Lobenthal.com

Sarah Jones in New York Magazine:

“Biden runs on the promise of inertia; he tells voters that if they choose him, the nightmare will recede and we will all go back to the winsome days of beer summits and pragmatism. Biden presents the Obama presidency with a Vaseline lens, and hopes his own reputation looks better in this softer focus.”

Yes, Obama’s presidency is a miracle compared to Trump’s.

Yes, but —

If we can’t face the truth about what Obama did and what he didn’t do, we are assured the destiny into which Trump is trying to deliver us.

Not only did it egregiously skew the debates this week, it’s driven their post-debate coverage.

Why are they insisting that Obama was attacked at the debates?

Jhect at Daily Kos tells us why:

“Well, first off, they didn’t want to spend Thursday and Friday discussing Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders clear dominance in the debate. They didn’t want 2 days of them and their supporters helping to build momentum for their campaigns and straightening out the record on M4A. It was so obvious the Corporate Masters were being served when Tapper and Matthews couldn’t get off the tax increase aspect of the plan, rather that the overall benefit to the middle class.”

Mckayla Wilkes, who’s challenging Steny Hoyer in the primaries, calls out Liz Cheney’s apocalyptic insanity. Steny Hoyer doesn’t. At least, not yet. The Dem establishment still doesn’t get that someone as dangerous as Cheney needs to be hammered on a daily basis.

Rep. Cheney has launched another off-the-rails meltdown diatribe; now it’s against the grizzly bear. She really hates them. They’re bringing down Western civilization. And so are the Indian tribes that settled this country long before Liz Cheney’s relatives got here. She hates them, too.

What more can I say?

You can’t make this up:

Rep. Cheney accuses Bernie Sanders of “Daddy issues.”

She’s a Trumpster all right; as well as a Cheney. The combo spells absolute disaster for a country that cedes her any power or influence.

And this week we saw again why and how: the moderators, undoubtedly on the orders, as Lawrence O’Donnell pointed out last night, of their paymasters, did everything they could to discourage serious debate.

They also employed Republican talking points, used nonentity fringe candidates like Delaney as benchmarks against whom progressives must be measured, and cut off peremptorily candidates like Sanders who wouldn’t stand for their bullshit.

All three moderators are capable of functioning responsibly, which means they knew what they were doing and went along with being co-opted.

For shame.

Diana would have turned eighty-five this month. If she were alive she would undoubtedly be speaking out against the grotesquerie in the White House, while maintaining a full schedule of acting, producing, and probably directing and teaching as well.

Tomorrow night at 7:00 pm, Metrograph on Ludlow St. is saluting Diana with a showing of her 1972 flick “Georgia, Georgia.” It’s definitely different, that’s all I’m going to say, and rarely shown, so it’s a must.

See you there!

I refer to the exhausted spectacle of Democratic candidates telling the public what they don’t deserve, what they don’t want to do for them.

Last night showed that that treadmill to oblivion still functions, albeit with rusty bolts and wheels.

Let’s remember, the Donald ran to the LEFT of Hillary on economic issues.

This is the Republican normal: work against the interests of the country, then howl that you’ve been victimized when you’re found out.

If McConnell doesn’t want to be called a Russian asset, then he shouldn’t perform as one.

Now, of course, Moscow Mitch’s outrage may have been real: outrage that anyone would dare to call out his traitorous behavior–and where do we begin? Mugging the Constitution to sandbag Democratic judicial nominees is just as traitorous as his refusal to protect the country from electoral interference.

But good Method actor–as well as total sham–that he is, McConnell was able to channel his rage at being implicated into entirely simulated self-righteous protests that he’d been smeared.

A brilliant performance, but I’d rather watch Jake Gyllenhaal.

I’ve never seen him live, and I’ve always wanted to see what that beautiful theater with the,by Broadway standards, huge lobby is really like!

Both delivered big time last night on West 44th Street in Sea Wall/A Life.

As Zubkovskaya said to Gumerova:

Gyllenhaal’s emotion is so true that all other considerations are secondary —

But —

Facing the audience alone on stage in that spotlight, he’s using a little too much gestural shtick as leverage. This will certainly fall away before the official opening next month.

The whole evening, balanced by Tom Sturridge’s equally strong one-actor/acter, is schematically and viscerally satisfying.

is to remind the commonweal how GOP senators voted to confirm the freakiest, most seditious, most sociopathic, most corrupt, most disreputable in every way Cabinet in our country’s history.
And btw–William Barr is a depraved criminal, as he proved once again today.