Monitoring Biden and other Contemporary Events

Perhaps the question of what Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un have in common is also a "contemporary event".
In any case, it is remarkable that they both travel on special armoured trains.
For some time now, the Russian ruler has also preferred to travel by rail.
..........

A large field of presidential contenders in 2024 could lead to a redo of the 2016 presidential race and help make Donald Trump the Republican presidential nominee once again, according to Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah).

“The only way that [scenario] could be prevented is if it narrowed down to a two-person race eventually. That means donors and influencers say to their candidate ― if they’re weakening: ‘Hey, time to get out,’” Romney told HuffPost in an interview on Tuesday.

“Last time that was done was in 1968, so it’s been a while,” Romney added, referring to the 1968 presidential election in which his father George Romney took part.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley on Tuesday became the first Republican to declare a candidacy for the White House after Trump, who launched his 2024 campaign in November. Haley, who also served as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. during Trump’s administration, called for “a new generation of leadership” in a video announcing her candidacy.

Romney said he viewed Haley as an “underdog” in the race. Trump, the senator added, is “by far the most likely” to become the GOP presidential nominee given his popularity and name recognition with a devoted slice of the GOP electorate. (Romney is decidedly not a fan: He voted to convict Trump in two successive Senate impeachment trials).

Trump is expected to face a crowded field of contenders for the GOP presidential nomination as he did during the 2016 election. In that race, a large roster of candidates split support among GOP voters and donors alike, leading to Trump clinching the nomination.

Much has been written about Trump’s “diminished” influence within the GOP, especially after his party’s weak performance in the 2022 midterm election. Polls show he’s still way on top when it comes to the race for the 2024 presidential nomination, but potential candidates like Florida GOP Gov. Ron Desantis are nipping at his heels.

Although GOP leaders aren’t in a hurry to embrace a Trump 2024 run, he still has plenty of support on Capitol Hill, including from several newly-elected lawmakers. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) last week became the fifth GOP senator to back Trump’s campaign, calling the man who sought to overturn democracy in the days leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol “exactly the president we need to lead this country through the tough road ahead.”

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said he believed the 2024 race will be “wide open” despite the fact that he’s backing Trump’s campaign.

“President Trump is going to have a base of 25-30%. He’s got a lot of work to grow on that. DeSantis has built a name on conservative menus,” he said, adding that it’s “good for our party” if many candidates jump run and there is healthy competition for the presidential nomination.

Trump has ramped up attacks against DeSantis, sharing wild accusations about the conservative heartthrob on his social media platform TruthSocial that suggested DeSantis was “grooming high school girls with alcohol” when he was a teacher. The former president has also been testing nicknames for DeSantis, including “Ron DeSantimonious” and “Ron Meatball.” DeSantis has chosen to ignore the attacks, saying he isn’t focused on “smearing” fellow Republicans.

“That’s how he does things,” Tuberville told HuffPost when asked about Trump’s TruthSocial posts. “He tries to get a doll out of people. That’s probably what he did as a contractor in New York. You get into arguments, you complain, you fight with each other, and then you go to dinner at night. We’re all on the same team.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who voted to convict Trump over the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, suggested that a large field of presidential candidates would narrow relatively quickly due to a lack of resources.

“Although there might be a number of people who announce, how many people will have money? If you don’t have money, you can’t buy name recognition. If you can’t buy the name recognition, you falter early,” Cassidy said.

Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), who supported Trump in the past but who has held off on making another endorsement as he runs for governor in Indiana, predicted an eventual showdown between Trump and DeSantis. The Florida governor hasn’t yet announced whether he will launch a bid for the White House.

“No one else is registering above one [percent]” in early polls of the race, Braun said.

Democrats, meanwhile, are treating the odds of another showdown between Trump and President Joe Biden in the 2024 general election as quite serious, even though they believe it would ultimately benefit their party if last year’s midterm election results are any sign of Trump’s unpopularity with swing voters.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), the 2016 Democratic vice presidential nominee, said all signs were pointing again to the same dynamics that initially propelled Trump to the GOP presidential nomination.

“A name ID edge in a multi-candidate field is even more powerful than a name ID edge in a two-candidate field,” Kaine said. “[Trump] was able to be in a lane of his own and then everybody else was competing in a non-Trump lane. I think that same dynamic could well hold in 2024.”

“Each new entrant is going to make him happier and happier,” Kaine added of Trump and the 2024 GOP race.

I am not sure, but I guess we'll see as time goes by. Personally, I am afraid she is going to seem the sane choice between Trump and DeSantis for some republicans looking for an alternative.

I haven't been on a good track lately on political predictions, so I'll just hope you're right. However, this might give some weight otherwise.

House Republican who pushed 'Marshall Law' to keep Trump in power after January 6 endorses Nikki Haley's 2024 presidential bid

One rule I'd like to see instituted would be a prohibition on consecutive posts. It's not "censorship" but it would prevent the forum flooding we've seen in this thread.

Which post fully illustrates the points I made.

Oralloy's scurrilous malign fantasies about progressives got at least 4 threads locked. Nice play, ace. <cynical>.

Atrocities are a conservative specialty, progressives don't.

2 recent right wing atrocities are the Jan. 6 insurrection and attempted coup

and the Trump stackef SCOTUS attack on women's rights repealing abortion.

Clarly the bad people are right wing.

Don’t remind him about shutting down threads. It’s a like a nihilist badge of honor for someone VERY lacking in badges or honor.

He's incapable of reason, everytime anyone tries it just results in another outburst of bile against those who think differently.

That's what got this thread shut down earlier, Vikorr trying to reason with him.

Hey, it only means that you're a somebody – take it as a compliment. By not using your screen name I'm shielding you from the chorus of opprobrium which usually follows your toxic posts and relieving you of any need to respond. You're welcome!

But you do realize you're spitting upwind when you try to talk to him, don't you? He is relentlessly single-minded in his attacks on and hate for 'evil progressives'. He's not worth your time and efforts because he's blind to any beliefs that aren't his. There are others here more worthy of your intelligence.

But people who use "Marshall law" when they mean "martial law" and "Peach Tree Dish" when they mean "petri dish" and "Gazpacho" when they mean "Gestapo"...ehhhh.

The republicans had a plan when they passed the Trump tax cuts, while the republicans never saw a tax deduction for the ungodly greedy they didn’t love, they were willing to make an exception for eliminating the tax deductions for state and local taxes. The republicans were unable to completely eliminate the deduction and had to settle for a $10,000 cap on the deduction. There are only a few democratic states with property tax that exceed that limit for the middle class, some people saw their income tax double. The republican theory was that the people in those states would rise up and demand lower taxes and the republicans could turn the states red. It did not work but now the republicans want to kill those deductions permanently.

By eliminating this tax deduction, it provided another $200 billion to fund tax cuts for the ungodly greedy. Now a group of republicans have said they will not vote to make the Trump tax cuts permanent if the deduction on State and local tax is not fully restored. The ungodly greedy get 90% of state and local taxes but it also cost a number of middle-class taxpayers in high property tax states. I don’t know how you can make a tax cut permanent; each congress can set the tax rate that is paid while they are in office. The House believes that they alone can make the Trump tax cuts permanent, but the senate can kill it and the president can veto it. Speaker McCarthy is worried about the National debt but does not want the political donor class to pay taxes, go figure.

President Joe Biden hit the road today to continue the push to highlight the successes of his administration's investment in the economy. In Lanham, Maryland, at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 26, he celebrated the economic plan that “grows the economy from the bottom up and the middle out, not the top down.”

He praised union labor and said that the nation’s investment in green energy would mean “good-paying jobs for electricians, plumbers, pipefitters, laborers, carpenters, cement masons, ironworkers, and so much more. And these are good jobs you can raise a family on.” “It’s a stark contrast to our Republican friends, who are doubling down on the same failed politics of the past. Top-down, trickle-down economics is not much trickle down…to most kitchen tables in America,” he said.

He reiterated that he would lay out his budget on March 9 and that he expected the Republicans to lay out theirs, so people can compare the two. Biden maintains that his policy of investing in infrastructure and putting money in the hands of ordinary Americans will nurture the economy and reduce the deficit as growth brings in more tax dollars. Meanwhile, he said, the Republican tax cut of 2017 has already added $2 trillion to the federal deficit.

Good economic news is putting wind under Biden’s wings. The economy continues to perform better than expected in 2023. Retail buying increased 3% in January, and the job market remains strong. The administration today highlighted another series of large private sector investments in American manufacturing: Boeing announced that Air India has contracted to buy more than 200 aircraft; Ford announced it will build a $3.5 billion factory in Marshall, Michigan, to make advanced batteries for electric vehicles; and Texas Instruments announced it will build an $11 billion semiconductor plant in Lehi, Utah.

Biden emphasized that these investments would provide “good-paying jobs that [Americans] can raise a family on, the revitalization of entire communities that have often been left behind, and America leading the world again in the industries that drive the future.”

Biden accused the Republicans of proposing measures that would raise the deficit, which is already rising again. The Congressional Budget Office today projected a much higher deficit for 2023 than it did in May 2022 because of new laws, mandatory spending for Social Security and Medicare, and higher interest rates in place to combat inflation. The CBO notes that “spending substantially exceeds revenues in our projections even though pandemic-related spending lessens. In addition, rising interest rates drive up the cost of borrowing. The resulting deficits steadily increase the government’s debt. Over the long term, our projections suggest that changes in fiscal policy must be made to address the rising costs of interest and mitigate other adverse consequences of high and rising debt.”

This is precisely what Republicans have been complaining about with regard to the Democrats’ recent laws to rebuild infrastructure and invest in the economy, while ignoring that their own tax cuts have also added mightily to the deficit. Republicans want to address the rising deficit with spending cuts; Biden, with taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations.

Biden appears to be trying to turn the nation to a modern version of the era before Reagan, when the government provided a basic social safety net, protected civil rights, promoted infrastructure, and regulated business. Since the 1980s, the Republicans have advocated deregulation with the argument that government interference in the way a company does business interrupts the market economy.

But the derailment of fifty Norfolk Southern train cars, eleven of which carried hazardous chemicals, near East Palestine, Ohio, near the northeastern border of the state on February 3 has powerfully illustrated the downsides of deregulation. The accident released highly toxic chemicals into the air, water, and ground, causing a massive fire and forcing about 5,000 nearby residents in Ohio and Pennsylvania to evacuate. On February 6, when it appeared some of the rail cars would explode, officials allowed the company to release and burn the toxic vinyl chloride stored in it. The controlled burn sent highly toxic phosgene, used as a weapon in World War I, into the air.

Republican Ohio governor Mike DeWine has refused federal assistance from President Biden, who, he said, called to offer “anything you need.” DeWine said he had not called back to take him up on the offer. “We will not hesitate to do that if we’re seeing a problem or anything, but I’m not seeing it,” he said.

Just over the border, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said that Norfolk Southern had botched its response to the accident. “Norfolk Southern has repeatedly assured us of the safety of their rail cars—in fact, leading Norfolk Southern personnel described them to me as ‘the Cadillac of rail cars’—yet despite these assertions, these were the same cars that Norfolk Southern personnel rushed to vent and burn without gathering input from state and local leaders. Norfolk Southern’s well known opposition to modern regulations [requires] further scrutiny and investigation to limit the devastating effects of future accidents on people’s lives, property, businesses, and the environment.”

Shapiro was likely referring to the fact that in 2017, after donors from the railroad industry poured more than $6 million into Republican political campaigns, the Trump administration got rid of a rule imposed by the Obama administration that required better braking systems on rail cars that carried hazardous flammable materials.

According to David Sirota, Julia Rock, Rebecca Burns, and Matthew Cunningham-Cook, writing in the investigative journal The Lever, Norfolk Southern supported the repeal, telling regulators new electronically controlled pneumatic brakes on high-hazard flammable trains (HHFT) would “impose tremendous costs without providing offsetting safety benefits.” Railroads also lobbied to limit the definition of HFFT to cover primarily trains that carry oil, not industrial chemicals. The train that derailed in Ohio was not classified as an HHFT.

Nonetheless, Ohio’s new far-right Republican senator J. D. Vance went on the Fox News Channel show of personality Tucker Carlson to blame the Biden administration for the accident. He said there was no excuse for failing infrastructure after the passage last year of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, and said that the administration is too focused on “environmental racism and other ridiculous things.” We are, he said, “ruled by unserious people.”

He also issued a statement saying that “my office will continue to work with FEMA” over the issue, although FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has not been mobilized because Ohio governor DeWine has not requested a federal disaster declaration.

It seems like Politicians... are running the country and have been for some time