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https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/14/biden-fru...

Biden harbors lingering frustration at Pelosi, Obama, Schumer
Ahead of the convention that’s meant to unify the party, tensions still remain.

Because he's not happy those 3 forced him out of the race and effectively...out of office.

President Joe Biden is frustrated that Barack Obama wouldn’t tell him to his face that he should leave the race. He’s angry with Nancy Pelosi and views her as ruthless for ushering him out the door. And he’s still miffed at the role Chuck Schumer played, too.

After 8 years of working with Barack Obama he should know better. "Leading from behind" and all that. Obama was not and never has been a Take Responsibility Guy for anything: he's always been a bystander when things go wrong under his direction and fancies himself more in the Eisenhower role.

“She did what she had to do” in order to give Democrats the best chance to win in November, Biden told one of the people, adding that Pelosi “cares about the party,” not about feelings.

Heh. She also doesn't care about what democrat voters think.

To ensure Joe's silence, the democrats' State Media outfits are throwing brushback pitches. After ignoring/downplaying/deriding as fake news the entire Hunter Biden affair, the NYT now says this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/13/us/politics/hun...
Hunter Biden Sought State Department Help for Ukrainian Company
After President Biden dropped his re-election bid, his administration released records showing that while he was vice president, his son solicited U.S. government assistance.

In other words...yes, Hunter Biden was in the influence peddling business.

Hunter Biden sought assistance from the U.S. government for a potentially lucrative energy project in Italy while his father was vice president, according to newly released records and interviews.
The records, which the Biden administration had withheld for years, indicate that Hunter Biden wrote at least one letter to the U.S. ambassador to Italy in 2016 seeking assistance for the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, where he was a board member.

This has been obvious for years, but is news to many.

CLEARLY Biden's being told to keep his mouth shut and accept his fate. If he doesn't...here's what he'll win: A DOJ that will target Hunter Alderaan with their prosecutorial Death Star.

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2024/08/14/biden-conf...

There was nothing organic about the sitting president suddenly ending his campaign. A well-connected group of elites led by Nancy Pelosi decided to push him out the door. It didn't matter that they would have to throw out all the primary votes in the process. All that mattered was holding onto power at any cost. Pelosi stabbed Biden in the back, making it impossible for him to remain the nominee as the donor class also joined her effort, ensuring the money supply would dry up.

On the one hand, what occurred is a slap in the face to the democratic process. On the other hand, you have to respect the ruthlessness with which Pelosi and her party operate. They don't care about anything but winning elections, and there are no lines they won't cross to get their desired result. In the before times, it was unthinkable to force an incumbent president off the ticket in July. They did it, though, and instead of it backfiring, it's currently paying dividends in the form of a much more winnable election for them.

Yup.

Continuing with the flinging of feces, I see. Trying to normalize the idea of a coup so that when Trump makes his SECOND coup attempt he can distract the mindless and say "but Biden".

I'm too tired of this garbage to attempt a point by point rebuttal. Any one with half a brain already knows this is nothing more than garbage. And those without a brain will continue to fling feces instead of thinking.

--Peter

In the before times, it was unthinkable to force an incumbent president off the ticket in July.

Nixon was pushed out in August. Ha ha ha. Of course it wasn’t the August after the convention had decided he was the candidate but then the Biden push wasn’t before the convention had decided on a candidate either.

Here’s a question. Suppose someone won enough delegates to win the nomination at the convention, but before the convention they died. Or decided they weren’t going to run (LBJ). Or were killed before the convention, but had “committed” delegates (RFK).

There is no “official” party candidate until the nominating convention at which time one becomes “the candidate.” I suppose you could make the technical argument that the convention should vote for the candidate who won the primaries, which would be Biden, who would then decline, and then a second vote would be taken and any candidates who wanted to announce could do so and then either win or lose the nomination.

It is, I think, a distinction without a difference since the announced candidate (Biden) has already said he won’t accept the nomination. I was personally hoping for an open convention but I am not unhappy with how it is playing out. For a political newcomer, Kamala has shown some amazing dexterity in locking up the nomination in a remarkably short time - and in launching a campaign from zero to 60 in a matter of days.

what has happened is a slap in the face to the democratic process

If this is a slap then January 6th was a body blow. And wouldn’t it be great if the Republican Party had somebody strong enough to sidle up to the Orange man and say “You know, you’re demented. You’re old. You’re spewing nonsense. You’ve cost us elections in 2018, 2020, 2022, and it looks like maybe 2024. Maybe you should exit and give some new blood a chance.”

But Republicans can’t do that even though they secretly know they’re on a negative, downhill, very bad trajectory. I guess they’re just pussies, afraid to confront the truth even though it’s staring them in the face.

... afraid to confront the truth even though it’s staring them in the face.

So many have been consuming so many lies for almost a decade now that they no longer can tell truth from lies. They can't see the truth staring them in the face so have nothing to confront. The person to whom you were responding is a typical example. You presented a logical argument, but that argument won't be responded to with a logical rebuttal. Any response will be more lies and a distraction or three.

Yes, there are some who never bought the lies, and a few who have opened their eyes to the lies they've been accepting. That's how we get a movement like Republicans for Harris. That group seems to be doing OK. They had a virtual meeting yesterday where a number of prominent Republicans came out of the closet saying they would vote for Harris and encouraging others to do the same.

This is a long over-due change. It's not going to move huge numbers of votes. But if it moves enough votes in the critical states, it can make a significant difference.

Combine this with the accumulating evidence of a plan by Trump to overturn the election, and it becomes necessary for Harris to win as many of the swing states as possible. If she wins by only the Electoral votes in a single state, it will take only one state for Trump to succeed at overturning the election. If that plan needs two or more states, the odds of it succeeding fall significantly.

Here's a little bit on the Republicans for Harris event last night.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnTJS3S2j6M

--Peter

They don't care about anything but winning elections, and there are no lines they won't cross to get their desired result.

As usual with today’s Republicans, an accusation is nothing more than a confession.

Fascinating post. It does a middling job of dancing around the issue, but kinda comes up short at the end.

This part in particular, when you...basically argue on my side:
If this is a slap then January 6th was a body blow. And wouldn’t it be great if the Republican Party had somebody strong enough to sidle up to the Orange man and say “You know, you’re demented. You’re old. You’re spewing nonsense. You’ve cost us elections in 2018, 2020, 2022, and it looks like maybe 2024. Maybe you should exit and give some new blood a chance.”

You see, Trump ran in an open primary system and was chosen by Republican voters. The Republican party then honored that choice.

Now contrast that with what the democrats have done. Joe Biden ran in an open primary system and won, too. But the party told every one of its voters that their choice was IRRELEVANT.

Let that sink in. A party that tries to trash-talk about "democracy" just bent over its own menbers.

Now contrast that with what the democrats have done. Joe Biden ran in an open primary system and won, too. But the party told every one of its voters that their choice was IRRELEVANT.

That's not actually true.

Because Biden had won (nearly) all of the delegates, the party had no mechanism to deny him the nomination over his objection. The choice of the voters was extremely relevant. As long as Biden remained in the race, he would be the nominee - no matter what anyone else wanted or said.

However, winning the nomination isn't the end of the campaign. Just because you're the nominee doesn't mean you're entitled to anyone donating you money, supporting you on the campaign trail, or even endorsing you. And obviously it doesn't mean you're going to win. So while party leaders could not - and did not - take away any of Biden's delegates, they could make it clear to Biden that he had damaged himself beyond repair with his debate performance, that his campaign was a lost cause, and that they wouldn't be contributing much to him going forward. So the choice was his - he always had the ability to remain in the race, but he wasn't going to win.

So he withdrew. The primary voters get to choose a nominee, but they can't force him to run if he doesn't want to. The will of the voters can't force the person they choose to accept the nomination. Their choice mattered, but Biden always had the ability to walk away.

That's not actually true

It's not? When did you cast your primary ballot for Kamala Harris as the candidate for President?

Because Biden had won (nearly) all of the delegates, the party had no mechanism to deny him the nomination over his objection. The choice of the voters was extremely relevant. As long as Biden remained in the race, he would be the nominee - no matter what anyone else wanted or said.

And he wanted to run...until he was paid a visit by Don Pelosi, wasn't he?

And obviously it doesn't mean you're going to win. So while party leaders could not - and did not - take away any of Biden's delegates, they could make it clear to Biden that he had damaged himself beyond repair with his debate performance, that his campaign was a lost cause, and that they wouldn't be contributing much to him going forward. So the choice was his - he always had the ability to remain in the race, but he wasn't going to win.

LOL, okay. This is the Noble Choice Narrative. The problem with it is that Joe Biden wasn't the one who actually made The Noble Choice in the first place. It was made for him, and carried an "or else" threat.

LOL, okay. This is the Noble Choice Narrative. The problem with it is that Joe Biden wasn't the one who actually made The Noble Choice in the first place. It was made for him, and carried an "or else" threat.

Except that's not true. Biden made the choice. He could have chosen to remain the nominee. There was nothing they could do to stop him, if that's what he wanted. Again, because he had all the committed delegates. That gave Biden 100% of the power to stay the nominee if he wanted to.

But the Democratic party leaders changed his mind. They got past his protective inner circle and explained to him that he was losing already, that the debate performance was so terrible that he was going to start losing by even more, and that he wouldn't be in a position to turn that around. This was not a threat - everyone knew that Biden was in horrible shape in the campaign after the debates, and that most of the caucus would not be in a position to both defend their own seats and support him. Biden lost the Presidential campaign in the debate, and he simply had the choice to keep the nomination and lose or hand it off so the Democrats might have a chance.

I understand why Republicans want to believe this. They don't want to choose a convicted criminal as a President - that's a tough thing to do. That's why all the Biden Crime Family stuff was so important, to give conflicted Republicans the belief that Biden was just as criminal as Trump, but that he hadn't been convicted. But there's nothing like that for Harris. There's nothing that delegitimizes her the same way Republicans had convinced themselves that Biden was as delegitimized as Trump.

But it's not true. Persuasion is not threatening. Asking candidate to accept the reality of their diminished capabilities and their non-existent chances of winning is not a "coup." He could always have chosen to stay on and lost, and no one would have been able to force him to do otherwise. He just accepted the reality of his situation.

I understand why Republicans want to believe this. They don't want to choose a convicted criminal as a President - that's a tough thing to do. That's why all the Biden Crime Family stuff was so important, to give conflicted Republicans the belief that Biden was just as criminal as Trump, but that he hadn't been convicted. But there's nothing like that for Harris.

But that is exactly why they're switching to the coup narrative. I believe that Trump is laying the ground work to repeat his attempts at a coup should he lose. I've posted about that in other threads, so won't repeat it here.

The need for a coup narrative against Harris is exactly the same as the need for a criminal narrative against Biden. To legitimize Trump.

When Trump loses and begins his coup attempt, he will sell it as doing exactly what Harris did. "She went against the voters." "She installing herself as the candidate." His MAGA minions will say they are doing the same thing that Democrats did in removing Biden from the nomination. Even though that isn't true. Biden removed himself.

You know that Biden did not succumb to a coup. I know that. Most thinking people know that. But that isn't important. If Trump can sell the coup narrative about Biden to his followers, that will legitimize their attempt at an actual coup to install Trump even if he loses the election. After all, "The Democrats did it, why can't the Republicans?" "I should have been running against Biden, and we all know I would have won."

--Peter

Except that's not true. Biden made the choice.

Biden "made the choice" in the same way that relatives of kidnapping victims "made the choice" to pay the ransom.

CLEARLY Pelosi told him during their call what time it was and exactly what would happen if Joe stayed in the race.

The Politico article spells this out. The NYT article - after years of denying there's an issue with Hunter at all from them - was a part of the "or else".

Pelosi has repeatedly said in recent interviews — mainly to promote her new book titled “The Art of Power” — that she didn’t call anyone but the president in the three weeks prior to Biden’s departure from the race. However, Pelosi took calls from rank-and-file Democrats who sought her advice in the days following Biden’s debate performance and before he dropped out of the race, multiple people familiar with her conversations told POLITICO at the time.

Kings and Queens never call anybody else. Everybody else calls them. Barack Brutus Obama's fingerprints aren't on the knife, either.
https://nypost.com/2024/07/22/us-news/top-dems-thr...

Operatives at the very highest levels of the Democratic Party threatened President Biden with forcibly removing him from office unless he stepped down, sources told The Post.

The well-orchestrated “palace coup” to stop the faltering president from seeking re-election had been in place for weeks, but stubborn Biden fought it every step of the way, a source close to the Biden family told The Post on Monday.

I told you months ago that the people who really run the democrat party would step in, and they did.

CLEARLY Pelosi told him during their call what time it was and exactly what would happen if Joe stayed in the race.

Yes. She told him that he would lose.

That's not like a kidnapping victim not having a choice to pay the ransom or not. She's not threatening force or bodily harm. She's not threatening anything. She basically told him that his debate performance was so bad that he would not be able to pull it out - the polls were terrible, her members couldn't support him, and the donors were going to invest in other races rather than back a losing cause.

Biden always had the choice to remain in the race, and nothing bad would have happened to him. He would have simply lost, and would have been (unavoidably) blamed for that loss. He didn't want that to happen, so he withdrew. He blew his own election chances with his debate performance, and there was no coming back from it - so rather than saddle his party with the loss, he bowed out.

Not a coup. Again, I understand why the GOP needs to get their voters to believe that - but it's just not true.

Not a coup.

The evidence says otherwise. Pelosi was the Mafia Don that delivered the choice to Biden:

1. Stay in the race, watch us distance ourselves from you and your donors vanish. You'll lose and pull down the party with you. Oh, by the way: the DOJ is looking at Hunter's influence peddling activities for Burisma (remember that?). Pelosi also allegedly threatened him with harsher methods.

2. Leave the race, be lauded as an American hero and a "Mount Rushmore" kind of a President. There is likely also some kind of payout involved. Big book deal for the family, probably Jill, and cushy no-show jobs for Hunter and the brother.

Biden's decreasing mental acuity was obvious 2 years ago and these same people glossed over it and *didn't* have this conversation before he went in front of the voters. THAT would have been the time to have this talk with Joe if everything was on the up-and-up.

But as I've said, the people that really run the democrat party will do what they have to so as to win.

The evidence says otherwise. Pelosi was the Mafia Don that delivered the choice to Biden:

The evidence does say otherwise. As you recognize, Biden had a choice.

Choices have expected outcomes. If my doctor tells me I have high cholesterol, and that I have a choice to either reduce the amount of red meat and cheese in my diet or to keep going but face a heart attack, he's not a Mafia Don. He's not threatening me. I'm not being coerced. The fact that one of those choices has an expected outcome that I find displeasing (a heart attack) does not eliminate my agency, or mean that my doctor is staging a "coup" over my eating habits.

Pelosi went and spoke truth to power: you and your campaign thought you had enough in the tank to gut out the election, but you just shot the bed. You were in good enough shape to do the sorts of necessary events on the campaign trail in 2022:

https://www.npr.org/2022/10/17/1129524093/biden-20...

...but you're not any more. You've blown your chance with the voters and the donors, and any member that isn't running in a safe seat is going to distance themselves from you. You can't win anymore, even if your inner circle is telling you that you can.

And then Biden had a choice. Biden could have simply told Pelosi, "I don't care, I'm running anyway," and she would have had to just eat it. So, no. Not a coup. Not a Mafia Don.

As you recognize, Biden had a choice.

Sure. He could have stayed in the race, been disowned by his party, abandoned by his donors, see his son prosecuted by his own DOJ, and gone down in history as the guy who lost to The Bad Orange Man.

Or, he could drop out of the race, get a nice payday, be feted by the democrat media (read: all of them) for being one of history's Most Amazing Presidents Ever and likely get his family paid. And oh, yeah, that Hunter thing largely goes away.

That's some choice. Again, not unlike paying the ransom for your kidnapped child.

It was obvious to any observer that Joe Biden was mentally compromised in 2020 and 2021. Why do you think Biden ran from his basement in 2020?

Pelosi and others covered up his decline to try and win an election in 2020. Then they lied to the public about Joe's fitness for office for the following 3 years.

When it came time to run again, they'd so puffed up Joe Biden that his ego and Marie Antoinette Jill Biden convinced him that not only should he run again, but that he'd destroy The Bad Orange Man. After all,
Biden cured Covid!
Best economy ever, Jack!
Hey, NATO - America is back, baby!

...and a litany of other fantasies.

Pelosi, Obama and Schumer - the people who run the democrat party - realized the jig might be up - if Biden ran a traditional campaign, his obvious unfitness would sink him. How could they resurrect the basement strategy that worked so well last time?

So the party tried a bluff: Offer the Bad Orange Man some ridiculous terms for the debates - no audience, a mute button, screamingly partisan left wing debate moderators on networks that Trump hates...with the idea that Trump would turn them down. Then they could hide Joe in the basement again and just let Trump say dumb things that alienated just enough voters for Biden to win a second term.

But they forgot 1 thing: The Bad Orange Man relishes adversarial environments. So he accepted their rigged and ridiculous debate rules.

Biden rants today about how he was "set up to fail". He wasn't set up to fail this time. The set up to fail part happened in 2019 when he decided to run for President then. The mythmaking about his mental fitness just couldn't stand up to the reality of his condition any longer.

And thus the people who run the democrat party - not the voters - pulled the plug.

LOL, okay. This is the Noble Choice Narrative. The problem with it is that Joe Biden wasn't the one who actually made The Noble Choice in the first place. It was made for him, and carried an "or else" threat.


Why are you banging on about this? Well, I think I know. This has made little Trumpie very grumpy because he so wanted to run against Biden. Now he and all his RW media friends are reaching for anything that they think might be a negative.

Biden was performing very poorly as a candidate. Yes, there was pressure on him to step aside. But only he could make that decision in the end. And he did.

So..what is your point?

So..what is your point?

I believe it is an attempt to flood the media with excrement. Or, perhaps, throw it against the wall and see what sticks. Either way, it's just a pointless talking point. Irrelevant, and erroneous.

But, by all means...let them flail at Biden. Harris is the one running. If they ignore her, she won't go away. She might even win.

I believe it is an attempt to flood the media with excrement. Or, perhaps, throw it against the wall and see what sticks. Either way, it's just a pointless talking point. Irrelevant, and erroneous.

Just curious. When you make snide remarks about others' posts, do you think no one else sees them?

Just curious. When you make snide remarks about others' posts, do you think no one else sees them?

I think it's pretty clear he wasn't talking about you, or your post - after all, it's not really plausible that you personally are making an attempt to flood the media with this.

Instead, it's wondering why the GOP is raising this. It is a bit puzzling. Harris wasn't personally involved in Biden's departure from the race. Nor has the GOP tried to build a case that she was. So this isn't an attack line on Harris. So what is the GOP trying to do by pursuing this attack line?

There are a few choices.

Continuing disaffection between the Bernie Bros and ClintonWorld after the 2016 primaries is thought to have helped Trump win that race. So they might be trying to generate a split among Democratic voters again. That seems off, though - there aren't really "Biden Bros" that feel passionate about him personally, and Dem. voters report being satisfied with the switch.

There's also my favorite, that they're trying to re-create a permission structure by painting Harris as somehow an "illegitimate" candidate so that they can justify voting for Trump even though he tried to stay in office despite losing the 2020 election. The argument that the GOP protects democracy more than the Democrats - or at least, that they're no worse.

1PG is just pointing out that it might not even be to achieve any particular purpose. That they're just throwing it out there to see if it will stick, if it might become the next "but her emails!" Since it doesn't seem to be getting much traction, if that's the case we'll see Trump's surrogates leave this alone and just move on to something else.

It wasn't a snide remark. It's a strategy (i.e. flooding the media with excrement). I don't like that strategy because it relies on lies, half-truths, and suppositions that people can't prove. But it is still a strategy, and it works for a large portion of the population.

It also is erroneous, and irrelevant, as I said. Harris is running. If the right wishes to focus on Biden, go for it. Ignore Harris. I don't have a problem with that.

I believe it is an attempt to flood the media with excrement. Or, perhaps, throw it against the wall and see what sticks. Either way, it's just a pointless talking point. Irrelevant, and erroneous.

Flood the media? Yes.
See what sticks? Yes.
Erroneous? Yes.
Pointless and irrelevant? Not at all. Talking about Biden’s withdrawal as a coup is very important to Trump and his followers. There is a point and a plan behind this kind of talk.

Trump and his cult need a coup narrative to normalize the idea of a coup. They need it to be normalized so that when they attempt a real coup after the election they will have a better chance of success.

Listen to what Trump and Republicans say and do.

Republicans are putting in place the machinery to contest the election and get it into the House. They’ve run a couple tests of it by refusing to certify some elections over the last year or so. Georgia has made it legal for local election clerks to investigate their results before certifying the election results.

When asked about a peaceful transfer of power, Trump said it would be peaceful if Democrats allow it. The obvious implication is that they might fight if they feel it’s necessary.

This “coup equivalency” is a vital piece of the Trump and MAGA plan to return Trump to the White House in whatever way they can.

—Peter

Another Sunday, another post from God. In the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost, ramen!

"Oh, a coup is a coup, huh? Did Maureen Doud bother to define what a coup even is? Nay, for she doth suck. Here, I found this on Google in TWO DAMN SECONDS!

COUP: (noun) a sudden, violent, and unlawful seizure of power from a government. "he was overthrown in an army coup"

But lo, it’s an election year. What doth it matter if we callously throw around the same words being used by fascist propagandists, right, Maureen?

That’s right, all of this ‘coup’ talk is emanating from that crusty anus on Donold’s face he calls a mouth:

“Kamala wants NOTHING TO DO WITH CROOKED JOE BIDEN! They are throwing him out on the Monday Night Stage, known as Death Valley. He now HATES Obama and Crazy Nancy more than he hates me! He is an angry man, as he should be. They stole the Presidency from him — ‘It was a Coup!’”

It wasn’t a coup, thou vilest piece of shit. What thou didst on January 6?

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