Obama has told close associates that Biden staying in the race is hurting all other races especially the House and Senate.  Pelosi continues to work behind the scenes.  Ball’s in Biden’s court – it’s just a matter of time, and not much time.

Schumer and Jeffries have had hard conversations with Biden in the last few days, using data that Biden is behind TFG and falling farther behind.  They’ve also told him that the money is drying up and that major donors are now withholding funding.  Adam Schiff, who is now running for Senate in California, also publicly called for Biden to step aside warning that the Dems could lose the Senate if he doesn’t.  Pelosi is also said to be working behind the scenes to let Biden down easy.  Other Dems have also talked to him and have described as delusional his belief that he’s either tied or leading TFG in the polls.  We’re starting to see cracks in his resolve, though, it’s now being reported that Biden said he’d drop out if a doctor told him he had a medical condition that would prevent him from doing his job.  At least that’s a start.

As a reality check for those who are still laboring under the illusion that Biden can win this, here’s Nate Silver’s latest analysis from earlier today:

Time to face facts; Biden’s candidacy is over, and the longer he waits to step aside, the more humiliating it will be for him.  The pressure is ratcheting up on a daily basis and there’s no sign it will weaken.  Today Schumer got the DNC to postpone a virtual nomination vote, which was an attempt to cram Biden down the delegates’ throats before they convened.   That vote won’t happen now until the first week of August, though it’s still scheduled before the convention.

We’re coming down to it.  I’ll be surprised if this tragic episode lasts much longer than sometime next week.  We’re long past time that this change should have been made.  The time is NOW.

There’s a lot of reporting that Biden is being shielded by his wife, Jill, and his close staff from the reality of polling numbers which, besides personal pride, is one of the reasons he is stubbornly hanging on.  To counter the effort to get him to step down, it’s now coming out that he’s going to propose an overhaul of the Supreme Court including an actual ethics policy and term limits.  It’s also being reported that he’s going to propose a Constitutional amendment to restate that the President is not immune from prosecution for criminal acts.

There’s not a chance in hell of any of these proposals seeing the light of day, especially with Fascist control of the House and many of the states.  BUT, it’s the right subject.  Biden is way too late, but THIS is a key issue, and a Hail Mary is about all he’s got left.  The SCOTUS is now bought and paid for by billionaires lead by Leonard Leo and it’s got to be fixed.  However, with today’s politics there is no quick fix, especially with the juggernaut created by Leo and his Federalist Society.  To make real change here, the People will have to overcome the do-nothing inertia that paralyzes the Congress.  I’m not hopeful, at least at this point.

Maybe this effort by Biden will save his candidacy.  I don’t think it’s enough to overcome his negatives, but it’s something, especially if this proposal gains real traction that gives people some hope.

In other news, the DNC gave up on its attempt to ram through Biden’s nomination during July even before the convention rules committee meets.  Postponing this vote tells me that there are serious discussion going on behind closed about what to do about Biden.  This has got to be decided sooner rather than later.

On Saturday evening at 6:11 pm local time, the 2024 campaign effectively ended.  When a 20 year old gunman took potshots (literally) at TFG which grazed him, wounded two others, and killed another, the ground shifted under our feet, swinging the election in his direction.  Since that moment, TFG has pivoted to a laughable “unity” message and has uncharacteristically embargoed all communication coming from the campaign to tightly control that message.  He’s fund raising on the assassination attempt and claims he’s rewriting his speech to emphasized “unity”.  His talking heads are blaming political rhetoric from Biden and Democrats for the violence, completely ignoring the open sewer of hate speech and incitement to violence that has spewed out of TFG’s mouth for well over a decade.

To add to his strength in the polls, his handpicked judge in the Mar a Lago documents case DISMISSED the entire case a few hours ago, ruling that special prosecutor Jack Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional.  Once again, her ruling flies in the face of decades of judicial precedence, clearly and openly violating her oath of office to defend the Constitution and the rule of law in order to protect her benefactor. This final ruling by Cannon is certainly a nice flourish to complete her audition as TFG’s next SCOTUS nominee.

I have to say that Failed Assassination Attempt at an Outdoor Rally was not on my 2024 election year Bingo card.  TFG is the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet.  While he has amassed a tsunami of evil transgressions including fraudulent business practices, racists policies, sexual assault, self aggrandizement, violations of state and federal election laws, insurrection, incitement to violence, extortion, and bribery, nothing has ever really stuck to him.  Now he’s survived an assassination attempt, and even Aileen Cannon timed her dismissal of the felony charges for stealing classified documents to coincide with the opening of the Republican Convention Coronation in Milwaukee today.

I say all this as background for my conclusion that this election is over.  Biden was, and still is, in serious trouble.  His negatives are terrible and he’s trailing TFG in all of the battleground states.  Like it our not, he’s been boxed in, and every measure is going TFG’s way.   I know that I’ve pissed off a lot of Salon customers in the last week calling for Biden to step aside, but now I believe that even doing that won’t help.  All of the momentum is in TFG’s direction, and this election now feels a lot like 2004 and 2016.  In 2004 GWB/Cheney started a war to get re-elected after 9/11 sinking Kerry’s bid.  In 2016 TFG fabricated a dark dystopian image of a crime-ridden country in decline being overrun by dark-skinned terrorists pouring over the border.  He’s banged on the this drum for almost 10 years now, and the assassination attempt has played right into his mythology to great effect.  Those not paying attention to the facts will be swept up in his new assassination attempt “unification” message and fall for it, not realizing the fact that TFG and his screaming heads are the ones who created this mythology that has been tearing the country apart for over a decade.  The false “both sides do it” argument has become embedded in our political DNA now for years.

I believe the 2024 election result will not be good.  Not only do we stand to lose the White House, which is terrifying, but we also stand to lose both the House and the Senate.  With the SCOTUS already lost, we’re entering into a dark future that threatens the very fabric of our country.  With no guardrails or rule of law to stop him, I predict TFG’s  “unification” message will go down the shitter right after the election when the convicted felon and his goons will take over.

This is not good.

The wailing and gnashing of teeth over calls for Biden to end his candidacy is 2016 all over again.  I know many Salon customers hate it when I say it, but it’s true.  Hillary was a terrible candidate.  And, just like in 2016, I didn’t say unqualified, I said terrible candidate.  She didn’t listen to local party operatives, walled herself off from everyone who disagreed with her, and ignored calls for her to emphasize battleground states like Michigan believing that she had the election sewed up.  And we all know what happened.  Did Comey and Russian meddling hurt?  Absolutely, but it shouldn’t have been that close for that to have a material effect.  Those are facts that we all knew before the election, yet Hillary and party leaders ignored all the flashing red lights and handed the White House to TFG.

The same goddam thing is happening again with Biden loyalists and the base.  “Stay the course!” “Don’t change horses!” “The voters have spoken!” “If we change candidates, we’re going to lose like Humphrey!” “The Republicans will sue to keep a new candidate off the ballots!”  So on and so forth.  Here are the facts – THE ELECTION IS ALREADY LOST.  Only a miracle, or a thoughtful change, can save it.  Here are the battleground numbers as of TODAY:

TFG has a solid lead in every single battleground state and that’s unlikely to change.  During his press conference a couple of nights ago, Biden said no poll shows he’s losing.  They’re ALL showing he’s losing. Biden either lied, or, more likely, hasn’t been shown these polls.  It’s just math.

Yes, yes, we all know that TFG is a lying gasbag, shitbag, convicted felon, rapist, and every other pejorative adjective you can summon.  But that doesn’t mean a goddam thing to his voters.  In fact, they LOVE that he’s a lying gasbag and convicted felon as it plays into his Earth II narrative that he’s none of those things, but rather a victim of persecution by the “deep state”.  We’re not dealing with facts here folks, we dealing with people who don’t have a grip on reality.  THAT is reality.

While we’re at it, let’s talk about all the handwringing over Republicans suing to keep the Dems from “changing candidates on state ballots”.   First, there are no goddam ballots to change.  Biden, and TFG, for that matter are not the nominees for president.  There ARE no ballots, at least yet.  That doesn’t happen until AFTER the conventions.  Even then, there are mechanisms to change candidates, but that’s not what we’re talking about.  We’re talking about replacing Biden before or during the convention.  Suing to keep a new candidate off state ballots is a Republican talking point started by the Heritage Foundation (yes, that Heritage Foundation).  Like everything else coming out of the Heritage Foundation, it’s bullshit, so stop repeating it, please.  Here’s why.

Lastly, those of us calling for Biden to step aside are not “dividing the party” or “serving Republicans”.  Republicans, including TFG are terrified that the Dems use their heads and change candidates to a dynamic new candidate.  They LOVE running against Biden because they’re looking at the same numbers I am.  The numbers with any other major candidate are worse for TFG.

In short, every number points to a loss if Biden stays on the ticket.  Also, it increases greatly the chances of losing both the House and the Senate at the same time.  Those are inconvenient facts.  Ignoring those facts will lead to another TFG term in the White House and we should all be terrified of that.

Like George Clooney, I love me some Joe Biden.  With decades of experience in the Senate, then as Obama’s VP, and then as President who pulled us back from the TFG and Covid abyss in 2020, Biden has been in the right place at the right time for years.  I supported him strongly in 2016 when Hillary boxed him out and handed the White House to TFG the first time.  I backed Biden in 2020 because he was the only Dem candidate running who had a chance of unseating TFG.  He succeeded magnificently and has done a great job shoveling out the manure that TFG piled into the White House the previous 4 years.  However, the Biden of 2024 is clearly not the Biden of 2008, 2016, or 2020.  Like many others whose opinions count for a lot more than mine, I agree that Biden cannot beat TFG, period.  Clooney says that, three weeks ago when he was with Biden in NY for a huge fundraiser, Biden was the same Biden we all saw on national television who totally and completely fumbled THE debate.  The orchestra is playing, and it’s time to gracefully exit the stage.

I know this is not a popular opinion among many of the party faithful and a lot of customers of the Salon, but the numbers support my opinion.  Though Biden is statistically tied with TFG in national polls, he’s LOSING EVERY SINGLE SWING STATE by an average of over 5 points.  At this point in the cycle, that almost guarantees, barring a miracle, a Biden loss.  To believe Biden can win the electoral college in 2024 requires complete suspension of disbelief and blindness to facts.  In a word, if Biden doesn’t drop out, and I mean RIGHT NOW, we’re all fucked in 2024, because we’ll not only lose the White House, but likely the House and Senate.  That means, especially with a packed and corrupted SCOTUS, that there will be no guard rails to stop the goons who will be running the entire federal government and most of the states.  That, my dear readers, is unacceptable risk.

Like LBJ, Biden must graciously withdraw and then actively support a plan to replace him as a candidate.  Carville published a great plan a couple of days ago that outlined a short, transparent primary process moderated by 42 and 44 to select a new candidate.  This opinion will also piss off some of our customers, but I disagree that Biden should just endow Harris with the nomination.  Her numbers are almost as bad as his and won’t garner the support of undecideds like an open process.  This needs to be thrown open to other very strong candidates like Witmer, Newsom, Buttigieg, Moore, AND Harris in a process that is public, transparent, and fair.

I don’t want to hear the bullshit argument that the “primary voters have already spoken”.  That’s nonsense.  There was no real primary process; no debates, no real alternatives (including Dean Philips), and no active process, so the voters have NOT spoken.  There must be another alternative and that needs to happen NOW.

Americans should have one goal, and one goal only for 2024: soundly thrashing TFG at the polls.  We have to kill the cancer of MAGA and the cult of personality and that needs to happen now.  The DOJ has failed us; the federal and state courts have failed us; the SCOTUS has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the majority is profoundly corrupt and ruling for their actual constituents (the billionaires and extremists) and not for the rule of law.  None of our guardrails are working.  To save the US and our almost 250 year old form of government, we have to save ourselves.  And we, as voters, need someone to coalesce around, and that ain’t Joe Biden.

So there.