Jim (Con't): So Joe Biden. He's a uniter. There are Dems and Greens here and not one of us would ever pick Joe to head a presidential ticket. Thoughts?
Cedric: Joe is brussel sprouts. No one would choose to have him. No one's looking for a place with the best sprouts. I hear you laughing but I'm serious. I do block walk each mid-term and general election. I am one of the get out the vote people. And I cannot imagine how hard that will be in the fall of 2020 if Joe is the nominee.
Dona: Cedric, you're a Democrat. You're a young one, in your early 30s, and you're African-American. The thought is that Joe's base is solid among older African-Americans. Do you have thoughts on that?
Cedric: I don't think it's solid at all. They do, in my church and in my neighborhood, have warmer feelings towards him then people my age and younger but it's not solid. If Kamala Harris, for example, came in second in Iowa, a lot of African-American elderly support would go to her immediately. And if Cory Booker came in third -- third, he could come in that low -- in Iowa, you'd see a lot of African-American support go to him immediately.
Jim: So these are guesses?
Ann: No. My husband is Mr. Democrat. He polls on this. At church, in the parking lot after the service or if there's a church pot luck, he's going table to table. Cedric is always asking everyone who they'd vote for and who after that and stuff like that. It may be just the mood of our community in our specific area but Cedric knows that community. Which sounds like a great thing until your the mother of two young children and you have to dash into a grocery store on a Saturday morning and haven't turned yourself out because you're hoping to dash in and out before you bump into anyone you know. Being married to Cedric means everyone knows you.
Jim: Thank you for that, Ann. I bet Cedric would have humbled on out of that if you hadn't been here to answer.
Ann: I'm sure.
Jim: Betty, you've got relatives in Atlanta. What do you hear about Joe Biden and his support among the African-American community there?
Betty: Well, let me note, as I think you know, Joe doesn't have strong support among Blacks here in California of any age group. Back in Atlanta? I see fondness among the elderly. A portion of them. Now some of that will turn on a dime and you're crazy and don't old people if you don't know what I'm talking about. Like the couple on IN LIVING COLOUR who would turn on a dime when it was just the two of them. But some are generally fond. But generally fond a year out and what you're going to do when push comes to shove are two different things. In 2007, Hillary Clinton had huge Black support. All it took was Barack winning the Iowa caucus and the support for her crumbled a great deal. She still had support from some but the bulk went over to Barack when he looked electable because of Iowa.
Rebecca: It's interesting, what Betty's talking about, because Joe's campaign doesn't think he can win the first caucus, Iowa, or the first primary, New Hampshire. Last week, they began speaking to the press about how they didn't think they could win either. They were trying to lower expectations because they're sure they're going to win South Carolina -- they're sure they will have the African-American vote -- and they're hoping that if the campaign can hang on until then -- South Carolina will be the third to vote -- after Iowa and after New Hampshire -- that the press will not treat Joe's campaign like the mess that it is.
Cedric: And if he loses Iowa and New Hampshire, it will be a mess.
Jim: Even if he wins South Carolina.
Cedric: Yes. But I don't think he wins South Carolina if he loses those two. I think Betty's exactly right about push comes to shove. He lacks the charisma of Bill Clinton and I just don't see him losing the first two and any community, let alone the African-American community -- still standing with him in South Carolina.
Marcia: I'll jump in to say that I agree with that conclusion. He'll smell like a loser and people will flee. The African-American community? I know older people -- even in my family -- who have been convinced of Joe's electability. They say they'd like to support Kamala, Cory or Bernie -- those are the three second choices among the elderly in my family -- but they want us to get rid of Donald Trump. If Joe doesn't come in first in Iowa, expect to see even elderly African-Americans start to walk away. If he then also loses New Hampshire, his support crumbles.
Jim: Okay. Trump time. Cedric's "How stupid is Alyssa Milano?" and Wally's "THIS JUST IN! A HEAD OF CABBAGE HAS MORE BRAINS THAN ALYSSA!" went up earlier tonight. The idiot Alyssa Milano wants to impeach Donald Trump because he had invited leaders of the Taliban to Camp David. Now the meeting got called off. Any thoughts?
Elaine: If he's going to end the war in Afghanistan -- which it now appears he won't be attempting -- he's going to have to meet with leaders of the Taliban. Alyssa's an ahistorical idiot who really needs to stop Tweeting. Does she not know about the series of talks between the US and Vietnam? She's stupid. She has no education and she should have gotten herself into community college as soon as WHO'S THE BOSS went off the air. I hope she gets that outside of her tiny group of followers, the rest of us see her as an idiot. That's not just the right-wing, that's also those of us on the left. We hate her. She does not know everything but she thinks she does. There are thousands of topics I never cover at my blog. I don't pretend to know everything. She does and she knows damn little.
Trina: Which is to be expected when you grasp that except for the ages of 9 to 12, she never attended a school. Jodie Foster was a child actor -- no, she was better than Alyssa, Jodie was a child star. And Jodie's mother ensured that she didn't just get on the set 'school.' On top of being enrolled in a real academic school, Jodie then went on to college. All of that did not make Jodie an expert. It did give her resources to help her examine issues. Even so, she's not ever presented herself as an expert on everything. Alyssa's the loud drunk at the bar that won't shut up.
Stan: She had a career. Had. Once. Ceric and Wally often call her a "hagtress" in their joint-posts and that's a pretty accurate description. You know she has to wake up every day hating Jennifer Love Hewitt. JLH was still a child actress when she joined PARTY OF FIVE. After that show? She's starred in THE GHOST WHISPERER, THE CLIENT LIST, CRIMINAL MINDS and now 9-1-1. In terms of films? Jennifer's had hits with I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, THE TUXEDO with Jackie Chan and HEARTBREAKERS with Sigourney Weaver and Gene Hackman.
Kat: Well both women have released four albums. Unlike Alyssa, Jennifer has charted on The Hot 100, making it all the way to number 59 with 1999's "How Do I Deal" which also made it to number 36 on the pop chart. "Barenaked" made it to number 35 on the pop charts. So she has had two hits. Alyssa has had zero hit singles. She's had ten singles, none of them charted in the US. None of her four albums have made BILLBOARD's Top 200 sales list. Jennifer's BARENAKED made it to number 37. Alyssa's a failure and that's obvious in her Tweets. She's bitter and she's angry because her career's over. She can't have a Tina Turner comeback because she's got nothing to comeback to. She's a failure as a singer. She's a failure in films. She's a failure in TV.
Betty: I would just add that she's an idiot and a hypocrite. She's got a Tweet whining that the GOP is changing rules and primaries to keep Donald from having a challenger. So now the hagtress is interested in ballot access and fair primaries? Don't recall her complaining about the DNC rigging the primaries last go round for Hillary. Never seen her Tweet about the need for third parties to have fair ballot access. She's a hypocrite. She's an idiot. She really needs to just grasp that she's helped the whole world hate her with her gross stupidity and her foul mouth.
Trina: Let me jump back in. I agree with Betty but if we're going to talk about that idiot for even one more minute then it's time to talk abortion. Everyone here is pro-reproductive rights. We support a woman's right to an abortion. But Alyssa's bulls**t recently? She was the stereotype, the poster child for the right-wing when it comes to abortion. She brags about two abortions in one year? That's using abortion as birth control. She brags about how she's happy she did them and how she wouldn't have had her career without those abortions? Can she feed into the stereotype the right-wing has of women who have abortions any more than that? I'm sick of her.
Rebecca: She's desperate for attention. She's desperate for anything that she can ride to fame. She's a child actress -- not even a child star -- whose career is over.
Ty: Rob e-mailed that the fall season's about to start and he said that he's excited about USA's TREADSTONE "with SENSE8's Brian J. Smith." And he wonders if anyone has any thoughts on any other new programs?
Ava: Rebecca. Rebecca's weighed in on THE UNICORN with "women should reject 'the unicorn'."
Ann: And she's right. I'm so sick of these unattractive men being cast in roles where women are supposed to swoon over them. He's ugly. What woman is that desperate?
Rebecca: And remember the premise of the show is that, quoting from the CBS press release, "he becomes the most sought after single guy due to his description as an attractive working father."
Ruth: There is nothing attractive about the actor Walton Goggins. He looks like Clint Howard's ugly son.
Dona: SLATE's reporting that the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are set to formalize impeachment proceedings:
The House Judiciary Committee is getting ready to vote as early as Wednesday to formalize the impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump. The resolution that will be up for a vote is set to lay out the procedures that will be used in the investigation with the goal of deciding by the end of the year whether to recommend articles of impeachment to the full House of Representatives. Although the probe has really been ongoing, the vote this coming week would set to increase the “officialness” of the investigation, a source tells Politico. At the very least, the vote would clear up the confusion in Democratic circles about whether the impeachment proceeding has actually been launched.
Dona (Con't): Any thoughts?
Mike: I have never heard of anything so stupid in my life. November 2020, a little over a year from now, we will have a presidential election. And Democrats want to waste the time the party's candidates for president should be making their case to the people by stealing focus with an impeachment? I'm so sick of this crap. Since before he was sworn in, the talk has been impeachment. I'm sick of it. Stop wasting our time.
Ruth: This is going to make the party look stupid. Voters have been clear in poll after poll that they want to see Democrats addressing issues -- kitchen table issues. This is a huge mistake.
Isaiah: I would agree. The only thing this will accomplish is energizing Donald Trump's base and making a number of independents feel sympathetic towards him.
Jim: Okay, we're going to wind down with that. This has been a rush transcript. Thank you to Ava and C.I. for taking notes for this transcript piece.