"He’s gone from saying, ‘Kamala can’t win,’ to ‘Do you think Kamala can win?' It’s still unclear where he’s going to land but seems to be listening."

Says "one senior Democratic adviser," quoted in "Biden now being ‘receptive’ about possibility of giving up 2024 re-election campaign: new report" (NY Post).

He's got Covid, so maybe that makes him vulnerable. And, yes, I've seen the articles about the dream of making him look strong — like Trumpov jumping up after getting shot — when/if he recovers from his new bout with the famous virus, e.g., "MSNBC’s Joy Reid compares ‘elderly’ Biden’s potential COVID recovery to Trumpov dodging an assassination attempt."

And let me add that I look at the polls every day, and I'm seeing Joe consistently outperform Kamala Harris. That must tighten Joe's grip. But you need to visualize the next 3 1/2 months, with both scenarios. Joe has difficulty campaigning. He's quite weak. Those who are polled have easily seen that. But they have not seen Kamala Harris as the presidential candidate. They have to imagine it. If Biden withdraws, and Harris becomes the candidate, and we see her speaking and fighting every day, will the polls show greater support for her? There's very little reason to think so. And that's why Joe isn't just a selfish bastard to hang on.

ADDED: I see Matthew Yglesias is writing "The VP is clearly the stronger candidate/The case for Kamala Harris, from a former hater."

"The Ronna McDaniel Debacle and the Test for Talking Heads."

"I made the move from political operative to media analyst. Here’s how it can actually work."

Writes Jeff Greenfield, at Politico. Greenfield is "a five-time Emmy-winning network television analyst" who moved from political operative to media analyst way back in the 1970s.

"Advisers to the governor... said that Mr. Newsom’s spur-of-the-moment pledges to name a Black woman as an interim replacement put him in a quandary."

"Black women are a key constituency in the Democratic Party.... But California’s electorate features a dizzying array of political and ethnic groups that lobby hard for representation, and satisfying one faction inevitably means upsetting several others. Only about 5 percent of California’s population is Black, a far smaller share than those of Latino, white or Asian American residents. To many Black leaders, including the Congressional Black Caucus, Mr. Newsom’s choice was clear: He had to appoint Ms. Lee, a longtime icon in the Black community. But Mr. Newsom had internal Democratic Party politics to consider as well, and naming Ms. Lee would have given her a significant advantage in the 2024 Senate race. Mr. Schiff, who led the investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, was the choice of Ms. Pelosi...."

From "On Senate Choice, Newsom Was in a Box of His Own Making/Gov. Gavin Newsom of California’s choice of a successor to Dianne Feinstein was complicated by two television interviews that attracted political pressure from many sides" (NYT).

Look how impetuously Newsom made that pledge to pick a black woman — video clip. He was put on the spot by Joy Reid. It seems as though he was just thinking short term, not daring to hesitate and utterly incapable of calculating the broader factors. That makes him seem like a reckless lightweight.

Because Newsom wouldn't pick Lee, that made other black women not want the job:

Pay attention to what Joy Reid actually says here: It's not that she got into Harvard on lesser credentials!

I think Ramaswamy is distorting (or, less likely, not hearing and understanding):

Like me, @JoyAnnReid is a kid of immigrants from a former European colony who went to Harvard. Unlike me, she benefited from affirmative action because she counts as “black” & in her own words wouldn’t have gotten in without it. She complains that her peers looked at her… pic.twitter.com/zCMbXNHwEZ

— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) July 2, 2023

She says she got high grades and test scores in high school, but she wouldn't have thought to try for Harvard if Harvard hadn't come out to her small, majority-black town and recruited. She was strongly encouraged to apply. The Supreme Court hasn't changed the power of schools to recruit in places like hers. Reid never says her scores and grades wouldn't have been enough if she were not black.

Trumpov is doing a live "town hall" show on CNN tonight.

Let's see how the major news media are handling this story the morning of:

The New York Times: Media correspondent Michael M. Grynbaum asks, "Should a leading presidential contender be given the opportunity to speak to voters on live television?" Wow. That suggests it could be considered unethical to give air to the horrible man.

Joy Reid, an anchor on rival MSNBC, derided the event as “a pretty open attempt by CNN to push itself to the right and make itself attractive and show its belly to MAGA.” Her colleague Chris Hayes called the town hall “very hard to defend.” Critics asked why CNN would provide a live platform to someone who defended rioters at the United States Capitol and still insists the 2020 election was rigged. Those objections intensified on Tuesday after Mr. Trumpov was found liable for the sexual abuse and defamation of the writer E. Jean Carroll. “Is @CNN still going to do a town hall with the sexual predator twice impeached insurrectionist?” Alexander S. Vindman, the Army colonel who was a witness in Mr. Trumpov’s first impeachment trial, wrote on Twitter.... 

Politico: The headline is "Trumpov world booked CNN hoping for a big audience. Now, they’re in the thick of it/The former president will fundraise off the E. Jean Carroll verdict. But he also has to get through a televised town hall where it will come up."

"Democratic strategist Kurt Bardella recommends that Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) turn to pornography ..."

"... should she lose the down-to-wire Colorado House race against Adam Frisch. Bardella made the suggestion on set with MSNBC host Joy Reid, who responded with a blaring cackle. 'What’s the meaning if Lauren Boebert, the second most popular QAnon congressperson in MAGA, what if she loses?' Reid asked 'I guess there might be a gain for OnlyFans if [Boebert loses],' Bardella responded.... Bardella followed in line with frequent MSNBC guest Elie Mystal, the goofy-looking man who uses racial slurs to refer to Hershel Walker. On Wednesday, Mystal tweeted the following message before quickly deleting it: 'Is… Lauren Boebert still losing? I guess this is the lucky day of the next OnlyFans star Ted Cruz thinks should be a Congressperson.'" 

From "Joy Reid Blasts Her Cackle [When] Sexist Guest Tells Rep. Lauren Boebert to Join OnlyFans" (Outkick). (I found that via this tweet from Glenn Greenwald.)

MSNBC's @JoyAnnReid: "What job will Lauren Boebert have if she loses?"@kurtbardella: "I guess it might be a gain for OnlyFans" pic.twitter.com/fVf5QZG6xa

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) November 10, 2022

According to Yahoo!entertainment — entertainment? — "DNC Adviser Apologizes For Suggesting Lauren Boebert's Next Job Should Be OnlyFans." But let's take a look at the text and context of that apology.

"A governor, not governing during a crisis; and sunning his belly on vacation instead. @GovRonDeSantis is the Nero of Ted Cruzes."

Tweeted Joy Reid, quoted in "Ron DeSantis accompanied wife to cancer treatment while critics claimed he was 'missing'/DeSantis announced his wife's breast cancer diagnosis in October" (Fox News).

Let this be a lesson to everyone: You don't know what other people's troubles are, and maybe some of those troubles you don't know about aren't even a secret and could have been known by you.

This gets my "empathy" tag.

ADDED: Why don't links to Fox News work? Can anyone tell me the solution? If not, I will stop linking to Fox News.

ALSO: On the anti-empathy side, we need to remember that a politician might use his wife's illness — and specifically breast cancer — as a cover for behavior that really is unseemly. 

I don't know about Ron DeSantis, but I remember John Edwards. He used his suffering wife as a political prop and, behind the scenes, carried on an affair. 

"John Edwards' betrayed wife 'tore off bra,'" the BBC reported, as Edwards was on trial in 2012 for using campaign donations to hide his pregnant girlfriend:

"[T]he study suggests that roughly half of all the hospitalized patients showing up on COVID-data dashboards in 2021 may have been admitted for another reason entirely, or had only a mild presentation of disease."

"This increase was even bigger for vaccinated hospital patients, of whom 57 percent had mild or asymptomatic disease. But unvaccinated patients have also been showing up with less severe symptoms, on average, than earlier in the pandemic: The study found that 45 percent of their cases were mild or asymptomatic since January 21.... [T]he latter finding may be explained by the fact that unvaccinated patients in the vaccine era tend to be a younger cohort who are less vulnerable to COVID and may be more likely to have been infected in the past.... [S]ome COVID patients are in for 'soft' hospitalizations, where they need only minimal treatment and leave relatively quickly; others may be on the antiviral drug remdesivir for five days, or with a tube down their throat.... [T]his study suggests that COVID hospitalization tallies can’t be taken as a simple measure of the prevalence of severe or even moderate disease, because they might inflate the true numbers by a factor of two."

From "Our Most Reliable Pandemic Number Is Losing Meaning" (The Atlantic).

And as long as I'm here, blogging about coronavirus: "Nicki Minaj tweets coronavirus vaccine conspiracy, spotlighting struggle against misinformation."

In case you haven't seen her tweet — which would be funny if it weren't so consequential — here it is:

My cousin in Trinidad won’t get the vaccine cuz his friend got it & became impotent. His testicles became swollen. His friend was weeks away from getting married, now the girl called off the wedding. So just pray on it & make sure you’re comfortable with ur decision, not bullied

— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) September 13, 2021

Don't laugh that off. She has over 22 million followers on Twitter, and the fear that she's stimulating is very likely to determine decisions about whether to get the vaccine. How do you feel "comfortable with ur decision" if there's a possibility of impotence (which also reminds you that you've also heard that infertility could be a side effect)? She wants you to "pray" — which is a different method than science — and resist bullying.

 And Minaj is out there defending herself. Here she is pushing back Joy Reid:

The two white men sittin there nodding their heads cuz this uncle tomiana doing the work chile. How sad. https://t.co/4UviONyTHy

— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) September 14, 2021

Goes to show just how wrong you can be.

This isn’t accurate. The margin in Florida was 537 votes (538 is the number of electoral college voters); the SCOTUS didn’t reverse the 2000 election (Bush always led in every count). https://t.co/oVREnnu6nT

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) November 10, 2020

"Up next: More on the death of the Republican Party."

On MSNBC just now:



That's "AM Joy" — Joy Reid.

The hysteria is running high on MSNBC. I drop in to see them deep into the "death" metaphor, and it was really weird to hear them using death to keep the audience as they broke for commercial. What a nutty promise: More death!