Monitoring Biden and other Contemporary Events

The American Dream is finally dead.

Hopefully, humanity will no longer cling to the pretty lies we perpetuate to feel better so we can let it rest in peace.

One can hope we have grown up and can finally accept the truth: Americans are not special and haven’t been for a long time.

We Have A Dream

The American Dream was this sort of Elysian utopia, where an idealized version of our exceptionalism was sold to any country willing to buy. And if they weren’t having what we were selling, we removed them and installed someone a bit more sympathetic to our notion of Manifest Destiny.

Shhh, we don’t talk about that.

Besides, there are too many overthrown regimes to list.

It was our divine right to conquer everyone and everywhere, to force our perverted version of toxic capitalism on weaker nations. God, we were so good at it, that we dictated history for a century.

We punctuated our march westward by making Hawaii our 50th state, effectively commemorating the illegal overthrow of Queen Lili’uokalani and the displacement of indigenous people by white colonizers for a strategic military advantage. It was more important to have a presence in the Pacific than it was to respect a sovereign people. We don’t even discuss it in our nation’s history.

Coming off the victory of World War II, Americans experienced a sort of high, believing all our troubles were in the rear view mirror of our shiny new convertible. What we didn’t realize was that leaded gasoline was slowly robbing a generation of their cognitive birthright. We can’t acknowledge that today because of our naked worship of the petroleum giants and the presidents who served them.

The post-war boom fueled a frenzy of infrastructure investment that has not been matched since — and sadly as we are now finding, not maintained, either. Maybe the one bright spot of that era is the public works we built — the roads, bridges and dams that have fallen into disrepair.

The Lies We Tell Ourselves

The Brady Bunch split-level ranch in white suburbia where Mom and Dad raised their 2.5 kids was also home to some unsavory family secrets. The world saw the smiling and happy faces in the glossy brochure, part of the clever propaganda machine which still grinds on today. No one revealed that Dad was banging his secretary, Mom was drunk, and Blacks were only allowed to come inside through the back door so they could clean.

The revelations of that era are particularly distressing, aptly represented by sins of the Catholic Church that have come to light today . Even the sexual assault of countless children hidden and enabled for decades is not enough for us to hold any organization accountable for their loathsome deeds. It would appear there is an unstated statute of limitations no matter how heinous the crime. Extreme wealth and power fosters a blind eye.

Wait until you read what America did in Guatemala.

It Won’t Get Better Unless You Acknowledge It

“Was it so harmful,” conservatives are wont to ask, ignoring that American post-war privilege was for able-bodied whites while leaving behind brown-skinned folks and those with disabilities. They weren’t even given a chance to believe the lie.

Meanwhile, Western culture dominated the planet, influencing politics, entertainment, and diplomacy. America shaped our world, pushing competing ideologies to the margins. And the results have been **** for too many people for too long.

Funny, those patriots waving the stars and stripes don’t look like the melting pot our founders envisioned. But who wouldn’t lead the parade for a superpower that had elevated their class, race, and generation to the most privileged in the known history of the planet?

The thing is that many of us knew this was crap. It might have been that we fell in love with someone whose skin color was different than our own, or they were of the same gender. Maybe we were born after 1960 or we liked to smoke weed. Perhaps some of us arrived by small increments, tiny paper cuts annoyingly uncomfortable that merely hinted at the pain others felt. Something woke us up and pretty soon we saw that the American Dream only existed for those aging Boomers, politicians, and the moneyed class.

For the rest of us, it was the realization that it was complete bullshit and always had been.

There was no career that ended with a gold watch and a pension. There would be no healthcare for most of us. Dental problems meant financial ruin. Retirement would thrust us into poverty.

That didn’t feel like greatness.

The modern American Dream resembled a fight for survival in a game of Monopoly where players never collected $200, while the banker owned every utility and property beyond Free Parking — and all of them had a hotel. Quitting or flipping the board wasn’t an option. Boomers still believed there was a Chance and a great big pile of money in the center that anyone could easily win. We were forced to play by new rules that meant our children would never get to put a shitty green house on Baltic Avenue.

The American Dream became a nightmare of unmanageable debt and a life of quiet suffering through soul-sucking jobs until the sharp decline of old age — just so a few could enjoy their vacation life. The promises of one day making it had been written on the wind.

Only the privileged few got to realize this utopian dream. The rest of us were supposed to pretend we could have it, too — even though it was obviously the stuff of propaganda. Except now, no one buys into the farce. Exceptionalism has become a cruel joke we all share, so we make memes about it instead.

The American Dream is long dead, killed at the hands of corrupt politicians, greedy corporations, exploitative employers, unscrupulous landlords, private colleges, vulture capitalists, and anyone who perpetuated their lies.

It wasn’t something done to us, it was a life we were forced to live.

So, how about we stop pretending that this system is not irrevocably broken?

How about we stop requiring irrefutable proof of victim status from the unseen of this American exceptionalism — Blacks, Native Americans, Polynesians, women, the disabled, etc. How about we accept that they had it worse than we did and that their lives have been as shitty as they claim because we know it’s probably true? And then maybe we can elect politicians who aren’t worth millions, white, and over 70 that don’t care nor understand that everyone else is suffering.

Perhaps it is time we lay this notion of American exceptionalism to rest and begin building a new culture that actually serves everyone as promised.

Maybe it’s time to put aside gaslighting the world that America is still great and the dream is still alive.

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I suspect a contributing reason here is the evident fact is the shift in voting patterns evident in both States had everything to do with adverse public reactions to the policies being pushed by the Biden Administration...

I disagree. I think it was a referendum on the effectiveness of the slim-to-non-existent Democratic "majority". Instead of following up the success of the American Rescue Plan by passing and signing the bi-partisan infrastructure bill, the progressive wing refused to pass the infrastructure bill until the more ambitious $3½ trillion second infrastructure bill was voted on first. This stalled many important projects that could have been started. Then infighting between the moderates and the progressives, as well as the outright refusal of Manchin and Sinema to sign on to key elements of the big bill, made the Democrats look totally ineffective. Which they are. I don't blame this on Biden. The Democrats did the same thing with the ACA in 2009. Their infighting and their inability to see the damage it was causing to Obama was a major reason for the success of the Tea Party the following year.

The intensity of the threats & harassments both have received is, however, unique to the Democrats.

The Biden legislative agenda is so far completely stalled, and shows no sign of advancing.

The American Dream is Dead — And That’s a Good Thing

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The American Dream is finally dead.

Hopefully, humanity will no longer cling to the pretty lies we perpetuate to feel better so we can let it rest in peace.

The hordes of humanity now crowding our southern border do not suggest that there are no relative differences among nations and the possibility they offer for self-advancement.

Very few in human history have achieved traditions of individual liberty and freedom; the ability to accept and absorb people in large numbers from diverse cultures and backgrounds, developing evolving cosmopolitan cultures including elements of all, and cooperation with neighbors and potential rivals as has the United States of America.

My point, georgeob1, is that with the agenda stalled, the party's candidates have little to run on. Now, if the bi-partisan infrastructure bill had been passed and signed 3 months ago, and following that the Democrats did badly I might be more inclined to agree with you. I think there are elements of the second bill that are popular – or would be, if the bill were enacted. For instance, childcare and pre-kindergarten measures would really free up women to return to the workplace.

I agree that the Democrats are lacking dynamic leadership, but I think you are drawing to many conclusions from events which are still unfolding. There has been progress on the big bill and a vote may be taken this week.

Republican state legislatures are gerrymandering districts to elect members to the House of Representatives. The results are extreme.

According to voting expert Ari Berman, in Ohio, where former president Trump got 53% of the vote in 2020, the new maps would give Republicans 86% of seats. In North Carolina, where Trump won 49.9% of the vote, Republicans would take 71–78% of seats, which translates to a 10–4 advantage if the voters split the vote evenly. In Wisconsin, where Trump won 49% of the vote, the new maps give Republicans 75% of the seats. In Texas, where Trump got 52% of the vote, Republicans would take 65% of the seats.

Skewing election results toward Republicans plays to former president Donald Trump, who tried to steal the 2020 election by using the power of the federal government to hamstring his Democratic opponent.

Today, news broke that federal prosecutors have uncovered a new angle in the 2019 Ukraine scandal. It appears Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Victoria Toensing, and Joe DiGenova were working with corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko to announce and promote an “investigation” into Hunter Biden in Ukraine to damage his father Joe Biden’s chances of election to the U.S. presidency. To curry favor with the Trump administration, Lutsenko promised hundreds of thousands of dollars to the three lawyers. Volodymyr Zelensky’s election upended the scheme, Trump tried to pressure him to take it up, and the rest of that story is history, but the original plan appears to be deeper than previously proven.

Trump’s attack on the 2020 election is getting pushback, too, from Smartmatic, a company that provides election technology. On Wednesday, it sued right-wing media outlets Newsmax and One America News Network for defamation, after the outlets aired stories accusing Smartmatic of rigging the 2020 vote. Today, CNN called attention to videos from Giuliani and Trump lawyer Sidney Powell in a different lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems saying they did not check any of their accusations of voter fraud before putting them in front of the public.

And yet, as Democrats try to restore a level playing field through the Freedom to Vote Act, Republican senators yesterday blocked even discussion of the measure for the third time. And they are launching objections to the confirmations of nominees to routine appointments, running out the clock on the Senate calendar.

Today the Department of Justice used the slim means the Supreme Court has left to it in order to sue the state of Texas for its new voter restriction laws, saying they “disenfranchise eligible Texas citizens who seek to exercise their right to vote, including voters with limited English proficiency, voters with disabilities, elderly voters, members of the military deployed away from home, and American citizens residing outside of the country.”

Texas governor Greg Abbott tweeted in response: "Bring it. The Texas election integrity law is legal. It INCREASES hours to vote. It does restrict illegal mail ballot voting. Only those who qualify can vote by mail. It also makes ballot harvesting a felony. In Texas it is easier to vote but harder to cheat."

This is, of course, the standard Republican defense of the many new laws Republican-dominated state legislatures have passed after the 2020 election, which they falsely claim was marred by voter fraud. Perhaps more to the point was the response of Georgia officials to a similar lawsuit by the Department of Justice, saying that the lawsuit was "not a serious legal challenge but a politically motivated effort to usurp the constitutional authority of Georgia’s elected officials to regulate elections."

Republicans are holding tight to the idea of pre–Civil War Democrats that our system of democracy gives to the states alone the power to determine how people within those states live, and who in those states gets to vote to determine those rules. After that idea led to the Civil War, Republicans overturned it with the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, which give the federal government the power to protect equality within the states.

Since World War II, the federal government has taken that charge seriously, protecting minority voting in the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the Civil Rights Act of 1960, and, most thoroughly, in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Since the passage of that measure, Congress repeatedly reauthorized it by large, bipartisan majorities, most recently in 2006, when the Senate voted unanimously in favor of it. But then in 2013 the Supreme Court gutted that law, and now, only 8 years later, Republican senators claim federal protection of voting rights is an assault on states’ rights.

Today, Delaware Senator Tom Carper, a Democrat, published an op-ed in the USA Today network describing how he happened, as a first-year student at Ohio State University on a Navy ROTC scholarship, to hear arguments in the House Judiciary Committee over the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Those debates inspired him to pursue a career in government. Today, as state legislatures pass laws to curb minority voting, Carper called for Congress to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

Carper said he hoped Republicans and Democrats could come to an agreement on the voting rights bills, “But,” he said, “I cannot look the other way if total obstruction continues. I do not come to this decision lightly, but it has become clear to me that if the filibuster is standing in the way of protecting our democracy then the filibuster isn’t working for our democracy.”

Montana Senator Jon Tester, another of the Democrats vocal about protecting the filibuster, agreed with Carper that his patience was not unlimited. Republicans, he said, were “weaponizing the filibuster.” “Right now, I am focused on getting voting rights moving forward,” he told Darrell Ehrlick of the Daily Montanan. But “[a]t a certain point, if we can’t accomplish that, I am going to say, ‘We have to move forward, with or without you.’”

Meanwhile, the Biden administration continues to push its agenda.

The Build Back Better bill got a boost today when a new report from Moody's Analytics concluded that the current package would strengthen long-term growth, starting to adjust the currently badly skewed economic playing field by helping lower- and middle-income Americans. Answering the concern that the measure would create debt, Moody’s concluded that it would indeed pay for itself. It added, “Concerns that the plan will ignite undesirably high inflation and an overheating economy are overdone.”

“The bipartisan infrastructure deal provides a modest increase in infrastructure spending and it thus supports only a modestly stronger economy,” the report says, but “[t]he reconciliation package is much larger and thus meaningfully lifts economic growth and jobs and lowers unemployment.” It concludes that together, the two measures will add 1.5 million jobs per year and increase GDP by nearly $3 trillion relative to the baseline in the next decade.

“The nation has long underinvested in its infrastructure and social needs and has been slow to respond to the threat posed by climate change, with mounting economic consequences,” the report concluded. “[F]ailing to pass [this] legislation would certainly diminish the economy’s prospects.”

And that economy is healing in the wake of the pandemic. Jobless claims last week dropped to a low since the start of the pandemic, down 14,000 to reach 269,000 last week. This is about 75% lower than they were when Biden took office. In early January, they were more than 900,000. We are almost back to the level they were before the pandemic, when they were around 220,000 a week. About 2.1 million Americans collected unemployment insurance last week, down from 7.1 million a year ago.

The strength of these two reports helped to close the S&P 500 Index that tracks the performance of 500 large companies at 4,680.06, an all-time high.

...but I think you are drawing to many conclusions from events which are still unfolding.

Beyond that I don't see the point you are making here.

...the continuing increases in the cost of energy due to Biden's foolish first day cancellation of the Keystone Pipeline and Petroleum leases on Federal land...

Oil prices are high because in April of last year, Trump said low gas prices were bad for America, then pressured OPEC to slow production to raise prices. They did, and prices have risen ever since. Biden is pushing for OPEC to resume normal production, but so far they haven’t.

Biden is also addressing some of the other causes. Obviously Trump’s failure to competently handle the pandemic has affected our supply lines. We also had refineries in Texas shut down because the whole state lost power because the Republicans in charge would rather have blackouts than follow Federal standards. Also we had a pipeline hacked earlier this year which didn’t help.

Biden is also on track to issue more drilling permits this year than issued in any year under Trump. So if production steps up both domestically and abroad, then oil prices will drop. If he can get the Republican obstructionists in the Senate to get out of the way of his infrastructure bill, then we can also invest in some clean energy alternatives which will reduce our reliance on oil, lower demand for oil, and decrease fuel prices without the need to increase production.

Basically, like everything else, Biden has a big mess to clean up from Trump’s incompetence. Fortunately with regard to the idiotic Keystone XL pipeline, he was able to end it before it had the chance to create a literal mess that would take years to clean up.

Seems like nobody likes the Brandon administration and their garbage. Pretty clear, that.