Runoffs

I ran into Sal Serrano in the featured photo yesterday. He is a San Jacinto College Trustee and is in a runoff election set for June 7. There are also Latinos running in three Pasadena City Council district runoff elections that will also be held on June 7. There are eight Pasadena City Council members, and five are Latino. Now you know.

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This is sad. I am beyond upset. See this from CNN.com:

Former President Joe Biden’s physical deterioration was severe enough in the second half of his presidency that his aides privately discussed putting him in a wheelchair for his second term, according to a new book from CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson.

Axios reported Tuesday on the new details from “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” which is being released on May 20. The book is based on more than 200 interviews, mostly with Democratic insiders, almost all of which occurred after the 2024 election was over.

According to the report, Biden aides believed it was politically untenable to have the president use a wheelchair during his reelection bid — but they believed he might have to do so if he won a second term.

“Biden’s physical deterioration — most apparent in his halting walk — had become so severe that there were internal discussions about putting the president in a wheelchair,” the authors write.

Biden’s personal physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, privately warned the president’s team that if Biden had a bad fall in 2023 or 2024, “a wheelchair might be necessary for what could be a difficult recovery,” Tapper and Thompson report.

The details help illustrate how the team around Biden took steps to try to protect him during his reelection bid, including finding shorter walking paths to stages, adding handrails to any steps and using a smaller staircase to board Air Force One, the authors report. Biden’s team had insisted that he was up for a second term until his disastrous June 2024 debate performance against Donald Trump, which led to him dropping out of the race three weeks later.

It looks like the White House press corps missed this story. Wow. Old Joe. That is all I have to say. Old Joe.

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Commentary doesn’t have a problem with David Hogg wanting to shake things up in the Democratic Party. See this story online:

A Democratic National Committee panel on Monday recommended redoing David Hogg and Malcolm Kenyatta’s elections to party vice-chair, as Hogg faces a separate intraparty battle over his push to primary some Democratic politicians.

The DNC’s credentials committee passed a resolution determining that Kenyatta and Hogg’s election in February was incomplete due to violations of the party’s charter, and the party should hold two new votes with only candidates who previously ran participating. The resolution will now be presented to the entire DNC.

Monday’s resolution came in response to a challenge brought by Kalyn Free, a Native American committeeperson from Oklahoma who lost to Hogg — a 25-year-old Parkland school shooting survivor best known for his gun control advocacy — in one of the vice chair races. Free alleges that during February’s election, the DNC improperly combined two questions and tallied votes together. In doing so, Free argues, the DNC used procedures that gave male candidates an advantage over female candidates, violating the party’s charter.

During a more than two-hour meeting, committee members debated whether the election violated party rules. Representatives for Hogg and Kenyatta, a Pennsylvania state lawmaker, argued it’s up to the DNC chair to interpret whether voting procedures are consistent with the rules. Kenyatta’s representatives also argued holding a re-vote under new rules could “disenfranchise” party members who voted in February.

Before the vote, committee members rejected a resolution by Christine Pelosi, daughter of House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, to uphold Hogg and Kenyatta’s elections.

DNC Chair Ken Martin, who was elected earlier this year, said in a statement he is “disappointed to learn that before I became Chair, there was a procedural error in the February Vice Chair Elections.” He said he expects DNC members to “resolve this matter fairly.”

While Free’s challenge is not related to the controversy surrounding Hogg, it still brought back to the fore Hogg’s turbulent tenure as one of the party’s top leaders — including an effort by Martin to require party officers like Hogg to remain neutral in primaries.

In reaction to Monday’s vote, Hogg argued it’s “impossible to ignore the broader context of my work to reform the party which loomed large over this vote.”

“The DNC has pledged to remove me,” wrote Hogg. “This vote has provided an avenue to fast track that effort.”

Hogg has faced pushback over his efforts to mount primary challenges against Democrats he views as “asleep at the wheel” in the fight against President Trump. He says his group, known as Leaders We Deserve, plans to spend $20 million on the effort.

I don’t consider David Hogg an inside the beltway operative. He was from Florida, got educated, then headed to DC. I get why he didn’t like what he saw in DC. I want the guy to shake things up.

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The Astros lost last night and are 20-20. They look like they are playing .500 baseball.