(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Teflon Joe? Kind of: Saturday's GNR [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-11 I’ve been thinking this week that Biden has a certain Teflon ability. The Rs keep trying to throw things at him (the balloon, the documents at his house, his son) and nothing sticks (except with those who are so far right that they wouldn’t support him anyway). We keep hearing the press speculate breathlessly about what will bring him down and… nothing does. Not that things are perfect — I’d like it if people acknowledged all he has done and his poll numbers were better. But, given the power of the right wing noise machine (and our own inability to counter it) I think he has held his own impressively. On to the good news: Democrats are awesome Biden makes a case for Democrats that doesn’t involve Trump Though he hasn’t officially announced it yet, President Joe Biden has been acting like he’s on the campaign trail for some time now. Tuesday’s raucous and rowdy State of the Union speech wasn’t just the latest, most visible sign that Biden is in campaign mode; it also foreshadowed just how different the 2024 campaign will be from other elections in the last decade. During his State of the Union speech, Scranton Joe showed up not just to take the boos from House Republicans in stride, but also to lay out a possible 2024 slogan (to “finish the job”), and make a positive case for Democrats. It was a different kind of political messaging for a party that, since 2016, has been accused of being too reactive and too defensive when confronting Republican attacks. Vox spoke to several Democratic strategists who all view Biden’s speech as a kind of preview of a larger shift in how he and Democrats will press their case during the 2024 campaign. The Biden campaign is likely to be less oppositional and more optimistic, with less focus on highlighting how bad the other side is, and more attention on imagining how much more Democrats can accomplish with four more years in power. x CNN's Jake Tapper: "[N]ot only did [Republicans] make themselves look bad but they really allowed [Biden] opportunity to look vigorous. Chris Wallace: "Oh...[t]hey literally played into his hands....[Biden taunting Republicans] was a brilliant moment...He made it magic" #SOTU pic.twitter.com/Xm6o8FwRXm — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 8, 2023 x Team @JoeBiden has to be thrilled. This was a home run in just about every way. And some of the strongest moments were his adlibbed lines, joyfully jousting on a very, very big stage. — David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) February 8, 2023 x Biden’s older but he’s been like this Anyone surprised by this energy tonight is either a teenager, or lived under a rock for the past two decades That Scranton energy is not a schtick, let him cooooook — Byrøn (Stroopwafels and vibes 🧇) (@byst) February 8, 2023 x For someone oft-derided as past his prime, Biden going off-script and negotiating Social Security and Medicare on live TV is a uniquely agile SOTU moment — Bill Scher (@billscher) February 8, 2023 x The way Joe Biden played the Republicans on Social Security and Medicare LIVE! All that ageist shade, sit down! And Biden’s props to VP Harris… President Biden is not to be messed with. #BidenHarris2024 #SOTU https://t.co/QD1nAcp647 — Mattison (@Mattison) February 8, 2023 x The DNC just approved by voice vote a resolution that “expresses our full and complete support for President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and the Biden administration, and support their re-election in 2024.” pic.twitter.com/u1NYy0mr5T — Mike Memoli (@mikememoli) February 4, 2023 This Gen Z Democrat is deftly skewering right-wing fantasies Rep. Maxwell Frost, the first Gen Z member of Congress, had numerous breakthrough moments this week during hearings run by House Republicans. The Florida Democrat’s performance did more than unmask the folly of GOP investigations, though it certainly did that. Subtly but unmistakably, he signaled a generational turn in the Democratic Party. “Oftentimes, our party has a problem with having a simplified message that’s able to cut through all the noise,” Frost told me in an interview. “This is something I think Republicans are actually good at.” He added: “It’s something we can get better at.” During a Tuesday hearing on border security, Frost used his backbench seat on the Oversight Committee to get two border police officials to overturn the entire premise of the GOP argument on immigration, that Democrats want “open borders”: Enjoy: x Frost: When President Biden took office, did your agents stop enforcing the border and just allow everyone to come in thus creating what we hear is an open border. Chavez: The answer is no pic.twitter.com/RGP8t6KWrM — Acyn (@Acyn) February 7, 2023 The State of Biden’s Presidency Is Stronger Than It Looks to Voters President Joe Biden is expected to soon announce he’s running for re-election, and he’s got his campaign slogan: Finish the Job. In his 73-minute State of the Union speech, he repeated the phrase multiple times as he made the case for what he’s done, and what he intends to do for the next two, or four years. He spoke with a verve and a vigor that the public rarely gets to see. Energized by the familiar setting and cognizant of the challenge he faces in persuading a skeptical public to set aside their pessimism, he brought his A-game as he took the stage with a Republican Speaker behind him and a divided Congress before him. By any objective measure, he has gotten more done in two years than any president since FDR. Can he credibly take credit for those accomplishments—from blockbuster job creation to staying cool in confronting China and steering NATO in a proxy war against Russia—and reset the expectations for himself as he likely seeks a second term? x Congratulations Joe Biden for creating a total of 12 million jobs in just 2 years. Thank you President Biden for promising to protect Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. Republicans Rick Scott, Ron Johnson & Mike Lee have threatened to gut/end SS and Medicare and Medicaid. pic.twitter.com/zOKtnPn8DO — Tony - Resistance (@TonyHussein4) February 10, 2023 Is the economy kind of good now? x Democrats in Pennsylvania just won three crucial special elections to hold seats that secured them the governing majority in the state House for the first time in 12 years. — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 8, 2023 DNC approves Biden plan to remake 2024 calendar but hurdles remain Democrats on Saturday voted overwhelmingly to remake the party’s presidential nominating calendar, embracing President Biden’s push for South Carolina to be the first state to hold its contest in 2024 and replacing Iowa amid calls for greater racial, geographic and economic diversity in the process. In December, Biden asked DNC leaders to move up South Carolina, which sealed his comeback victory in the 2020 Democratic primary, to the first slot. Under the new plan, New Hampshire and Nevada would hold their primaries a week later, followed by primaries in Georgia and Michigan. With South Carolina, the state that resuscitated Biden’s presidential bid in 2020, Democrats are elevating the role that Black voters, a crucial voting bloc for the party across the country, will play in selecting the party’s nominee. “This calendar does what is long overdue,” DNC Chair Jaime Harrison said before the vote. “It expands the number of voices in the early window, and it elevates diverse communities that are at the core of the Democratic Party. sdsd Bad News for Bad Guys The GOP is playing right into Biden’s hands If the State of the Union address Tuesday night was the unofficial beginning of Joe Biden’s quest for reelection, Republicans should be worried. For all the talk about how good ol’ Joe has lost a step or two, the President signaled that he’s more adept than ever at wielding his trademark optimism and likability. Perhaps more than any other politician, Biden is the king at eviscerating his political opponents with a high-beam smile. Just ask Paul Ryan, who experienced that firsthand in a 2012 vice presidential debate. That disarming tactic was again on full display during his State of the Union address when he sarcastically told Republicans who voted against the infrastructure bill he signed into law in 2021, yet claimed credit for the jobs it’s bringing to their home districts, “see you at the groundbreaking.” The State of the Union jousting between Biden and the Republican caucus perfectly sums up the contrasting styles between the President and his adversaries. The Republicans, with their outrage-driven heckling, are doubling down on their image as brass-knuckled street fighters. What they seemingly haven’t learned from 2020 is that Biden thrives when cast as the gentler, more amiable counterpuncher. The question heading into the State of the Union address was: Would Biden’s empathy and decency stand out as much without his chaotic and mean-spirited adversary there to accentuate the stark contrast? The answer, it seemed, was yes – in part thanks to a new breed of House Republicans more than willing to create chaos in the absence of former President Donald Trump himself. Members of the GOP just can’t help themselves. Perhaps they thought that insulting Biden from the House floor, as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia did in repeatedly shouting “liar,” would represent some kind of destabilizing surprise ambush. The President swatted the attacks away and even managed to turn the tables on his critics. Of course, if those GOP rabblerousers had carefully watched videos of his 2020 presidential debates, they would have known that ruffling Biden’s feathers is pretty tough to do. You don’t spend decades in Washington, DC, and still sport a thin skin. FBI finds one additional document with classified markings at Pence home The FBI found one additional document with classified markings Friday during a five-hour search of former vice president Mike Pence’s Indiana home, according to an adviser to Pence. btw, I don’t care much about this for Pence. I like that it shows that this finding more at Biden’s house was not the earth shattering thing that Rs tried to paint it to be. Speaking of Pence: The Pence subpoena should make Trump very nervous The fact that former vice president Mike Pence has been subpoenaed in the investigation into Donald Trump's effort to stay in power likely signals two things: 1) Pence declined to voluntarily cooperate, and 2) the inquiry into Trump's involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection is in its latter stages of development. Pence, the primary target of Trump’s pressure campaign leading up to the Jan. 6 attack, is likely the person most familiar with Trump's intentions and machinations in the critical time period between when he lost the election and sought to subvert the peaceful transfer of power. So the subpoena, issued by special counsel Jack Smith, suggests that prosecutors now feel confident enough about their arsenal of information to question the second-most important witness to the potential crime (the first being Trump himself, the target of the investigation). x Another hot take: It's actually more newsworthy that Jack Smith wants Robert O'Brien's testimony on both Jan 6 and the stolen docs than that he subpoenaed Pence (which @LemonSlayerUS already noted). https://t.co/xU3xYMdUSL pic.twitter.com/GGa59k08pp — emptywheel (@emptywheel) February 10, 2023 Oh yah, this guy: Trump’s former national security adviser subpoenaed in special counsel probes of classified documents, January 6 Former national security adviser Robert O’Brien has been subpoenaed by special counsel Jack Smith in both his investigation into classified documents found at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and the probe related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to a source familiar with the matter. x Michael Cohen tells Meidas Touch he'll meet with the Manhattan DA *again next week. It'll be Cohen's 16th appearance with the office as it investigates Trump. — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 10, 2023 America Has Never Seen a House Speaker With a Limper Gavel Things aren’t looking up for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). As Joe Biden continues to top himself, McCarthy showed that he has “absolutely no power,” “I have never seen a man with a limper gavel . It is just unbelievable. I don't know if they make gavel Viagra, but man does he need it,” Levy says. Expanding on her own analysis of McCarthy’s actions this week, Cupp told Levy: “I mean, I know he shushed them and tried to corral them both before and after the State of the Union and during the State of the Union. But when you invite disruptors into your house, don’t be surprised when you get disruption. That’s what they’re there for. That’s like, the only thing they’re there for.” The Republican clown-car caucus is undermining itself Already, it is safe to say that the brand-new House Republican majority is off to an awful, abysmal, amateurish and appalling start. And those are just the applicable adjectives that begin with the letter A. Their embarrassing performance at Tuesday night’s State of the Union address — where President Biden handled their boorish heckling with ease, making them look both obnoxious and ineffectual — put them in a hole. And then, for some unfathomable reason, they kept digging. On Wednesday, Republicans’ first made-for-television, MAGA-themed public hearing fizzled and then backfired. The House Oversight Committee, chaired by Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), set out to prove the conspiracy theory that Big Tech social media companies have colluded with Democrats and the “deep state” to censor conservative views. But the former Twitter executives they hauled in to testify told a different story. As the company acknowledged at the time, Twitter was wrong to briefly squelch an October 2020 story from the New York Post involving a laptop belonging to Joe Biden’s son Hunter. But the suppression lasted only one day, witnesses said, and was both imposed — and lifted — in an internal attempt to follow company policy. There were no orders from the FBI, as Republicans have claimed. But one of the former Twitter executives, Anika Collier Navaroli, said she knew of a government attempt to censor content: In 2019, she testified, a White House official leaned on the company — unsuccessfully — to take down a tweet by model Chrissy Teigen that insulted then-President Donald Trump in vulgar terms. On The Lighter Side Happy Superbowl weekend everyone! As sad as I am that my Bills are not -playing, a part of me is excited to watch the game without the crazy stress that would have brought me. I am so lucky and proud to be in this with all of you. 💖💚💛✊🏽✊🏻✊🏽💛💚💖 [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/11/2152336/-Teflon-Joe-Kind-of-Saturday-s-GNR Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/