FLiRT, LB.1. Has Pride Month been extended?

No. New COVID variants.

"I'm running. I'm in this race to the end."

I can't square that with the statements by "close ally" of his phone conversation with the president last night. "Close ally" was not lying. The president did not lie to him, it was a candid conversation. The president was "clear-eyed"; staying in the race was not certain, it was contingent on 1) polls 2) his performance in the Stephanopoulos interview Friday and on the stump in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin 3) fundraising. The president's decision would be timely, made immediately after those events this week.

Then today, "I'm running. I'm in this race to the end" to his campaign staff? Either that was a lie or his phone convo with "close ally" was a lie. For the life of me I cannot understand why he would lie to his campaign staff less than 24 hours after the phone call, and after the accounts of the call were published by NYT and CNN.

"Heat" Sign Alec Burks, 33 y.o., 10 ppg, in Bid to Catch "Celtics" :|

"I am running. I'm in this race to the end."

 "Let me say this as clearly as I possibly can and as simply and straightforward as I can: I am running.

"I’m the nominee of the Democratic Party. No one's pushing me out. I'm not leaving. I'm in this race to the end, and we're going to win because when Democrats unite, we always win."

President Biden, with Vice president Harris on a conference call with his campaign staff today.

The Case For President Harris

I hope that the president does not make a decision with undo weight given the Times/Sienna poll. It is in line with CNN's poll the day before, which was unchanged from CNN's poll in April, and both are outliers compared to other post-debate polls. However, I think the Bidens put more stock in the Times/Sienna poll than the others. It may be consistent with their internal polling. If so, then the first leg of their decision-making triad is weakened, perhaps, in their minds, cut off. I hope that the president waits on other polling, even if it is just through the weekend, but honestly, I don't put much stock in the other legs, the interview/campaign stops and fundraising. Those, to me, are disqualifying but not qualifying. That is, if he speaks gibberish to Stephanopoulos, he's done, but if he is silver-tongued, he has not made the mental competency issue go away at all. Similarly, if the donors snap their wallets shut right now, he's done; but if they keep them open he hasn't increased his viability. Advertising is not going to close this sale. To me, therefore, it's all on the polls. To me, a 3-point decline in support since the DebateDebacle, a 6-point deficit on July 3!, even if those polls were exactly how people would vote on July 3, is not close to being convincing evidence that the president cannot win. Especially given that no plausible Democratic alternative beats Trump in the polls. Be that as it may, I do believe that there is now a 50-50 chance that the president will drop out. 

Which brings me to the subject heading of this post. In the CNN poll Vice president Harris did better, -2, than Gov. Newsom, Sec. Buttigieg, and Gov. Whitmer. Harris, I think, also gets Democrats a bit out of the antidemocratic selection process of a replacement. It is true that Joe Biden personally won all those primary delegates. The candidate line was not Biden-Harris. But I have read in two places that according to Democratic Party rules, Kamala Harris, as Biden's incumbent veep, would inherit the Biden-Harris campaign funds. Simply, if President Biden died, Harris would automatically become president. She would not inherit the Democratic Party's nomination for president but she would inherit the Biden-Harris campaign's money if she wished to contest the nomination in Chicago. It is a distinction without a difference, to me. OBVIOUSLY, the Democrats would nominate the incumbent president with a $200M war chest over Gretchen Whitmer.

And that brings up this consideration. If Joe Biden decides not to seek reelection, should he also resign the presidency? 

Deciding not to seek reelection would mean that his presidency has four months left. On the normative prong of my personal "difficult-hard" decision-making construct, I decided that Biden is unfit to be president. Four months or--especially--four years, he is unfit to carry on in my judgment. I supported him, I support him now, and I will vote for him if he continues because of the infinitely greater unfitness of Donald Trump. On the pragmatic prong of my analysis, I concluded that Biden had a better chance of beating Trump than any of the other named, floated Democrats. I still feel that Biden has a better chance of beating Trump than does Kamala Harris, but if Biden decides to not seek reelection he would greatly enhance Harris' prospects by resigning the presidency and having President Harris run. 

If he decides not to seek reelection, what is the case for Biden remaining president? Normatively, there is none (to me). Practically, there is none, especially as a lame duck.

Polls that have been conducted exclusively since the debate...*

*Updated

NYT/Sienna June 28-July 2: Trump +6. Up three from same poll pre-debate (June 20-25).

July 3, 10:01 am:

CBS June 28-July 2: Trump +2

Reuters/Ipsos July 1-2: Tie

Yahoo June 28-July 1: Trump +2

Where's the beef, ABJ'ers?

July 2 12:45 pm:

CNN “conducted after the debate”: Trump +6. “Identical to the results of CNN’s national poll on the presidential race in April”.

July 2, 9:27 pm:

St. Anselm's New Hampshire poll June 28-29: Trump +2. This is a major shift from this poll's last, in December, which had Biden +10.

6:42 pm:

Harvard/Harris June 28-30: Trump +4. Trump's lead is down 2% from this poll's May survey.

4:26 pm:

Morning Consult June 28: Biden +1
Data for Progress June 28: Trump +3
SurveyUSA June 28: Trump +2
Morning Consult June 28-30: Trump +1

This is the other poll the Bidens were awaiting

Trump Widens Lead After Biden’s Debate Debacle, Times/Siena Poll Finds

Donald Trump is ahead of President Biden by six percentage points among likely voters 

Mr. Trump now leads Mr. Biden 49 percent to 43 percent among likely voters nationally, a three-point swing toward the Republican from just a week earlier, before the debate. It is the largest leadMr. Trump has recorded in a Times/Siena poll since 2015. Mr. Trump leads by even more among registered voters, 49 percent to 41 percent.

Same “close ally” spoke to CNN

It’s the next few days, the Stephanopoulos interview and the campaign stops in PA. and WI, the polls and the fundraising. If “It’s just not working” he will get out. The substance of the CNN talk is the same. There are different quotes:

If “the polls are plummeting, the fundraising is drying up, and the interviews are going badly. He’s not oblivious.”

“He sees the moment. He’s clear-eyed.”

In Tuesday’s private conversation, Biden was also “chastened” as he “blamed himself” – not his staff – for the debate performance.

“He said: ‘I have done way too much foreign policy.’” He said to me: ‘I have over done it. I did too much travel. I did too much back and forth. I did too much time change. I had a cold. That was a mistake.’”

This is new and portentous:

…at one point in their conversation, Biden asked this person for advice – and then there was silence, the person told CNN, as the president waited for input.

If this is Jim Clyburn, and to a standard of satisfy the conscience it is, then if the president asked Jim Clyburn for advice and Jim Clyburn didn’t respond, then it’s over. Biden cannot lose Jim Clyburn.

CNN, NOT this ally on the Virginia fundraiser, “nearly fell asleep” line:

The remark was met with brief laughter from those in attendance, according to a recording of the president’s remarks.

Multiple reporters who were in the room said that they believed the “fell asleep” line appeared intended to be a joke and that Biden was trying to make light of the situation in a self-deprecating way, but it did not land, in their view.

Unnamed but this is going to be Jim Clyburn, who had a call scheduled with Biden last night

 

Biden Told Ally That He Is Weighing Whether to Continue in the Race

The president’s conversation is the first indication that he is seriously considering whether he can recover after a devastating performance on the debate stage in Atlanta. A White House official said the claim was false.

President Biden has told a key ally that he knows he may not be able to salvage his candidacy if he cannot convince the public in the coming days that he is up for the job after a disastrous debate performance last week.

The president, whom this ally emphasized is still deeply in the fight for re-election, understands that his next few appearances heading into the holiday weekend must go well, particularly an interview scheduled for Friday with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News and campaign stops in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

“He knows if he has two more events like that, we’re in a different place” by the end of the weekend, said the ally, referring to Mr. Biden’s halting and unfocused performance in the debate. The person, who talked to the president in the past 24 hours, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive situation.

...

Campaign officials were nervously awaiting the results of a new poll on Wednesday, recognizing that bad numbers could fuel the crisis. A CBS News poll released Wednesday morning showed former President Donald J. Trump edging ahead of Mr. Biden since the debate with 50 percent to 48 percent nationally and 51 percent to 48 percent in battleground states.

So there is a poll in addition to the CBS that they're awaiting? That is how I would read that.

The Greatest College Building in the World

I can’t believe I went there.

Very Strange

Trump has not campaigned since the Friday after the debate either, has no campaign rallies on his schedule this week, and never announced his veep selection, which it was thought he would announce the day of the debate.

The Zogby Representative Democracy Proposal

A longtime member of the Democratic National Committee, James Zogby, is urging the party to establish a process to replace President Biden this summer.

Zogby, formerly part of the party’s executive committee, made the suggestion in a memo to Jaime Harrison, the D.N.C. chair.
…
The process Mr. Zogby outlines in the memo, however, starts with an unlikely prospect:

1) Mr. Biden announcing that he would drop out of the race. 

2)  Biden instruct the party not to simply designate Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee, but instead

3) meet after the Fourth of July to “lay out a one-month campaign schedule to select the party’s nominee.”
4) Potential candidates would then need to secure the endorsements of 40 current D.N.C. members, including four from each of the party’s four regions. “Given the relatively small number of D.N.C. members,” he wrote, “such a process will most likely result in not more than five potential nominees.”

5) The party would then host two televised events for the candidates to “make their cases before Democratic voters across the country.”

I could go for this with some small but significant, to me, tweaks.

i. Not DNC members, that’s smoke-filled room. The president would release all 3,894 of the delegates he won in the direct democracy elections in the primaries.

ii. Biden doesn’t say anything for or against Vice President Harris. If she wants to run for the renomination, and I am sure that she will, she should be permitted to.

iii. The campaign would be for a month, candidate to delegate and the top five delegate vote getters would then participate in debates before registered Democratic voters nationwide. 

iv. The voters would then vote electronically for the delegates representing their candidate and the delegates would be bound to vote for that candidate on the floor of the Convention in Chicago, as they are bound now.

Something very close to that.

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA):

“About 50 million Americans tuned in and watched that debate,” she told KATU News, appearing crestfallen throughout the interview. “I was one of them for five very painful minutes.”

After carefully considering her response to a question about whether the president should step aside, Ms. Gluesenkamp Perez said: “The truth, I think, is that Biden will lose to Trump. I know it’s difficult, but I think the damage has been done.”

She added that Democratic primary voters had already chosen Mr. Biden and that “a core tenet of democracy is that you accept the results of an election.”

“Biden is the nominee,” she said.

President Biden blames overseas travel for disastrous debate: 'I nearly fell asleep on stage'

Oh course that’s going to be the lede. I’m not faulting McPaper, he said it. But it was received by his audience as a joke and appears to have been a deliberate exaggeration to get a laugh. It does seem an “excuse” to blame the debate on his travel, but most readers have traveled overseas, even across time zones in the States. You DO get jet-lagged, it is disorienting, your schedule is thrown off, a week to adjust is not unheard of, and the 81-year old president flew to Europe twice in “those 23 days”, came back to the U.S. to the immense grief and stress of his only surviving son’s conviction. and then flew across the U.S., and then had a full week of intense debate prep.

He made light of his performance, which is healthy and wise, he absolved his aides of blame, ditto, and he apologized sincerely and winningly. 

He needs to do this in public with voters and frequently. That is what he has not done.

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Tuesday blamed jet lag from his recent travels overseas for his disastrous debate performance last last week, even though he returned to the United States 12 days before taking the stage with former President Donald Trump.

Biden, facing immense pressure from Democrats following his poor debate showing, made the excuse while addressing donors at a campaign fundraiser in McLean, Virginia outside Washington.

"I didn't have my best night," Biden told supporters. "I wasn't very smart. I decided to travel around the world a couple of times, going through I don't how many times zones.

"I didn't listen to my staff. And then I came back and I nearly fell asleep on stage," Biden said, prompting laughs from some of the donors. “It’s not an excuse but an explanation."

Biden then apologized to supporters, saying he was sorry for his June 27 debate performance, but stressed it was “critical” to win the election against Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee.

Biden's remarks could invite even more scrutiny over whether the 81-year-old president is up to the rigorous traveling, packed schedules and other demands of a second term in the White House.

Leading up to the debate, Biden spent six days at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland preparing with White House aides. He arrived there on the night of June 20 and left the morning of June 27 for Atlanta, the site of the debate.

Biden was in Italy from June 12 to 14 to attend the Group of Seven nations summit, returned back to the U.S. early in the morning June 15, and immediately took Air Force One to Los Angeles to attend a glitzy Hollywood fundraiser. Biden returned to the White House on June 16, made a quick stop at his Rehoboth Beach, Delaware home on June 18, and then went on to Camp David.

Biden was in France from June 5 to 9 to celebrate the 80th anniversary of D-day with allies and meet with French President Emmanuel Macron.

 

Florida Silver Alert

The Florida Silver Alert is used to locate missing persons suffering from an irreversible deterioration of intellectual faculties.

Criteria

• The person must be 60 years and older; ✅
• Must have an irreversible deterioration of intellectual faculties (e.g. Alzheimer's disease or dementia)✅
  

JOE CALL HOME!

POLITICO reached out to more than 100 Democratic Senate and House offices...on Tuesday...The vast majority did not respond to questions about when their members last interacted with the president and whether they’ve found him accessible.

...

...none indicated direct outreach...from the president in the wake of the debate.

Some pointed to conversations with chief of staff Jeff Zients and White House counselor Steve Ricchetti, but not Biden himself. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday the president...planned to reach out to Hill leaders this week...

It’s an indication that efforts to tamp down the private worries among elected lawmakers about Biden’s capacity to remain president for a second four-year term are still in their infancy.

...

...even top leaders and Biden allies hadn’t heard directly from the president in recent days.

Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), a Biden campaign co-chair who played a key role in securing the nomination for the president in 2020, said he had yet to hear from the incumbent following the debate — but indicated he had a call slated for later Tuesday.

...

Notably, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — usually a staunch defender of Biden — said Tuesday she had not heard from him since the debate...

...relative radio silence toward Capitol Hill...

...

...roughly a half-dozen House Democratic aides, granted anonymity to speak candidly, acknowledged that while their bosses might hobnob with Biden at events, most of the day-to-day interaction with the White House is happening at the staff level.

Eleven and Me Eating Spaghetti

                     Harry Truman

             Joe Biden

 

 

The Antidemocratic Uprising Against Joe Biden

Millions vote for a candidate, propelling him to victory. Before the voters’ decision is formally certified, people who don’t like the outcome demand that the election results be thrown out and a different candidate selected in a closed process. That was America on January 6, 2021. And now, some in the Democratic Party want to follow a similar script.

The Democratic Party held 57 primaries and caucuses; voters in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and five U.S. territories had their say, as did Democrats abroad. Joe Biden won 87% of the vote.

Yes, the case for change not met. Even if Biden suffered some incapacitating condition after all of those millions of votes had been cast, say, in“those 23 days” in June, then the proponents of change have met that element of the case for change and the nullification of those votes. But it is still required of them that they propose a feasible democratic process, a re-vote in a national primary for instance, to choose an alternative to the democratic winner of the Democratic Party primaries. I asked a virulent ABJ friend about this. He misunderstood the question at first:

What is the democratic mechanism to replace Biden?

There isn’t
People need to get him to walk away
If leaders and everyone had said drop out he might have

No: let’s say he drops out, how does his replacement get chosen?

Smoke filled room I guess

That is what would happen under current rules! The president would have to step down, then release all of his delegates to the Democratic National Convention, turning the convention venue into one humongous smoke-filled room where all sorts of antidemocratic horse-trading and deal-cutting and promise-making would take place. That is a non-starter for me.

Right! Negating all primary votes.

My friend sees the end justifying the means.

I’m ok right now with that
Process be damned
Trump is so dangerous and even more so with immunity I don’t care how sausages are made


And he may be right! In this unique situation, when Democracy in America truly is on the ballot, then the end is justified by all means (short of assassination). But my friend is convinced that Anybody But Joe will beat Trump democratically. ON NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER! To justify a thoroughly antidemocratic nullification of millions of votes in this emergency, I would have to be convinced that there is a product of the smoke-filled room who would beat Trump. AND THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT THERE IS SUCH A WHITE KNIGHT!

Biden’s Lapses Are Increasingly Common, According to Some of Those in the Room

People who have spent time with President Biden over the last few months or so said the lapses appear to have grown more frequent, more pronounced and, after Thursday’s debate, more worrisome.

In the weeks and months before President Biden’s politically devastating performance on the debate stage in Atlanta, several current and former officials and others who encountered him behind closed doors noticed that he increasingly appeared confused or listless, or would lose the thread of conversations.
…
The recent moments of disorientation generated concern among advisers and allies alike. He seemed confused at points during a D-Day anniversary ceremony in France on June 6. The next day, he misstated the purpose of a new tranche of military aid to Ukraine when meeting with its president.

On June 10, he appeared to freeze up at an early celebration of the Juneteenth holiday. On June 18, his soft-spoken tone and brief struggle to summon the name of his homeland security secretary at an immigration event unnerved some of his allies at the event, who traded alarmed looks and later described themselves as “shaken up,” as one put it. Mr. Biden recovered, and named Alejandro N. Mayorkas.

He is certainly not that way all the time. In the days since the debate debacle, aides and others who encountered him, including foreign officials, described him as being in good shape — alert, coherent and capable, engaged in complicated and important discussions and managing volatile crises. They cited example after example in cases where critical national security issues were on the line.

Aides present in the Situation Room the night that Iran hurled a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel portrayed a president in commanding form, lecturing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone to avoid a retaliatory escalation that would have inflamed the Middle East. “Let me be crystal clear,” Mr. Biden said. “If you launch a big attack on Iran, you’re on your own.”

Mr. Netanyahu pushed back hard, citing the need to respond in kind to deter future attacks. “You do this,” Mr. Biden said forcefully, “and I’m out.” Ultimately, the aides noted, Mr. Netanyahu scaled back his response.

This account is based on interviews with current and former White House aides, political advisers, administration officials, foreign diplomats, domestic allies and financial donors who saw Mr. Biden in the last few weeks, sometimes just briefly, sometimes for more extended periods. …

…Kevin C. O’Connor, the White House physician, said as recently as February that despite minor ailments like sleep apnea and peripheral neuropathy in his feet, the president was “fit for duty.” He said tests had turned up “no findings which would be consistent with” Parkinson’s disease. The White House has declined to make Dr. O’Connor available for questions and did not respond to detailed health questions from The New York Times earlier this year.

When JFK ran and there were whispers of Addison’s Disease RFK, his campaign manager, put out “a cleverly worded statement,” that “Sen. Kennedy does not now nor has he ever had an ailment described classically as Addison’s disease, which is a tuberculose [sic] destruction of the adrenal gland”. JFK had Addison’s. Dr. O’Connor’s statement on President Biden and Parkinson’s is similarly “clever”: “consistent with.” Does Biden have Parkinson’s or doesn’t he?
…
…by many accounts, as evidenced by video footage, observation and interviews, Mr. Biden is not the same today as he was even when he took office 3½ years ago. The White House regularly releases corrected transcripts of his remarks, in which he frequently mixes up places, people or dates. The administration did so in the days after the debate, when Mr. Biden mixed up the countries of France and Italy when talking about war veterans at an East Hampton fund-raiser.
…
The picture that emerges from recent interviews about Mr. Biden is one of a president under stress — hardly unusual — as he tried to juggle nervous international partners, a recalcitrant ally whose continued war against Hamas was creating yet another threat to a second term and a family crisis with his own son, who was convicted of criminal charges that could send him to prison.

I predicted that the president would withdraw when Hunter was convicted, which I also predicted.
…
…those 23 days before Mr. Biden met Mr. Trump on the television stage in Atlanta may be viewed by historians as the most critical three weeks in a consequential presidency, as the president faced an opponent he not only loathed, but viewed as an existential threat to American democracy. Were the wandering, inconclusive thoughts broadcast live to more than 50 million viewers just a bad night, a product of the exhausting month, or something larger? Had he not been crisscrossing the globe so frequently — including leaving Italy for a trip spanning nine time zones to a fund-raiser in Los Angeles — would it have made a difference?

I am struck by the Quasis focus on "those 23 days", "the most critical three weeks" of his presidency. Did something happen? The Times does shit like that. It makes hardly veiled allusions to something that it knows but that we do not.

Mr. Biden’s trips to Europe were marked by moments of sharpness in important meetings — including a complex session on diverting income from Russian assets to aid Ukraine — mixed with occasional blank-stared confusion, according to people who met with him. At some points, he seemed perfectly on top of his game, at others a little lost.

The Quasis know what they are doing here, and above with "He is certainly not that way all the time." They well know that deterioration, physical or mental, seldom happens all at once, it's a gradual stiffness is the joints, when physical, with age, not an abrupt running-a-marathon-and-then-not-able-to-walk-the-next-day; that perhaps especially with cognitive decline it's not being able to recite War and Peace from memory and then not remembering your own name the next day. There are these glimpses of deterioration, these signs, sometimes so subtle that unless they are repeated they are not noticed. That is to say that "moments of sharpness" and then "occasional blank-stared confusion" in the same meeting are diagnostic of mental decline.

If the president has Parkinson's Disease, if he has been diagnosed with any specific condition that explains these mixed states the public has a right to know. But, and I think that this is more important than a specific diagnosis unless that is for an irreversible, continuous, serious decline, then a characterization of the president as merely an "elderly man" is not helpful. In that case, what the president must do is be out frequently with voters giving speeches and holding rallies. He cannot present like he did Thursday night and then present as he did Friday in North Carolina and quell "panic." In fact, those "Two Joe Bidens" are "consistent with" "something larger".

...

...much like during the State of the Union address earlier in the year, he often rises to big occasions and once he gets the rhythm of a speech, adrenaline appears to kick in.

...

 After several days in France, Mr. Biden flew home briefly and dealt with the family crisis of his son’s conviction. He hosted an early concert marking the Juneteenth holiday where he was spotted standing stiffly during a musical performance. One person who sat close to the president said that he had a “dazed and confused” expression during much of the event. This person said Mr. Biden had shown a “sharp decline” since a meeting only weeks earlier.

Reinforces my supposition that it's Hunter.

After just a couple days at home, Mr. Biden turned around and flew back to Europe, this time to Italy for a summit of the Group of 7 leaders. Throughout the meetings, the pattern was the same, according to senior officials who attended.

...

A senior European official who was present said that there had been a noticeable decline in Mr. Biden’s physical state since the previous fall and that the Europeans had been “shocked” by what they saw. The president at times appeared “out of it,” the official said, and it was difficult to engage him in conversation while he was walking.

 Ms. [Italian prime minister, Giorgia] Meloni and the other leaders were acutely sensitive to Mr. Biden’s physical condition, discussing it privately among themselves, and they tried to avoid embarrassing him by slowing their own pace while walking with the president. When they worried that he did not seem poised and cameras were around, they closed ranks around him physically to shield him while he collected himself, the official said.

...

Asked if one could imagine putting Mr. Biden into the same room with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia today, a former U.S. official who had helped prepare for the trip went silent for a while, then said, “I just don’t know.” A former senior European official answered the same question by saying flatly, “No.”

 Some White House officials adamantly rejected the suggestion of a president not up to handling tough foreign counterparts and told the story of the night Iran attacked Israel in April. Mr. Biden and his top national security officials were in the Situation Room for hours, bracing for the attack, which came around midnight. Biden was updated in real time as the forces he ordered into the region began shooting down Iranian missiles and drones. He peppered leaders with questions throughout the response.

Note, this example given by WH officials occurred in APRIL, NOT during "those 23 days" in June.

After it was over, and almost all of the missiles and drones had been shot down, Mr. Biden called Mr. Netanyahu to persuade him not to escalate. “Take the win,” Mr. Biden told the prime minister, without reading from a script or extensive notes, according to two people in the room. In the end, Mr. Netanyahu opted for a much smaller and proportionate response...

Mr. Biden left Italy to fly directly to Los Angeles for a star-studded fund-raiser with Hollywood celebrities and former President Barack Obama...

But Mr. Biden appeared tired during a 40-minute discussion onstage at the event, seated between Jimmy Kimmel and Mr. Obama. A few times, the president stumbled over his words, and when the other men were speaking, Mr. Biden often stared into space, his mouth slightly open, like he would later do at the debate.

Two days after finally returning to the White House, Mr. Biden invited members of Congress, former administration officials and leading immigration experts to the White House to celebrate action taken under Mr. Obama to spare young undocumented immigrants, known as Dreamers, from deportation.

Two people with a clear view of Mr. Biden said his quiet, soft-spoken mumbling and occasional fumbling over the right words despite reading from a teleprompter left some in attendance concerned over his condition. He momentarily appeared unable to say the name of Mr. Mayorkas, his homeland security secretary, before recovering, leaving some in the audience jarred.

...

...some attendees shared their concerns about Mr. Biden’s condition with each other. “People were not feeling great,” one person said. Another person hoped it was just a “one-off” bad moment before Mr. Biden’s forthcoming debate.  

...

“He gave a strong speech, he didn’t stumble or mumble or look confused in any way,” said Judith Hope, the former chair of the New York State Democratic Party, who attended a fund-raiser in East Hampton on Saturday. “He was his old Uncle Joe self.”
 

“Are you aware of where he has been in the past seven days?” she said, raising her voice. “He continues to keep up a schedule that I could never dream of doing, that would totally defeat a younger person,” she added. “I think we need to examine our expectations.”

House Democrats across the ideological spectrum remain furious at the lack of outreach and direction from the Biden campaign about the way to unify as a party. A majority of rank-and-file Democrats have not received any kind of formal communications from the Biden campaign other than the standard talking points and memos sent by the White House and campaign.

“The reassurance strategy, if that’s what you want to call it, is not working, and I think some find it a bit offensive,” one Democratic aide said.

Same in the Senate! That is hard to understand for a man who put so much emphasis on personal relationships in a 50-year career.

“[Biden] might be able to survive this if this was the only incident. But it won’t be the only incident,” said a senior Capitol Hill Democratic official.

So they expect a repeat.

…

During an interview on MSNBC on Tuesday, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called on Biden to participate in multiple interviews with journalists in the aftermath of his debate performance.

…

“I think it’s a legitimate question to say, is this an episode or is this a condition?” Pelosi said, referring to Biden’s debate performance.

To that point Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said, “I think people want to make sure…that the president and his team are being candid with us about his condition — that this was a real anomaly and not just the way he is these days,”

…

…Biden has not reached out to Democratic Party leaders himself to reassure them or to get feedback, something that many sources told CNN they found astounding given the fallout from the debate.

“They’re equating this moment to every moment they’ve overcome before, and not realizing it’s a totally different moment,” a Democratic operative close to the campaign said in reference to Biden and his inner circle.

During a fundraiser in the Hamptons on Saturday, Biden used a teleprompter, something at least one donor mentioned as troubling. Meanwhile, first lady Jill Biden stuck to the Biden family mythology of resilience while introducing her husband.

…

Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, the closest of Biden’s political allies, told CNN he would like to see the president counter the narrative of being too old and incompetent for the job by doing more public events, town halls and interviews. …Campaign aides are also mapping out a more robust travel schedule to battleground states in July.

Many leading Democrats doubt that Biden is up to that — and they see his secluded schedule since Sunday as evidence they are correct. 

They doubt that he is physically up to it. That is very damning.

…

Even for some of those who are staying committed to Biden, a sense has settled in that there is little chance he would be able to make it through the four years that another term would entail. 

I agreed and I agree. Seeing that in print from others though focuses my mind. How can we proceed with someone who we are convinced can’t make it through the term he is elected for?

…

Several Biden advisers told CNN the campaign is still working to assess the true fallout of the debate among voters in key battleground states, with an eye on whether Biden has fallen in a head-to-head matchup with Trump or whether the field of swing states has expanded.

…

…the Biden campaign on Tuesday announced that June was its best fundraising month ever, with $127 million banked — with almost a third of that raised since the debate.

James Carville, Dem Rep Doggett Call For Change, Replacement For Biden; Sen. Manchin Talked Out of it

Man, how ‘bout my timing! 🙄 

It’s not going away. Dems were hoping he would announce withdrawal this week. Instead his family was strident and that pissed off Dems and they are now breaking.

Miami Heat's Silent Offseason Continues With Donovan Mitchell Contract Extension

What, exactly, is the Heat's plan here?

Donovan Mitchell Stays With Cleveland

Another reported Miami target off the board.

The Standard For Change

Democrats chose Biden in the primaries when he was trailing Trump “consistent with” CNN’s poll results today. The primary voting is over. He has won the nomination. He is entitled to the votes of his delegates. That is to say, there is no democratic mechanism to now choose another candidate. The only way he is not the nominee is if he voluntarily, albeit under pressure from party leaders, donors, elites, withdraws.

Should he withdraw (under pressure)? The post-debate polling is accumulating and there has been no meaningful change in the head-to-head matchup with Trump. We were losing before the debate, we are losing now, and by similar or identical margins.

Further, post-debate, “Biden’s support among Democratic voters has inched up to 91% from 85%”. (CNN)

Finally, were the president to withdraw and an actual individual replace him, these are CNN’s results:

Trump +2 Harris

Trump +5 Newsom

Trump +4 Buttigieg

Trump +5 Whitmer

The standard for change to force the elected nominee to withdraw from the race, must be 

• a substantial erosion in polling in the states, in the Electoral College vote, 
• occasioned by something, e.g. the debate, that primary voters did not know, 
• a democratic mechanism to choose another candidate 
• who polling shows would likely win where the incumbent nominee would lose.

There is no democratic mechanism to choose a different candidate, therefore the standard is not met, and cannot be met.

Cursing and screaming as we may, it’s Biden or Trump. That’s the choice.

I am prepared to bend over and be taken in the ass by the Bidens, even to cheerfully say “Oh yes! Fuck me in the ass! I love it!” But I’m allowed to be really pissed at having to be fucked in the ass, right? I would like dispensation to just once wrap my hands around the necks of Joe and Jill and to squeeze really hard, not fatally, just till their faces turn purple and they gag—“argh argh”—and their eyes bulge out of their heads, just to see them briefly suffer before I suffer, but I understand that is asking too much.

Cleared history, unpersonalized Google search trends:

Cleared history, unpersonalized Google top news stories:

1. SCOTUS

2-3. Karen Read, who I didn’t even know who that was

And Hurricane Beryl.

4. Heat (not Miami)

5. Biden is FIFTH. Four days after DebateDebacle he’s down below the heat (not Miami). One spot ahead of Bannon reporting to the Gray Bar Hotel.

 

A media ‘nervous breakdown’? Calls for 

Biden’s withdrawal produce 

some extraordinary moments

Tom Friedman cried; the Times editorial; the Journal-Constitution's editorial; even I couldn't get to sleep.

I also mentioned this point last Friday: When was the last time the pundits and bloviators like me had a nervous breakdown? It wasn't too long ago. When Michael Cohen got crossed on the 8:02 phone call and lost the Manhattan trial that Trump was just convicted 34 times on. We were all losing our SHIT! Reasonable doubt, reasonable doubt, reasonable doubt out our assholes! The jury? Yawn, okay everybody ready, we've been in here long enough to make it look good. Guilty. 34G.

This race is not going to change dramatically. I can have a nervous breakdown, Friedman can have a nervous breakdown, the Special Ed board can bloviate all they want. The voters? The voters don't care what the New York Times Ed. Board says. Don't read the paper. Don't care. They care the issues (so far that hurts Biden), they care about having a 34G convict in the WH, they care, really they do, about this Supreme Court; abortion, immigration, cost of living. They don't care what makes Tom Friedman cry or me stay up half the night.

 Yet in another swing state, Pennsylvania, The Philadelphia Inquirer took another tack. Biden shouldn’t be the presidential candidate dropping out, the newspaper said in an editorial over the weekend.

“There was only one person at the debate who does not deserve to be running for president,” the Inquirer wrote. “The sooner Trump exits the stage, the better off the country will be.”

I always liked the Inquirer. SERIOUSLY! I lived in Philly for the worst four years of my life. The Inquirer was about the only good thing about living there.

 

Biden campaign’s reset after disastrous debate looks a lot like business as usual

 

He's moving on. As a practical matter I think that is wise.

On Monday night, Biden will speak on the Supreme Court’s decision to grant broad immunity to Trump and other presidents from prosecution, the White House announced Monday afternoon. The president’s schedule later this week includes a briefing on extreme weather, a campaign reception, a Medal of Honor ceremony and the traditional July 4th White House barbecue. Then he’s off for a weekend at his home in Wilmington, Delaware.

Nothing out of the ordinary, it all telegraphed.

As a political matter the SCOTUS decision is gold for President Biden.

... “if we put aside the style points, there was a clear contrast,” she [Veep Harris] argued, going on to call out Trump as “a threat to our democracy” and “a liar.”

...

... most in his orbit are waiting on more substantial polling to come back in order to assess how bad the damage was before altering course in any substantial way. That’s according to four Biden advisers who were not authorized to speak publicly about internal discussions and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. 

 Biden’s team may not alter anything at all. Many think — or hope — the fraught moment will pass...

Isn't this all baked in? Trump, Biden: people know these two guys so well they are literally sick of them. Hasn't everything Trump has ever done been weighed and evaluated? He will get his 46% of the vote if he goes out and shoots someone on Fifth Avenue. Biden beat him in 2020. His age was an issue then, it is now. I am not downplaying it or reversing position that Biden is unfit to be president for four more years. Nor that Trump is infinitely more unfit. This is the practical point. Biden is running, he is not getting out unless a month's worth of polls show him in Mondale territory. I think as a practical political matter this moment will pass. I know it has to do more than pass and leave the status quo, though! He is behind a smidge (as he always has been this cycle) in the national polls. More significantly, he is behind in all or almost all the battleground state polls.

“I think his age was baked in, to a large degree, and I know he can do better than he did on Thursday night. I expected to see better. I’m not sure other voters did,” said Jennifer Palmieri, a White House communications director during the Obama administration and a spokesperson for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. 

That is a key point. I asked rhetorically here after the debate: How many committed Biden voters at 8 pm ET last Thursday were committed Trump voters at 11 pm? Show me one. I want a name. If (s)he exists (s)he's a unicorn. Show me one presidential debate that turned a loser into a winner or vice versa. You can point to one, the very first in the television era, in 1960.

More on an ancillary to this in the next post.

...

 Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania said he thought voters were more concerned with the issues at stake, anyway. “I’ve been at this a while, and I know his work,” Casey said.

Hoo Doggie, I am in a minority of UNO in thinking the SCOTUS immunity decision was "reasonable"

Yep

Delon Wright leaves, East rivals continue to improve around the Heat

(Miami Herald)

Nope

NBACentral
@TheDunkCentral


The Miami Heat believe that their team is good enough to contend at full strength, per
@flasportsbuzz

I just listened to a confusing interview with an Axios reporter on Noodles.

"The reason why this has been such a shock...inside the White House is because the Joe Biden they saw Thursday night was unrecognizable to them." To the thems "inside the White House". (?)

"But as many of them have said to me, this could not have been the first time that he had acted that way. In the minds of a lot of people in the White House they are sad because of how this could affect the election. They're sad for him because there's great affection for him. But they're also.angry because they feel that this side of Joe Biden must have been known to some of his close aides. And they hid that part of it not just from them but from voters and from Democrats and from donors."

Pause. So the distinction the Axios guy is drawing is between "close aides" and others, but still others "inside the White House". I was initially puzzled by that. I would have thought anybody working "inside the White House" is a "close aide". Okay, I understand now, there's close and then there's CLOSE. Still woulda thought those INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE would have seen SOMETHING. Call me ignorant. Unpause.

"I think a lot of the aides expected that Joe Biden, after doing a week of debate prep, everyone I've talked to said that he seemed good. He seemed fine."

"Aides". Okay, not "close aides" but are you really parsing aides from close aides. I can see, now that I think of it, distinguishing "close aides" from "people who work in the White House", but all aides and close aides are people who work in the White House.

Now, here's where the Axios guy goes Alice in Wonderland:

"And I think the fact that they let him debate is sort of what's driving this anger."

If he hadn't debated "this side of Joe Biden" would have remained hidden from the grunts inside the White House, from voters, from Democrats, from donors. And what do you mean that "they let him debate"? They should have refused him permission? "No, no Joey, you're too tired, you have to go to bed." 

"If they even knew that this sort of Joe Biden was going to show up, even if it was a possibility, I think there's a lot of anger within Biden World that any of the close aides let him go out on stage just because of the election, because of how this could affect his legacy."

Second time he's mentioned that the grunts are angry "because of the election". It's Orwellian. Shouldn't "this side of Joe Biden" affect the election? Why are you "angry" about that? WE HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW!

Second time he's said that the WH grunts are pissed because the "close aides" should have forbade the president permission to debate. Define "close aides". They're NANNIES is what you're saying.

"And I would also say that part of the reason that Joe Biden debated is that Joe Biden wanted to debate."

Right! There's the personal agency that has been missing. Biden challenged Trump to the debate! "Make my day," he actually said that. The buck stops with the president, when it's the president debating, not with his close aides. Strange interview.

👀 Let's all chip in and move them to Miami

 

The Boston Celtics are now for sale

Perhaps I was too hasty...

 Trump critics react to immunity ruling with dark jokes, memes of ‘King Biden’
 

By ALI SWENSON

Anti-Trump influencers and meme accounts on social media are reacting to the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling by suggesting Biden should take advantage.

Social media posts darkly joked that Biden should pack the courts, imprison Trump or postpone the November election, shielded by his newfound presidential immunity. Others made reference to “King Biden” or shared images depicting the president in a crown.

Rick Wilson, co-founder of the anti-Trump organization The Lincoln Project, posted on the social platform X to “thank the Supreme Court for granting Joe Biden godlike official powers.”

“I think his first step should be to declare all Trump golf courses as protected Federal wildlife preserves and seize them by eminent domain...it’s an official act, so it’s cool, right?” Wilson wrote.

...

Pelosi laments a Supreme Court she says has ‘gone rogue’ 

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement after Monday’s immunity ruling that the Supreme Court had “gone rogue with its decision, violating the foundational American principle that no one is above the law.”

...

 Pro-democracy advocate: Immunity ruling gives presidents 

“king-like” power 

For future presidents, the immunity ruling is an “open invitation to abuse power,” said Wendy Weiser, vice president for democracy programs at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

“This is much worse than I expected, than I was even contemplating as an outcome,” she said, adding that the decision gives “virtual king-like immunity for the president.”

 ###

Man, I don't know. I took it as a given that critics recognized that presidents had some immunity. No immunity at all? The Constitution gives special powers to the president, like to wage foreign wars, to command state militias at home, to veto laws, powers you and I don't have. I'm willing to admit that I'm wrong on this case but it's really the position of some that a president could be prosecuted for waging an unjust or incompetently commanded war? For calling out state militias when it wasn't necessary? For vetoing some law?

“Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of presidential power entitles a former president to 1) absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. “And he is entitled to 2) at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is 3) no immunity for unofficial acts”, and “not everything the President does is official." (AP)

So they establish a three-part test. Trump was still in office as the defeated, illegitimate president from Nov. 3, 2020 -Jan. 20, 2021. Which of his subject actions during that interregnum were “within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority”, i.e. where there is no doubt of his, and his alone (“preclusive”), constitutional authority? Which subject actions were “official” (“at least presumptive immunity”) but not “conclusive and preclusive” constitutional? Different term, “official”, from conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. What is the cash value of the distinction? One consequence would be that Jack Smith could rebut the “presumption”.  Which subject actions would be “unofficial” (“no immunity”) Some presidential actions, clearly, are not official since "not everything a President does is official"? Are any of the subject actions unofficial? Back to you, Judge Chutkan.

This is the first time that the Supreme Court has ever ruled on the subject of presidential immunity so, to me, they had to adopt some sliding scale rule to this case. This tripartite scale is a common thing that SCOTUS does. The irony is that it looks so much like Roe v Wade's three trimester rule. This immunity decision looks very much like Roe. There’s “first trimester”, “conclusive and preclusive constitutionality”, the actor, president, or woman in Roe, can do whatever (s)he wants. Second trimester, “official” acts, the state has an interest. Actor has “at least presumptive immunity”, but not absolute. Better be careful. “Third trimester”, “unofficial” acts, actor has no protection whatsoever. It's because of this familiar construct that I reacted that the decision was "reasonable". 

Justice Amy Coney Barrett suggested the special counsel could always get around the time-consuming process [before Judge Chutkan] by editing his own indictment and bringing the case on unambiguously private acts.

(The Guardian)

Immunity only for “conclusive and preclusive"

 KEY UPDATE
1 min ago

Return to menu
By Ann Marimow
Supreme Court correspondent

The court has ruled on presidential immunity. “A former president is entitled to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his “conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority,” the ruling says. “There is no immunity for unofficial acts.”

I consider this a reasonable ruling, a reasonable victory for the rule of law and reasonable, although reasonably pyrrhic, victory for Jack Smith. Judge Chutkan will begin hearings asap and, I feel confident, rule expeditiously. That will put the Jan. 6 case on a, perhaps fast, trial track. But SCOTUS deliberately delayed taking this case with intent to benefit Trump. Smith petitioned the Court in December to bypass the intermediate federal appellate court. That deferral by the Court, until Trump's lawyers took Judge Chutkan's ruling rejecting immunity on appeal, delayed this trial, perhaps fatally. 

Special thanks to Ann Marimow of WaPo for providing her timely, succinct summary of the ruling for the public.

Supreme Court sends Trump immunity case back to lower court

The court directed trial judge Tanya Chutkan to determine which allegations in Trump’s indictment constitute official acts and must therefore be stricken from the case — and which do not.

Opinion was 6-3 along conservative-liberal lines

(CNN)

KEY UPDATE

1 min ago

Return to menu

By Ann Marimow

Supreme Court correspondent

The court has ruled on presidential immunity. “A former president is entitled to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his “conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority,” the ruling says. “There is no immunity for unofficial acts.”

(WaPo)

I take that to mean the Court will send the case back to Judge Chutkan for hearing on what acts are within POTUS “conclusive and preclusive” and which are “unofficial”.