DL Open Thread: Weds., March 4, 2020
Personal to Mark Eichmann: Destroy that tape! Shortly after Biden announced, WHYY’s Eichmann did a radio interview with me where I confidently predicted that Biden would peak upon his entrance into the race and be an afterthought come 2020. Well, in fairness, I was almost correct. He was near-comatose for much of the campaign, only to be rescued in South Carolina. He then rode that win to a very impressive Super Tuesday performance four days later. A great four days. My fear? What happens when, not if, that near-comatose Joe resurfaces? If he’s the nominee, a lot is riding on his Veep pick. Gimme Stacy Abrams, regardless of who the D presidential nominee is, unless it’s Elizabeth Warren. I’ll also settle for Cory Booker. Mayo Pete? Veterans’ Affairs. Amy? Senator from Minnesota.
It’s Official. Coronavirus Deadlier Than The Flu. 3.4% mortality rate. BTW, people in Washington state are really pissed. As well they should be.
Trump Administration Claims That Iraq Is Dangerous For Iraqi Christians–Then Deports Iraqi Christians. Using, of course, diametrically opposite, and mutually-exclusive, arguments.
17 Ways Trump Administration Bungled Coronavirus Outbreak. You almost have to work at it to be this incompetent.
Bloomberg To ‘Reassess’ His Campaign. Not even Vince McMahon is pissing money away so needlessly (this time, on his second attempt to make the XFL work) as Bloomberg. Oh, well, he’ll always have American Samoa. BTW, did you see how many of his bleeping commercials ran during the Super Tuesday coverage last night?
How Biden’s Victories Belied His Campaign. The wins came almost in spite of his campaign. Does that make you feel confident going forward?
UD Runs Into A Skeptical Joint Finance Committee. The continuing arrogance by the leaders of the university practically begs for a legislative intervention. And legislation requiring transparency looks like it’s on the way.
What do you want to talk about?
If Biden wins, he will have done so by hiding from the electorate — if he were making more appearances his mental slippage would be more obvious — and sweeping all the states Democrats have no chance at all of winning in November.
Yeah, I’m totally psyched.
cmon, youve been around Delaware a while. Biden is no flakier now than he was 20 years ago.
Also, he’s obviously much worse.
It’s not flakiness, it’s mental sharpness I’m talking about. He can barely finish a sentence.
It’s gonna be a helluva campaign, two old dotards who want to fistfight each other. Earth is fucked.
If you thought Bernie Bros™ went hard before you may want to log off for a few weeks. Biden can’t hide now. And he can’t string a coherent sentence together. And he voted for NAFTA, the BK bill & the Iraq war. He’s said he’d like to cut SS and Medicare.
He’ll be smoked out of his hole. It’ll be very ugly. I recommend those with weak dispositions look away.
Thanks for the head’s up.
bend the knee. your guy wiffed on his massive voter turnout. Maybe next time register voters instead of memeing.
We can do multiple things at once.
Also, if you would have been a good little boy and bent the knee when I said to we may not be in this mess.
But it ain’t over though. You’re just a Monday morning QB. You’ve bounced around candidates because you’re weak-minded and afraid. It’s ok. We’ll keep going.
Also, I absolutely did more than you. I will continue to as well. Everyone knows this. Don’t embarrass yourself.
i wish you luck on your mission to slay windmills.
I’ll be over here doing what i have been consistently doing for the past 5 years.. trying to make donald trump not the president.
Lol. Ok lil ben
Bloomberg drops out, endorses Biden:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/us/politics/michael-bloomberg-drops-out.html?action=click&module=Alert&pgtype=Homepage
Just going to re-up this.
https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/crime/2020/03/03/prosecutors-yahim-harris-drop-charges/4944959002/
I was in the street 3x with a group of maybe a dozen dedicated comrades. (Rally sizes varied from about 50 to 15.)
It was not electoral politics. It also wasn’t memeing. But we got a political prisoner released and the pig back in the hot seat.
So while there are a many organizers & activists who put me to shame with their nonstop efforts lil ben ain’t one of them.
Fuck around and find out.
yikes. something really has you upset this morning. Maybe it’s the fact that bernie couldnt get people out to vote for him.
Cmon champ. Get back up.
also, i’m keeping lil ben. it’s cute. trumpian, but cute.
Nice try bud.
Excerpt from April 2019: https://whyy.org/articles/at-long-last-biden-enters-crowded-2020-democratic-presidential-field/
“If you take a look at it, the idea of Biden as a candidate has always proven to be superior to the actuality of Biden as a candidate,” said Steve Tanzer, a former aide to Democrats in the Delaware General Assembly who writes for the website DelawareLiberal.net.
“He always peaks when he announces,” Tanzer said. “So will that same campaign team … 12 years removed from when he actually ran for president back in 2008, will they, are they going to be better?
“Is he going to be sharper? Is he going to be able to campaign harder? I don’t think so.”
Ouch, babe.
BTW, I think this take from John Judis is spot-on:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-cautionary-look-at-bidens-victories-and-sanders-losses
Thanks for the link. Great stuff from josh m as usual
University of Delaware thinks taxpayers and legislators are jokes
Let me assure Laure Bachich Ergin, vice president and general counsel for the University of Delaware, that $128 million in taxpayer dollars each year is no joke.
In response to the question “is the university public or private?” Ms. Ergin dismissively responded that, “It’s a question that’s been debated for so long, it has become something of a joke,” before blithely adding, “People ask, are we public or private? We say, ‘Yes we are.'”
The attitude of indifference to the public’s right to know and the interpretation of Delaware’s legislative authority in the matter, expressed by Ms. Ergin, suggests an uninformed or deliberately misguided conclusion being drawn to further insulate the university from transparency and openness.
The News Journal article states that “in 1976, the newly written state freedom of information law established that while UD is not a state agency”; however, that does not appear to be the case or else no exemption would have been needed.
Mystifying would be my assessment of attorney Ergin’s statement, “[The charter] was given to us years ago by the General Assembly,” Ergin said. “There is no ability to change that without our consent. Our predecessors came up with the charter 100 years ago. The charter ended up strengthening the university’s independence.” Should the state want to change the university’s charter, UD would also need to agree to the changes, Ergin said.
These conclusions do not appear to be supported by law and surely demean the rights of taxpayers to assess where and how their monies are being used.
Read more: https://www.delawareonline.com/…/ud-public-priv…/4941070002/
“If you take a look at it, the idea of Biden as a candidate has always proven to be superior to the actuality of Biden as a candidate.”
This remains as true today as the day you said it.
It’s not your fault Democratic voters looked at Trump and said, “We need one of those.”