Duckworth is up to 16c today. Harris and Rice are still 1 and 2 (45c and 21c). I bet name recognition applies to betting markets. A lot of people still don't know who Duckworth is.

I would propose increased taxes on the wealthy and not necessarily increase corporate taxes (but change them where companies can't "avoid" them as much). More analysis needed on impact to deficit etc. but the focus on reinvesting in US will resonate.

This seems a step back from the race to globalism and acknowledging we have to catch up, play defense against China.

I hope he truly has a strategic plan (e.g. long term and with support from partners) to act against/apply pressure on China economically, technologically and politically.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/09/bide...omic-plan.html

I like some of that, and I think it's smart politically, but a very bad idea strategically, to throw that kind of red meat at manufacturing. Manufacturing as a major engine of the economy is the past. We're not ready to admit that yet, but I hope we get there sooner rather than later.

Admittedly I've not seen the details, but my impression is Biden wants to encourage manufacturing like in pharmaceuticals where we are less dependent on frenemies.

I think this makes sense honestly. Yes, we may have to pay more for some stuff but I'm okay with it.

For less "strategic" items, definitely encourage the trend of spreading the wealth and companies having more diverse supply chains (e.g. India, Philippines, Malaysia etc. vs China).

We manufactur more now than we ever did. It's just the majority of that manufacturing are done by robots. And it's 14% of the country's GDP (Top 3 sector in the Economy IIRC). People write off manufacturing way too easily or think it's just like car factories (which actually are doing well down in the US South fwiw)

I'm not saying manufacturing is irrelevant; I'm saying it's not what we should be investing in. It's down approximately 40% in pretty much every major economy over the past few decades by share of GDP. 14% sounds like a lot but it used to be 25%, and more importantly those days aren't returning. We don't want to get rid of it, but my point is we should be investing in the future not the past.

I do think Edward has a good point, and I'll withhold further judgement until I know more details on where Biden wants that $700B to go.

I will note that the 2019 14% is actually worth more than the 1950 25%. But even looking to the future, investing in manufacturing is important - future industries depends on higher labor productivity to produce those items. And in high technology sectors, such as pharmaceutical, electronics, and aircraft manufacturing, a lot of that is built in high GDP countries.

The problem is we need to have sectors to provide jobs for approx. $150 million people. Not everyone can be in high tech, we need manufacturing jobs.

Rice would be a bad pick, but 2020 has already sucked so bad that we may as well spend the rest of the year hearing about Benghazi some more.

Really?

What do you see as the relevance of this? Obviously the other 75% has grown even more.

As if whoever gets picked, the GOP won't pick something to harp on. If it is not Benghazi, it will be something else. I think Rice would be a fantastic pick.

She has the creds and she seems to take China-as-a-threat seriously. So I would take her also, if anything as insurance for Biden's only recent acceptance that China is a threat.

Has it? Or has information technology, which barely existed back in the 50s exploded and been the key to modem economies (a lot of modern US manufacturing supports that). It means manufacturing is still highly important and it being worth more than in the past is relevant to that.

As stated, manufacturing isn't just car factories, after all.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...ominous-trump/

Biden is running a TV ad in Texas (where polls are TIED!). Decent ad as well.

I like the strategy. Talk about what you are going to do for the country, have a real plan. Let his opponent do all of the mudslinging without mention of any plan.

There is no chance he wins in Texas but I think the ad is to help down ballot votes as the state legislature has been shifting a lot.

Yeah, say what you want about Beto O'Rourke, at least he showed that Texas was rapidly changing.

If that Senate race was this year, Beto would have a shot. Then again they might shut down every voting booth in every major city.

There's a chance of the Texas state house going blue this year and that would be a big deal with regards to redistricting going forward.

SI

Kanye has proposed free weed to everyone.

Maybe that's what this nation needs to chill the F out.

A good thing, maybe other more traditional GOP will follow.

Wonder if & who Biden will pick as the GOP member of his cabinet?

Ex-Gov. John Kasich slated to speak at the Democratic National Convention for Joe Biden - cleveland.com

Biden says 'racists' have sought the U.S. presidency before but Trump is first one elected

Biden, just stop talking. Your party was founded to elect a slave-owner.

I thought you folks got all pearl clutchy when someone calls Thomas Jefferson a racist?

There have been a lot of racist Presidents.

No doubt, but as a political statement it's a good one. People don't like to think of previous Presidents as racists. They like to think, well according to their time they were normal (even though there are obvious examples to the contrary - Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, Woodrow Wilson, Richard Nixon, etc).

Gotta put FDR and Japanese Internment on that list, too.

I'm okay going with the idea that no president has had any real interest in ending racist institutions (ie every core institution that the nation was founded on) except for Lincoln, and he went out of his way to say that he actually didn't care about doing it, only about keeping the union together. Biden certainly won't care about this either.

Moving the goal posts here from "who is racist and who isn't" (which you've seen me argue many times isn't usually something that is a yes/no question except in extreme cases like Trump) to "who is anti-racist and who isn't", and I'd say we're 0 for 45 in presidents actively speaking in a way that is anti-racist.

Looks like some Bernie supporters aren't going quietly

Bernie Sanders delegates mount convention rebellion over 'Medicare for All' - POLITICO

I mean they'll lose. And it'll be another way for Biden to show he's a moderate in face of attacks by Trump that's he's a socialist.

Yeah. I can see the Trump people being all like "We're working hard here to try and convince people that Biden is Bernie's puppet. AND Y'ALL AREN'T HELPING!"

Biden is going to make VP announcement next week.

No strong preference other than not Warren.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/28/polit...ate/index.html

This means you're running out of time to run a chauvinistic Hot or Not Vice President nomination edition.

Heard on TV NYTimes is saying he is picking Rice which I would be happy with.

PredictIt movement today:

Harris up 23c to 61
Rice down 8c to 21
...everyone else at 6c or lower

As I typed... Harris up, Rice down 1c each

I'll do it just for you. Who do you want first up?

I'd say just go with this list

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/23/polit...ris/index.html

I want you to pick one.

Some CYA. There will be the inevitable backlash from this group and I want to point them to your request :)

Start with number one and go up from there.

Although I'm not sure if my name really carries any weight on this board :p

I’m buying Rice on the rumor

I'm buying Tulsi Gabbard (for the HoN poll winner)

Joe is promising to pick a candidate next week.

He must've seen our HoN polls.

Joe is already breaking campaign promises...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...c21_story.html

It was weird that he gave himself an artificial deadline.

I learned early on that even if you think you will finish a week early, you still tell your boss that you'll have it by the date due.

And, if you do finish a week early, then he's still impressed. But if you promise it and then you don't, then the fact that you met the original deadline does not really matter.

Unforced error by Biden. Might even cost him a vote or two.

Biden: Latino community is diverse 'unlike the African American community' - POLITICO

Imagine if Trump had made that remark...

Trump claims to have done more for blacks than anyone in history except Lincoln but let’s take a Biden statement out of context and attempt to make it a controversy.

Just lay low Joe. Lay low. Get your running mate in there and let her handle the heavy lifting.

I mean it wasn't even wrong. Latin folk do have a wide political differences that you generally do not see in the African-American community. It's why someone like W got close to 40% of the Latin vote in 2000, whereas the African-American vote tends to be around 90% for the Democratic candidate. Seems a bit ridiculous for Republicans for try to make hay out of this when for years they've continually tried to make the argument that African-Americans overwhelmingly voting for Democrats haven't done them any good, so they should vote Republican instead.

It's almost like complaints about cancel culture aren't sincere.

It is just further proof that the GOP has no understanding of what is actually racist.

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So rumors seem to be settling on the VP being Rice or Harris.

I still like Duckworth, but the buzz really seems to be around those two.

They both fit the "do no harm" theory. Harris probably has a bit more upside and downside.

Rice seems to get under the Benghazi crowd's skin, so that might be a plus in terms of getting them riled up and turning off moderates.

Also, her son is apparently a Trump supporter, which might fit into the whole "remember when it was possible to disagree with someone politically and not want to put them in prison" narrative that Biden is pushing.

It obviously means diverse politically and that is not an untrue statement. Yes, he should have worded it better, but the context is very obvious and if Trump had said that it would have been one of the milder, more unoffensive things to come out of his mouth.

Yeah, Trump would have made it about hip-hop and mariachi bands.

I mean, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and say he was talking about politics too, but he's pretty explicit that no, he's talking about actual national/racial diversity:

"We can build a new administration that reflects the full diversity of our nation. The full diversity of the Latino communities," Biden said. "Now when I mean full diversity, unlike African American community, many other communities, you're from everywhere. From Europe. From the tip of South America, all the way to our border and Mexico and in the Caribbean. And different backgrounds, different ethnicities, but all Latinos."

but how is he wrong?

African Americans are obviously, Americans. Latinos do come from all different countries and backgrounds. I fail to see how his statement is incorrect.

And, of course, Trump attacked Biden about denying the diversity of opinion among African-Americans. So I think his attackers as well as Biden's first statement was about diversity of opinions (and Biden even said "with notable exceptions" among AA community). The second quote is about diversity when it comes to different national cultures.

I dunno if it's technically incorrect so much as a double standard. For example plenty of African Americans could certainly have just as much claim to an origin in 'the Carribean' as any latinos. Why is it even necessary to mention African Americans as a negative comparison?

Because so many Latinos are first or second generation and come from all sorts of political and cultural backgrounds.

For most blacks claiming Caribbean heritage, or wherever, is like me claiming Irish heritage. Do I celebrate it, sure, but it isn't really part of the fabric of who I am.

dola-

I don't want to pretend like I know what blacks feel or think about their heritage, just seems like a big nothing burger and a lot of faux outrage from Trumps camp trying to drum up controversy. We will see a lot of these dirty tactics as more soundbites get edited.

If this is the best they got--When Biden was talking about Latino diversity, he didn't fully account for the fact that some African Americans came to America via the Caribbean--then they really better hope that the Russians have better dirt, because that's a very weak and weird attack.

As are Latino Americans.

Progressives alarmed by Rice's vast financial investments

I wonder how much Kamala Harris paid to have this article written :p

I think given the Kanye West factor, its more and more likely Biden will go with an African American. I still like Harris the best given her experience in Congress.

You must not have much exposure to Latinos if you can't see they retain their heritage fiercely even if they are American citizens. Maybe you haven't been paying attention but that tends to get under the skin of most conservatives who don't like that they aren't willing to assimilate.

As down on Biden as I am, I will be even more depressed if he doesn't pick Harris as his running mate.

In a sane country you'd never hear this phrase in politics.

I'm no expert on race, but I would think a first generation African-American from Nigeria would be culturally diverse when compared to an African-American from the Caribbean, South America, Central America, someone with a long family history in the United States or even from elsewhere in Africa, such as Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, etc.

Sadly we are far from sane at the moment

Don't most African-American's with family histories from the Caribbean, South America, etc, still have roots from Africa? The slave trade had roots everywhere.

Not much different from how practically all Latino cultures have common roots in Spanish colonialism.

Trump is destroying our democracy, but let's talk more about whether African Americans are as diverse as Hispanics. That really important as Rome burns.

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Tell it to Joe

Well then, obviously the best thing to do is replace a 74-year-old (intentionally) bigoted white guy with a 77-year-old (innocently) bigoted white guy.

Yup. It's almost as if people don't give two shits about democracy as long as it's their guy in charge.

SI

There is so much nonsense in that statement, it is astounding. "Let's equate the guy who is actively supporting white supremacy with the guy who if we pull a statement out of context, super analyze it, and become completely tone deaf to any other explanation, might be mistaken by a hand full of people (many of whom has agreed with racist statements in the past) as racist."

"I would have voted against Trump, but Biden once ate at a Chick-fil-a. He must be a just as much a pro-life bigot as Trump, so might as well vote for the guy that cut my taxes by ten cents."

I think this is succinct.

So in a country of 331 million people, the best that the Democrats could come up with to replace Trump was Biden?

Also, feel free to treat it as a one-off out-of-context, overly analyzed statement while ignoring the comments Biden made to Charlamagne tha God and Errol Barnett. Not to mention his failure to recognize any previous President besides Trump as racist.

I remember my mom saying almost the exact same thing about Trump.

And how did that turn out for your country?

I think the better way to phrase this is the safest bet to be able to replace Trump is Biden.

And this same country of 331 million people somehow thought Trump was the best option the republicans could offer in 2016. Which to a lot of people meant best option to tear down the things Obama built that they didn't like because, well, it was Obama.

Go win an election. Biden didn't cheat, he just got more votes.

It drives me to vote 3rd party

Apparently a video surfaced of Karen Bass praising Scientology. Since her best claim to getting the VP nod was the fact that she was hard to attack, I think she’s pretty much out of the running :-)

Yeah, she spoke at a Scientology funeral, a communist funeral, and said the death of Fidel Castro was a great loss. She's an easy target.

Except this isn't about statements out of context or super-analyzed. This is about Biden's train of thought.

This is thoughts about Obama:

People keep talking about Biden making gaffes but he is running against a guy who brought up injecting bleach into the body. I feel like anything short of a racial slur is going to be tough to top that.

It's not about being worse than Trump though with that stuff. It's about whether or not there not being as clear a distinction between the candidates as there would be if Biden said fewer stupid things. That lends itself to 'both candidates say stupid things, so I'll go with the guy I agree with more'.

Versus, "this guy says stupid things, so I am going to vote for the guy I disagree with?"

"I wouldn't have voted for the narcissistic sociopath, but the other sometimes says something wrong."

No, the point is that the fewer distinctions there are between the candidates, the more likely someone persuadable is to decide it doesn't matter which one they choose. That's why it matters whether not saying stupid things is on the ballot, whether integrity & statesmanship are on the ballot, whether anything other than consistent demagoguery and negativity are on the ballot, etc. The fewer distinctions there are, the more reasons a prospective voter has to hang their hat on and vote Trump anyway.

I know people personally who listened to the Democratic primary debates and thought that most of the candidates were insane (and the couple that weren't, didn't win). I don't know how many Americans there are, but there are definitely some that need to be persuaded Biden isn't as crazy as Trump. It matters how effectively he presents himself for those people.

"I know the other guy wants to kill all brown people, but they both said the hated "Die Hard", so they are essentially the same."

If you think that the fact they both make gaffes makes them the same, then you aren't paying attention.

I didn't say it made them the same. I said it made them more similar than if Biden wasn't gaffe-prone. There's nuance there.

But then there is that huge bolder over there that makes them totally different. One says things that might be construed as racist, one openly courts the KKK. Not. The. Same.

"But her emails" and "deplorables". You know, because that's the same or worse than being caught on camera saying you like to sexually assault women, or calling immigrants racists and thieves, or any number of anything things Trump said on the campaign trail.

I get that one could make the argument that there's a difference without a distinction if say, both were the "old fashioned racist grandpa" types, where they're clearly the product of an older generation with antiquated beliefs. But Trump has a neo-Nazi as one of his closest advisors, his racist past is well documented, and, most importantly, his go to tool for firing up his base is stoking racist division. Anyone not seeing the stark difference is being willfully ignorant, at best, or, more likely maliciously false equivalencing.

Forget it, Dawg, it's Chinatown.

SI

These people are looking for a reason to vote Trump and would find it one way or the other. They just are trying to make themselves feel better about it by weak means of justification. That way they can tell themselves and anyone else they just had to vote for trump even though they really didn't want to...

"the couple that weren't"? If Buttigieg and Klobuchar - they are just as moderate as Biden. If Yang? He's more to the left than Biden.

We're talking Joe Biden here. There is a reason the left isn't not enamored of the choice.

If a person thinks Biden is insane, they simply won't ever for for a Dem. There's no point in wasting any energy trying to appease them.

What happened to Joe Biden's reputation? When did he become a "there's 330 million people in the U.S. and they nominate this guy?" kind of candidate? He was much more respected until this presidential run. He was one of the more popular and well-respected Senators for years and years. Everybody liked him. Overcame personal tragedy. Career public servant- didn't really become rich until he was VP. Extensive experience in foreign affairs on the Foreign Relations Committee. Oversaw the development of important legislation. A leader in Congress. Never really challenged in an election. Was considered a very strong VP choice for a young candidate like Obama. Not many people have a better resume than him for president.

He makes some gaffes here and there. He speaks his mind sometimes and doesn't use filters. I don't know if that will make him a less-capable president.