12
   

Monitoring Biden and other Contemporary Events

 
 
blatham
 
  1  
Fri 4 Feb, 2022 08:11 am
@snood,
Quote:
We’d overcome our past “Trumps”, and we’d surely survive this one.

From where I stand, and relying on my meager, limited experience and knowledge, I sure don’t see it that way.

Nor do I. Nor do the historians I follow, such as Heather Cox Richardson and Rick Perlstein.

Given how deeply corrupt he is and given his unique pathologies, he is the most dangerous individual who has ever held the Presidency. If he were to win the election in three years, we can quite safely surmise that US democracy is done for.

But a key element of what makes him so dangerous is that he is bolstered in his corruption and pathologies by the modern GOP. If that weren't the case, he'd have little or no power.

If he is indicted and found guilty of crimes in either his financial dealings or in his activities leading to Jan 6, the response of GOP officials and right wing media will be a massive disinformation and hate-mongering campaign attributing his conviction to the "deep state" and "biased left wing media" and "racists prosecutors" etc. They will use this to activate their base for electoral purposes broadly and to get another far right individual (like DeSantis) into the WH.

And if someone like DeSantis gets into the WH, he won't be as transparently despicable as Trump but all the modern GOP tendencies will advance anyway. All the "libertarian" billionaires will continue tossing their money and organizational systems towards continuation of their designs to forge a nation where they run the show.
snood
 
  1  
Fri 4 Feb, 2022 08:24 am
@blatham,
Quote:
If he is indicted and found guilty of crimes in either his financial dealings or in his activities leading to Jan 6, the response of GOP officials and right wing media will be a massive disinformation and hate-mongering campaign attributing his conviction to the "deep state" and "biased left wing media" and "racists prosecutors" etc. They will use this to activate their base for electoral purposes broadly and to get another far right individual (like DeSantis) into


I agree with most of what you wrote. Another scenario that I think is equally as likely to happen as what I bolded above is that they will try to sell that Trump was never what the “real conservatives” wanted anyway - in fact he was a freak occurrence with whom they they say they were never in actual agreement. They may try to hurry and revise recent history to look like they were all against Trump all along, but just couldn’t say so. You know, alternative reality.
hightor
 
  1  
Fri 4 Feb, 2022 09:14 am
@snood,
Quote:
They may try to hurry and revise recent history to look like they were all against Trump all along, but just couldn’t say so.


Do you recall seeing those old newsreels where a freight train pulls into a depot and you see dozens of hoboes jumping off and scattering?

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi0.wp.com%2Fwww.appalachianhistory.net%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F08%2Fpmx100119colmachines-001-1568082452.jpg%3Fresize%3D300%252C272%26ssl%3D1&f=1&nofb=1
Republican politicians hastily leaving the Trump train
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Fri 4 Feb, 2022 04:29 pm
@snood,
Quote:
Another scenario that I think is equally as likely to happen as what I bolded above is that they will try to sell that Trump was never what the “real conservatives” wanted anyway - in fact he was a freak occurrence with whom they they say they were never in actual agreement. They may try to hurry and revise recent history to look like they were all against Trump all along, but just couldn’t say so. You know, alternative reality.

If they conclude at some point that this would be the better strategy, that is what they'll do. Bush and Liz Cheney (along with many other high level conservative heroes previously lauded) are now RINOs, after all.

But Trump holds a position/status for the base and within the current GOP agitprop scheme which would make such a shift terribly difficult to pull off. I can't see it happening before the mid-terms, the results of which will be critical in terms of control of Senate and House. The next 10 months will be dedicated entirely to getting their base into states of fear and agitation and hatred.

If the midterms don't work out in their favor (and we can safely presume Dems will be putting Trump front and center for their own base mobilization strategies) then we'll see the shift you're talking about.

But if the midterms are very bad for Dems, then what?
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Fri 4 Feb, 2022 05:28 pm
G.O.P. Declares Jan. 6 Attack ‘Legitimate Political Discourse’

At least they're being honest regarding their affection for and apparent agreement with how Putin runs his country.

Quote:
Amanda Carpenter
@amandacarpenter
22h
The fact the RNC is censuring Cheney and Kinzinger for investigating January 6 and not condemning Trump for causing January 6 is absolutely demented.

Well, yes.
0 Replies
 
georgeob1
 
  3  
Fri 4 Feb, 2022 07:49 pm
Interesting that posts in a thread nominally about the current Administration and President Biden, but which mostly involves continued attacks on the character and actions of the previous president Trump. Very little of anything here about the behavior and performance of President Biden nothing to say about the actions and goals of his Biden's administration and achievements while in office? What explains their evident continuing obsession about what preceded it? One obvious explanation is there are very few things to brag about (or even affirmatively describe) in Biden's Administration. However, as an opponent of his election I am probably biased in this area.

What is the cause of this strange phenomenon? Have the posters here simply given up on it?

Perhaps so. All I see is failed legislative agenda; unnecessary and counterproductive haranguing of the public about vaccines, even as the evolution of the virus moves (naturally) towards less lethal but more contagious variants, and scientific studies emerge confirming the equal effectiveness, and greater durability, of naturally acquired immunity; a near complete lack of initiative in the development of sorely needed treatment modalities & medicines; continuing authoritarian (and sometimes unconstitutional) demands for public obedience - all accompanied by pious (and empty) insistence that they alone are following the principles & methods of "science" in al this; etc.

Biden's Administration and methods have been decidedly more authoritarian, and far less effective than those of the despised Trump Administration that preceded it . Our once proficient Military establishment has degenerated to a somewhat pathetic and inept bureaucracy that declared the Afghanistan bug out to have been a "logistical success" even as we left thousands of Americas and Afghans to whom we had made previous commitments, as well as many billions of dollars of advanced military equipment, behind to the good offices of the Taliban.

Biden took extra care and effort to end sanctions on the Nord Stream pipeline and cut back on our the fast growing surplus of oil and gas production giving us significant and growing leverage relative to Russia's near complete dependence on gas exports for its economic stability - things which would have given us enormous leverage in the current Ukrainian situation - and did so all for nothing

Our Economy is, after two plus decades of very low inflation, quickly drifting into seriously high levels of inflation, which the Administration proclaims will be of very short duration, but which, in its accelerating character, increasingly appears to be a new, lasting and destructive plague, sadly affecting most those whom the Administration proclaims to be its most important beneficiaries.

Streets and public areas in our cities are seeing unprecedented increases in increasingly violent crimes , even as the local governments, chiefly in Democrat-led cities refuse to enforce laws; constrain their police forces and propose new untested (and largely undefined) methods to induce dedicated criminals to desist.

In all of this and in other important areas, President Biden has been notably silent, unwilling to exercise constructive leadership in any form, preferring weekends in a palatial Delaware beach mansion and the steady avoidance of public media and unstructured questioning in any form. It appears very clear that much of this is motivated by Biden's amply demonstrated and growing inability to cope with unscripted public dialogue in any form and his possibly accelerating decline.

Now Democrats appear to be readying themselves for major setbacks I the forthcoming mid term elections, far beyond those that usually occur.

Surely in all of this there is something in all of this worthy of comment and discussion here in a thread nominally dedicated to this subject.

glitterbag
 
  1  
Fri 4 Feb, 2022 08:46 pm
@georgeob1,
Maybe if he spent less time in his 'palatial' beach mansion and just started to fly to Fla for patriotic golf excursions, cheated at golf and and spent hours on 'Main-stream' media disparaging anyone who wasn't obsequiously obedient to every thought that made an ever so slow appearance in a tortoured ego, the authoritarian groupies would be so much more happy. It's this total win or total loss mentality that's torturing this country into a pale imitation of what they thought were the 'better' times.
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Fri 4 Feb, 2022 10:11 pm
@georgeob1,
Quote:
Interesting that posts in a thread nominally about the current Administration and President Biden
"and other contemporary events".

But you asked, so...
Employers added a record 6.6 million jobs during Joe Biden's first 12 months in office, by far the strongest record of any president's first year in office.

Quote:
Mark Knoller
@markknoller
3h
By my count, this is Biden’s 33rd visit to Delaware, his 100th day.

Compares at same point in presidency to;

Trump: 93 days at Mara-Lago and Bedminster.

GWBush: 70 days at his Texas ranch.
0 Replies
 
hightor
 
  1  
Sat 5 Feb, 2022 05:21 am
HCR wrote:
Today the January jobs report showed the U.S. added 467,000 jobs. With more than 6.6 million jobs since Biden took office, 2021 under Biden created more jobs than any other year in history. The jobs report also revised the numbers for November and December upward by more than 700,000. The first 12 months of Biden’s presidency mark the best job creation on record. The unemployment rate is at 4.0%.

The other big news today is that the Republican National Committee, meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah, censured Representatives Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) for joining the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol. Defending the events surrounding January 6, the RNC said that the investigation is “a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”

That is, the Republican National Committee says that the January 6 attack on the Capitol—in which nine people died, more than 150 law enforcement officers were injured, offices were ransacked, and rioters spread feces on the walls—was “legitimate political discourse.”

These two wildly different headlines are the outcome of 40 years of U.S. politics.

For a long time, the idea that that economy thrives when the government supports ordinary Americans was not controversial. Democrats began to make it the centerpiece of our system in the 1930s when, after a decade in which the government worked only for the wealthy, they offered a “New Deal” for the American people. Over time, lawmakers from both major parties embraced it, believing they had finally figured out a truly American system that would serve everyone.

A member of Republican president Dwight Eisenhower's administration explained that “Our underlying philosophy…is this: if a job has to be done to meet the needs of people, and no one else can do it, then it is a proper function of the federal government.” This, he said, was the “authentic American center in politics…a common meeting-ground of the great majority of our people on our own issues, against a backdrop of our own history, our own current setting and our own responsibilities for the future.”

But in the 1980s, Republicans argued that this system stifled economic development by hampering the ability of producers to put their money where they thought it would do the most good. Instead of supporting workers, they argued, government should cut taxes to enable those at the top of the economic ladder to accumulate capital and invest in the economy. Tax cuts became their go-to solution for any sort of economic crisis. The government should support the “supply side” of the economy. Any attempt to use the government to help the “demand side” was, they said, “socialism.”

Shortly after Biden took office, the Democrats returned to the old system. To address the economic wreckage left behind by the pandemic, Democrats in March 2021 passed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, without a single Republican vote. That measure is behind the extraordinary U.S. economic recovery, proving that, no matter what its supply-side opponents have alleged over the years, supporting the demand side of the economy works.

That the Republican Party has now retreated into the delusion that a deadly attack on our government was “legitimate political discourse” is also a product of 40 years of political rhetoric saying that those who oppose Republican policies are anti-American. The idea behind the insurrection, and behind the Big Lie that inspired it—the idea that Biden stole the presidential victory from former president Donald Trump—was that a Democratic victory could not be legitimate. Indeed, in the letter censuring Cheney and Kinzinger, the RNC charges that “[t]he Biden Administration and Democrats in Congress have embarked on a systematic effort to replace liberty with socialism.” In this framing, any attempt to overturn such an “illegitimate” election would be an act of patriotism.

It would be “legitimate political discourse.”

But overturning elections on the claim that the usurper must defend a nation’s legitimate government is so much a part of authoritarian coups that it is almost a cliché.

And so we stand, on this one day, seeing the reclaiming of an old bipartisan consensus, on the one hand, and the justification for an authoritarian coup on the other.

This extraordinary statement by the RNC has brought the fight for control of the party into the open. This morning, news broke that the January 6 committee has evidence that Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH), who has been evasive about his contact with Trump on January 6 and who has said he did not recall if he spoke with the president that morning, in fact did. The president called Jordan on the morning of January 6, and they spoke for ten minutes—hardly a call one would forget, it would seem.

Jordan rejected an invitation from the January 6 committee to testify, saying that its request “is far outside the bounds of any legitimate inquiry.”

But if most Republican leaders are lining up behind Trump and the insurrectionists to make up an authoritarian wing of the party, former vice president Mike Pence hinted today he was hoping to carve out some distance from them. Although Trump focused his fury on Pence on January 6 because he would not overturn the election, and although the rioters brought a gallows to hang Pence, the former vice president has largely kept quiet about the event until today.

Hours after the RNC’s statement, Pence told the Federalist Society that January 6 had been a “dark day.” Pence said, “President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone.” He added that “there’s nothing more un-American” than to have “any one person...choose the American president.”

Pence’s team, including his chief of staff, Marc Short, have been cooperating with the January 6 committee, and the committee will get a pile of records from Pence on March 3 unless a court stops Archivist of the United States David Ferriero from delivering them. It is likely Pence knows there is plenty that will come into the open to make siding with the Trump folks politically problematic. But there is more to his statement than that. While Pence stopped short of saying Biden won the election fairly, his rejection of the plot to overturn Biden’s victory and destroy our democracy suggests he is courting the old business wing of the party.

Pence has been closely allied with the billionaire libertarian Koch family throughout his political career and likely hopes to be a 2024 presidential candidate with their backing. Short, too, is allied with Koch family interests, and according to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), foundations and trusts associated with the Kochs are among the deep-pocketed funders of the Federalist Society, where Pence made his statement. The oligarchical wing of the party is, perhaps, making a bid to regain control over the party in the hopes that the insurrectionists will crash and burn.

Certainly, Trump loyalist Stephen Bannon recognized Pence’s words as a defection. On his podcast, Bannon addressed Pence, saying: “You are a stone cold coward…. My head’s blowing up.... I can’t take Pence…and Marc Short and all these Koch guys up there ratting out Trump up on Capitol Hill right now.”

I’m not one to romanticize our history, but it does seem worth noting that it was on this day in 1789 that the Electoral College unanimously elected George Washington the first president of the new United States. It seems that we might be able to choose better leaders than ones who are leaving us at the end of this day in 2022 with the truly legitimate political question: “Ratting him out for what?

substack
hightor
 
  1  
Sat 5 Feb, 2022 05:39 am
@georgeob1,
Quote:
One obvious explanation is there are very few things to brag about (or even affirmatively describe) in Biden's Administration.

It's possible to support the general direction of an administration's policies without forming a cult of personality around a chief executive.
blatham
 
  1  
Sat 5 Feb, 2022 07:12 am
@hightor,
Quote:
That the Republican Party has now retreated into the delusion that a deadly attack on our government was “legitimate political discourse” is also a product of 40 years of political rhetoric saying that those who oppose Republican policies are anti-American.

There's something in here I've been thinking about lately. What's brought it to mind is the truck convoy in Canada, specifically the promiscuous use of Canadian flags, some of them very, very large. This is not really a Canadian phenomenon. You can drive through a lot of neighborhoods without seeing a flag on someone's property. It's even more rare to see a vehicle sporting the flag. We just don't do a lot of flag waving here. So seeing the trucks decorated as they are was the first indicator that this convoy was hijacking American symbology, particularly American right wing symbology. Likewise, the big posters on trucks using the word "Freedom".

In the first case, what is meant to be communicated is, "We (our ideas and values) are closer to the fundamental or founding principles of the nation than is the case for those who disagree with us. We are the patriots and we are more legitimate Canadians than are those others". And in the second case, "The word Freedom (or Liberty) is legitimately owned by us alone because we protect freedom whereas our opponents only threaten Freedom and Liberty".

Another instance of the thing in the US can be seen in the framing of right wing legal/constitutional self-promotion - "We are originalists and any other legal/constitutional ideas are axiomatically aberrant".

What's going on in all this is a claim (or at the very least an implicit suggestion) that one group is more proximate to some Truth that is undeniably foundational in our group life. And, the implication further suggests, that any voices which tempt us away from a steadfast and unyielding assertion of our proximate position nearest to the core Truth(s) must surely put the group/nation on a course towards uncertainty, chaos and even catastrophe.

I'll leave folks to consider all the ways this applies to group religious behavior as well.
neptuneblue
 
  2  
Sat 5 Feb, 2022 07:17 am
@georgeob1,
georgeob1 wrote:
In all of this and in other important areas, President Biden has been notably silent, unwilling to exercise constructive leadership in any form...


Maybe turn the channel every great once in a while....

Biden signs executive order aimed at strengthening union construction jobs
BY ALEX GANGITANO - 02/04/22 02:47 PM EST 350

President Biden on Friday signed an executive order aimed at strengthening union jobs in construction by expanding the federal government’s use of collective bargaining agreements between unions and contractors on construction sites.

“The executive order I’m going to sign today is going to help ensure that we build a better America, we build it right, and we build it on time, and we build it cheaper than it would have been otherwise,” Biden said in remarks at the Ironworkers Local 5 located in Upper Marlboro, Md.

Biden said the collective bargaining deals, known as project labor agreements (PLAs), are aimed to “help defuse problems before they arise.”

The executive order will require the use of PLAs on federal construction projects above $35 million, and it directs the Department of Labor and Office of Management and Budget to lead a training strategy for the nearly 40,000-person contracting workforce on the implementation of the new policy.

The president has promised that the bipartisan infrastructure law, which he signed in November to provide funding in part for construction projects, would create good union jobs.

“As president of the United States, I award contracts … unless the project I’m purchasing for the American people was made in America and all of its component parts were made in America, we’re not buying it,” he said, “Every single project that we’re talking about is paid for with federal dollars, is a federal project, is going to be union jobs.”

The executive order builds on an order issued by former President Obama in 2009 to use project labor agreements for federal construction projects.

Biden said this executive order will “ensure that major projects are handled by well-trained, well-prepared, highly skilled workers.”

“We don’t talk about how y'all save the American taxpayers money,” Biden added, referring to the iron workers in the crowd.

Labor Secretary Marty Walsh called PLAs “powerful tools,” saying they protect taxpayer’s investments, bring projects in on time and guarantee high quality results.

Vice President Harris, before the president's remarks, spoke about the unexpectedly strong January jobs report released on Friday, saying “our nations’ economic recovery continues to be, let there be no doubt, the strongest in the world.”

The U.S. gained 467,000 jobs in January, despite warnings from economists of a likely decline in employment, and Biden spoke to the strong jobs report earlier on Friday.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks and Susan Fox, senior vice president at the Walt Disney Company, were also in attendance for the executive order signing.

https://thehill.com/regulation/labor/592871-biden-signs-executive-order-on-labor-for-federal-construction-projects
blatham
 
  1  
Sat 5 Feb, 2022 07:26 am
@hightor,
Quote:
Pence has been closely allied with the billionaire libertarian Koch family throughout his political career and likely hopes to be a 2024 presidential candidate with their backing. Short, too, is allied with Koch family interests, and according to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), foundations and trusts associated with the Kochs are among the deep-pocketed funders of the Federalist Society, where Pence made his statement. The oligarchical wing of the party is, perhaps, making a bid to regain control over the party in the hopes that the insurrectionists will crash and burn.

Two days ago, Steve Bannon, speaking on his podcast, said this
Quote:
"My head's blowing up. I can't take Pence. And I can't take Pence and Marc Short and all these Koch guys up there ratting out Trump up on Capitol Hill right now."

0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Sat 5 Feb, 2022 07:29 am
@neptuneblue,
Quote:
@georgeob1,

Maybe turn the channel every great once in a while....

Oh yes, dear Jesus.
hightor
 
  1  
Sat 5 Feb, 2022 07:37 am
@blatham,
One thing that I've been thinking about is the GOP's widely-used tactic of blaming the opposition Democrats for things that they themselves actually and purposefully caused. I've heard this one quite a lot: "The election of Obama resulted in the rise of racist incidents in the USA."

Post hoc ergo propter hoc
blatham
 
  1  
Sat 5 Feb, 2022 07:44 am
@hightor,
Quote:
One thing that I've been thinking about is the GOP's widely-used tactic of blaming the opposition Democrats for things that they themselves actually and purposefully caused. I've heard this one quite a lot: "The election of Obama resulted in the rise of racist incidents in the USA."

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

It's blatant and constant. And though projection is surely in the mix, to imagine this merely a subconscious response would be foolish.
0 Replies
 
snood
 
  1  
Sat 5 Feb, 2022 09:15 am
@blatham,
blatham wrote:

Quote:
@georgeob1,

Maybe turn the channel every great once in a while....

Oh yes, dear Jesus.


😄😂🤣
We’ve never met Blatham, but I got in mind a definite image of your tired exasperation when I read this response.
hightor
 
  -1  
Sat 5 Feb, 2022 09:21 am
@snood,
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse2.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.dXlhs4yrFH1u9bEG_LYRfQHaFh%26pid%3DApi&f=1
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  -1  
Sat 5 Feb, 2022 10:12 am
Well, it's early in the morning so perhaps more like this...

https://static0.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/the-big-lebowski-dude-obviously-youre-not-a-golfer.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=740&h=370&dpr=1.5
0 Replies
 
georgeob1
 
  1  
Sat 5 Feb, 2022 11:59 am
@neptuneblue,
neptuneblue wrote:

georgeob1 wrote:
In all of this and in other important areas, President Biden has been notably silent, unwilling to exercise constructive leadership in any form...


Maybe turn the channel every great once in a while....

Biden signs executive order aimed at strengthening union construction jobs
BY ALEX GANGITANO - 02/04/22 02:47 PM EST 350

President Biden on Friday signed an executive order aimed at strengthening union jobs in construction by expanding the federal government’s use of collective bargaining agreements between unions and contractors on construction sites.

This is hardly an example of constructive leadership on the part of our current (or any other) President. It is instead merely an example of continuing payoffs by Democrat leaders to the Organized Labor Unions that finance their campaigns. Contrary to Biden's expressed assurance that his action requiring their exclusive participation will improve the quality of the construction, it will merely make it a good deal more expensive, and restrict the employment that results to only members to these often corrupt and exclusive unions, and doing so in the face of growing evidence of the social and economic harm they do, and pretending

Perhaps even more significant (and amusing) here is the truly remarkable fact that there is almost nothing either new or not already required for Federally funded construction projects in Biden's announcement. He is merely grandstanding to credulous, non-thinking supporters such as yourself, who appear to believe this is something not already required, when, in fact, it is just a charade.

Union membership has been declining steadily in the private sector economy for several decades as a result of the natural economic forces that reward quality and efficiency. Today, by a very wide margin, the chief source of union jobs (and contributions to Democrat campaigns ) arise from the unionization of government employees (such as the teacher's union s which have so "heroically" served our public schools system throughout the COVID epidemic).
 

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