Skip to content

Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Tonight at 9 EST

Published by Tom Sullivan on March 7, 2024

Will it be this guy?

President Joe Biden won’t mention a certain multiply indicted someone during tonight’s State of the Union address, but TFG will be the the elephant in the room.

Dan Pfeiffer notes:

Tonight, you will likely hear President Biden run through his impressive list of accomplishments — the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and so forth. If you read this newsletter, you have heard Biden talk about these things countless times. You know all about it. Well good for you, but you are in the minority.

Biden will use tonight’s address to accomplish multiple things. One of his main goals will be to replay for Americans his greatest hits: wage gains, low unemployment, and factory construction generated, in part, by onshoring industry that had left the U.S. As Pfeiffer suggests, it’s lengthy, and most Americans have no idea what Biden’s accomplished since beating Trump in 2020.

Because the GOP message machine is working overtime to make sure Americans don’t. More on that later.

As important, Biden needs to make no mistakes. That’s a tall order, and one reason the address may be shorter this year. The press will be watching like hawks for stumbles. Biden is old. Have you heard? Even with viewership down for the SOTU, it is still likely to be Biden’s biggest audience of the year. The White House wants snappy clips for the news, not gaffes.

One way Biden will try to quiet the “he’s too old” narrative will be by bringing some heat tonight. The Washington Post reports that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders since last fall has urged Biden to take on the disconnect between how well the economy is faring (great) versus public perception that it’s not:

In the roughly hour-long meeting, Sanders urged Biden to affirm the public’s frustration over the economy and focus on identifying the political opposition to enacting the president’s agenda — such as big businesses and pharmaceutical firms — rather than convince the public they should be pleased with current circumstances. Sanders also quoted to Biden a line from a 1937 address by Roosevelt, still two years from the end of the Great Depression: “I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.” Sanders has personally reiterated the message multiple times since then, including in another meeting at the White House with top officials last week, the people said.

Another way Biden will try to tamp down “he’s too old” on the anniversary of the police riot at the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Ala. 59 years ago, will be by bringing some heat and some Dark Brandon energy to the address. Let the GOP jeer. They’ll do it anyway.

Recall last year’s speech, the Post adds in another story:

Biden’s delivery must be snappy and strong with notes of defiance and wit, they say. One Democratic aide said this speech is more important than any poll that has been released recently.

Democrats hope he has another speech like last year’s, when he accused Republicans of wanting to cut Social Security and Medicare. That led to outbursts by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and others who yelled “liar” and “you lie.”

Biden then declared, “We all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare are off the books now, right?” 

Democrats erupted in applause and laughter. 

“People want to sort of see how the president is doing,” said Michael Waldman, a Bill Clinton speech writer. “They want to see if he has vigor and command and is a happy warrior.” So do I.

For their part, Republicans are trying to retcon the Trump years, as we saw on Wednesday in clips from Rep Elise Stafanik’s (R-N.Y.) and Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-S.C.).

Chris Hayes punched back.

Biden’s job is not just to remind voters what he’s accomplished, but to rub Republicans’ noses in the mess (and violent insurrection) Trump left in his wake.

I’ll be watching to see if Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson of Louisiana, a Trump boot-licker, will actually utter the words, “I have the high privilege and distinct honor of presenting to you the president of the United States.”

MAGA Blasphemy!

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.

The Sorest Loser And Most Ungracious Winner Prize Goes To

Published by digby on March 6, 2024

That’s quite an invitation, no?

By contrast, here’s Biden:

You tell me which one is fit to be president.

By the way, this from Dave Weigel is interesting:

A super PAC that urged non-Republicans to cast primary votes for Nikki Haley is pivoting to November, urging Haley’s voters to support President Joe Biden. Starting today, Primary Pivot will become Haley Voters for Biden, and urge anyone who supported Haley in a swing state to stick with the president in November.

“This is an effort from people who have actually supported Nikki Haley to try to guide as many of them as possible toward the candidate that respects democracy, even if they may disagree with him politically,” said Primary Pivot co-founder Robert Schwartz.

In a statement, Primary Pivot said it would focus on Haley voters in states where they could be counted — nearly 300,000 in Michigan, and nearly 250,000 in North Carolina. The super PAC, which started by urging New Hampshire Democrats to temporarily switch their registrations, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to activate potential Haley voters in South Carolina and Super Tuesday states.

It wasn’t enough to deliver a win, outside of Vermont, where Haley picked up votes from non-Republicans in the state’s open primary. Schwartz hoped that Trump’s reaction to that — a Truth Social post denouncing “the fact that Democrats, for reasons unknown, are allowed to vote in Vermont” — would fuel the new campaign.

“We wanted to start this effort as soon as possible to lock in that kind of resentment toward the way Trump and MAGA have treated Haley voters,” he said.

Haley’s decision to quit the race, but not endorse Trump, was encouraging for the Biden campaign, especially as Trump continues to denigrate her. “There is a place for them in my campaign,” the president said in a statement on Wednesday, suggesting common ground on protecting democracy, encouraging civility, and maintaining America’s NATO commitments.

Plenty of her voters went to the polls to protest Trump, unhappily confident that the former president was going to beat Haley anyway. But Schwartz really wanted Haley to win, seeing Trump as a unique threat and Haley as a rallying point for a united front to stop him.

That was Plan A, and it didn’t work. Plan B starts with the Haley voters who told exit pollsters that they did not want to support the GOP nominee if their candidate lost. On Tuesday, that was 48% of Haley’s supporters in California, 62% in North Carolina, and 76% in Virginia.

“Voting for Haley today meant I can vote twice in 2024 against Trump,” Bill Kristol posted on X, describing the vote as a “temporary re-embrace of my ex-party.”

Covering Haley last month, I met a decent number of voters who took Primary Pivot’s advice — or agreed with it but weren’t actually contacted by the PAC. Some Haley voters, said Schwartz, were Democrats who didn’t really need a new push from them. But some were Republicans who needed to be convinced to switch sides this year, which was Schwartz’s new mission.

“We’ll be able to get their voter files, their location in these states, their education level, their income level — whether they live in the suburbs, their voting history, all of that,” he said. “We’re going to micro-target these people as much as possible.”

Some of Haley’s voters were Democrats, for sure. But some were not. We’ll have to see if any of them can be persuaded. But I have to think that at least few don’t find Trump calling Haley “Birdbrain” and saying he doesn’t need their votes is going to go over very well.


The Democrats Have Money And They Plan To Spend It

Published by digby on March 6, 2024

I don’t think TV ads work the way they used to but it can’t hurt to try a simple message and repeat it over and over again. Repetition is key:

An estimated $2.7 billion is expected to be spent just on presidential campaign advertising this cycle. Pro-Biden super PACs Future Forward and American Bridge already have committed to a blizzard of ads, with $250 million and $200 million in spending respectively, as Democrats prepare an onslaught of ads to turn voters’ attention away from Biden’s age and remind them of Trump’s chaotic first term. In a memo released Wednesday morning, the Biden campaign said that groups allied with it had committed to spending more than $700 million to help defeat Trump.

And with the president’s team eager to turn 2024 into a choice election for voters, plans are in place for the campaign itself to ramp up contrast ad-spending this spring. A person familiar with Biden’s campaign strategy but not authorized to speak about it publicly said it will come earlier than when then-President Barack Obama’s allies began turning up the heat on Republican rival Mitt Romney in 2012.

“Super Tuesday was always circled on our calendars because there’s a segment of persuadable voters who don’t believe that this was going to be a rematch,” said Bradley Beychok, co-founder of American Bridge, one of the pro-Biden super PACs. “This is going to be a ‘what’s behind door number two?’ election and door number two is a second Trump term, and that’s terrifying. Voters need to remember how chaotic the first Trump presidency was.”

“This,” he added, “is going to be a war until November.”

Money isn’t everything but it isn’t nothing either. The Democrats have more than the Republicans so far and even if Trump catches up, there will be more than enough. They need to spend it wisely. I hope they can get their message together and get everyone on the same page to pound it home.

Mitch McConnell Endorses Trump

Published by digby on March 6, 2024

Is anyone surprised?

I don’t think anything could be more predictable, not even the sun coming up tomorrow.

“It is abundantly clear that former President Trump has earned the requisite support of Republican voters to be our nominee for President of the United States,” McConnell said in a statement to The Washington Post. “It should come as no surprise that as nominee, he will have my support. During his presidency, we worked together to accomplish great things for the American people including tax reform that supercharged our economy and a generational change of our federal judiciary — most importantly, the Supreme Court. I look forward to the opportunity of switching from playing defense against the terrible policies the Biden administration has pursued to a sustained offense geared towards making a real difference in improving the lives of the American people.”

McConnell — who has announced he will step down from his leadership role in November — is one of the most influential Washington Republicans to back Trump, and the endorsement was a remarkable, if expected, move from the Kentucky Republican. He has held out in recent weeks as other Republicans have lined up to back Trump, including many who wanted a different nominee, and his endorsement means that almost every powerful cog in the Republican apparatus is directly behind the former president.

McConnell has privately derided Trump, publicly attacked him for his role in fomenting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and has not spoken with Trump for several years. People close to McConnell privately said after Trump’s presidency that the powerful Kentucky Republican did not plan to speak Trump’s name again.

“There is no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the event of that day,” he said after Jan. 6. He added that Trump “didn’t get away with anything yet” in a speech on the floor of the Senate that explained his decision not to convict Trump on impeachment charges.

Trump has mocked McConnell’s wife as “Coco Chao” because of her Asian American heritage and frequently derided McConnell as the “Broken Down Crow,” or in more pejorative terms. He has told advisers that he wanted to replace McConnell as the leader of Republicans in the Senate if he were elected, but McConnell has already said he will step down. During remarks to donors at his Mar-a-Lago Club in 2021, he infamously called McConnell a “dumb son of a b—-.”

No biggie. It’s all just good natured joshing between friends.

McConnell knows that Trump tried to overthrow the election in 2020 and he thinks he should be president again. Nothing more needs to be said.

Gopers Defund Police

Published by digby on March 6, 2024

Sometimes I feel as if they’re just trying to make me think I’m crazy. I never in a million years would have thought that Republicans would cut the funding for the FBI but here we are.

I think the most astonishing thing about this is that they’ve done it strictly for the purpose of defending that cretin Donald Trump. It’s not that they’ve truly decided that the police need to be hemmed in or that the FBI is too big and powerful. They just want to exact revenge on behalf of their Dear Leader. If he wins they’ll pack it with toadies and give them everything they ever wanted to go after their enemies.

Chart O’ The Day

Published by digby on March 6, 2024

This is the one we should all send to our conservative relatives who aren’t dyed in the wool cultists. (There is no hope for them.)

It’s just nuts that Biden’s getting slammed on the economy by everyone. I have friends with money who are bitching and moaning about how much their always expensive restaurant meals cost. But then they haven’t gained a lot on “wages” (don’t ask about their portfolios which have exploded) so they’re not getting enough of a taste. It’s a mantra.

I think this just shows that politics isn’t really politics. It’s entertainment for some and therapy for others. It certainly isn’t about policy. And it certainly isn’t about reality.

The Big Money Boyz And Their Tax Cuts

Published by digby on March 6, 2024

One of the all time great con jobs

As I watched the Super Tuesday returns last night I was struck by exit polls which showed that the economy is the most important issue to many Republican voters and they believe Donald Trump will be better for them financially than President Biden. Considering how successfully Biden has managed a swift recovery from the economic catastrophe he inherited, I find that disturbing but according to the NY Times, a majority of the electorate is suffering from “collective amnesia” and doesn’t remember why they ousted Trump back in 2020. Apparently, they are nostalgic for the golden days of a Trump administration that never existed.

I don’t know if that amnesia will be cured by facts and statistics, but even Fox News has to admit that the Biden economy is doing very well.

Nonetheless, Trump and all of his various henchmen spend their days insisting that the economy is on the verge of collapse. Last night during his low-energy victory speech he said it once again and as he told Lou Dobbs in an interview in January, he hopes it will crash within the next 12 months so that he won’t be like Herbert Hoover. (Joe Biden correctly pointed out to Evan Osnos in the New Yorker, “He’s already Herbert Hoover. He’s the only President that ever lost jobs in a four-year period—other than Hoover.”)

Despite the fact that inflation has stopped rising at the same pace as a couple of years ago, people yearn for prices to go back down to where they were before the pandemic. And just as he promised back in 2016, he says that only he can fix it. But he’s short on details about how he’s going to do that except for some vague promises to dramatically raise tariffs and deport millions of undocumented workers which will actually ignite inflation. And he has said that he will fully fund Social Security and Medicare through “growth” and selling oil leases in Alaska which might as well be a promise to pay for it with diamond mines on Mars.

He does have one other plan that he doesn’t talk about quite as much, however. Here he is sharing it with a group of wealthy donors at Mar-a-Lago back in December where he told them “you’re all people that have a lot of money. You’re rich as hell. We’re gonna give you tax cuts”

Of course he is. And he’s planning to cut corporate taxes too. He’s a Republican and that’s what they do. In fact, his only legislative accomplishment in his first term was a massive tax cut bill for the rich. But that wasn’t really his accomplishment, was it? That was the evergreen policy goal of the Republican Party, especially the blue-eyed dream boat Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, the Ayn Rand devote who believed that rich men were heroes who needed to be allowed to run free unencumbered by civic responsibility so that capitalism might save humanity. That it personally benefited the new, wealthy president made it all the sweeter.

Trump’s determination to lower taxes for the rich is a given. Everything he does is first and foremost for himself and he won’t even try to rationalize it. It’s unlikely that the rest of the party can get away with that, so they’ll no doubt return to their perennial excuse — the federal budget deficit as a reason to lower taxes, even though that makes no sense.

That tired old saw goes back to the Reagan administration which popularized a quack theory called “supply side economics” championed by economist Arthur Laffer which claimed that the more you cut taxes the greater the revenue to the government. Even then everyone knew it was ridiculous. Reagan’s budget director, David Stockman, actually spilled the beans to journalist William Greider, telling him that “It’s kind of hard to sell ‘trickle down, so the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really ‘trickle down.’ Supply-side is ‘trickle-down’ theory.” Trump gave Arthur Laffer the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2019.

Today another supply side guru, Stephen Moore, formerly of the Club for Growth, has-co-authored the Project 2025 economic plan to completely “reform” the US Treasury. He’s pushing to privatize Social Security which Trump has never explicitly ruled out and told The Guardian, “Yes, I am strongly in favor of cutting tax rates to make [the] American economy No 1.” And this would presumably be in addition to extending the Trump tax cuts from 2017 which are up for renewal next year.

Just this week, we’ve received some important data on the effect of those tax cuts and I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that they did not pay for themselves or deliver the thousands of dollars in increased wages to workers as promised. The NY Times reports:

Instead, they are adding more than $100 billion a year to America’s $34 trillion-and-growing national debt, according to the quartet of researchers from Princeton University, the University of Chicago, Harvard University and the Treasury Department.

The researchers found the cuts delivered wage gains that were “an order of magnitude below” what Trump officials predicted: about $750 per worker per year on average over the long run, compared to promises of $4,000 to $9,000 per worker.

That trickle never seems to make it down from the wealthy’s palatial palaces. Here’s even more data:

The new paper, by David Hope of the London School of Economics and Julian Limberg of King’s College London, examines 18 developed countries — from Australia to the United States — over a 50-year period from 1965 to 2015. The study compared countries that passed tax cuts in a specific year, such as the U.S. in 1982 when President Ronald Reagan slashed taxes on the wealthy, with those that didn’t, and then examined their economic outcomes. 

Per capita gross domestic product and unemployment rates were nearly identical after five years in countries that slashed taxes on the rich and in those that didn’t, the study found. 

But the analysis discovered one major change: The incomes of the rich grew much faster in countries where tax rates were lowered. Instead of trickling down to the middle class, tax cuts for the rich may not accomplish much more than help the rich keep more of their riches and exacerbate income inequality, the research indicates.

This is nothing but a giveaway to their rich benefactors. It’s a con that’s been working beautifully for 50 years.

Apparently, Trump just welcomed one of the two richest men in the world, Elon Musk, a major government contractor and social media influencer, to Mar-a-Lago to beg for money. Considering the batshit lunacy that Musk is posting to his X account these days, Trump can probably count on him for a billion or so. Both of these men are shallow thinkers who have adopted the personas of populist demagogue speaking for the working man against the elites but in the end they’re just a couple of rich guys looking out for number one. Underneath all the MAGA bluster and BS, it’s still the Republican Party and the pols will always cater to them that brung ’em.

Salon

Trump Foreign Policy In A Nutshell

Published by digby on March 6, 2024

He is also against anything the Democrats are for.

That’s it. There’s nothing ideological about it.

Issues That Matter

Published by Tom Sullivan on March 6, 2024

“Reproductive rights, gun control and the environment.”

The greatest untapped source of votes for Democrats is younger voters. (No, I won’t reproduce the chart again.) They are registered heavily independent (or unaffiliated) and those tend to fall off Democrats’ targeting computers. What do they care about? What might get them to turn out in the fall? Here you go.

 

 
Post by @juliefornc
View on Threads

 

Post by @housejuddems
View on Threads

Reproductive rights are under assault. MAGA Republicans mean to get Stasi about it.

 
Post by @maddowshow
View on Threads

No, I haven’t forgotten gun control.

Post by @prof.donx
View on Threads

Democrats want to do something for you. Republicans want to do something to you.

Governor Hobbs Launches Affordable Arizona: Tackling Medical Debt for Working Families

My friend Kim Yaman reminds North Carolinians, “If you think NC Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson would do something like this to protect North Carolinians from crushing medical debt if he’s elected governor this year, I got a seaside house in Rodanthe to sell you.” (Speaking of the environment.)

Post by @profgalloway
View on Threads

Yes, oldsters, the GOP is coming for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Post by @bidenharrishq
View on Threads

Get busy.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.