From TPM Reader NL …
Continue reading “Your Reactions #2”I have been watching this debate with a combination of sadness and anger.
On the sadness – Biden has probably been the best and most effective Democratic president since probably LBJ. His 4 years in office have been amazingly productive and he did not settle for limping out of the Covid recession.
From TPM Reader JG …
“Missed opportunity” is the right way to frame this debate. I think the debate did what the Biden strategists wanted in showing that Donald Trump was unfit to be President, temperamentally and policy-wise, domestic and foreign. But it failed to make Biden seem like the obvious alternative, because of how frail Biden seemed particularly at the beginning. Trump really was terrible and Biden simply missed so many opportunities to call him on his lack of answers and ridiculous statements about the “horrible” present state of affairs which people know is false from the well-being of their own lives. Biden got to it at the end: “something broke when you lost” and he should have called out Trump on that very obvious fact early and often.
Someone needs to call General Kelly, who was just called a liar on national TV for “losers and suckers” and get him on camera.
Follow along below:
Kate and I just recorded a pod that will be out in a bit. We shared our thoughts on how it went there if you’re interested. But it didn’t go great. Which is kind of an understatement. Biden came in hoarse with a cold. That made him sound feeble and frail. And he was unfocused. He didn’t respond strongly or even coherently to many open opportunities. He got substantially better in the second half of the debate when the topics moved to foreign policy and January 6th. But the conventional wisdom and impression had kind of taken hold by then. Trump was Trump. Abrasive, nasty, belligerent — lying and making things up constantly. But he seemed focused and vital. The contrast was not good for Biden at all. I do think there were some lies from Trump that will have legs. He again refused to agree to accept the results of the election. He again complained about non-existent fraud in 2020. He praised the shock troops of January 6th. But this debate is going to spur a huge freak out among Democrats and several days of terrible commentary. And that’s just when the shape of the race was moving, at least to a significant degree, in Biden’s direction. Let’s remember that no tent pole event in this cycle has had a big impact on the race. We don’t know what the impact will be. But at best this was a missed opportunity.
10:31 PM: Something snapped in you when you lost. Biden’s saying the things he needed to now. But it’s late.
10:29 PM: Can’t say he’ll accept the results of the election.
10:20 PM: “I just won two club championships.”
10:09 PM: “Never seen anger like this before.”
10:01 PM: Biden campaign now putting out that Biden has a cold. That’s clearly true. And very unfortunate.
9:50 PM: Okay, the first twenty minutes of this debate were simply awful for Biden. I do not see any other way to put it. He was unfocused, hoarse, lost his train of thought a few times. That’s shifted in the last half hour. Enough? I don’t know. Trump has also gone further into his weak spots, the conspiracy theories, inability not to start threatening retribution, denial about January 6th. Biden has definitely gotten more focused and is landing some punches. He’s still hoarse. It seems like he has a cold. But he starting to make the points he needs to.
9:47 PM: Biden is finally, finally starting to get some traction, get out the lines he needs to get out. But it’s half way through the debate and the impression get set early.
9:46 PM: Trump started by saying his retribution would be success. But he’s now worked his way back around to threatening to prosecute Biden.
9:38 PM: Again, Biden picking up a little speed. Far more focused on the wars he’s spent most of his time working on.
9:35 PM: It’s interesting that Biden’s far more on the ball about the situation with Israel. Probably because that’s what he’s been working for months. The rest has been a jumble.
9:33 PM: As I said, Biden’s picking up a bit of momentum as we move to foreign policy. But the contrast in energy is still stark. And Biden simply isn’t hitting Trump on the big vulnerability points. I mean, on Russia Ukraine, this is the guy who is in league with Putin. That’s a massive vulnerability.
9:30 PM: Trump is making so many nonsensical points that it’s really unfortunate that Biden isn’t counterpunching.
9:29 PM: Biden’s getting moderately better in the last few minutes. But the impression of the two is largely determined in the first half hour or so. So this is a big problem.
9:28 PM: No Trump is going way off into the arcana of MAGA conspiracy theory.
9:26 PM: I don’t know what the time for each candidate it is but it *feels* like all the talking is Trump. But I think that may be because he’s just controlling the tempo and speaking more forcefully.
9:20 PM: Biden should have focused on the point there that they had a bill and Trump killed it. But he didn’t mention that.
9:15 PM: The energy contrast is stark.
9:10 PM: Biden seems hoarse and sick. And that’s really not great.
8:58 PM: Having Van Jones and David Axelrod on the CNN panel is basically a war crime.
8:52 PM: I always have to get a feel for how much I can write and still keep up with actually watching the thing. But here’s where I’ll be sharing my thoughts. My colleagues will have more in the site Live Blog.
There’s a big and very long piece this morning about the travails of The Washington Post published at The Atlantic. It’s a reported piece by media reporter Brian Stelter. There’s a lot there. It runs almost ten thousand words. But the gist seems pretty clear, which is that the new villain is Jeff Bezos. “Villain” is a bit strong, certainly. What I really mean is Jeff Bezos as the root of the problem, a realization that some at the Post appear to be coming around to. And not because he’s done anything bad. By all accounts he’s been entirely legit on editorial non-interference. Write whatever you want about me and Amazon, etc.
The issue is that the Post essentially has an absentee, hands-off owner. And that has created perhaps not a vacuum at the top, but a lack of direction. Executives who weren’t getting the job done were kept around too long. Other executives were hired to shake things up but they weren’t the right fit. Now you have a CEO and publisher, Will Lewis, whose tenure is clearly and perhaps fatally damaged by the mix of staff revolt and miscellaneous scandals. And yet he’s still in place while Bezos is touring the Greek isles on his mega-yacht with his fiancee.
Continue reading “Bezos, Bored Billionaire Theory and What Happens to the Post?”Republicans are mounting legal challenges against voter roll maintenance practices in various states across the country — public actions that do little but perpetuate lies about the accuracy of voter rolls as Republicans and election deniers set themselves up to cry voter fraud if things don’t go their way in November.
Continue reading “If Trump Loses, Expect Big Liars To Blame Voter Roll Maintenance For Fraud In The Fall”Let me share a few thoughts on tonight’s debate.
Needless to say, we will be providing live coverage of tonight’s debate and commentary and discussion afterwards. Depending on how everything shakes out, we may record a quick instapod version of The Josh Marshall Podcast Featuring Kate Riga to discuss our initial reactions.
In the old days, when we had two more or less professional politicians debating each other, the debates had a certain degree of predictability. There might be gaffes or gotcha moments. But the room for really big surprises was limited. That’s not where we are anymore. Now we have one candidate, Trump, who knows no bounds and will try to do everything he can to disrupt the proceedings or throw the other participants back on their heels. He brings his pro-wrestling mentality right onto the stage. Meanwhile, Democrats go into these affairs in spite of themselves terrified that Biden will have some gaffe or senior moment that will send his campaign into a terminal tailspin. Both of these factors together create a feeling of maximal unpredictability and tension — and moments like that are Donald Trump’s happy place.
Continue reading “Sizing Up Tonight’s Old Man Thunderdome Debate”Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote alone in a major abortion ruling (officially) released Thursday, cutting through her colleagues’ posturing on why they needed to send the case back down to the lower courts.
Continue reading “Jackson Dings Court For Punting On Abortion Case When Idaho Is So Clearly Wrong”The Supreme Court on Thursday extended its record of anti-agency rulings, this time upending how the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adjudicates some of its cases — a process blessed by Congress.
This undermining of both agency and congressional power demonstrates a danger beyond curtailing how the SEC can go after fraudsters, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissent, joined by her two liberal colleagues.
“The majority today upends longstanding precedent and the established practice of its coequal partners in our tripartite system of Government,” she wrote. “Because the Court fails to act as a neutral umpire when it rewrites established rules in the manner it does today, I respectfully dissent.”
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in concurrence, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas.
The conservatives telegraphed their intent to come down this way during November’s oral arguments, their hostility towards the government’s position all the more notable given that the SEC was established and its powers strengthened during periods of glaring malpractice by financial institutions.
“A defendant facing a fraud suit has the right to be tried by a jury of his peers before a neutral adjudicator. Rather than recognize that right, the dissent would permit Congress to concentrate the roles of prosecutor, judge, and jury in the hands of the Executive Branch,” Roberts wrote, echoing some good faith arguments against in-house adjudication (though in a way that advances the conservative majority’s typical anti-agency goals).
Still, the decision was more limited than some experts feared. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, for example, had found that Congress letting the SEC choose whether to adjudicate certain cases in federal courts or in-house violated the“nondelegation doctrine,” an idea spun up in the 1920s and seized upon in recent years by conservative scholars. The “doctrine,” which the conservative legal world has found very helpful to its war against the administrative state, holds that Congress can’t outsource any of its legislative authority to agencies. In a maximal reading, agencies would hardly be able to do anything without a new statute. In Thursday’s ruling, the Supreme Court did not reach that prong of the appeals court’s argument.
Under the ruling, some targets of SEC enforcement could also choose to waive their right to a jury trial — which is long, expensive and potentially riskier than going before an in-house judge who understands the technicalities of the pertinent law. On the other hand, the SEC may opt to pursue fewer enforcement actions, similarly to skirt the cost and resource intensiveness of a jury trial.
Sotomayor, though, points to the uncertainty the decision unleashes, given that many other agencies operate like the SEC. And perhaps even more concerningly, some can only pursue civil penalties in-house.
“The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission, the Department of Agriculture, and many others, can pursue civil penalties only in agency enforcement proceedings,” she wrote. “For those and countless other agencies, all the majority can say is tough luck; get a new statute from Congress.”
Ultimately, Sotomayor placed Thursday’s ruling in the greater tapestry of this Court’s chipping away at agency power — the long-running project of the legal right.
“Today’s decision is a massive sea change,” she wrote. “Litigants seeking further dismantling of the ‘administrative state’ have reason to rejoice in their win today, but those of us who cherish the rule of law have nothing to celebrate.”
Read the ruling here:
