On Thursday's edition of "Tucker Carlson Tonight", Mark joined the great Tammy Bruce to discuss Joe Biden's long awaited announcement of his third presidential run. Click below to watch:
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Does anyone remember the 7 Dwarfs of the 1988 Democratic primary? (I think it was 1988: I'm too fuzzy to remember for sure & too lazy to look it up ) They look like giant statesmen compared to the current bunch. Now we have about 35 Dwarfs. The amazing thing is the overlap. Biden's Comet comes around every 32 years. My recollection is that he was the first one out, or close to it — that pesky plagiarism thing. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the man just can't campaign.
I read a rather indicative anecdote about Old White Joe on National Review Online a couple of days ago. As most people know, his wife and baby daughter were killed - and his two sons injured - when the car she was driving collided with a truck back in the early 70's. At the time the truck driver was found not at fault in the accident - and it's easy to imagine a young mom with three kids in the car getting distracted and running a stoplight or stop sign, or making a left turn into an oncoming vehicle. Anyway, the truck driver died in 1999 - and since then, OWJ has on several occasions talked about how his wife and baby were killed by a drunk driver, much to the distress of the man's widow and children. A recent profile in The Atlantic on OWJ mentioned this - and he seems to have stopped telling that story since. I remember back in 1980 being absolutely appalled when progressive Democrats wanted to replace Jimmy Carter with Ted Kennedy as their presidential nominee - it had only been 11 years since he left a young woman to drown. But I think that's the besetting sin of progressive politicians - they believe that because they're so concerned with humanity, they can treat unimportant, individual human beings with jaw-dropping shabbiness and callousness.
Keep reminding everyone. The guy was outed decades ago to be a proven liar - of a level not normally seen... plagerizing a Brit's autobiographical statements of growing up in a coal mining town for a pandering speech to American coal miners while a candidate for president. Most average liars wouldn't even dare go there - claiming a (word-for-word) episode from someone's else's speech and life in a so public and fact-checked a venue?
It does beg the question, why lie about the truck driver? Isn't it peculiar to embellish a tragedy that doesn't need any embellishment?
Meanwhile, let any other man in the nation start stroking and kissy snuggling the females and children he pulled next to him so he could do that in the middle of a video photo-shoot with multiple camera crews staring at him and how many minutes would it take for that man to be facing the mug-shot camera?
Meanwhile, Ukraine is calling and wants their billions back.
What a superb comment! I'm going to have to fight the impulse to steal that last sentence, although at times I wonder if we give progressive politicians credit for too much moral/cognitive depth.
Biden may either spark off the most contentious and bitter Democrat convention fight since 1924 (104 ballots to nominate John Davis) or be grudgingly accepted by the woke element on the theory tht Biden will be a late Merovingian king and easily manipulated by various "evolved" Mayors of the Palace. Either way it should require a shoe.
Blimey. It's not often one reads references to Merovingians or even Carologingians on't internet chat boards. (Somebody help me with the spelling there).
At the end of the video Tammy Bruce actually says "great being with you too dear" Dear! She called Steyn a Dear? That's a phrase for a homosexual isn't it? Does Tammy know something? I always assumed Steyn was straight (not that there's anything wrong with it if he wasn't, to quote Seinfeld).
Hi Martin
That is one of Tammy's speech mannerisms with her friendly colleagues. I listened to her radio programs years ago and she couldn't be nicer, even with not-so-nice guests. BTW, besides being super smart and gorgeous, she is also a gay lady, much to the chagrin of many an interested male. I believe Mark's kids are now approaching young adulthood, how time flies!
Regards
Mark, G'day from Melbourne again!
Speaking of Joe Biden – I see where his new 2020 campaign website says: "We must turbocharge our efforts to address climate change..." Yeah, right!
I personally witnessed Joe's butterfly-like presence in our city a few years ago. This guy, despite his utter uselessness in lots of ways, must have personally contributed gigatonnes of greenhouse gasses every time he ventured out of Washington. Here is a video I shot of his low-profile motorcade, arriving at the Boeing plant in Melbourne, in July 2016. Apologies for referring to "Mrs Ashcroft" in the clip, instead of "Mrs Ash Carter" – sadly, another senior moment on my part!!!! Joe's relevant massaging & hair-sniffing has generated renewed interest lately, of course.
https://youtu.be/wUwNgx8GKYE
Cheers,
Bill Thompson
I do hope that slogan writer will be fired. Or maybe it's some sort of irony I just can't see?!
Loved the home video clip, Bill. Just viewed Steve Hilton's video on FOX (NextRev/FNC) "China Joe"! Your video makes perfect sense now to me. Biden goes for the big bucks around the planet, so his motorcade that seems to go on forever fits the image. How could it be otherwise? It takes a lot of carbon footprints to rake in millions for one's personal enrichment. All in a day's work, Joe. Way to fight for the working man's interests.
Love the video, Bill. Just started watching your new PVO link - re Zali Steggall - "I don't give a rat's arse if someone is a lawyer". Classic!! Please keep up the election commentary!
Those boos and jeers during Crazy Comrade Bernie's interview could be spontaneous reactions from the PC wokeness crowd or they could also be Dem plants placed there by the DNC as part of their 2019 Take Out Bernie plot. If he thinks he'll get a free and equal chance this time from the DNC, he's mistaken.
The intelligent, articulate Tammy Bruce is always worth watching or listening to like the clever chap she was interviewing.
I know everyone wants to talk politics but it is just too early in the process to say anything meaningful. Joe Biden enters the race with 25% support and raises $6.3 M in the first week. Hillary and her SuperPac spent $1.2 B in 2016. If you look closely at the polls they are not honest. Democrats are included in the results at far greater numbers than they would be in an honest poll.
The Democrats have changed the rules for 2020. The primaries will be front loaded so that by this time next year the majority of delegates will have been selected by proportion of the vote. The candidates with low polling results will still be in the race when most of the delegates are chosen because of the low costs of hanging on, but they will not be able to afford to buy air time, especially in the larger states. Without the winnowing process the chances of a breakout candidate are reduced. After May next year we will sit around until mid July for the Democrat convention with nothing happening on the surface but some incredibly corrupt bargaining behind the scenes.
The number of super delegates of party big wigs will be reduced and they won't be able to vote in the first round.
Bernie Sanders will be required to join the Democrat Party to win the nomination which might anger some of his supporters. Things happen. Joe and Bernie are also fighting the actuarial tables.
So, the chances of someone with 25% support today entering the convention are uncertain but delegates will likely break down along the special interest lines of the Democrat Party. The energy, enthusiasm and anger of each group will have an important effect.
Everyday between now and then pundits will be asked about the horse race. Our native son would be best served by railing against the archaic time it takes to select candidates and then have them take office. M could even let his octave go up as he displays his passion. I know time is money and answering dumb questions is the bread and butter on which the MSC has been built.
This is the long version of, "I don't know."
Speaking of the actuarial tables, have they been tweaked for the advances in gerontology that are keeping our elders and betters in their rightful positions of power?
The Dems need to go through the next 6 years of purgatory and penance and sort themselves out. They need to make serious moral decisions. I hope that they make them for the good. I fear that they will make them for the bad and produce extreme dictatorial left wing politics out of this fascist communist mish mash that they have. And as it is heavily identitarian that could easily produce horrors last visited on the world in the last century. Sanders and Biden actually are a moderate and sensible alternative to that and would be an opportunity to ride out the identitarianism. If anything Sanders would be the better choice as he has stronger character. However he would be more extreme.
Meanwhile Down Under we are about to elect our next parliament on May the 18th. It looks like the new prime minister (whom I hope to God doesn't get elected) will be the very moralising and very creepy leader of the left wing identitarian Labor Party Bill Shorten. The current conservative PM Scott Morrison is doing a good job but he isn't energising the populace. There are a number of American political agitation organisations in the background causing all sorts of problems - Americans (Democrats) interfering in foreign elections. The economy is going through a quiet period but is holding up well. All we need for the next few years is a sensible stable government which doesn't increase taxes.
PS: Want to know the difference between the left and the right? You're down the beach. There is a woman walking a dog off leash. The woman (left) expects you to welcome the dog jumping all over you (right) and thinks you a nasty intolerant person for not wanting it anywhere near. You think the woman very inconsiderate in not keeping her dog under control.
And her dog is allowed to crap everywhere, because she cares about global climate devastation and does yoga twice a day and feels her oneness with all Muslims and she screams at you for telling her to keep her biting dog off the beach in summer.
You have a Glock 43.
Haha, very funny!
To confirm the Bernie nostalgia appeal, some of the millenial peeps explained that he has the 'grandpa' appeal. In a shocking number of cities and towns in the US, over 80% of children are being raised by their grandparents. Several key reasons why: both parents work to make ends meet, single parent household and the parent has to work -- and both parents are in prison thanks to drugs. The drug attack against the US population to weaken the nation will certainly in due time be seriously and appropriately compared to the China Opium Wars waged by the British.
So, the drug attack has hit the current parenting generation (age mid-thirties, forties) the worst, thus the grandparents had to step in and raise the grandkids. Bernie has that emotional appeal of the grandpap to the generation whose parents were AWOL. Unfortunately, he really isn't what they 'feel' (project) he is.
As for Biden... the more we see more video clips of his stroking, creepy hands crawling around little girls' chests - child after child after child at public functions, the more enfuriating it is. What did he do in private or ten feet down the hall from the public? The media knew/knows ALL of it - they have the videos and they sat on them - why only now has the public been permitted to see what he was doing? There is something evil going on with that creature. As if no one has heard of any case of behavior like this at the highest levels of government and media. Can't spell Savile without S for sociopath, A for Abomination and VILE.
Mark,
Tucker has gone to a domestic guest host from an imported guest house and the reason was made pretty clear last night. Kathryn, the reporter from Roll Call, got a drubbing on Final Exam that on the surface looked comparable to yours but she was going up against Champion Lauren Blanchard, not Pete Hegseth. Pete Hegseth for crying out loud! The Tucker staff even taunted you with the Queen's age question! It looks like you have some fences to mend. Maybe some gifts of maple syrup or leftover Kinder eggs from Easter might be appropriate.
Yeah - Mark took one heck of a beating from the terminatrix but so has everyone else who has gone up against her. Tucker may have to import that Jeopardy champion to face her but he'd likely go down in flames too. Lauren must have a Sheldon-like eidetic memory. Lauren Blanchard rocks! Extra bonus - she's gorgeous too. Are we still allowed to point that out? Maybe only on a few web sites now.
Have there ever been more unserious people running for a serious office, or unserious people in office, in US history?
Kamala the Kneepads, Cory the Spartacus, Beto the poor little Rich Boy, Bernie the Commie, Joe the Slow , Eric the Simpleton, Elizabeth the Fake, Pete the Butt...never mind. And that's just the ones running to be president.
The list goes on...I can't ever remember all of them. Then there's AOC the Vapid, Omar the Bigot...
The common thread of their "platform" is bizarre cognitive dissonance and doublethink. The world is ending in ten years, but Medicare for All. We're Woke and Broke, but free everything. Steal from the rich, to give to the Bernie Bros. But be ready to live in a cave with wood heating and grass eating to fight global warming.
Promises made to voters on the basis of race and multiple sexual identities. Trying to institute permanent Democrat party rule using Gerrymandering by Extinction Event...maybe not kill all the white males, but pretty close. Unfettered immigration to replace the deplorables.
Their campaign slogan might as well be Make America Never American again.
Their crazy ideas should be laughed out of the room, but instead each nuttier idea is promoted by even more unserious people, the so-called journalists of the mainstream media.
There power base is a unserious cadre of serious adherents to their philosophy, produced and graduated (with permanently indentured servant debt) from our Educational Institutions of Higher Brainwashing.
There isn't really an adequate name to describe this bizarre political philosophy...it's beyond communism, and socialism, and fascism. The current Democratic Party is led by charismatic malignant dopes. That would make their followers...Dopists? Vote for Dope? Dope and Change? Dopism has become the next iteration of Marxism.
Let's pray there are more Trumpists than Dopists voting in the next election.
It's all Trumps's fault. All 20 or 30 of these people are thinking the same thing. If Trump can be President and I am so much smarter than Trump, then I can be President too. Being Dopes they don't understand anything about why are how The Donald won the election.
I think that what they learned from Trump was to always say something outrageous so that the press (including Fox) would talk about them and they would gain notoriety (no such thing as bad press). So each is fighting to figure out how to say the most outlandish thing. They didn't count on AOC and Omar stealing some of their thunder, so they have to approve of them to get in on that residual publicity one way or another. And this way they steal a little of Trump's publicity away at the same time. Now they are more outrageous than Trump ever was.
The scary thing is that the more they promote the outlandish and the outrageous ideas, the more the masses will come to think it isn't so ridiculous, so that by 2024 the ignorant masses will come to think the outlandish ideas are actually mainstream. I think most of them know they can't beat Trump and they're really banking on 2024 when the country will probably flip back to the opposition naturally as usually happens after an 8 year cycle.
And just who will the Republicans have then? I'm looking for courageous people now as we will need them then more than ever.
Great names, Jesse. To piggyback on those, and I hope I'm not late to the parade on this, but it'd be highly entertaining to hear the pres refer to Mr Biden as "Sniffin' Joe'.
Hmmm. That is to misrepresent Trump. He was not outrageous - what he said is normal, commonsense, honest and representative of what most people think and would say, were they not oppressed by PC.
The left left and the RINO left squealed at everything Trump said, because they use ratchet politics - their revolution can never be undone. His words were a direct, honest challenge, and they freed millions of Americans from their plantations.
These DEMGOP liberals can forgive any actual crime by a liberal, as long as the speech code is correct. Trump speaks American, and that is a threat to the NWO.
They have been screaming insanities and inanities since Trump started campaigning, and they only know to scream louder, longer, insaner and inaner. They have learned nothing. They will learn nothing in 2020.
What I meant to say, Perry, is that his behavior has been deemed by the Left to be outrageous at every turn and now they are the outrageous ones as they have come out of the closet and showed their true colors. To you and me and others of like mindedness, what he says and does mostly is common sense, sound and rational. More importantly, he has succeeded.
Their complaints are unfair, untrue and self serving. I don't like all of his rhetoric, of course, but I agree with what he has accomplished and it's a shame he gets so little credit for it. I'm glad he uses Twitter but I'd like to see a bit more care in how he does it. I don't expect perfection; I would prefer more wisdom, that's all.
Well, in the end, I don't think they are capable of learning anything, otherwise they wouldn't take the positions they take in the first place. You can't make full grown adults stop being stupid; they are fully cooked and it is baked into their "brains". I'm surrounded by them and they have no interest in the truth or facts and have lost all ability to discern rationally.
A groping, racist apparatchik who's actual accomplishments include plagiarism, getting rich while in office and answering the question of who inspired John Belushi's chatacter in Animal House.
Biden is a partly senile, empty suit in the house sized Democrat wardrobe of empty suits. Don't mistake the old man for the "moderate" portrayed by the Democrat Propaganda Media. Ole Gropin' Joe is just as odious as an unlimited government man as the other 200+ primary contenders. The only difference between radical and "moderate" Democrats is that the former are wholesale destroyers of America while the latter operate at a retail level.
David, I totally agree, which reminds me of a disturbing thought. Biden ran roughshod over e-GOP darling Paul Ryan in the VP debate back in 2012. Ryan sat there so dumbfounded he couldn't even time his water-sips to coincide with times the camera was on Biden. Some genius! He couldn't handle Biden's mugging and phony bravado, and sat there with a deer-in-the-headlights glazed stare. Occasionally he found a question he could rattle off some prepared text to, but overall it was a dismal performance. This is a reminder that (a) the e-GOP is a bunch of nitwits, and (b) the Republican "bench" is indeed thin.
I guess the American viewers might not care but this bogeyman (person?) of white nationalism is also being used by Trudeau and the Liberals along with climate change as their principal argument.
It takes so long to choose a candidate and a president one wonders why the Democrats want to pick old men who might die before doing anything.
"one wonders why the Democrats want to pick old men who might die before doing anything." Ah, the VP is the key here -- Kamala? Mayor Pete? Elizabeth Warren? Who will succeed the old worn out white guys? An aggressive young socialist, that is where the fight will be.
Great minds think alike, Christie. Boy, we must have dark minds.
Back in '16, I was still blogging, and I mused at the time that the Democrats' strongest ticket would be a Biden/Warren tandem, with Biden strongly hinting at only one term. Each has become a laughingstock now, but back then, Crockagawea was the Progressives' bit of crumpet, and Biden would have served as a transitional figure between Optional Negro Dialect (â„¢Harry Reid) and Spreading Bull. Wipe those grins off your faces! I said THEY are laughingstocks, not my powers of prediction. I can't help it if they were too chicken to carpe the diem.
Or as Shakespeare put it:
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
Mm-hmm.
Fran, you and Christie definitely see where this is headed. I agree that this election cycle for the Democrats will be more about positioning themselves for 2024 than about winning in 2020. And the VP pick will signal the party's 2024 future. However, I don't believe that Fauxcahontis will be in consideration as a VP pick. Among her many pounds of baggage are her age and her whiteness which will prevent her from receiving the torch from the old white male seditionists.
I think that this time there is a civil war going on in the media as well as the Democrat Party ("ic" deliberately omitted just to annoy). Normally the "anointed one" in a DNC primary season is given complete cover by the MSM, but this time, we've seen many slings and arrows being fired at multiple candidates, including Beta (not a spelling mistake), Bernie, Spartacus, Kamala, Slow Joe, Big Chief Elizabeth and even a few thrown at Mayor Pete. Things don't seem to be falling into place yet. It will be fascinating to watch.
"why the Democrats want to pick old [white] men"
So the voters can indulge their white nationalism while nominally voting against it at the same time?
Crockagawea. Wish I had thought of that. Tip 'o the hat to ya.
Mark replies:
Actually, Lowell, I think that one's mine - seven years ago, paragraph eight.
I think you and Christie are both right. Never underestimate the deviousness of Democrats. My bet is on Kamala or mayor Pete.
I think Warren could do herself a favor and start layering on some Body Tints in a Tube all over her exposed parts. She could be a hoot and a howl and stir the fire in the belly a bit among the supporters. I would think it would show she has a sense of humor. The Democrats never seem to be genuinely enjoying themselves. Ever notice that? They all need to lighten up, just not her. Body Tints in a Tube is my best suggestion if I were her campaign advisor. Hint: only half shade lighter with each public appearance so nobody will notice. You know you won't be nominated for anything so just go out and have a big pow wow of a good time. You know she had some pretty good ideas way back, and I think TuCA even mentioned them on his show once. I would vote for a funny Democratic candidate. If only they weren't all so serious. And so Leftist in their thinking.
Why do you think I'm a (Founding) member here, Lowell? I steal all my best material from Mark's castoff witicisms.
I thought it was classic coinage, too, Josh. I should've known it was a Mark Steyn original. Well, some pretty famous artists steal their ideas from other's ideas. Andy Warhol's Campbell Soup can "pops" to mind. Yuck yuck.
Sorry, Mark, don't know how I missed that.
"Spreading Bull". Hadn't heard that one before. Truly Steynian.
Also not originally mine. I'm really getting exposed as a fraud! Deservedly so, I suppose.
I love that Shakespeare quotation. I remember my grammar school English teacher geeing me up with it. I'm still waiting for it to kick in!
But now my Friday night drinks party piece is performing Shakespeare's heroic speeches ......in my booming northern voice and intonation......and lo......it works! I've didcovered the secret of performing Shakespeare.....do it in a northern accent....and in a bar!
The great RSC director, John Barton, used to run master classes on "Playing Shakespeare". I have DVDs of some of those sessions, and to see him help the likes of Ian McKellan, David Suchet, Judi Dench, Patrick Sewart, et illustrious al, get closer and closer to the nub of the text is still mesmerizing. I one episode the actors prevail on Barton to recite Shakespeare in what scholars think he would have sounded like. Oop North is not far off the mark.
Blimey. Yes, I reckon certain intonations and cadences fit with the rhythms of his lines. Plus, not being precious about it.
Too short a clip, I think. I could listen to Tammy Bruce and Mark talk about anything under the sun for hours. But Biden! Aye aye aye! I heard that Bernie supporters would vote for Trump if Biden gets to be the nominee. Very interesting.
I think Tammy must have come up against a hard break and had to chop things off. She probably had a director shouting in her earpiece. It even happens sometimes to the incomparable TuCa.
Tammy became one of my favorites several years ago when she was on the radio here in LA. She and Mark make a formidable duo who could easily carry a full hour on their own.
I agree! Three hours more like it! I like the way her brain thinks. She has style and class, to boot. I would vote for her if she ever ran for office. I like the way she signs off calling Tucker and Mark "dear." That's how I think of them, too, but please don't repeat what I said here. Heheh;)
Great! "TuCa" and "PUHBA" or, however, Laura spells it!