Trump has been taunting Biden to debate repeatedly saying, “anytime, anywhere.” Now his minions and mouthpieces are having a little meltdown because Biden accepted: The first debate is set for next month on CNN, while the second is planned for September on ABC. Though the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee has also pushed for a Fox News debate, the Democratic incumbent hasn’t agreed to that ― and the network’s hosts are in meltdown mode as a result. Sean Hannity criticized CNN’s Jake Tapper, who is set to be one of the debate moderators, by calling him a “radical left-wing partisan.” Hannity demanded that moderators’ mics get cut off after asking Trump questions, and he also launched into some wild conspiracy theories about Biden. He claimed that Biden will take a “heavy dose” of “whatever he took before the State of the Union” address to win the debates. He further suggested that Biden is “secretly” trying to get out of the debates.
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2023: Now: India: Milan, Italy Laurie Garret writes: Why are we seeing flooding all over the world now? Boil some soup. Pour into a bowl. Wrap bowl in Saran. Watch condensation form, & drip down. Welcome to our CO2-filled atmosphere. Kids, there is nothing on this earth more important than doing everything possible to get the governments around the world to take action on climate change. I’m old and I’ll be dead before too long. But this is going to change everything for the worse in the world you are going to be living in. This is literally an existential threat to life on earth.
And yes, I realize that the stock market isn’t the economy. But the economy is doing well too: Four years ago, this was what Trump told people. He says the same thing today and is never quizzed by anyone about how he justifies saying it considering how wrong he was. The one rationalization he gives is that the markets are up in anticipation of his win and that he hopes they crash before he becomes president again because he doesn’t want to be Herbert Hoover.
Ya ba dibba dibba dibba dibba dibba dibba dum It’s party over public health now in North Carolina: The North Carolina Senate Judiciary Committee approved an amended version of House Bill 237 on Tuesday morning that would prohibit the wearing of masks in public. The controversial bill, which would also increase criminal penalties for those who commit crimes while wearing a mask in public, comes in the wake of protests that have erupted on college campuses across the country in response to the Israel-Hamas conflict. Gotta nip that in the bud, as Deputy Fife would say up the road in Mayberry. Laws dating back to the 1950s that were enacted, at least in part, as responses to groups like the Ku Klux Klan, prohibit wearing a mask in public in North Carolina, with exceptions. Those exceptions were expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic to include people wearing masks for health reasons. Newton’s bill would remove that specific exception. They’re just rolling back the law to what it was before COVID, dontcha know.
Labor Historian Eric Loomis was asked to give a letter grade to Joe Biden’s administration on labor policy. Biden makes the honor roll: Joe Biden has pledged repeatedly to go further than any of his predecessors with his support for U.S. labor rights. “I intend to be the most pro-union president leading the most pro-union administration in American history,” Biden said at a White House meeting in September 2021 that brought together ordinary workers, labor leaders and government officials. He has expressed this intention many times, sometimes clarifying his goals. For example, in 2023 he said in Chicago that his administration was “making it easier to empower workers by making it easier to join a union.” Based on my research regarding the history of organized labor in America, I would give Biden an A-minus for his record on workers rights. In my view, the man dubbed “Union Joe” has lived up to the claim, with one notable error. He says it’s the same grade he would give to FDR.
Fox news is having a full-fledged meltdown over Kamala Harris using the F-word. It dishonors the office dontcha know. Yeah…
Don’t lose your nerve, Joe A friend who like others is permanently frustrated with “the Democrats” said Monday she wants them to show more fight. No argument here. We saw feistiness from Joe Biden during and in the wake of his State of the Union address: a flurry of hard-hitting internet ads went after his wannabe fascist opponent. But as college protests proliferated over the body count in the Gaza Strip, it feels as if the Biden campaign has dialed it back. It’s not helping that some polls show him trailing Donald Trump in several battleground states. Tuesday’s Axios story that claims Biden doesn’t believe he’s behind, writes Dan Pfeiffer, got “Democrats reverting to their natural state of worry verging on panic.” Pfeiffer argues that campaign is not in denial about current polling. Running a campaign. especially a presidential campaign, is largely about “mood management,” he explains. What makes it worse is Democrats vent their anxieties in public while you rarely see a poll unfavorable to Donald Trump on Fox News: Of course, the Biden folks are putting their best face forward.
He’s losing a troubling number of Republicans It’s Wednesday, so Donald “88 Counts” Trump is not in court. He is free to golf and complain his criminal trial means he’s unable to campaign for president. Tuesday featured three additional presidential primaries in Maryland, Nebraska, and West Virginia. Politico’s lede: “Donald Trump showed weakness in the suburbs in Tuesday’s primaries, while Joe Biden’s problem with the protest vote appeared to fade.” Zombie Nikki is still a problem for Trump: A week after Nikki Haley earned 22 percent of the vote in Indiana’s open GOP primary, the widespread expectation was that different rules in the states voting on Tuesday would take a huge chunk out of support for her zombie presidential candidacy. That didn’t exactly happen. Even though Haley likely won’t end up matching her Indiana total in Maryland, Nebraska or West Virginia, there are still some warning signs for Trump in the results.
The much anticipated testimony by former Donald Trump lawyer Michael Cohen finally arrived this week and from the sound of many of the talking heads on television it’s been a huge disappointment. They were apparently expecting the former president’s one-time personal “fixer” to melt down on the stand in a fit of rage or lunge at his former boss but instead the carefully prepared Cohen was subdued and succinct, admitting his lies and misdeeds in service of Donald Trump with a sorrowful mien. The prosecution’s case has been meticulously laid out through testimony from the people with whom Trump conspired to create fake news items about his political rivals in 2016 and their scheme to buy up negative stories about him. This was accompanied with testimony from his loyal, former assistants creating a timeline delineating what the former president knew and when he knew it. And then there was Stormy Daniels, the adult film actress who received the hush money payoff, taking the stand to dramatically verify that the story they were trying to suppress was true.
The AP reports: President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump on Wednesday agreed to hold two campaign debates — the first on June 27 hosted by CNN and the second on Sept. 10 hosted by ABC — setting the stage for the first presidential face-off in just weeks. […] Trump, in a post on his Truth Social site, said he was “Ready and Willing to Debate” Biden. Hours later, Biden said he accepted an invitation from CNN, adding, “Over to you, Donald.” Trump said on Truth Social he’d be there, adding, “Let’s get ready to Rumble!!!” And soon after that, they agreed to the second debate on ABC. “Trump says he’ll arrange his own transportation,” Biden wrote on X. “I’ll bring my plane, too. I plan on keeping it for another four years.” Trump is convinced that Biden is such a doddering, drooling old fool that he’ll fall asleep during the debate.