You’ll note that Trump’s lower number was in November 2019, before the pandemic hit and the numbers surged. Biden’s low number, on the other hand, is from hard work digging out of the carnage that was left behind. Those high numbers for Reagan and Obama improved dramatically in the last year and there is every reason to believe that Biden’s numbers are going to go lower still. After this segment, Dana bash said to the reporter something to the effect of, “that’s nice but nobody’s feeling it so that’s bad news for Biden.” The reporter explained that since prices are higher than they were five years ago you can’t expect people to feel good about anything. Americans need to get some perspective. It always takes some time for this stuff to catch up but there’s no reason for the mainstream media to be so relentlessly negative. Anyway, here’s your hit of hopium for the day to counterbalance that kind of coverage if you’ve happened to be exposed to it: Update — And lookie here: Detroit is on track to record the fewest murders since the 1960s.
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Here’s the former Great Whitebread Hope still flailing around trying to prove that he’s just as much of an authoritarian monster as Donald Trump: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said in a Thursday interview that, if elected president, he would fire special counsel Jack Smith, who brought two indictments against former President Trump, on “day one” of his hypothetical term in office. DeSantis made the case for why he was the best candidate to win the GOP nomination in 2024 in a Fox News interview with Jason Chaffetz. After referencing Trump’s legal battles in the upcoming year, DeSantis said he would be able to keep focused on holding people accountable, including Smith. “I think that a guy like me as the nominee will be able to keep the focus on Biden, keep the focus on the Democrats’ failures,” DeSantis said, “but then, more importantly, after you win the election, start holding these people accountable, who have weaponized the legal system to go after their political enemies.” “And that starts with day one, firing somebody like Jack Smith.
You can’t win if you don’t show up to play I’m giving space this morning to the youngest Democratic state chair in the country. One year ago, Anderson Clayton, a 2020 Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, and Amy McGrath field organizer took on “the powers that be” in the N.C. Democratic Party. She ran for state chair at 25. And won. Last night, she looked back on that decision (on the hellsite). (Full disclosure: I’m a friend and a fan. Clayton consulted with me for 3-1/2 hrs weeks before announcing her run. She did everything I recommended and more, including getting an early start. I funded a chunk of her campaign and watched it unfold as the only supporter over 35 on her campaign Slack.) (Since winning the chair, Clayton has appeared on television, in national newspaper profiles, and raised funds across the country.) If anyone is going to redeem the global climate and our reeling democracy, it’s not going to be the generations that oversaw bringing the world to this crisis. Fixing what needs fixing is not going to come from a dial-tested three-word slogan or a dead-on-arrival five-point progressive policy.
He’s not even your retribution, MAGA The man spends (how much?) time, bronzer and hairspray on himself each morning before going to work late. He had to have daily presidential security briefings dumbed down to maps and bullet points because he has a short attention span for anything not Donald Trump. He has other priorities (which don’t include personal hygiene). But question his star power (or his liquidity) and you have his full attention. Daily Beast: Donald Trump kept the Christmas spirit going strong on Wednesday when he used his Truth Social account to go after the director of Home Alone and Home Alone 2 for suggesting in an interview that he “bullied” his way into a now-iconic cameo in the 1992 sequel. Just as Trump has frequently accused special prosecutor Jack Smith of having a fake name, the former president suggested the same of Chris Columbus as he disputed the director’s claims about how his appearance during a scene at the Plaza hotel, which he owned at the time, came to be.
What a doozy Republicans have a real problem when it comes to simple questions about the civil war and slavery. Nikki Haley got caught in a major gaffe yesterday in New Hampshire but Ron DeSantis has a lot of nerve dinging her for it though. He’s the guy who said defended a high school AP curriculum that said slavery helped enslaved Black people develop skills that could be applied for their personal benefit. Please. Here’s the whole Haley exchange: This isn’t hard. As Ron Brownstein pointed out, “South Carolina’s 1860 proclamation outlining its reasons for seceding from the Union mentions slavery in its opening sentence & points to the ‘increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery’ as a reason for the state” seceding.” She tried to clean it up today. First, she said it was a Democratic plant in the audience, as if that would make a difference. And she also said this: “Of course the Civil War was about slavery … But it was also more than that. It was about the freedoms of every individual. It was about the role of government.” Hmm.
Trump and Fox Nina Burleigh has written a great piece for TNR about Joe Biden’s other opponent in the 2024 election: Fox News. I urge you to read the whole thing if you can. It will be worth your while. It opens with this: On October 6, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly jobs report for September. The numbers were extremely positive, with 336,000 jobs added, almost double the forecast. Most media outlets were reporting the numbers as a sign of improvement in the economy—which they are. But Fox reported otherwise. On his prime-time show that night, host Jesse Watters called the report “a straight-up scandal.” He accused the Biden administration of “cherry-picking and double counting the numbers.” As he babbled, chyrons drove home the point in capital letters, for anyone watching with the sound down, in, say, a bar or a gym: “Biden’s Jobs Numbers Scandal” and “Biden’s Economy Is Smoke & Mirrors.” That day, the network flooded all its zones with the same shade.
He can’t win but if he dirties up Trump it’s fine with me. I can’t argue with a thing he says there. Stay in Chris! You’ve already burned your bridges with MAGA. You have nothing to lose.
Why does this keep coming up? That guy’s a bit of a nut. On the other hand, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard this sort of thing. Remember this? A month before Donald Trump clinched the Republican nomination, one of his closest allies in Congress — House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy — made a politically explosive assertion in a private conversation on Capitol Hill with his fellow GOP leaders: that Trump could be the beneficiary of payments from Russian President Vladimir Putin. “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” McCarthy (R-Calif.) said, according to a recording of the June 15, 2016, exchange, which was listened to and verified by The Washington Post. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is a Californian Republican known in Congress as a fervent defender of Putin and Russia. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) immediately interjected, stopping the conversation from further exploring McCarthy’s assertion, and swore the Republicans present to secrecy.
You’ve already heard about the head of the Republican Party down in Florida who is accused of raping a woman with whom he and his wife, a founding member of the far right, anti-LGBTQ “parental rights” group Moms for Liberty, had previously had a three way sexual affair. It turns out that they aren’t the only hypocrites in the GOP. (Ya think????) Here’s another lovely mom for liberty: A former Pennsylvania lieutenant governor candidate and outspoken voice in the conservative “parental rights” school movement has been charged with punching a teenager while hosting an underage drinking party at her Bucks County home in September. Clarice Schillinger, 36, is facing criminal charges of assault, harassment and furnishing minors with alcohol during her daughter’s birthday party, according to the case filed in late October. Her attorney has denied all charges and said she will fight them in court.