‘Are you kidding me?’: Reporters slammed for panning Biden’s anti-fascism speech

 David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement from Raw Story

President Joe Biden Thursday night delivered a 23-minute primetime address urging Americans to choose democracy over fascism, while calling out, by name, Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans.

Historians, political scientists, and journalism and extremism experts are praising the President for standing up for American values in the face of rising far-right threats of political violence. President Biden in very clear terms warned Americans they must "defend" and "protect" democracy against the fascism of the far-right – which is not a political speech, but a speech about, as Biden said, the "soul of the nation."

As expected, many Republicans expressed outrage over President Biden calling out the portion of the GOP that identifies as "MAGA," even though he made clear his criticism was not of mainstream Republicans.

One news network's coverage in particular is being highly criticized as several of its reporters took umbrage with President Biden delivering what they wrongly characterized as a "political" speech, while criticizing that two uniformed Marines were standing behind him.

CNN Chief National Affairs Correspondent Jeff Zeleny tweeted a photo of the President in front of the Marines, saying: "There’s nothing unusual or wrong with a President delivering a political speech — it’s inherent in the job description — but doing it against a backdrop of two Marines standing at attention and the Marine Band is a break with White House traditions."

Journalist Jamison Foser observed that "Biden is talking about defending democracy and the rule of law from assault by a fascist movement that staged a deadly insurrection. Marines take an oath to 'support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.' Pretty compatible!"

Former U.S. Senator Claire McCaskil (D-MO) slammed Zeleny.

"Are you kidding me Jeff? The last President did official Republican political events at the White House! And used the National Park Service as political event planners. How about political interview inside the Lincoln Memorial? Those are all examples of demolishing WH traditions," she wrote.

U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) asked, "Didn’t TFG," referring to Donald Trump, "accept his nomination on the White House lawn?"

"I recall a certain president giving a political speech on a damn aircraft carrier," blasted national security attorney Brad Moss. "I recall another president accepting his political nomination at the WHITE HOUSE. Ask me how little I care about the two marines deep in the background."

The former Communications Director for Senator Amy Klobuchar, Tim Hogan, corrected the record with photographic evidence:

Zeleny was not the only CNN journalist to instigate the ire of Americans watching the President's speech.

"Whatever you think of this speech the military is supposed to be apolitical. Positioning Marines in uniform behind President Biden for a political speech flies in the face of that. It’s wrong when Democrats do it. It’s wrong when Republicans do it," tweeted CNN host Brianna Keilar.

University of South Carolina Political Science Professor David Darmofal corrected Keilar, saying: "It was a speech about defending democracy."

Mary Trump, the former President's niece who is a psychologist, added: "I see everyone at CNN got their talking point. This was NOT a political speech (unless you think condemning fascism and encouraging people to vote are political positions in which case--that's what we call a tell).

CNN wasn't the only news outlet with reporters attracting anger.

CBS News' Ed O'Keefe was also criticized for equating a call to fight fascism and defend democracy as a "political" speech.

O'Keefe characterized the fight for civil rights as partisan politics, which it is not.

Marquette University Political Science Professor Julia Azari, who teaches about the American presidency, American political parties, and the politics of the American state blasted O'Keefe: "This frame undermines both democracy and journalism."

White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain graciously challenged O'Keefe:

Dan Froomkin, one of the most credible media critics also slammed O'Keefe.

"Biden is describing a major democratic crisis that actually exists. But political journalists only see a Democrat saying negative things about Republicans and so, you know, both sides," he wrote.

The White House Deputy Press Secretary, Andrew Bates, summed up what many were saying: "Democracy is not a partisan or political issue."

Growing Evidence Against a Republican Wave

By Nate Cohn via New York Times

 Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, it’s increasingly hard to see the once-clear signs of a G.O.P. advantage.

At the beginning of this year’s midterm campaign, analysts and political operatives had every reason to expect a strong Republican showing this November. President Biden’s approval rating was in the low 40s, and the president’s party has a long history of struggling in midterm elections.

But as the start of the general election campaign nears, it’s becoming increasingly hard to find any concrete signs of Republican strength.

Tuesday’s strong Democratic showing in a special congressional election in New York’s 19th District is only the latest example. On paper, this classic battleground district in the Hudson Valley and Catskills is exactly where the Republicans would be expected to flip a seat in a so-called wave election. But the Democrat Pat Ryan prevailed over a strong Republican nominee, Marc Molinaro, by around two percentage points, outperforming Mr. Biden’s narrow win in the district two years ago.

The result adds to a growing pile of evidence suggesting that Democrats have rebounded in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision in late June to overturn Roe v. Wade. No matter the indicator, it’s hard to see the once-clear signs of a Republican advantage.

One special election would be easy to dismiss. But it’s not alone.

There have been five special congressional elections since the court’s Dobbs ruling overturned Roe, and Democrats have outperformed Mr. Biden’s 2020 showing in four of them. In the fifth district, Alaska’s at-large House special, the ranked-choice voting count is not complete, but they appear poised to outperform him there as well.

On average, Republicans carried the four completed districts by 3.7 percentage points, compared with Donald J. Trump’s 7.7-point edge in the same districts two years ago. The results aren’t merely worse than expected for Republicans; they’re straightforwardly poor. Republicans need to fare better than Mr. Trump, who lost the national vote by 4.5 points in 2020, to retake the House — let alone contemplate winning the Senate.

But strength among high-turnout white voters can get a party pretty far in low-turnout midterm elections, which tend to have a relatively whiter electorate. Perhaps in part for that reason, there is a decent historical relationship between special election results and midterm outcomes. And before Dobbs, Republicans were outrunning Mr. Trump in special congressional elections. Since then, the pattern has reversed.

While there’s plenty of room for debate about exactly what the special election results mean for November, there’s no dispute that the results are plainly positive for Democrats.

Democrats have made steady gains on the generic congressional ballot, a poll question asking voters whether they prefer Democrats or Republicans for Congress.

Overall, Democrats now have the slightest advantage on this measure, according to FiveThirtyEight’s tracker. That represents about a three-point swing toward the Democrats since mid-June, when Republicans led before the Dobbs ruling.

A tight generic ballot represents a real improvement for Democrats. If the polls are right — a big “if” after the last few cycles — it suggests a fairly competitive district-by-district battle for control of the House, rather than the expected Republican rout.

Realistically, Republicans would remain clearly favored — the House map is still modestly tilted in their favor, and Democrats would have to win an outsize share of the competitive races to hold the chamber. But the notion that Democrats can even dream about House control is a remarkable turn from earlier in the cycle, when the House was all but penciled into the Republican column.

It’s still a little early to look at polls pitting Democratic candidates against Republican ones in specific races. Many candidates remain unknown, and the general election campaign is just getting underway.

But the early state and district polls do look relatively promising for Democrats. That’s especially true in the Senate, where a simple polling average might even show Democrats poised to make gains.

The House polls are consistent with the generic ballot results. On average, Democrats are running about 4.7 points behind Mr. Biden’s performance across 40 nonpartisan House polls taken since the Dobbs decision. That would be consistent with a close national vote.

After the last few cycles of polling misfires, there’s plenty of reason to be skeptical of state surveys — especially in the relatively white working-class battleground states where the polls seem to have consistently underestimated Republicans.

But here again, the long-awaited “red wave” is nowhere to be found.

This is a bit of an odd one, but it’s a surprisingly useful measure and it doesn’t show much of a red wave either.

Washington State has a top-two primary in which all of the candidates from both parties appear on the same primary ballot; the top two candidates advance to the general election.

As a result, the Washington primary is a lot more like a general election than the typical primary — not only is every voter eligible, but voters can also select the Democrat or Republican of their choosing in every race. For good measure, Washington has universal vote-by-mail, which tends to keep the turnout pretty high. It’s more like the typical midterm electorate than some of the recent special elections.

The results of the Washington primary usually do a decent job of predicting the outcome of the fall election. In some years, Democrats do a bit better in November than in the primary; in other years, Republicans do. But it’s not usually hugely different. In retrospect, the solid Republican showing in the 2020 Washington primary was one of the better reasons to doubt the polls heading into November 2020.

This cycle, the Democratic candidates for House ran two points behind Mr. Biden’s performance in 2020 (excluding the two districts where pro-impeachment Republicans in safely Republican districts clearly benefited from considerable levels of strategic crossover support from Democrats).

Yet again, it’s a result that’s consistent with a fairly evenly divided national vote for the House.

Of all the indicators, primary elections are probably the single messiest measure of the national political environment. From state to state and cycle to cycle, voters may either have a very compelling reason to show up — or no reason to vote whatsoever. A strong or weak Democratic or Republican primary turnout can mean absolutely nothing.

But if all the states are added together, the vagaries of individual state primary elections more or less cancel out. Over the last few decades, partisan primary turnout does correlate relatively well with the results of midterm elections.

In 15 primaries since the court’s ruling, 52.5 percent of primary voters have cast Republican primary ballots compared with 48 percent in the same states in 2018, according to data compiled by the pollster John Couvillon. The last midterm is used as the point of comparison because of the one-party presidential primary in 2020.

Of course, 2018 was a good year for Democrats. In the end, they won 54 percent of the major party vote and carried the House easily. So they have room to fare quite a bit worse than they did in 2018 and still put up a respectable showing. Indeed, a 4.5-point shift from 2018 would yield a pretty close House national vote, with maybe a slight Republican edge depending on how one looks at uncontested races.

And that 4.5-point Republican overperformance is a little worse for Republicans than earlier in the year. Before Roe, Republicans were running 6.7 points better than in the 2018 primaries in the same states. It’s hard to read a lot into this shift — primaries, again, are very idiosyncratic, with the competitiveness of different races and eligibility rules making a big difference. But the shift, however unreliable, is nonetheless consistent with the broader national story.

There’s still one measure that’s positive for Republicans: President Biden’s approval rating.

It’s stuck in the low 40s, according to FiveThirtyEight, though it seems to have risen along with Democratic fortunes over the last few months.

It’s hard to think of any precedent for the president’s party to fare even half decently with such an unpopular president. The closest recent analogue might be Jimmy Carter in 1978. He held control of Congress despite an approval rating around 50 percent. (His approval rating was similar to Mr. Biden’s in August, but it increased after the Camp David Accords in September.)

Perhaps someone could construe the Democratic hold in the House in the 1950 midterms as somewhat analogous, though Democrats lost 28 seats and saw a net seven-point shift toward Republicans.

Ultimately, it’s possible that Mr. Biden’s approval rating will drag down the Democrats. It may even begin to drag them down by the other measures even before the fall election.

But for now, his approval rating stands apart as the only hard measurement that argues for a decisive Republican victory this fall.

President Biden and Nazi Twitter

 One of the freedoms I got back when I decided to bring back the blog is I can call right-wing pundits, token black Republicans, whatever the name I want, and don't have to worry about Twitter sending me "most people won't like this" bullshit. 

Right-wing Twitter is a landfill of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and misinformation.

As part of their misinformation campaign, Nazi Twitter has decided to play the projection game with President Biden. From a professional glue fumes inhaler Dan Bongino to the dipshit, horse fucker Cat Turd, they project what was true about their beloved Donald Trump, AKA the Bum. 

They attack President Biden on how he speaks, knowing Biden has to talk in a certain way to avoid stuttering, while their guy Trump talks at the level of an 8-year-old boy. Donald Trump only knows 14 words, yet these special ed reject motherfuckers are trying to cap on President Biden's speech, hoe, please.

Dan Bongino looks like they tried to turn Donkey Kong human but stopped halfway loves to Tweet whatever the date is and say Joe Biden is the worst president ever, one fuck you and fuck your mother for having you. Motherfucker if I put a 3k on the table and ask you to list four actual Donald Trump accomplishments, he couldn't do it.

As president, the only thing Donald Trump got done was pass a 2 trillion tax cut for wealthy Republican donors, and if John McCain didn't give a thumbs down. Trump would have taken healthcare away from millions of Americans.

Donald Trump knew how deadly COVID-19 is but only told Bob Woodward and fuck Bob Woodward for sitting on that story for his book.

Lastly, the man left office finishing with the record of worst job creation than goddamn Hebert Hoover, and these frog-face bitches want to call President Biden the worst president? Fuck out of here with that.