Monitoring Biden and other Contemporary Events

Today, Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a statement announcing that the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), each trying to wrest control of Sudan from the other, have agreed to a 72-hour cease-fire starting at midnight tonight, local time. During the cease-fire, the statement says, the U.S. will work with regional partners, international partners, and Sudanese civilians to create a committee to negotiate and implement a permanent cease-fire and return Sudan to a path toward democracy.

Meanwhile, White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan today said that the U.S. is working to get U.S. civilians out of Sudan by protecting a land evacuation route from Khartoum to Port Sudan on the Red Sea, where Americans can get transportation out of the region on naval ships from various countries including the United States. While Sullivan said the administration will look at “every conceivable option” to get Americans out of Sudan, it will not send troops inside the country.

Meanwhile, Rachel Chason in the Washington Post reported the concern of U.S. intelligence officials evident in leaked documents that the African country of Chad is at risk from Russia’s paramilitary Wagner Group, which is trying to recruit Chadian rebels to destabilize the country and overthrow the government. The leaked documents suggest that Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin is trying to build a “unified ‘confederation’ of African states” across the continent in the Sahel region, including Burkina Faso, Chad, Eritrea, Guinea, Mali, Niger, and Sudan. Chad is an important U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism, and the attempt to keep it stable and moving toward democracy has raised concerns that the U.S. is overlooking the Chadian government’s own crackdowns on dissenters.

In other concerns about national security, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton published an op-ed in the New York Times today warning that the threat from House speaker Kevin McCarthy to hold the nation’s finances hostage until the president agrees to the wish list McCarthy presented last week has “significant national security implications.” With all the global threats looming, from Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, to rising tensions with China, to future pandemics and climate change, “the world is looking to the United States for strong, steady leadership. Congressional brinkmanship on the debt ceiling sends the opposite message to our allies and our adversaries: that America is divided, distracted and can’t be counted on.”

Drawing on her own experience as secretary of state during the 2011 debt ceiling crisis, Clinton recalled meeting “nervous businessmen” from across Asia at an event in Hong Kong. They worried that the “regional and global stability that America had guaranteed for decades,” “the foundation on which they had built companies and fortunes,” was at risk. If the U.S. walked away from the table, they feared that China would fill the void.

Clinton reassured them that Americans would eventually do the right thing and then, she recalled, “I crossed my fingers and hoped it was true.” In 2011 it was, but now, she writes, the risks are even higher.

“[T]the competition between democracies and autocracies has grown more intense,” she wrote. “And by undermining America’s credibility and the pre-eminence of the dollar, the fight over the debt ceiling plays right into the hands of Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia.” That the U.S. dollar is the world’s central currency enables the U.S. to use its financial power around the world, imposing sanctions, for example, and undermining that power will significantly weaken the U.S.

Grabbing headlines today at home was the unexpected news that Tucker Carlson is out at the Fox News Channel. The decision was so quick he was not permitted a final show, making Friday’s goodbye his last. There is not yet a clear story about what drove him out, but there are several things that likely contributed.

First is lawsuits: the Fox Corporation’s recent $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems; the looming lawsuit against the Fox Corporation by another voting systems company, Smartmatic; and another lawsuit from former Carlson producer Abby Grossberg accusing Carlson and other executives of creating “a work environment that subjugates women based on vile sexist stereotypes.” That lawsuit will likely bring up the many appallingly sexist things Carlson has said over the years, including a discussion with a radio shock jock in which he seemed to defend statutory rape and child marriage.

There is the potential for yet another lawsuit, this one from Ray Epps, a Trump supporter who was at the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and around whom Carlson built a conspiracy theory that led to death threats and forced him and his wife into hiding. On Sunday, Epps told 60 Minutes that Carlson was “going to any means possible to destroy my life.” “He’s obsessed with me,” Epps said.

Insurers on the hook for large settlements are likely to demand that Fox clean up its act, especially with Trump running for office again and likely back in the media lineup.

Second is Carlson’s attacks on his colleagues and private dismissal of Fox News Channel programming, revealed in the discovery process of the Dominion lawsuit, which made it quite clear the channel was lying to its audience.

There is also the possibility that FNC head Rupert Murdoch recognizes that the right wing has moved so far right that it is better to cut the extremists loose than to try to keep them from moving toward other far-right platforms, especially as the FNC is trying to renegotiate its cable fees. In a sign that the party might be splitting elsewhere, as well, Georgia governor Brian Kemp announced today that he will not attend the Georgia Republican convention this summer, choosing instead to rally supporters in his own new organization.

Bad news is likely to continue to mount for the far right.

Today, Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis said that she would announce charging decisions in the investigation of the attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia sometime during the fourth term of the state Superior Court, which begins July 11 and ends September 1. Tipping her hand that there will be at least some charges, she said she was announcing the timeline to allow the Sheriff’s Office and local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies to prepare. “Open-source intelligence has indicated the announcement of decisions in this case may provoke significant public reaction,” Willis wrote.

Tomorrow, the civil rape trial of former president Trump will begin, in which writer E. Jean Carroll alleges that Trump raped her sometime between fall 1995 and spring 1996. No matter what happens at the trial’s conclusion, the information that will come out will almost certainly not make Trump look good to the suburban women he needs to win an election.

In contrast to the circus of the rape trial tomorrow, President Joe Biden is apparently set to announce his reelection campaign, exactly four years after he announced in 2019, when he warned that the soul of the nation was at stake in the upcoming presidential election.

In contrast to the circus of the rape trial tomorrow, President Joe Biden is apparently set to announce his reelection campaign, exactly four years after he announced in 2019, when he warned that the soul of the nation was at stake in the upcoming presidential election.

Biden-Harris 2024

Every generation has a moment where they have had to stand up for democracy. To stand up for their fundamental freedoms. I believe this is ours.

That is why I am running for reelection as president of the United States. If you’re with me, I hope you’ll let me explain exactly why this campaign matters so much and then consider pitching in to support it.

When I ran in 2020, I said we were in a battle for the soul of America. We still are. The question before us now is whether we’ll have more freedoms or fewer in the years ahead. More rights, or fewer. I know what I want the answer to be.

Giving folks a little more breathing room. Making your life a little freer. This has been the work of my lifetime. And we’ve made real progress these last few years.

But, across the country, MAGA extremists are lining up to take us backward. They’re trying to gut Social Security and Medicare. They’re trying to raise prices on prescription drugs and repeal the cost-saving measures we’ve put in place for the hardworking families, all while saying we have enough money to cut taxes for the rich.

They’re telling women what health care choices they’re allowed to make. They’re telling you what books should be in your kids' schools. And if you don’t like it, tough luck: They’re going after your right to vote, too.

There’s a choice ahead of us. Do we continue to build a future full of opportunities for you and families like yours? Or will we turn the clock back? But here’s the honest truth: I’m more optimistic than I’ve ever been. And it’s because I’ve seen what this team can do when it comes together.

In 2020, more than 6 million grassroots supporters -- yourself included -- helped propel our campaign to victory.

I’m so proud of the progress we made. We took our economy back from the brink, helping create more than 12 million jobs. We took aggressive action to bring costs down for working people -- all while making corporations pay their fair share. We took the strongest action on climate in our nation’s history -- I’m not kidding.

But there’s still so much left to be done. Where we passed the first major federal legislation on gun violence in decades, we now need to finish the job and ban assault weapons. Where we capped insulin at $35 for Medicare recipients, we need to cap it for everyone. And where we finally made the wealthiest corporations pay their fair share, we need to do the same for billionaires.

We’ve got a lot of work to do and a lot of progress we’ve got to make in the second term. We’ve got to finish the job. And I can only do that with you behind me.

Thank you for standing with us. I’ll see you on the campaign trail.

-Joe

Soon, some time in the next week or so, Joe Biden’s going to announce his bid for re-election. And something strange, stupid, and painful will happen. Pundits will groan. They’ll trot out the same tepid not-quite-thoughts they’re infamous for. He’s too old!! they’ll groan. Hello, ageism. Yes, that’s a real thing, unless you think applying for a job in middle or old age is easy. He hasn’t done enough!! Americans don’t…don’t like him!! Tedious. Foolish.

Here’s the truth, and it’s a fact. Biden’s a good President. The best one America’s had in a long, long time. Americans should give him a chance to be a great one. Sorry. Stop right there. That’s not politics. Like I said, these are empirical facts. Let me prove it to you.

Everything in America’s politicized. Even…kids reading books. American media, which creates everything like some kind of sportsball game, is guilty of perpetuating this flimsy attitude. One thing that Americans should learn — again — is to think objectively. It’s an objective fact that Biden’s a good President, but I’m going to explain it in reverse.

Why are Biden’s approval ratings so low? It’s the economy, stupid. You see, Biden’s making a Big Mistake. One that Democrats are, sigh, renowned for. They talk up the economy. They always do. Under the rules of the amateurs who run their messaging — and I’m allowed to say that, because I helped run of the world’s biggest marketing agencies, and we’ll come back to all this — there’s a Big Taboo. You can’t ever say the economy sucks.

But the economy does suck. That’s a fact. It’s a hard fact, and a brutal one, and yet it has to be faced. The signs, if you just take a glimpse at reality, aren’t pretty. Here’s one that makes the economist want to screech like his hair’s on fire: “Americans Go Deeper Into Debt as They Use Buy Now, Pay Later Apps for Groceries.” That’s not just a bad sign, it’s a dire one. People going (deeper) into debt…by way of sketchy, last-ditch fintech mechanisms like buy now, pay later…to afford the basics? That’s about as bad and clear a sign an economy can send you: people are not doing well. They can’t make ends meet.

And yet if you listen to the Democrats, they…play this foolish game of boosterism. They refuse to acknowledge what’s patently obvious for anyone with eyes and a brain to see and take in and be a little horrified by: the economy sucks. But there are the Democrats, every day, they trot out a new figure, surrogate, talking head, to parrot the same old point: things are great! Never been better! It’s morning in America, folks!!

No wonder people don’t trust them when it comes to the economy. And because the economy is the biggest issue on people’s minds, their top priority, that’s not just a Very Big Problem — it’s a Colossal Mistake, an amateur’s mistake of politics, that is having awful consequences. Americans don’t trust Biden on the biggest issue of all, which is their futures.

But all of that just raises the question: should they? There are three sure things in life, death, taxes, and the Democrats sucking hopelessly at messaging. Should Americans let poor messaging obscure the facts for them? You see, the economy sucks, that’s true. But it’s not all that’s true.

The economy sucks for a reason. That reason is simple. Climate change. Why are prices skyrocketing? Because we’ve hit the planet’s limits. You’ve heard me discuss this a billion times, and it only gets truer every year. My fellow economists will tell you, breathlessly, that “inflation’s coming down!!” LOL — everyone that actually has to buy groceries, which isn’t Larry Summers, that’s for sure, feels the pain a little more every time they go to the supermarket. Prices coming down? Not for basics. They’re coming down for some things. But inflation for food? Energy? Household goods? All of which require vast amounts of biotic inputs? They’re way, way above “core” inflation. (Read more on this, including sources and links, here.)

We are beginning to experience the mega-scale effects of climate change, and they’re already catastrophic. The last few years of skyrocketing inflation? Good luck to you if you think it’s ever really coming down on a planet where harvests are now failing, rivers running dry, reservoirs running on empty, fields going up in flames, and the temperature still rising every year because, well carbon emissions are. If we don’t reinvent our economies? We do not have a future.

It’s a weird and sad thing, because in my field? Nobody will say it. Economists will look at a planet on fire, running out of water, energy, crops, and not notice a damned thing. It’d be funny, if it weren’t so painful. And because economists won’t say it, neither will politicians. Not really, anyways. Not enough. And because politicians won’t say it?

The far right is surging. Across the globe. You see, the far right does three things that the center left won’t. It acknowledges that the economy sucks. It acknowledges people are facing immense, pain, anxiety, and despair because of it, worried for their futures, their childrens’ futures, their communities, their livelihoods. And then it offers people an explanation.

That explanation, as we all know, is pointing the finger of blame at poor innocents. Scapegoating is the trend that’s already defined the 21st century. In Britain, Europeans are the scapegoats for the woes of the “real” Brit, in Europe, North Africans often are, in North Africa, it’s the rest of Africa. In India, it’s Muslims, in China, it’s not “real” Chinese, and so on. The world is playing a game of musical chairs of doom, because, well, everyone can’t be responsible for everyone else’s problems, and yet this is what all this scapegoating implies, only the center left is too weak, supine, and foolish to even point that much out, but I digress.

It works. Hate. It is working all too well. A short list of nations where the hard right is now in power? Italy, Sweden, Britain, India, China, Russia…America. It’s an ominous and dismal trend we face, and yet, the center left won’t even acknowledge it.

Why? Why is the far right surging? Because of those three things. It offers people acknowledgement, that there is a real problem they face, the economy sucks, and another form of acknowledgement, that they’re in confusion and fear and pain because of it. And then it offers them an explanation. Those innocents are responsible! They took your jobs, and now they’re coming for your women and kids!

It’s the DeSantis play, if you’re American — Trump’s scapegoats were Mexicans, Latinos, immigrants — DeSantis has expanded that to include kids, teachers, professors, journalists, families, women, the LGBTQ.

Now think again of the center left. It won’t acknowledge the economy sucks. It won’t therefore acknowledge people are hurting because of it. And not being willing to do that, it doesn’t offer an explanation. How can it? It can hardly offer an explanation for a problem it won’t even acknowledge exists.

This is serious, my friends. Climate denial is a problem on the right, a big one. But on the center left? Economic denial is just as big a problem. You can’t expect to win people’s trust, after all, if you’re denying the basic reality of their everyday lives. Ask Americans, and you’ll hear, in spades, that they think the economy sucks. Can so many people really be deluded? Are they all living in a fairy tale? That’s what the center left would have you believe. And that’s why it’s not trusted on the biggest — and more importantly, most decisive — issue there is, the economy. It won’t tell it like it is.

This is why Biden’s approval ratings are consistently in the tank. In America. But around the world? Something very different is true. The world looks up to Biden. In a way they haven’t to an American President in a very long time. And there’s a reason for that. Go to Europe, and Europe’s leaders are racing to copy Biden’s plans to transform the American economy. Europeans know it, and for the first time in ages, they sense that America’s pulling ahead of them. Go to Asia, and the same is true: Biden’s widely admired, because he’s not just transforming the American economy, doing so’s going to reinvent the global economy, and guess who’s in the crosshairs of climate change? That’s right, Asia.

The world respects Biden. It listens to him. That isn’t because he’s an American President — it mocked Trump, who became a global laughingstock. It’s because Biden has earned that respect. And he’s earned that respect not just with a big vision, a grand plan, but actually following through on it. Many people around the world wish they had a leader like that. Someone who was that engaged with the task of reinvention. Who was willing to invest in building the systems and institution of the future. This is why when Biden talks, now? All of Europe’s most senior leaders, and the world’s, listen.

Now, if you’ve been paying attention, you’ve noted a curious paradox here. Biden has Big Plans to reinvent America’s economy. And yet the Democrats’ line goes: the economy’s great, guys!! But if the economy’s great….why is there any need to reinvent it? You can see how illogical this messaging, this proposition is. It makes literally no sense. It’s the kind of contradictory nonsense that breeds mistrust and distrust.

By now? We are all beginning to understand why the economy sucks. Even if we’re figuring it out the hard way. No, can’t be Covid, nobody’s locked down anymore. Can’t be this war or that war, they’re grinding on, but they can’t have these kinds of crazy worldwide effects. Can’t just be a seasonal or temporary thing, because, well, it’s not going away — every time I go the store, things cost a dollar more. What gives? Hmm. I bet it has something to do with those headlines I keep reading about. This harvest failed this month. That river’s running dry. Those reservoirs are empty. That fertile zone’s going up in flames. That’s got to affect prices, right? Christ, this is going to be…going to be…painful.

There’s less and less confusion about why the economy sucks. The first couple of years of the 2020s were the arrival of climate change’s mega-scale impacts. But this year? People have begun putting the obvious together. Man, I’m going to need to invest in my own renewable power. Change my diet. If I want to try to find ways to save some money, in the middle of this madness, I’m going to have to figure out how to consume less, and still maintain my living standards.

That is really what’s happening here, and it’s a civilization scale change. We cannot go on consuming like we once did. That’s not some kind of moral judgment or warning, it’s already happening. It’s what skyrocketing prices mean. Our consumption rate as a civilization now has to fall dramatically, or else its lights out, faster and faster. What’s left is dwindling in supply, and so of course, all those basics go on getting more and more expensive.

And yet it’s…and this is the weird part…Joe Biden who has a plan to fix all this. It’s not the whole plan, but at least it’s a step. If you looked for the world’s most ambitious national plan to reinvent the economy so that everything didn’t go on crashing and burning while the grim reality of climate change arrived? You’d end up at America’s.

That’s truly weird, because America’s never had a national plan or strategy for much of anything. Why not? Because of course the GOP won’t allow it. They don’t want anyone to have anything, not even rights, so what is there to build systems and institutions for? The only thing they want to build — literally the only agenda they have — is building shadow institutions and systems, to police people for rights they’ve lost. Can’t read that book, kid, sorry, parents, you’re criminals because you let your kid wear a dress, sorry teacher, you’re going to jail because you said gay people exist. Good luck having a national strategy for, oh, the end of the world as we know it, when all these lunatics want is medieval theocracy by way of 1930s style fascism.

It’s doubly weird that America’s got the best strategy for all this — let me make that clear quickly, Biden’s plan is to make America the world leader in clean energy, green manufacturing, and semiconductors — because, well, usually it’s Europe that’s led the way in Grand Plans. Connecting a whole continent, or most of it, with high speed rail? Cutting edge healthcare systems — free to use? Higher education for all — affordable? Democracy — on a continental, post-national scale? Citizenship not just of your country, but of a continent-wide union, that lets you live and work anywhere in it, and enjoy all those sophisticated public goods? Amazing stuff — history-making. And yet, right now? America’s the one with the most sophisticated and advanced plan for…surviving the Age of Extinction. And that’s thanks to Joe Biden.

I’m not kidding. Europe? Some of its countries have plans to become niche players — the Netherlands trying to carve out an economy providing green agriculture for the world. But Europe is behind the American curve in a big way — for example, Sweden just put the far right in power, and their very first move was…dissolving the Environment Ministry. LOL. Europe is being left in the dust by the ambition and scale of Biden’s plans, and that’s why Europe’s most experienced leaders — from Von Der Leyen to Macron — are racing to figure out how to try and copy it, on an EU-wide scale.

Now. Put all that together, and you should see the problem very clearly. Let me try to summarize it. The Democrats keep trying to force a Big Lie of their own down peoples’ throats — the economy’s great! Everything’s roaring! But the economy sucks. To the degree that people can’t afford groceries without deeper and shadier kinds of debt. That’s…dire. People know the economy sucks, because they’re unfortunately living it. So when the center left tells them its own Big Lie — everything’s great, guys!! — they roll their eyes. And the bond of trust isn’t built. That leaves many of them, particularly in the working class, vulnerable to being seduced by the Big Lies of the far right, who at least acknowledge their woes, and offer them an explanation, and a way out: hate.

Meanwhile, the profound irony in all this it’s if there’s one figure in the world today who’s actually got a plan to deal with the above? That figure is Biden. I don’t say that as a fanboy — I’ve been very critical of Biden in the past. But facts are facts, and it’s my job to share them.

And yet because Biden is being bound by the Democrats and the center lefts’ approach to all this — sshhh! Don’t ever say the economy sucks! — he now faces a Big Problem, which is almost a funny one.

The one guy in the world who has a plan for to reinvent the economy isn’t trusted on it. And that’s because Biden, bound by the foolish rules the center left has made up, won’t open up and be honest enough about it. Yes, guys, the economy sucks. I know you know. You’re beginning to guess the reason, too. Extinction. It’s serious. It’s historic. This is a critical turning point for humanity. This is why I have these big plans to reinvent the economy. Because without one that actually works, in a post-industrial way? Everything dies, from our basics, to democracy itself. The far right just takes over, because that’s what happens when sudden, heart-stopping plunges into poverty arrive out of nowhere — people are that much more easily seduced by hate, angry and afraid. Not on my watch. I know the economy sucks. Why do you think I’m out here reinventing it? So we have a better one, and with that, comes a better everything else, too — democracy, institutions, systems, trust, happiness, upward mobility, confidence, meaning, community. This is how we invent the future again.

I don’t know if Biden will say all that. I know that he should. Because this game of being afraid to tell the truth that the economy sucks isn’t just painfully cosmically ironic for the one guy in the world who has a plan to fix it…it’s costing him, and it might just cost him the election.

That leaves it, then, up to you and me. Biden’s a good President. We should give him a chance to be a great one. Because when we say we want a better economy…who else is actually working to make it happen? Ron DeSantis? Donald Trump? There are many ways to fall for a Big Lie. “Those innocent people are to blame!!” You hate, and the demagogue laughs. “The economy’s great!” when it’s not. Rolling your eyes, you vote for the other guy. The one who has no plan to fix it, or anything at all. Instead of thinking to yourself, hey, these guys are scared to tell me the truth. How do I show them I can handle it?

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s debt-limit-and-cuts bill puts the U.S. economy at grave risk by using the need to raise the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip to force a set of unpopular, harmful policies — policies that would make deep cuts in a host of national priorities; leave more people hungry, homeless, and without health coverage; and make it easier for wealthy people to cheat on their taxes. The bill would also repeal the Inflation Reduction Act’s funding to address climate change, and would undertake harmful changes that would undermine how regulations are crafted.

In exchange for these highly problematic long-term, and in some cases permanent, policies, the McCarthy bill would only raise the debt ceiling through early next year (March 31, 2024, at the latest), allowing House Republicans to use the deadline for another round of hostage-taking.

By putting forward this debt-limit-and-cuts bill but not a full budget, Speaker McCarthy hides the full House Republican fiscal agenda.
By putting forward this debt-limit-and-cuts bill but not a full budget, Speaker McCarthy hides the full House Republican fiscal agenda. House Republicans have made clear that they intend to make all of the expiring 2017 Trump tax cuts permanent, including those that benefit very wealthy households, at a cost of some $300 billion annually, without any effort to raise revenues to pay for them. This would erase most of the bill’s claimed fiscal savings. Examining the tax cuts and program cuts together shows that the House Republican agenda re-allocates trillions in resources to well-off households at the expense of investments that promote broader opportunity and growth.

Cutting a broad swath of public services — from schools, child care, and public health to environmental protection and college aid — and making it harder for people to afford the basics while permitting more tax cheating and cutting taxes for the wealthy is failed trickle-down economics at its worst. This agenda would narrow opportunity, deepen inequality, and increase hardship.

Our nation’s long history of racism and other forms of discrimination means that some groups, particularly Black and Indigenous people and other people of color as well as people with disabilities, are less likely than white people and people without disabilities to have wealth and high incomes that shield them from the harm of public sector austerity and disinvestment, shortchanging access to opportunity and diminishing the country as a whole.

It wasn’t just that the Trump administration was so much more aggressive compared to its predecessors in trying to use unsigned, unexplained orders to carry out policies. It’s that the Court largely acquiesced. The Trump administration went to the Court 41 times in four years for emergency relief. That’s in contrast to eight requests over the prior 16 years from the Bush and Obama administrations. A really important part of the story is that the Court granted 28 of those requests in whole or in part — this is important — and never suggested that any of the requests it denied were somehow overreaching or inappropriate.

I think it was a combination of the executive branch pushing the envelope, the justices letting it push the envelope, then while this is all going on, two really important changes took place in the Court’s membership.