Biden/Harris: A Presidency for All Americans

[Northwestcoug]

I don't necessarily read this as all Joe Rogan's fault. Sounds like there was some initial misteps by the Harris campaign. But it does certainly seem obvious that Rogan wasn't going to go out of his way to accommodate her.

But here is the main problem I have with this narrative. And it's not specific to just the Joe Rogan or Bro pod sphere. They are simply being used as a scapegoat for the innumerable missteps by her campaign and a couple of specific unpopular positions of the Democratic Party. Jordan Rogan isn't a king maker. The whole bro Podcasters aren't either. They don't appeal to large numbers of females or minorities. At least not enough to swing a national election. The Democrats are still in denial and that needs to change ASAP. Trump's excesses need a non culture war opposition. A moderate Bill Clinton type figure needs to arise for 2028 to break the cycle of warriors partisans with unpopular ideas losing every 4 years. I had hoped the GOP would break the cycle after 2020, but it's not in the cards I guess. The earliest a non Trumpy candidate can materialize is 2032.

Jon Stewart is smelling what you're cooking:

[USUC]

I'm not sure what you are worried the Democratic Party will be absolved of by acknowledging this. Not everything that goes wrong politically has to land at the feet of the liberals.

Because as of right now, the Democrats are the best positioned to moderate and return to the center. The GOP had the chance in 2020, and they didn't. But now the opportunity is at the feet of the DNC. I'm not a party person. They have a chance now that the GOP didn't do in 2020.

[frank ryan]

I don't necessarily read this as all Joe Rogan's fault. Sounds like there was some initial misteps by the Harris campaign. But it does certainly seem obvious that Rogan wasn't going to go out of his way to accommodate her.

But here is the main problem I have with this narrative. And it's not specific to just the Joe Rogan or Bro pod sphere. They are simply being used as a scapegoat for the innumerable missteps by her campaign and a couple of specific unpopular positions of the Democratic Party. Jordan Rogan isn't a king maker. The whole bro Podcasters aren't either. They don't appeal to large numbers of females or minorities. At least not enough to swing a national election. The Democrats are still in denial and that needs to change ASAP. Trump's excesses need a non culture war opposition. A moderate Bill Clinton type figure needs to arise for 2028 to break the cycle of warriors partisans with unpopular ideas losing every 4 years. I had hoped the GOP would break the cycle after 2020, but it's not in the cards I guess. The earliest a non Trumpy candidate can materialize is 2032.

Of course you don't. I think he's very biased and not a fair player. He cosplays as an everyman, but he isn't that anymore. He used to be. I've thought that this underscores it. He was absolutely essentially to helping MAGA win. The bro pod sphere was the key for the male vote. It was a savvy political strategy and how their messaging landed.

I'm not sure what you are worried the Democratic Party will be absolved of by acknowledging this. Not everything that goes wrong politically has to land at the feet of the liberals.

And before you accuse me of believing the opposite, I acknowledge that Democrats have had plenty of failings.

One of biggest frustrations with Biden, in retrospect, was his restraint with Russia. He should have provided Ukraine with more aggressive support at the beginning of the conflict. The DOJ prosecution of Trump and his fellow seditionists was bungled. It was slow played to the extent that I think there is actually a case to be made that pardon might have been more helpful as to give him less of cross of martyrdom to carry around. He should've been impeached. But that was bungled.

[USUC]

Sounds like it wasn't Harris who dodged Joe Rogan, but more like his camp didn't have much interest in making an interview happen.




https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/202...lly-rcna189453

I don't necessarily read this as all Joe Rogan's fault. Sounds like there was some initial misteps by the Harris campaign. But it does certainly seem obvious that Rogan wasn't going to go out of his way to accommodate her.

But here is the main problem I have with this narrative. And it's not specific to just the Joe Rogan or Bro pod sphere. They are simply being used as a scapegoat for the innumerable missteps by her campaign and a couple of specific unpopular positions of the Democratic Party. Jordan Rogan isn't a king maker. The whole bro Podcasters aren't either. They don't appeal to large numbers of females or minorities. At least not enough to swing a national election. The Democrats are still in denial and that needs to change ASAP. Trump's excesses need a non culture war opposition. A moderate Bill Clinton type figure needs to arise for 2028 to break the cycle of warriors partisans with unpopular ideas losing every 4 years. I had hoped the GOP would break the cycle after 2020, but it's not in the cards I guess. The earliest a non Trumpy candidate can materialize is 2032.

[frank ryan]

Sounds like it wasn't Harris who dodged Joe Rogan, but more like his camp didn't have much interest in making an interview happen.

There was one more item in the small print: Harris would have to come to Austin, Texas. Rogan’s reps said that might be negotiable, but he had only once done an interview with an out-of-studio guest. That was leaker Edward Snowden, who was wanted in the United States at the time.


Along with fellow Harris campaign advisers Stephanie Cutter and Brian Fallon, Flaherty offered up that Harris would be happy to talk about social media censorship, weed, and other issues they thought would be of most interest to his listeners. From their perspective, it was a suggestion of possible topics, not an exhaustive or exclusive list. That’s not what Rogan wanted to talk about. “Joe just wants to talk about the economy, the border, and abortion,” one of his reps said, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.


After two Zoom sessions, Flaherty called the Rogan intermediaries with an offer. Could Rogan join Harris in Michigan? he asked, proposing a date later in the week. No-go, the Rogan team said after reaching the host on a weeklong hunting trip. Austin or nothing.

“That’s going to be tough,” Flaherty said. “We’re only a few weeks out from the election.” Harris had less than zero reason to be in Texas. It was not a swing state. Her campaign was flush with cash—so it made no sense to take her off the trail to raise money. She was in battleground-or-bust mode. Plus, a detour to Texas might smell like desperation to the press and a waste of money to donors.

Harris campaign chief Jennifer O’Malley Dillon broke the impasse. Harris would be in Atlanta on October 24 with Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen. O’Malley Dillon said the campaign could fly her to Houston for a rally—under the cover of visiting a state with one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion laws—to put her in proximity to Austin. She dispatched an advance team to the Texas state capital to do a walk-through of Rogan’s studio and get ready for a Harris arrival. She authorized her negotiating team to give Rogan what he demanded—an in-studio interview in Austin—on October 25.

...

For many Democratic operatives outside the campaign, the October 22 announcement that Harris would hold a Houston rally felt like a palm-to-face moment. She was going to lose Texas, by a lot, and a visit would not force Trump to spend his limited campaign money there.

Her aides scheduled the rally for a Friday night in the fall — October 25 — in Texas! It was as if no one on her team knew that the night reserved for high school football was more sacred than Easter in the state. Campaign adviser David Plouffe responded to the criticism publicly, explaining that Harris wanted to shine a spotlight on a place where she believed Trump’s anti-abortion policies had done the most damage to women’s health.

Only a few people knew the real reason: the whole Houston rally was built to put her in proximity to Rogan. The ongoing negotiations on that were touch-and-go.


Flaherty had called his Rogan contacts on October 18, before the rally was set.

“We could do Friday, the 25th,” Flaherty said.

“Wish we had known about this sooner, because he has the 25th blocked out as a personal day,” one of Rogan’s reps said.

“What about Saturday morning?” Flaherty countered.

“Only if it’s before 8:30 a.m.,” came the tough reply.

The tone is different, Flaherty thought. The vice president of the United States is offering to come to your f—ing show, and you keep putting up more hoops. Harris’s team still wanted to make it work, but a new wariness set in.On October 22, the same day the Harris camp announced the rally, the Associated Press reported that Trump would be Rogan’s guest on Friday — the “personal day” Rogan had originally reserved.

Mutual friends Elon Musk and Dana White had convinced Trump and Rogan to bury their dispute, according to a Trump aide. There would be no Harris interview

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/202...lly-rcna189453

[YOhio]

The Great American Debate Begins

Is Donald Trump a “dictator”? Did the events of January 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C., constitute an “insurgency”?

Is Joe Biden “sharp as a tack”?

Is the science of climate change “settled”?

Are Javier Milei of Argentina, Marine Le Pen of France, and the AfD party in Germany “far right”?

Is the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis a “conspiracy theory”? Was the persistence of the virus a “pandemic of the unvaccinated”? Does Anthony Fauci “represent science”?

Does Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, “promote hatred”? Do “fact-checkers” check facts?

Let’s ask a question about these questions: Why on Earth were we placed in a position of having to answer them?

In an open society, perspectives on reality confront one another in forceful competition. Each may contain some particle of truth—or at least some useful information.

So even the flat-earthers are allowed their say. Even the Bigfoot-seekers appear on the Discovery Channel. Somewhere among the nonsense, there may be something worth hearing.

Because we don’t precisely know where or when, the conversation is never over.

A vast diversity of perspectives should be promoted within an open society. It’s the intellectual equivalent of hybrid vigor.

If we all think alike, a single fatal error, being shared by all, could destroy the world.

....


However, the past four years have seen a sustained effort to overturn the principles of the open society. The just-departed administration, of which Biden was the decrepit figurehead, tried to impose, by threat or mandate, a version of reality that brooked no discussion.

Supported by its allies in the media, the academy, and the bureaucracy, the administration became, in its own eyes, the guardian of truth.

Yet on every important question that confronted the country, it was almost invariably wrong—and I say “almost” as a kindness.

From the pandemic to the economy, from energy to war and peace, the faceless clique that ran the government on Biden’s behalf made an unholy mess of things.

[Bo Diddley]

There is an article on military.com addressing pardoned military members which has wider application to the current discussion.

There is also historical precedent and recent litigation that shows accepting a pardon could equate to admitting guilt.

The 1915 Supreme Court case Burdick v. United States found that a pardon "carries an imputation of guilt“ and “acceptance of a confession of it." That same logic was cited by Justice Department prosecutors just last month in one Jan. 6 case where a defendant was seeking to delay their incarceration date because of the likely pending pardons from Trump, Politico reported.

Many legal experts, such as Dan Kobil, a constitutional law professor at Capital University Law School in Ohio and an expert on presidential pardons, agree with that logic.

Kobil told Military.com that lower-court decisions provide examples of people having professional punishment related to their crimes, despite being pardoned for them. One example was a ruling against former Ronald Reagan administration official and lawyer Elliott Abrams that censured him from the D.C. Bar despite the presidential action.

There can be other consequences besides criminal punishment if people accept pardons.

[dabrockster]

Article in FoxNews brings full circle of the topic of when rumors of Trump was considering preemptive pardons for his family in 2020 (Which he never did.):

"Have you ever heard of somebody getting a preemptive pardon who was innocent of all crime, who's just an innocent person? Have you ever heard of that, just somebody getting a blanket pardon and they're an innocent person?" MSNBC's Joy Reid asked.

"No," Schiff responded. "It's the president's own family. It's people that have been covering up for the President, in addition to his own family."

"Would you see that… as essentially an admission of guilty?" CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked in a separate interview.

"I certainly would view it that way," Schiff told Blitzer. "I think millions of Americans would view it that way. If there was no belief in criminality, why would he think a pardon was necessary?"

After winning the 2020 election, Biden was asked about Trump's preemptive pardons during a sit-down with CNN's Tapper.

"Well, it concerns me in terms of what kind of precedent it sets and how the rest of the world looks at us as a nation of laws and justice," Biden told Tapper, later adding "you’re not going to see in our administration that kind of approach to pardons."

I think Biden’s comments are hauntingly accurate and shows how far he has fallen or has been used by those who made these decisions or convinced him too.

[Moliere]

And now, he can do it!

Again!

[dabrockster]

I wasn't talking about Biden's family..

Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney, Olivia Troye -- people like that who investigated and were witnesses to January 6th did nothing wrong.

Yet, the level of pardons were not for these people alone. He has made a mockery of the exiting Presidential Pardon authority and we will see Trump follow the same path. I still disagree with these. Let the law run its course. There are many people who have been wrongly accused and charged who don’t have the money like these millionaires so spare me the sympathy card for these individuals.

[BlueK]

Biden and his family did nothing wrong?? lol I can agree with a few but even Fauci was suspicious seeing his connections and possibly lying under oath. But I have no issue with it but his entire family. Biden has turned this into a corrupt 3rd world country and give the impression that he does not trust our constitution or the law.

What Biden has done was begun the tit-for-tat of pardons that will now become the norm.

I wasn't talking about Biden's family..

Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney, Olivia Troye -- people like that who investigated and were witnesses to January 6th did nothing wrong.

[dabrockster]

Agreed. I don't like these pardons for the reason that they did nothing wrong and there shouldn't be any cloud put on them from accepting a pardon. But when you have the probable incoming AG Bondi saying she was going after the J6 committee members and witnesses there is still a lot of damage that would be done to them through legal harassment and expenses on the way to the courts throwing out any charges,, and I think that's what Trump was really going for anyway.

Biden and his family did nothing wrong?? lol I can agree with a few but even Fauci was suspicious seeing his connections and possibly lying under oath. But I have no issue with it but his entire family. Biden has turned this into a corrupt 3rd world country and give the impression that he does not trust our constitution or the law.

What Biden has done was begun the tit-for-tat of pardons that will now become the norm.

[Jeff Lebowski]

You do realize it isn't just Biden making those warnings? It's a host of people including distinguished generals, Ken Burns (he knows something about history), Mitt Romney (who is contemplating getting he and his family out of the country for fear of retribution), Mitch McConnell etc. Former generals have warned about his fascistic tendencies, so it's wildly inaccurate and unfair to frame it as concerning coming from a collection of blue-haired gender-studies professors.

It's inaccurate and unfair to frame this as liberal outrage. If it is a mass delusion then generals who served in his administration and Mitt Romney are the chief crazies awash in a sea of MAGA rationality.

You have a much more optimistic view of our humanity and society, but framing these concerns as delusional is lazy

You missed my point by a mile.

[frank ryan]

Didn’t he promise to put Hillary Clinton in jail? Did that happen?

So why is Saint Mitt Romney worried about this? He is being crazy I guess.

[Shaka]

Mitt Romney (who is contemplating getting he and his family out of the country for fear of retribution),

I'm calling BS.