The Biden-Harris Era

[Big Magilla]

I was thinking more of the former rep from Texas who is running for governor and the Kennedy heir who was Pelosi's fair-haired boy a couple of years ago.

[Sabin]

Big Magilla wrote
Ossoff could be a future president, or he could fizzle out the way so many other young up-and-coming Dems have over the years. But he is certainly one to watch.

He got elected to the Senate at 32 years of age. His seat hasn't flipped blue in almost twenty years. This isn't the same thing as progressives like AOC (whom I also like) being elected in a very blue district. He's doing something right.

He's also the first Millennial U.S. Senator.

[Big Magilla]

Ossoff could be a future president, or he could fizzle out the way so many other young up-and-coming Dems have over the years. But he is certainly one to watch.

[Sabin]

One of the big paradigm shifts I've seen over the Trump years is an influx of younger Democrats into the House and the Senate. I could be wrong and feel free to correct me but I feel like I've seen this happen more over the last few years within our party than in years previous. I like this for a lot of reasons, one of which (and I can't back this up with any data, it's just a sense I get) is that they tend to have a better sense of where the wind is blowing.

Case in point: Jon Ossoff. When he first ran for Congress in 2017, I didn't take much notice of his campaign. He seemed fine. But I was very impressed with his Senate campaign and donated to both him and Rev. Warnock (whom I also find very impressive). Recently, Jon Ossoff just introduced a bill barring members of Congress from trading individual stocks.

https://www.businessinsider.com/jon-oss ... osi-2022-1

This is such a good idea for a host of reasons, but politically I think it would be a great move for the Democratic Party to get rid of this stuff. The perception of elitism and corruption is easily the biggest ding in their armor. I don't care what anyone says. The bill doesn't go far enough. It excludes congressional spouses and other family members, but it's good for Jon Ossoff because I can't think of many pieces of legislation that would be as popular across party line, which would be needed in a state like Georgia.

Anyway, Jon Ossoff. Seems like a smart guy and maybe a real rising star in a Democratic field that looks a bit parched.

On a personal note, I also like the idea of the first Jewish President looking more like Jon Ossoff than Bernie Sanders. I remember when Barack Obama was President thinking how incredible it must be for young black kids to look up at him and think that they could be President. I wanted little girls to do the same for Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris. I liked Bernie Sanders a lot. But I saw him, I always sort of thought "I hope people don't think we all look like that."

[Sabin]

Nancy Pelosi and “The Hamilton Singers” was… not.

[Okri]

Brian Schatz's speech about the January 6 was superb.

[Big Magilla]

It's an exception to the rule, not a rule change per se.

It's a compromise position. What 48 of the 50 Senate Democrats wanted to do was take it outside of the filibuster. The majority of them want the filibuster gone. Some of those who still support the filibuster - I think there are at least four of them - want to make the standing filibuster the rule in situations where the two-thirds majority vote still counts.

[Sabin]

Apparently Democrats are trying to amend the filibuster for purposes of passing their voting rights bill, including moving us back to the standing filibuster which as a cinephile I wholeheartedly support. Standing filibusters are awesome. I just don't see what's going to get Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema's support to make this happen. At this point, Mitch McConnell probably has more leveraging power on them ("I won't run someone against you in 2024") than Joe Biden ("Hey, Jack! I'll campaign for you in your reelection!" "No... That's okay...")

https://apnews.com/article/elections-vo ... 814ff107ce

[Big Magilla]

That nonsense has been in the wind for days.

While it's true you don't have to be a member of the House to be elected Speaker, I doubt that's a job Trump would want. It requires work, which is something he is adverse to. It would be interesting if the Dems would run on installing Obama as Speaker so that the 2022 race becomes a de facto race between the two former presidents. That might be something that could really get the vote out.

[Sabin]

https://twitter.com/alexnazaryan/status ... 63329?s=10

Matt Gaetz just told Alexander Nazaryan at a press conference that if Republicans win the House in 2022, he will move to install Trump as House Speaker.

[Sabin]

Stacy Abrams announces her bid for Georgia Governor next year. Meanwhile, David Perdue is going to challenge Brian Kemp for the Republican nomination.

https://www.ajc.com/politics/podcast-da ... GOLDC37DY/

https://www.foxnews.com/media/david-per ... cey-abrams

This actually might be a little more interesting on the Republican side because it relitigates the Youngkin decision about the GOP post-Trump. We all know about Brian Kemp's role in the 2018 gubernatorial election in questionably defeating Stacy Abrams, but he also wasn't sufficiently loyal to Trump in the 2020 election (which is to say disloyal to our system of government). He's seen as a traitor to MAGA. His approval rating by Democrats is apparently not lousy despite the fact that possibly stole the election from Stacy Abrams. Meanwhile, David Perdue was defeated by Jon Osoff for Senate, he is seen as sufficiently loyal to MAGA, which is the very reason why he lost his Senate seat in 2020. He's also horribly corrupt with insider trading charges but nobody seems to care on that either mainline Republican or MAGA.

Anyway, there's going to be a vicious primary between Perdue and Kemp for the Republican nomination which Trump is going to certainly insert himself into. The idea is that Perdue is too pro-Trump to win the general election while Kemp is too anti-Trump to win the general election. Meanwhile, Stacy Abrams is running again which will beg the unfortunate question: where are the anti-Trump moderates at these days? Do they hate Trump enough to vote for Abrams or not? A Perdue win would be a very depressing sign of things to come.

[Greg]

Good Lord, newly-elected-New-York-City Mayor Eric Adams just said he will take his first three paychecks in bitcoin.

[danfrank]

Part of the problem in New Jersey is that the voting machines in 56 heavily Democratic districts (including Newark) were shut down before the ballots were counted and require a judge's order to be opened and counted now.

https://patch.com/new-jersey/brick/s/hw ... aign=alert

Republican shenanigans in New Jersey? Shocking!

[Big Magilla]

Part of the problem in New Jersey is that the voting machines in 56 heavily Democratic districts (including Newark) were shut down before the ballots were counted and require a judge's order to be opened and counted now.

https://patch.com/new-jersey/brick/s/hw ... aign=alert

[Big Magilla]

Doomsday may be coming, but it's not here yet.

Murphy won reelection in New Jersey, narrowly, but he won, the first time since Reagan that both the Virginia and New jersey governors lost in the year following the presidential election of someone from their own party.

And Pelosi is insisting that there be a vote this week on both Biden's Build Back Better bill (with drug price regulation and paid family leave back in) and the bi-partisan Infrastructure bill and this time she's not backing down.