’ll have to stop campaigning for several days.
Dems are doing a real good job of throwing my vote away …
I wish they all would have rallied around him after the debate and helped restore his image. The first ones to talk about replacing Biden were the media types, and NOT the ones on MSNBC. Congress Critters at first didn't say anything, but then one did, and then another one, and now they pretty much all are, with few exceptions. They're afraid of losing the House and Senate as well as the White House. Nancy Pelosi became convinced that Republicans will pick up seats in the House, and so she's even been talking to him about stepping down.
If it's a "condition and not an episode" to cite Pelosi, rehabilitating Biden after the debate sets Biden up for a succession of disappointments. Joe has sometimes been less creaky than the debate performance but in the best of circumstances since then, he's looked to be a decade older than Trump in terms of lucidity and power.
The Democrat facing Trump needs to "prosecute" Trump for the activities of four years ago without quite providing any statements that a Trump defense could use to Trump's benefit in future trials. Joe's not up to it. (I base that on faltering responses in friendly interviews since the debate.) Kamila, with her experience, MAY be.
I was reading an article by Dr. Gupta on CNN about Trump's injuries. "What The Trump Team Hasn't Revealed About His Condition." This made me think twice but I'm not a nice person:
"US Rep. Ronny Jackson, Trump’s former White House physician, said during an interview Monday on “The Benny Show” podcast, that he “checked out” the wound to Trump’s ear and bandaged it himself."
So far, no other physician has been named as having treated TFG. There's reports of a CAT scan having been done, but nothing from Butler Hospital to confirm it. I do not know the injury to Trump's ear was fake – but nothing that qualifies as evidence proves it was NOT fake.
Again Ronny: “It just took the top of his ear off, a little bit of the top of his ear off, as it passed through,” Jackson said. “It was bleeding like crazy.”
Is that a statement that Jackson was the doctor at the ER? Was he the ONLY physician present? On what basis would any sane person take Trump's word for ANYTHING? If Jackson was "just there" and "just happened" to accompany Trump to the hospital and the Trump team insisted that the hospital staff could not be present during "treatment", it's time for someone to scream, "BULLSHIT!"
Gupta: "Although we were told that Trump had a CT scan and other routine exams, it is not clear when these tests were performed, who read the scans or whether his brain specifically was examined."
IMO. Gupta was not happy about being stonewalled about the injury. He didn't suggest there was any fraud but a serious aversion to sharing information. That might be legitimate – Team Trump has no love for CNN. But if there is a cover-up it's also how they would be acting.
Reporters need to start hounding him about when he's going to release medical information, and not just about the ear. He's been allowed a pass on way too much.
Just as easily those who believe in a personal interactive Jesus could have claimed God sent that warning shot to wake Trump up and give him a chance to repent for all his lies, sins, and crimes and to start a process of redemption before his judgement day. That would make more sense.
The whole concept of a constantly interacting deity is a very foreign one to me. It clashes with the notion of an all-knowing God. The all-knowing God does not need to fire warning shots. He/she knows if Trump will repent and seek redemption.
I'm a Biden man till the end. I'll vote for him at his funeral if I have to!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vHjzCfv0nM
Most of the weapons experts I know think that his ear wasn't actually hit by an AR-15 round; those things travel at 3x the speed of sound and it would probably have taken his ear off. Shrapnel, or something a bullet smashed, seems more likely; some of the people near Trump were hit by that. For the rest, sigh. It is surprising to me how many people regard infection as a sign of weakness or moral failing.
I also heard from someone with experience with these things that the bullet whizzing by could have damaged his skin without actually grazing it. And this fits the video better than a shrapnel theory. It was a very freak wound, in other words.
Well the teleprompter theory was debunked:
https://youtu.be/H6Hx1cpSjDY?si=lvK8D4RTxXHbE1aZ
With the amount of verified screwups that happened that day I find it hard to believe in any of the conspiracies.
I don't advocate that ANYONE should "believe" any conspiracy theories. I do say people should question the narrative. QUESTION!
Where is the evidence Trump's ear was nicked? There should be photographic evidence from the treatment, They are not saying WHERE the MRI was done or who examined the results. WAS one done? I do not know – neither does the media. Just writing it as a fact because Trump reported it… seems unwise.
Why did the kid register as a Republican last year and (reportedly) take a pot shot(s) at the leader of the GOP party?A bomb was found in the kid's car. No one has accounted for how he acquired the explosives or (more importantly) how he acquired the expertise to make a bomb. I read (need to verify) there were NO searches on the Internet to bomb-making sites. All the actions of the kid indicated he expected to be back at work Sunday. If he believed that, WHY?
Did someone in the inside of the Trump team tell him that he was supposed to simulate an assassination (don't hit anyone) and they'd ensure a getaway? I don't know, but I'd like to.
The media wants to close this out as a "lone gunman" incident. I don't. Chase down the loose ends. Start using the words "alledged" and "reported" to let the readers know that until evidence is forthcoming, there will be doubt.
This is something I'll call out each time I see it.
Donald J. Trump is a horrible person. A Republican can see that he's a horrible person, and, might be furiously angry that everyone keeps lying about it. I mean, come on, he took NUCLEAR SECRETS and blabbed to an Aussie businessman.
Take those two facts, and how Republicans are all-in for Trump, and you have a perfectly reasonable, perfectly probable, reason to want to see Trump out of the way.
I know, such a young man would have to have a very strong sense of self to say "everyone, even the flippin' SCROTUS, is bull-crapping me about Trump's clear and obvious guilt!" but he could certainly do so. I hope, if I grew up Republican, that I would have had the dry heaves after the immunity decision!
I also hope I wouldn't be stupid enough to grab a rifle and try to fix the problem – please understand, I'm not trying to *justify* that decision. I'm just saying I can understand killing Trump a HELL of a lot easier than killing Dr. Tiller (a decent man killed by rightwingers).
Side note: one reason to bring up Tiller, when Republicans say Joe Biden's divisiveness caused the assassination attempt, is how Republicans insisted, strongly, and forcefully, that calling Dr. Tiller a "baby killer" had *nothing* to do with his assassination.
Nah. Crooks was way too young to be a "perfectly reasonable" Republican; he was *born* around the time when Gingrich the first of the GOP's government shutdowns, when "reasonableness" became a good reason to jump (or get pushed) from the GOP.
Crooks was a confused young man who found power in guns – like so many recent shooters – seeking a shortcut to 15 minutes of fame. (I wouldn't be surprised if there were some Daddy Issues there too, but I don't have any direct evidence of that).
I *have* read that Crooks' internet searches included Biden's schedule as well as Trump's; it looks to me like Trump just happened to be campaigning closer to his home than Biden, and so became Crooks' target of opportunity.
Morning Joe has resurrected Bob Dole as a nominee who was due the nomination that many knew could not win.
My first comment to a friend who asked what I thought about the debate was that if you could put the best working pieces of both of them together, you still could not make a good president out of their best parts.
After Trumps performance last night, nothing but the same worn-out and broken stuff. I see nothing the cultists see. I see old, broken, jaded, hateful and worn-out man. Who would even watch reruns of the Apprentice? His speech was mostly reruns of a fantasy world that never existed and never will. A lot of lies he keeps telling himself and the cult. Repetition will never make them truths. His world is but a misperception of a flawed mind not the world we inhabit.
Where is Swami?
Where is Swami?
I was just thinking the same thing yesterday?
You’re right; the last comment from Swami was in June. I sent an email to the email address I can see on his comments, but it bounced as undeliverable. So I know nothing.