My observations about All In with Chris Hayes Live 2/10/20 will require more than one piece to detail so I’ll start with the end which starts with the beginning of the middle.
I’ll explain as we go along.
Near the end of our travel through the maze-like Hotel we were going along the corridor to the Armory Room which is being used as the MSNBC Manchester Studio we passed a door to what looked like it belonged to a Bar or Restaurant named the Penstock. So I stopped and asked if normal human beings could go inside and get something to eat or drink.
Sure.
So I filed it away. A few steps later we passed a Bar and Restaurant named Current. This was obviously serving both both Booze and Food because it was exposed to the corridor in that trendy “Open Architecture/Office”/Atrium/Ersatz Cafe kind of way that is in fact so basic.
We found the end of the line and because it was short and we had over an hour to wait we decided we’d eat. I thought we might go back to the Penstock but TMC pointed out we’d just hiked a mile through the Hotel (True That) and we could eyeball the end of the line while we were eating.
It was crowded, which the Bar wasn’t so we parked and ordered a Charcutiere to tide us over. We were going to be there from 6:30 to 9:15 and the rules said no one comes or goes (they’re more lenient than that, but not much). With time to spare and not much farther back we rejoined the line and when the audience doors opened we went inside.
* * * * *
Like those? Kurt Vonnegut used them.
We didn’get out of the Studio until 9:30ish and I was anxious to get to the Penstock because when I had popped in earlier I had seen what looked like the Bar Stand Ups they were broadcasting. We were in no hurry because, hey- it’s a Bar in a Hotel. They stay open as long as they can because someone has to work Night Shift anyway and nobody drives home. Great places to get wasted if that’s your goal.
There should perhaps have been more urgency, by the time we got there it had just closed (Before 10! What kind of Joint is this? I later found out.). Plan B. Back to the Current where we sat in the Dining Area.
We had Ahi Tuna on Cucumber, Mediterranean Flatbread (Tomato, Spinach, Feta, Tapenade), and Fish and Chips. As we were waiting for the check I saw Chris Hayes and Production Entourage plop down at the Table 2 away.
So I nudge TMC who was facing away and say, “I think I’ll stop by if he’s not actually eating when we leave (he was on a bee line between us and the door) and congratulate him on an excellent show,” I think it would have sounded better if I had but it actually went something like this.
“Mr. Hayes,” that was to get his attention because he didn’t notice me yet being really rude. He turned with what I took to be a look of encouragement but I suppose was just annoyance, “Mr. Hayes I want to Thank you for an excellent show tonight.” It should have been “congratulations” because the next thing he said was “Thank You,” which is wrong, you’re supposed to say what I said next which was, “You’re Welcome.”
Because I was not yet sufficiently embarrassed, I continued, “I’d like to introduce my associate, TMC“. She said something gracious and diplomatic and the I said, “Thank You again Mr. Hayes and we left.
* * * * *
Epilogue
I told you I had new information about the Penstock. I had forgotton the name and wasted an hour or two rooting around the Tubz trying to find something I recognized. Fortunately I remember how we used to do things in the Olden Days so I found the phone number, called the Front Desk, and asked the nice young lady on the other end of the line about it.
“Oh, you must mean the Penstock. It’s not really a Restaurant, it’s a Meeting Space we rent out for Conventions and stuff.”
You can reserve it for your Wedding, or Reception, or both.
What puzzles me is either Doubletree has this Cheers Set lying around collecting dust or MSNBC had it built (or modified I guess) and has never to my knowledge (and I’ve watched a lot of coverage) said that it’s anything less than a live jive average spot you might find on Trip Advisor like the Mug & Anchor.
Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news media and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.
One thing many people forget about the 2016 election is that as a candidate, Donald Trump promised to be a different kind of Republican. Unlike the mainstream of his party, he declared, he would raise taxes on the rich and wouldn’t cut programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid that ordinary Americans rely on. At the same time, he would invest large sums in rebuilding America’s infrastructure.
He was lying.
Trump’s only major legislative achievement, the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act, was absolutely standard modern Republicanism: huge tax cuts for corporations, plus tax breaks that overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy. The only unconventional aspect of the legislation was the variety of new tax scams it made possible, like the benefits for investors in “opportunity zones,” which were supposed to help poor communities but have actually enriched billionaire real estate developers.
And there has, of course, been no infrastructure bill; in fact, the Trump administration’s repeated proclamations of “Infrastructure Week” have become a running joke.
Involve all regions of the country in a shared first round of voting.
After the debacle last week in Iowa and the reporting of the results there, even more people began to speak openly about how anachronistic and antiquated it is for Iowa and its problematic caucuses to continue to have such an outsize influence on the Democratic nominating process.
When CNN’s Jake Tapper grilled the Democratic National Committee chairman, Tom Perez, about whether Iowa should remain the first contest, Perez said, “That’s the conversation that will absolutely happen after this election cycle.”
It’s about time. And, it needs to be far more than a conversation. Action must be taken. [..]
This is not the way the modern Democratic Party should choose its nominee. As an alternative, I make this proposal: Have the first four contests — Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — on the same day. In the spirit of Super Tuesday, you could call them the pacesetter primaries.
I like ideological purity as much as anyone. But not this year. Not this election. The Democrats contending to square off with President Trump face less an opportunity than an imperative. Nuanced policy differences among the various hopefuls could not be less important. Winning in November isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.
It is ridiculous to argue the merits of Medicare-for-all vs. Medicare-for-all-who-want-it vs. expanding the Affordable Care Act while President Trump is taking a blowtorch to the norms that allow our political system to function and bind our society together. His nasty little “Friday Night Massacre” — vindictively ousting officials who testified at his impeachment hearings — was a mere taste of what we can expect in the coming months. He has gone full thug.
For Democrats, electability is the whole ballgame. Primary voters need to be as cold-eyed as possible in choosing a nominee who can not only beat Trump but also help generate blue-wave turnout that keeps control of the House and takes back the Senate. That’s going to require compromise from someone: flipping Obama-to-Trump voters and stoking flagging Democratic enthusiasm may demand very different approaches and qualities. But whoever that compromise falls on most heavily must be prepared to make it. There is no choice but to take a deep breath and do what needs to be done.
President Trump, master of the purposeful falsehood, complains that instead of attending to the people’s business, Democrats do nothing but investigate the president. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) echoes such claims. It has become a conventional critique of conservatives: Columnist David Brooks tweeted after the impeachment vote, “Instead of spending the past 3 years on Mueller and impeachment suppose Trump opponents had spent the time on an infrastructure bill or early childhood education? More good would have been done.”
With media coverage fixated on the Trump circus and on impeachment, voters have little sense that anything is being accomplished. But Trump’s insult of Democrats is a lie.
The reality is that House Democrats have been extraordinarily productive, passing nearly 400 bills by mid-November. About 275 of them have bipartisan support and are sitting on the desk of Republican leader McConnell, who will not allow debate or votes. The majority leader boasts that he is the “https://twitter.com/senatemajldr/status/1126154769641480193” of House legislation. McConnell’s obstruction of President Barack Obama’s agenda was infamous; now, he is doubling down against measures passed by the Democratic House majority.
Republican politicians argue that Washington is dysfunctional — and then prove their case by making it so. This serves their ideological interests and rewards their special interest supporters. Consider, by contrast, that many House-passed bills would make a real difference in the lives of ordinary Americans.
So said the already-once-impeached President Trump on Thursday in the East Room, musing about the possibility he could become the first president to be impeached more than once. And on the very next day, as though he were competing for it, Trump showed precisely why he could be destined to achieve that ignominious fate.
With essentially no pretense about why he was doing it, the president brazenly retaliated Friday against two witnesses who gave truthful testimony in the House’s impeachment inquiry. He fired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland. And he also fired a third man, Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, merely for being the brother of the first. Trump essentially admitted his retaliatory motive on Saturday, when he tweeted that he sacked Vindman in part for having “reported contents of my ‘perfect’ calls incorrectly.”
If this were a criminal investigation, and Alexander Vindman and Sondland had given their testimony to a grand jury, this Friday Night Massacre could have been a crime. At the very least, it ought to be impeachable: If Richard M. Nixon was to be impeached for authorizing hush money for witnesses, and Trump himself was actually impeached for directing defiance of House subpoenas, then there should be no doubt that punishing witnesses for complying with subpoenas and giving truthful testimony about presidential misconduct should make for a high crime or misdemeanor as well.
But it’s really not about this one day, or this one egregious act. It’s about who Trump is, who he always was and who he always will be. It’s about the complete mismatch between the man and the office he holds.
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
South Africa frees Nelson Mandela; Allied leaders in the last months of World War II sign the Yalta accords; Ayatollah Khomeini’s followers seize power in Iran; inventor Thomas Edison born.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.
In some circles, the Mint 400 is a far, far better thing than the Superbowl, the Kentucky Derby, and the lower Oakland roller derby finals all rolled into one. This race attracts a very special breed.
Well, our Senior Editorial Staff will be attending the live broadcast of All In tonight in Manchester and we’ll be braving not only the weather (currently snowing fairly heavily at Primary Headquarters in North Lake) but also the motorcade of Unidicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio, unfortunately not in cuffs yet as far as I know (Dish is out, it’s snowing).
I have stayed up late and partied hard. Sometimes I’ve been awake by the crack of noon, something I mostly try to avoid- not a “Morning” person. When the TV’s been working I’ve watched MUR almost constantly unless ABC sucked too much to bear.
Overall only like 25% of the ads during prime viewing hours (Newscasts, Local Features, Morning Shows, Prime Time, Sports not Network allocated) and half of that is self promotion. The rest is pure political.
In the Ad Wars Joe Biden is dropping a ton of money to little effect. This is because his ads are soporific and repetitive (Obama! “Moderate” Conservative! Presidential!) unless he’s attacking someone who used to be the other side’s guy but is now just as likely to be some random Democrat because he’s losing to all of them.
My sister, who works for a Health Insurance Company (it’s relevant later), is a New Hampshire Voter and has actually been to 6 or 7 events of various types with about 5 or 6 of the top candidates.
Of Biden she says that he’s easy to listen to but he doesn’t return the favor very much, evading most questions with non-answers. His story is moving but his policies are totally wrong headed.
I’ll dispose of Mike Bennet with this- he’s been all over MSNBC because they loves them some Centrists and Biden is in a death spiral. I have seen exactly one ad and it is as generic as you would expect.
Tulsi Gabbard has invested months in New Hampshire, she probably qualifies for residence so she could vote for herself (New Hampshire is extraordinarily generous with residence, I probably could too). Who knows where her money comes from but she sure is spending it. She has measurable Polling! Her ads are all about her Military Service and my sister says her Stump is also. She seems sane enough in person but my sister didn’t like her record.
Tom Steyer is roughly tied with Gabbard at about 2.5% and he has been flogging the State as she has. He has an impressive bunch of ads so he’s not as boring as some of the other big spenders. His mix is about 50% Remove and the rest is dived among issues with Health Insurance (I refuse to call it “Care”) leading the way and the Economy second with a fair amount of Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.
My sister says he’s impressive in person too. Very Professional, Bright, Right on most of the Issues. I think he’d be her second choice for reasons I will explain later.
Pete Buttagieg is doing an Ad Blitz too and while he seems to be gaining some traction in the Polls but he only has like 3 different ones and their all the same.
My sister says he has a captivating speaking voice and he’s hot (though spoken for) and very polished. Then, she said, you realize that he never really says anything. Entertaining but vapid and shallow. Oh, and New Hampshire is very, very White but the Buttagieg event was Whiter than most, so much so my sister, who is just as Ben Franklin as I am, thought it remarkable in context.
Amy Klobuchar got a bump from Iowa, no doubt about it. You see Amy signs in the Snowbanks (Gabbard too but they’ve been there since Spring) and she has a middling ad presence. Her new spot is Debate, Debate, Debate, Oh!, Did You See How Good I did In Iowa? Her Polls are better than I would have expected and she’s attracting some of the “Moderates” (Conservatives) hemorrhaging from Biden.
She seems Midwestern Nice in person but doesn’t have much spark says my sister. Soft spoken and hard to hear, wrong, but nice. The atmosphere at her events is subdued and polite. Of course that was before Iowa and the Debate. Things might be different now.
About Andy Yang I’m constantly asked the question, “Why is he still here?” $1000 a Month buys a lot of Votes but he lost mine when he said he’d Pardon the Unindicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio. My sister has seen him and says he sounds sane enough. Universal Income is a sound Economic concept (as is Debt Forgiveness) but that Pardon thing is a Deal Breaker. His buy is as big as any of the Top Tier and the ads are fresh, varied, and totally make him look Presidential when he really is a pretty wacky guy.
Elizabeth Warren has a buy about the size of Klobuchar’s, maybe a bit bigger. She has a nice set of ads, almost all issue oriented. She’s probably my favorite at the moment though I’d be fine with Sanders. What I like about her is she’s Left (for a Democrat), she’s got a plan for that, and she promises that no co-conspirator of Unindicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio will go unpunished.
I like that a lot.
Ok, this is why I think Steyer would be my sister’s second choice and the story may disappoint you. My sister was initially a Liz supporter. She attended 2 Warren events, the first was everything my sister expected- Energized, Detailed, Good Speaker- Highly Organized, very Professional and Educational. “You can tell she was a Teacher.”
Then Warren changed her position on Medicare For All which concerned my sister. This is why the fact she works in the Health Insurance Industry is relevant and, you may be surprised to learn, she is militantly in favor of Medicare For All in part because her Employment Coverage sucks (did I mention she works in the Industry?). When she sought clarification at another event from a Staffer she got a face full of rehearsed political bafflegarb and a follow up letter of the same. My sister is persistent but has been unable to communicate further with the campaign so far.
Which brings us to Bernie. All the indications of a last minute surge in Polling, ubiquitous and varied on the Air. Easily the best ads, there’s this one where he’s sitting in a sweater talking about Corporate Greed and Tax Evasion with this animation showing the inequality… good stuff.
What? Not everyone is an Economics Geek like me (remember the difference between a Nerd and a Geek is that a Nerd has incredibly deep knowledge of his field of expertise but usually is ignorant about pretty much everything else and is frequently anti-social whereas a Geek knows a lot about a lot of things and loves showing off)? Well, he has others including Bios, Presidential Backgrounds, Rally Crowds, Issues (Medicare For All! Forgive Student Loan Debt! Soak The Billionaires!), and some passive aggressive defense against Democrats and offense at Unindicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio.
My sister has been to 2 of his events. The first one was two days before his Heart Attack and he seemed grumpy and out of sorts. Relation? Who knows, I’m not a Doctor. The second one-
Wow.
The energy in the room was electric. It was packed to the rafters, Bernie structures them like Concerts or Festivals were a Band comes in, plays a set, and somebody talks while the next Band gets ready. And who talks? Michael Moore, AOC, no slouches.
One of the warm up acts is a Sanders Adviser of many years standing and his schtick is to have everyone stand up and hold hands. Then he tells them to close their eyes and give a little squeeze “if you, or someone you know, has been denied Care or Treatment or suffered devastating Medical Bills under the current system”. He has a whole list of the Sanders Plan Greatest Hits he goes through to get people in the right mood. Then he tells them to open their eyes and launches into Sanders “Look to the Left. Look to the Right. Are you willing to fight for that person just as hard as you would fight for yourself?”
“Ladies and Gentlemen… Bernie Sanders!”
I echo my sister. Who can listen to that and not get a little moist in that Frozen 2 kind of way? Well, you’re a heartless bastard. That is the greatest piece of Rally Showmanship I have ever heard of and I was a politician for 20 – 30 years.
Bernie was a ball of fire and rocking the house. It might be a good time to mention that last night’s Canvas Rally in Keene at a little under 2,000 is the largest held so far this campaign season by any Democrat.
People talk about Bloomberg the same way you’d talk about seeing some exotic animal. He’s not contesting but might get some Write In. He’s visible in National spots but I don’t think he’s advertising locally.
It was my first election and while it’s not strictly speaking true, what is true is that his Secretary of the Interior was involved in a criminal conspiracy to steal a third of the Naval Oil Reserve and at the time Japan, while a strategic rival, was not yet considered hostile and was one of our best Petroleum markets. A little thing we called Teapot Dome.
Anyway it’s not something I’d necessarily expect you to know. His name was Albert Fall and I can instantly think of half a dozen puns and a Beatles parody and they’re all screamingly funny, trust me, but if I told them to you I would expect only incomprehension or, from particularly specialized and devoted followers of Clio, “How long have you been sleeping under that tree Rip?”
Now this is not about Joe Biden’s age. As far as I’m concerned he’s a stripling, still wet behind the ears, barely half my age, but I’ve learned my Harding jokes are no longer topical.
To put the most charitable spin on it Biden was at a Town Hall when a College Student asked him, “How do you explain the performance in Iowa and why should voters believe that you can win the national election?” He gave her a non-answer and then said, “Iowa’s a caucus. Have you ever been to a caucus?” When she replied yes (which was true) Joe disbelieved her and said “No, you haven’t. You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier.”
Again, the charitable spin is that Biden was making a joke by quoting a line from an obscure John Wayne movie. Nobody seems to know which movie but it’s supposedly a misquote and John Wayne made a lot of movies which compli8cates things.
Now as you might imagine Biden is getting called out for Racism (A Twofer, Blacks and Indians!) and Misogyny and they’re both pretty true but perhaps not in this case.
I think he just forgot she was born in 1999 and John Wayne had already been dead for 20 years. Heck, John Wayne Gacy had been dead for 5.
In any event, I’ve done politics and been a politician- right out front there asking for your vote. Insulting them is not calculated to win their support.
I’m talking about “Iowa’s a caucus. Have you ever been to a caucus?”
WTF Joe? To imply she’s ignorant? And then to disbelieve her lived experience, whether jokingly or not?
Joe, the Butt Ignorant one here is you. You can think what you want, but no politician worthy of the name insults voters in public. Even the ones that like you will not like how you treat other people.
This is why he is a loser and will lose again. I just hope it’s in the Primary. He is the most unelectable candidate in the field. The most Corporatist, the most Gaffe Prone, the most Gropy, the most Racist, the most Misogynous. His campaign is unorganized and events unenthusiastic.
He will get beaten like a drum and the Democratic Establishment will bear complete and full responsibility.
Two days before voters head to the polls, Biden advisers were already eager to move on, hoping the former vice president would do better with Nevada and South Carolina’s more diverse electorate. But there are growing concerns, even inside his campaign, that financial resources are being strained ahead of an upcoming stretch that will only get more expensive as the race shifts into a national campaign.
Biden in recent days has retooled his stump speech, focusing on the stories of those he has met on the trail, and growing emotional as he speaks about the 2015 death of his oldest son, Beau.
But at times, he struggled to connect with voters. On Sunday morning, at an oceanside ballroom here, Madison Moore took the microphone and warned the former vice president that the question she was about to ask was going to be a bit mean.
“How do you explain the performance in Iowa and why should voters believe that you can win the national election?” asked the 21-year-old student at Mercer University in Georgia.
Biden said it was legitimate question, but then turned the spotlight back on her, asking: “Iowa’s a caucus. Have you ever been to a caucus?”
When she indicated yes, he rebuked her: “No, you haven’t. You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier.”
The phrase was an allusion to a line in a John Wayne movie that Biden had used before. Even so, Moore said she was shaken and flummoxed at his reaction. Biden went on to say that the caucus posed challenges to his campaign, and he conceded that they were less prepared.
“I congratulate Pete, I congratulate Bernie,” he said. “They were really well organized. Better than we were in Iowa.
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
a Cold War prisoner exchange; boxer Mike Tyson convicted of rape; Arthur Miller’s ‘Death of a Salesman’ opens on Broadway; Bob Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are a Changin” released.
For more than 200 years, our republic has endured, not only because of the wisdom of our Founders and the brilliance of our Constitution, but because of the generations of patriotic Americans who have had the courage to risk their lives to defend it.
But, tragically, the American people have watched President Trump and Republicans in Congress dismantle the Constitution that we cherish.
The House impeachment managers, led by Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), presented to the Senate and the public an incontrovertible truth that the president himself has admitted: President Trump abused the power of his office to pressure a foreign power to help him cheat in an American election. And when he was caught, the president launched an unprecedented coverup to block Congress from holding him accountable. The president’s actions undermined our national security, jeopardized the integrity of our elections and violated the Constitution.
The Democrats in the Senate under the leadership of Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) patriotically voted unanimously to honor the oath to support and defend the Constitution. They, along with Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), deserve our gratitude for their moral courage.
The president’s lawyers all but concede his misconduct. Their argument was only that Congress and the American people have no right to stop him from using his power to cheat in our elections. With their vote, Senate Republicans embraced this darkest vision of power: that if the president believes his reelection is good for the country, he can then use any means necessary to win, with no accountability or consequences.
For weeks, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and the Republican-controlled Senate have made themselves accomplices to the president’s wrongdoing by suppressing additional evidence and rejecting the most basic elements of a fair judicial process. In declaring their loyalty to the president over our Constitution, Republicans have made a farce of the old boast that the U.S. Senate is the greatest deliberative body in the world. And they have joined the president in normalizing lawlessness and rejecting the checks and balances of our Constitution.
The House of Representatives voted to impeach the president because our institution believes in the sanctity of our oath and the urgency of protecting our republic. One chamber of Congress held the president accountable. President Trump is impeached forever, disgraced in history for his abuse of power and contempt for our Constitution. He will go down in history as the first president to be impeached with the support of a majority of Americans, and the first to ever face a bipartisan vote to convict him in the Senate.
Our Founders put safeguards in the Constitution to protect against a rogue president. They never imagined that they would at the same time have a rogue leader in the Senate who would cowardly abandon his duty to uphold the Constitution.
Sadly, because of the Republican Senate’s betrayal of the Constitution, the president remains an ongoing threat to American democracy. He continues to insist that he is above accountability and that he can corrupt the elections again, if he wants to.
The People’s House will continue to defend democracy for the American people. We will uphold and protect the checks and balances enshrined in the Constitution, both in the courts of law and in the court of public opinion to preserve our republic “if we can keep it,” to “>quote Benjamin Franklin.
And we will always insist on this truth: that, in America, no one is above the law.
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