Bibi speaks in Congress (again)

For a loathsome fellow, Netanyahu has spoken in Congress a lot (he beat Winston Churchill's record yesterday).

Anyway, the speech was predictable pablum, and probably decreased the chances that the War in Gaza might end soon. The one bit that struck me as particularly ironic is when he said this:

Like Americans, Israelis were relieved that President Trump emerged safe and sound from that dastardly attack on him, dastardly attack on American democracy. There is no room for political violence in democracies.

That's pretty rich for the guy who led a crowd chanting "Death to Rabin!" just before a member of that crowd assassinated Yitzhak Rabin.

"we need to have an open convention to give the people a voice for choosing the nominee"

 "The people" for the most part are not invited to the Democratic National Convention.

Meanwhile, "the people" elected Harris as Vice President. The central role of that office is to be ready to substitute for Joe Biden if he isn't up to it on his own.

There's a better argument that Harris has a popular mandate to be the nominee than anyone who the delegates at the convention may choose.

Biden to Announce Supreme Court Reforms

Finally. Seriously, this is exactly what Biden should be doing. I just wish he was better at selling it to the public. Maybe get some of the Democrats' better speakers to talk about it?

I guess this gives the Supreme Court an even bigger incentive to try to tip the election to the Republicans. But this past term showed up that the Court is willing to do that anyways. So any new ire that the Thomases and Alitos of the bench have won't make any difference.

Prediction

If Trump wins the presidency in November and a seat on the Supreme Court opens up during his term, he will appoint Aileen Cannon to fill the seat.

go after the Court

I think the best evidence that Joe Biden isn’t up to this presidential race is not his debate performance (which, admittedly, I did not watch), but the way he has reacted to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has issued a bunch of truly horrendous rulings, staking out remarkably unpopular positions. This would otherwise be a gift to any politician running for the presidency opposed to those policies. Except Biden isn’t really doing anything.

The Supreme Court has, for example, (1) taken away the right to choose whether to have an abortion, (2) decided that the Courts (packed with Trump appointees) not scientists or experts will get to decide whether our air and water is clean, (3) legalized taking bribery after its own members were caught taking bribes, (4) declared that the violent attempts to stop Congress in an insurrection is not a crime of interfering with Congress, with two members of the majority refusing to recuse even when evidence came out that they supported the insurrection, (5) created out of thin air a new rule that Presidents are immune from the crimes committed in office even though the Constitution specifically says that former presidents are subject to prosecution and the founders wrote that a president can be held criminally liable.

A competent presidential candidate in Biden’s situations would bring those things up, over and over again. Sure, the media just wants to talk about his compentency as a candidate rather than focus on the real threat of judicial-assisted authoritarianism this country faces. But what better way to show that you are competent than by going on the attack and changing the conversation to what should be the real issue.

If Biden can’t do that, I really hope that Harris can, and that Harris does soon.

It's Biden or Harris vs. Trump

Since last Thursday's debate, people all across Democratistan have been floating their fantasy candidate to replace Joe Biden at the last minute to save the Republic from Donald Trump. There isn't all that much discussion about how exactly that will work. The primaries are over. It is not clear how exactly the swap will work? Who will decide that Gavin Newsom, or whoever the person blabbering on about their ideal candidate should be, will end up being the post-Biden alternative as the presidential candidate? Not Democratic voters!

If you understand how the system actually works, there are really just two options for Democratic presidential candidate at this point: 

1. Stick with Joe Biden.
2. Kamala Harris

Okay technically there is a third option, the convention floor fight. But that would be such an obvious colossal disaster that Bill Maher is for it, because of course he is.

Here's the weird thing: most of the fantasy football types don't bother to mention Harris, despite the fact that she is the Vice President (the person whose main job is literally to take over if Biden is not up to being President) on the unstated assumption that she is unpopular and can't win. And yet, Harris does better than virtually all the fantasy candidates in head to head polls against Trump. Plus, she is also the only one who would inherit the reelect Biden war chest if she became the candidate and would not have to start fundraising this late in the game. Anyone else would be crippled with no money to run a national campaign and worse name recognition than Harris.

Realistically speaking, that is the Democrat's choice: stick with Biden, or run with Harris. That's it. Those are the choices. Talking about anyone else is just wasting time.

who won lunch?

 This is another long-term hobby horse of mine, but I feel like I need to say it again:

A. Some things in life have winners and losers: board games, sports matches, elections, drag races, horse races, okay any kind of race, contests, lotteries, etc.

B. Some things in life do not have winners or losers: conversations, working a retail shift, tying a shoe, building a shelf, arguing with anonymous strangers online, etc.

The difference between the stuff listed in category A vs. the stuff listed in catagory B, is the stuff in category A has clear criteria for determining a winner or loser. I can list that criteria for each one of my above examples. The stuff in category B does not have a clear criteria for determining a winner. So for those things, there isn't a winner or loser. Which is fine. Not everything has winners or losers.

Which is why it is always stupid to talk about who "won" a debate between political candidates. The candidates are competing with each other, but they are competing in the election. The debate is just a way for them to try to get more votes. Like a campaign commercial. But no one says that a candidate "won" his ad campaign. The ad campaign is a means to an end. It is not the thing that is won or lost. It's the same with political debates.

It just annoys the crap out of me every morning after a political debate when people talk about who won or lost. I didn't watch the debate, but it seems like the near-universal consensus is that Biden did badly last night. That doesn't mean he lost! It means he did badly, and maybe that will hurt his chances in the election (probably not, but I guess it is possible that it will matter this time). But it is the election and not the debate that has a winner or a loser.