Have you ever gotten routine bloodwork done and they send you off for further testing because something came out abnormal? Sometimes they will say something like “this isn’t a concern on its own, but we want to do some further tests because this can be a marker for disease X.” So you panic for a while and get more tests done, and, if luck is on your side, you find that you don’t have disease X (whew). it was worth testing, because your blood work COULD have been consistent with that, but, lucky you, it did not turn out that way.
My friends, the ONLY reason to worry about the age of a candidate for president is because it COULD be a marker for something else (i.e. being unfit for the job). If you, say, ELECT SOMEONE and then they spend four years being an incredible president who pulls us out of a dark dark time THEN THE ORIGINAL MARKER DOESNT MATTER. Age CAN predict lower competence. In this case IT DOES NOT. Again, age is only a concern because it CAN predict lower competence. Not in everyone — some people are sharp and competent well into their 90s (some beyond that). The only reason to care about age is that it CAN be a marker of decreased ability. We now have proof that in Biden it isn’t. Period. End of freaking story.
If you don’t want to vote for Biden because of his age -- even though you know that his age isn’t making him incompetent -- then we have a word for that and it is ageism. And it is bad. You might know its siblings, racism and sexism. You should be better. Work on that.
How do we know Biden has been great?
Data.
I’ve been writing a Boosting Biden post every weekday of this year and plan to continue to the election.
Here are the posts so far. I have another 100 or so already planned because BIDEN IS A GREAT PRESIDENT so these are super easy to come up with. BIDEN IS A GREAT PRESIDENT. Hard stop.
Here is some evidence:
Dark Brandon Saved us From a Recession: Boosting Biden Day 1
Dark Brandon Destroyed Crime: Boosting Biden Day 2
Dark Brandon Reduced Inflation: Boosting Biden Day 3
Dark Brandon Put the First Black Woman on the Supreme Court: Boosting Biden Day 4
Dark Brandon Cleaned up the Great Lakes: Boosting Biden Day 5
Dark Brandon's Stimulus Saved the Economy: Boosting Biden Day 6
Dark Brandon Created Workforce Hubs to Retrain Workers for Modern Jobs: Boosting Biden Day 7
Dark Brandon Expanded ACA so 10 States have (almost) universal health care! Boosting Biden Day 8
Dark Brandon went after cheating 1%ers AND WON: Boosting Biden Day 9
Dark Brandon Protected People with Disabilities: Boosting Biden Day 10
Dark Brandon Pardoned Thousands Convicted of Marijuana Use: Boosting Biden Day 11
Dark Brandon Created Jobs: Boosting Biden Day 12
Dark Brandon protected our soldiers from sexual harassment and assault: Boosting Biden Day 13
Dark Brandon Cancelled Billions in Student Loans: Boosting Biden Day 14
Dark Brandon OWNED the republicans at the State of the Union: Boosting Biden Day 15
Dark Brandon Caused a Black Small Business Boom! Boosting Biden Day 16
Dark Brandon Protected Veterans Health Care with over nine different Bills: Boosting Biden Day 17
Dark Brandon Saved The State of Virginia! Boosting Biden Day 18
Dark Brandon is Destroying Methane Emissions: Boosting Biden Day 19
Dark Brandon protects victims of sexual harassment and assault: Boosting Biden Day 20
The Dark Brandon Economy Is Remarkably Strong. Stop the Malarky!!! Boosting Biden Day 21
Dark Brandon Is a Snarky MFer: Boosting Biden Day 22
Dark Brandon Is Old. Get Over It. Boosting Biden Day 23
Dark Brandon is halting the biggest fossil fuel expansion on earth: Boosting Biden Day 24
Dark Brandon has done more for unions than any president ever: Boosting Biden Day 25
Dark Brandon made heat pumps and solar panels a national security issue: Boosting Biden Day 26
Dark Brandon Stopped 500 Illegal Gun Purchases: Boosting Biden Day 27
Dark Brandon Saved the State of Pennsylvania! Boosting Biden Day 28
Dark Brandon Made Lynching a Federal Crime: Boosting Biden Day 29
Dark Brandon Caused a BOOM in Small Businesses! Boosting Biden Day 30
Dark Brandon is saving the planet by plugging old oil and gas wells: Boosting Biden Day 31
Dark Brandon Feeds Hungry Kids! Boosting Biden Day 32
Dark Brandon is going to make your kids smarter! Boosting Biden Day 33
Dark Brandon Can Create Chains With His Bare Hands!!! Boosting Biden Day 34
Dark Brandon Is Fostering More Resilient Foods Systems Across the World: Boosting Biden Day 35
Dark Brandon Is Slashing Bank Overdraft Fees! Boosting Biden Day 36
Dark Brandon Ushered In a New Era of Tribal Self-Determination! Boosting Biden Day 37
Eight Ways Dark Brandon Has Lowered Health Care Costs: Boosting Biden Day 38
Dark Brandon Is Helping States Reduce Gun Violence: Boosting Biden Day 39
Dark Brandon Is Boosting Electric Cars: Boosting Biden Day 40
Dark Brandon Is Saving Salmon: Boosting Biden Day 41
Dark Brandon Brought Diversity to the Judicial Branch: Boosting Biden Day 42
Dark Brandon is increasing access to birth control: Boosting Biden Day 43
Biden Is Giving Farmers Big Bucks to Go "Climate Smart": Boosting Biden Day 44
President Biden is moving microchip production home! Boosting Biden Day 45
Now onto the good news!
Democrats are doing great things
Biden cancels student loan debt for 150,000+ borrowers
Biden administration approved $1.2 billion in student loan forgiveness last week for qualifying borrowers enrolled in its Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) student loan repayment plan.
The White House implemented a provision in the SAVE repayment plan that allows a borrower’s debt to be forgiven if they took out less than $12,000 in loans and have been repaying them for at least 10 years.
The debt cancellation affects qualifying student loan borrowers nationwide.
President Biden announced in October that his administration intended to forgive $9 billion in student loan debt, providing relief for 125,000 borrowers.
Senate Democrats Reintroduce Bill To Revitalize the Voting Rights Act
U.S. Senate Democrats have reintroduced the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, a landmark bill that would restore and strengthen the Voting Rights Act (VRA) to protect voters and democracy.
The reintroduction was announced earlier today in a press conference with Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.). The senators were also flanked by a group of civil rights leaders.
The bill most notably would breathe new life into the VRA by introducing a new formula for determining which states are subject to preclearance. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the previous formula in its 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision, effectively nullifying Section 5, which required states with histories of discriminatory voting practices to receive federal approval before passing new voting laws and enacting new maps.
Bad News for Bad Guys
The Republican Party is Dying
Behind the horse race–type coverage of the contest for presidential nominations, a major realignment is underway in United States politics. The Republican Party is dying as Trump and his supporters take it over, but there is a larger story behind that crash. This moment looks much like the other times in our history when a formerly stable two-party system has fallen apart and Americans reevaluated what they want out of their government.
Under Trump, though, the party has turned away from global leadership to the idea that strong countries can do what they like to their neighbors, and from small government to big government that imposes religious rules. Far from protecting equality before the law, Republican-dominated states have discriminated against LGBTQ+ individuals, racial and ethnic minorities, and women. And, of course, the party is catering to Trump’s authoritarian plans. Neo-nazis attended the Conservative Political Action Conference a week ago.
But these changes are not popular. Tuesday’s Michigan primary revealed the story we had already seen in the Republican presidential primaries and caucuses in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Trump won all those contests, but by significantly less than polls had predicted. He has also been dogged by the strength of former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley. With Trump essentially running as an incumbent, he should be showing the sort of strength Biden is showing—with challengers garnering only a few percentage points—but even among the fervent Republicans who tend to turn out for primaries, Trump’s support is soft.
It seems that the same policies that attract Trump’s base are turning other voters against him. Republican leadership, for example, is far out of step with the American people on abortion rights—69% of Americans want the right to abortion put into law—and that gulf has only widened over the Alabama Supreme Court decision endangering in vitro fertilization by saying that embryos have the same rights as children from the moment of conception. That decision created such an outcry that Republicans felt obliged to claim they supported IVF. But push came to shove today when Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) reintroduced a bill to protect IVF that Republicans had previously rejected and Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) killed it again.
The party has also tied itself to a deeply problematic leader. Trump is facing 91 criminal charges in four different cases—two state, two federal—but the recently-decided civil case in which he, the Trump Organization, his older sons, and two associates were found liable for fraud is presenting a more immediate threat to Trump’s political career.
A Moment of Trumpenfreude
OK, I have to admit it: I’m enjoying the spectacle of Donald Trump begging for a delay in the $454 million fine he’s required to pay for fraudulently inflating his net worth, for two reasons.
First, his inability to come up with the cash basically confirms the charges: He isn’t as rich as he claims to be. Second, his evident inability to get anyone to lend him the money is poetic justice for a man who has a history of bilking gullible investors.
One small addition to the Trumpenfreude: A GoFundMe set up to help Trump pay his bills has so far managed to raise about a third of 1 percent of the amount he owes.
You do have to wonder about how this will affect his psychological state. Trump’s speeches have become increasingly incoherent lately — a trend that has attracted sufficient attention that a few days ago he felt compelled to respond, telling an audience: “There’s no cognitive problem. If there was, I’d know about it.”
I think I’ll just leave that there.
The House GOP's terrible math just got even worse
House Republicans have conclusively proven that they suck at math—and now the math has just gotten even worse for them.
On Wednesday, Democrat Tom Suozzi will be sworn in as the newest addition to the Democratic caucus, following his triumph in the special election to replace the extremely disgraced George Santos. Because Suozzi’s victory flipped New York’s 3rd District from red to blue, Democrats will now have 213 members in the House, while Republican ranks will remain frozen at 219.
That in turn means that House Speaker Mike Johnson’s comically slender margin for error will shrink even further, from a precarious three votes to a pitiful two. On any given roll call, should a trio of Republicans side with Democrats, that would spell instant death for the bill in question, since a 216-216 tie is the same as a loss.
Hunter Biden is Fighting Back
Hunter has removed the gloves
Hunter Biden began the day with a scathing statement saying unequivocally that he had never involved his father in his business dealings and that all the evidence the committee had compiled proved that. In their “partisan political pursuit,” he said, they had “trafficked in innuendo, distortion, and sensationalism—all the while ignoring the clear and convincing evidence staring you in the face. You do not have evidence to support the baseless and MAGA-motivated conspiracies about my father because there isn’t any.”
After an hour, Democratic committee members described to the press what was going on in the hearing room. They reported that the Republicans’ case had fallen apart entirely and that Biden had had a “very understandable, coherent business explanation for every single thing that they asked for.” While former president Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself more than 440 times during a deposition in his fraud trial, Biden did not take the Fifth at all.
The discrediting of the Republicans continued later. When Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN) tried to recycle the discredited claim that “$20 million flowed through” to then–vice president Biden, CNN host Boris Sanchez fact-checked him and said, “I’m not going to let you say things that aren’t true.”
That willingness to push back on the Republicans suggests a new political moment in which Americans, as they have done before when one of the two parties devolved into minority rule, wake up to the reality that the system has been hijacked and begin to reclaim their government.
Hunter Biden gives House Republicans the rebuttal they didn’t want
Hunter Biden’s appearance in front of investigators and members of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees unfolded a bit like a Bruce Lee movie.
Republican legislators and interviewers challenging the president’s son on the House majority’s behalf would throw out an allegation, often one that’s been worn smooth after tumbling around in the right-wing media universe for the past year or two. And Biden would invariably swat it away, stripping off the layers of innuendo that had been applied by Donald Trump and Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) or Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) or any of myriad Fox News commentators.
This included epic battles against well-known foes, like an exchange between Hunter Biden and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), or repeated, extended back-and-forth with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.). But at no point was a question left unanswered — including through an invocation of the Fifth Amendment — or, to an objective observer, left answered with obvious incompletion.
Gaetz later tried to suggest that since Hunter Biden sometimes covered his father’s tab, that his and his father’s finances “were pretty interwoven.” (“Will the record show that we’re all laughing?” Biden attorney Abbe Lowell interjected.)
“No, our finances aren’t interwoven,” Hunter Biden said in response. “What are interwoven is that we’re a family.”
Hunter Biden absolutely owned Republicans in his testimony
Thanks to the insistence of Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, who didn’t want the results of this appearance buried along with 91 other transcripts that Republicans have refused to release, the full transcript of Hunter Biden’s six-hour deposition is now available.
What it shows is by turns hilarious and infuriating. Republicans clearly have no evidence that President Joe Biden has ever done anything wrong in connection to his son or his son’s business. Hunter’s testimony only showed the tragedy of his experience with drugs, how far Republicans were willing to go to indulge conspiracy theories, and how trivial all Hunter’s business dealings were in comparison to something that really does deserve investigation: the $2 billion reward lavished on Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.
Gaetz: And that's what—see, because earlier you say, "My father, firewall, had nothing to do with my business," and now you're contemplating giving him keys to your office to redeem yourself.
Hunter: How is contemplation … Let me ask a question. How is contemplation of something evidence of involvement? I alone contemplate. I contemplate that one day you and I are going to be great friends. Is that ever going to happen, Mr. Gaetz? I don't think so.
When it came time for questions from Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, the back and forth showed just how small everything under investigation was when compared to what the Republicans refused to look into.
Swalwell: Did your father ever employ in the Oval Office any direct family member to also work in the Oval Office?
Hunter: My father has never employed any direct family members, to my knowledge.
Swalwell: While your father was President, did anyone in the family receive 41 trademarks from China?
Hunter: No.
Swalwell: As President and the leader of the party, has your father ever tried to install as the chairperson of the party a daughter-in-law or anyone else in the family?
Hunter: No. And I don't think that anyone in my family would be crazy enough to want to be the chairperson of the DNC.
Swalwell: Has your father ever in his time as an adult been fined $355 million by any State that he worked in?
Hunter: No, he has not, thank God.
Swallwell: Anyone in your family ever strike a multibillion-dollar deal with the Saudi Government while your father was in office?
Hunter: No.
Swalwell: That's all I've got.
Good Election News
Trump has underperformed the polls in each of the first three contests
It’s still early in the primary season, but a whiff of a possible polling error is already in the air.
That’s because Donald J. Trump has underperformed the polls in each of the first three contests.
- In Iowa, the final FiveThirtyEight polling average showed Mr. Trump leading Nikki Haley by 34 points with a 53 percent share. He ultimately beat her by 32 points with 51 percent. (Ron DeSantis took second.)
- In New Hampshire, he led by 18 points with 54 percent. In the end, he won by 11 points with 54 percent.
- In South Carolina, Mr. Trump led by 28 points with 62 percent. He ultimately won by 20 points with 60 percent.
|
Current Senate Landscape - It’s Close, Competitive
In keeping my own counsel from above, I’m going to focus more now on the 2024 elections. Today, we do a quick look at recent Senate polling. What we find is a close, competitive fight for the Senate, with perhaps more good news for us than them (all polls via 538):
AZ - Gallego 47%-Lake 37% - Noble Predictive
Gallego 46%-Lake 39% - Emerson
MD - Trone 42%-Hogan 42% - Emerson
MT - Tester is up 9 pts and 15 pts against possible opponents - Survey USA/KULR
NV - Rosen is up 2 pts, 6 pts, 11 pts vs various opponents - Emerson
OH - Brown is up 1-2 pts vs various opponents - Emerson (from January)
PA - Casey 47%-McCormick 40% - Public Opinion Strategies
Casey 49%-McCormick 39% - Emerson
TX - Allred 41%-Cruz 41% - UTexas at Tyler
WI - Baldwin 46%-Hovde 39% - Emerson College
I should note that while there is some good polling for Allred in Texas, there is also some showing Cruz significantly ahead. Need to see more data after the Democratic Primary next week.
All in all we should be happy with this picture, recognizing we have a lot of work ahead of us.
Michigan Democratic Protest Votes Aren’t as Big a Threat to Biden as They Look
Spoiler alert: Biden won. He won big, with 87 percent of the vote. But he also won with a caveat: Some 13 percent of Democratic voters in a state with a large Arab American and Muslim population voted “uncommitted” in protest of his support for Israel’s campaign in Gaza.
In 2012, Barack Obama faced an almost identical share of uncommitted voters when running for re-election. Yes, there were fewer of them overall, and they weren’t motivated by a single issue. Still, it would be disingenuous to call 2024’s “uncommitted” movement a juggernaut.
“Uncommitted didn’t do well by any reasonable benchmark in Michigan, not sure why people are trying to spin this into a story,” wrote political analyst Nate Silver on X. “If anything [I’m] a little bullish for Biden insofar as it suggests that the protest vote over Gaza might not be all that large.”
Good Legal News
I hope folks understand how big this DOJ 60 day window not applying to Trump is.
That means that DOJ is willing to try these cases into September, October, and early November.
It makes the SCOTUS delay much less daunting, and raises the likelihood of pre-election conviction.
Judge blocks Tex. law authorizing arrests of suspected illegal immigrants
A federal judge has blocked a Texas law empowering police across the state to arrest immigrants suspected of entering the country illegally — a measure derided by advocates as permitting racial profiling and criminalizing anyone who looks like an immigrant.
The massive bank fraud judgment issued against Trump in New York was written in a very particular way that could quickly disappoint Trump.
Donald Trump is working hard to get an appeal of the $464 million judgment levied against him for committing bank fraud. But if he does fork over the cash and get that appeal, he may find that it doesn’t take the higher courts long to swat it down.
That’s because the 92-page opinion issued by New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur F. Engoron was tailor-made to withstand appeal—and give the state’s First Judicial Department a roadmap to uphold the decision.
“The reason why this opinion is so long and so specific is to emphasize to the appellate court how much care the judge took in issuing this decision,” said Jennifer B. Arlin, an expert on appeals who teaches legal writing at Brooklyn Law School.
Good Abortion Rights News
French Senate votes to enshrine abortion in constitution, a world first
The French government’s pioneering push to become the first country in the world to enshrine abortion rights in its constitution got a huge boost Wednesday when lawmakers in the right-dominated Senate voted to inscribe abortion as a “guaranteed freedom.”
“It’s no longer a fight, now it’s a victory,” said Sen. Mélanie Vogel, one of the main backers of the bill. “It’s an extraordinary message that France has just sent.”
“There are days that mark the political and parliamentary history of our country. This day is one of them,” the new prime minister, Gabriel Attal,
CVS and Walgreens Will Begin Selling Abortion Pills This Month
The two largest pharmacy chains in the United States will start dispensing the abortion pill mifepristone this month, a step that could make access easier for some patients.
Officials at CVS and Walgreens said in interviews on Friday that they had received certification to dispense mifepristone under guidelines that the Food and Drug Administration issued last year. The chains plan to make the medication available in stores in a handful of states at first.
Both chains said they would gradually expand to all other states where abortion was legal and where pharmacies were legally able to dispense abortion pills — about half of the states.
Other Good News
Navalny Mourners Defy Putin and Chant: ‘We Are Not Afraid!’
Hundreds of mourners assembled in Moscow Friday for the funeral of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in spite of a heavy police presence around the church where the life of Vladimir Putin’s fiercest domestic critic will be celebrated.
Applauding supporters chanted Navalny’s name and the slogan “you were not afraid, and we are not afraid” as the hearse carrying his coffin arrived at the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God in a suburb of the Russian capital.
Gen Z Grew Up in Complete Political Chaos and Somehow Came Out Happy
My son turns 23 next week. He was born seven months before 9/11, which means his life has traced some of the most chaotic years of American history.
From terrorism to war to a global financial collapse; from the rise of American illiberalism to the election of the first kleptomaniacal president to the first global pandemic in a hundred years; from a Big Lie about a stolen election to what was either a violent insurrection or a “normal tourist visit”—he’s already seen it all.
In other words, everything is bad. Yet when I ask him if he’s happy, he says yes. Which raises the obvious question—what’s wrong with him?
I find it befuddling that both he and his 20-year-old sister are doing as well as they are. Shouldn’t they be as angst-ridden and miserable as their father? Why should they be allowed to escape the navel-gazing of their parents’ generation?
Hell, our ennui was the stuff of legend.
The new generation has so much more to keep them up at night. And yet somehow, 76 percent “believe they have a great future ahead of them.”
If you haven’t seen it yet, here is Biden on Late Night. Part one:
and part 2:
On the Lighter Side
What can you do to save democracy
Take action. Nothing makes you feel better than action.
Your donation will come bundled with others from our Good News community and will show the Biden team that there are many of us who support him and combine hard work with optimism in our battles for a better America!
You can also Educate other people about what Biden has done and we can win!
To help, I’ve been writing a Boosting Biden post every weekday of this year and plan to continue to the election. You can share these every day (or some days) with Facebook groups or other groups via email with friends on other social media… anywhere!
You can use these to educate other people about what Biden has done and we can win!
Looking for something else? GREAT! Here are some other ideas:
I am so lucky and so proud to be in this with all of you 💓💚💛🧡✊🏻✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿✊❤️🧡💛💚