I must admit I've never understood how Reagan still has such universal appeal in America.
Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump
Hello everyone! I have something incredible to share today, as we are introducing the launch of our Official Trump Coins! The ONLY OFFICIAL coin designed by me—and proudly minted here in the U.S.A. The President Donald J. Trump First Edition Silver Medallion will be available starting Wednesday, 9/25/24, EXCLUSIVELY at Edit [Moderator]: Link removed. Sign up today!
@realtrumpcoins1
On Thursday, September 19, the day after the Federal Reserve began to lower interest rates two and a half years after it began to raise them to get inflation under control, President Joe Biden spoke to the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., a nonprofit, nonpartisan forum where leaders from around the world can speak to larger questions about the global economy.
Biden noted the interest rate cut and identified it as an important signal from the Federal Reserve to the nation that inflation, which at its post-pandemic peak was 9.1%, has come down close to the Fed’s target rate of 2%. He described it as “a declaration of progress…a signal we’ve entered a new phase of our economy and our recovery.”
But Biden told the audience he was “not here to take a victory lap.” Instead, he wanted to “speak about…how far we’ve come, how we got here, and, most importantly, the foundation that I believe [we’ve] built for a more prosperous and equitable future in America.” He wanted, he said, to make the country realize how much progress we’ve made, because if we don’t, the negative economic mindset he attributes to the pandemic will “dominate our economic outlook,” and we will miss “the immense opportunities in front of us right now.”
Biden reminded the audience that when he and Vice President Kamala Harris took office in January 2021, having “inherited the worst pandemic in a century and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression,” they found “there was no real plan in place—no plan to deal with the pandemic, no plan to get the economy back on its feet. Nothing—virtually nothing.” The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted the U.S. wouldn’t see a full economic recovery until at least 2025.
But, Biden said, he “came into office determined not only to deliver immediate economic relief for the American people but to transform the way our economy works over the long term; to write a new economic playbook,” investing in ordinary Americans and promoting fair competition.
Immediately, Biden and the Democrats passed the American Rescue Plan—without a single Republican vote—to launch “one of the most sophisticated logistical operations in American history” to get coronavirus vaccines into every person in America. Without addressing the pandemic, there could be no economic recovery, he said. The American Rescue Plan also “delivered immediate economic relief for those who needed it the most,” preventing “a wave of evictions, bankruptcies, and delinquencies and defaults” like those that had followed economic crises in the past and had “weakened the recovery and left working families permanently further behind,” a process Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called “economic scarring.”
The economic crash had tanked local and state tax revenues, so the administration funded state and local governments to keep teachers and first responders working, small businesses open, and more housing being built. It expanded the Child Tax Credit, which cut child poverty in half. The American Rescue Plan included the Butch Lewis Act, which protected the pensions of millions of union workers and retirees.
During the pandemic, factories shut down, and supply chains—from shipping to port operations to trucking networks—were tangled. The reopening of the global economy sent inflation skyrocketing, and then Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine sent food and oil prices even higher.
Biden reminded the members of the Economic Club of the massive cargo ships stuck outside the Port of Los Angeles before the 2021 holidays, and the shortage of baby formula, and explained that his administration brought together business and labor to repair supply chains and “unclog our ports, trucking networks, and shipping lines.” (Although Biden didn’t note it, Republicans in 2021 suggested that the “reckless spending” of the American Rescue Plan meant that Christmas would be “ruined,” but the administration worked to smooth out the tangles and by July 2024 the Port of Los Angeles saw record-breaking volume passing through it, up 37% from July 2023.) Biden also released oil reserves to stabilize global markets and increased energy production to record highs. Together, these measures began to ease inflation.
Nonetheless, Biden said, critics claimed that the economic supports of the American Rescue Plan would make people leave the labor market—remember “The Great Resignation”?—and that it would take significant unemployment to lower prices. But rather than backing off, Biden and Harris seized the moment to invest in the United States. They wrestled the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law through Congress to rebuild roads, bridges, ports, airports, trains, and buses; to remove lead pipes from schools and homes; and to provide affordable high-speed internet access to every American.
The administration insisted that U.S. contracts must use U.S. workers and U.S. products. With the CHIPS and Science Act, it brought back semiconductor chip manufacturing to the U.S., and private companies from around the world are investing tens of billions of dollars in new chip factories in the U.S. that are already employing construction workers and will soon employ factory workers. Factory construction is at a record high now, and the Biden-Harris administration created more than 700,000 manufacturing jobs.
Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act that will help cut carbon emissions in half by 2030 and is creating hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs. That law also permits Medicare to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, saving taxpayers an estimated $160 billion over the next decade.
With inflation under control and a record 16 million jobs created, the administration’s policies proved, Biden said, that it’s possible to bring down inflation while also safeguarding jobs and wages for American workers and promoting economic growth. A record nineteen million people have applied to start new businesses. More Americans have health insurance than ever before. The racial wealth gap is the smallest in 20 years. And rather than creating a recession, these measures kept economic growth above 3% last year. The stock market is at record highs.
Biden contrasted his economic policies, based in the idea that the economy grows from the middle out and the bottom up, with those of former president Trump, whose policies of tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations are based in the idea that the economy grows best when markets drive it and that concentrating wealth at the top of society permits individuals to invest more efficiently than the government can. Biden noted that, in contrast to his own approach, Trump’s policies killed manufacturing jobs and saw very little factory construction, while creating the largest budget deficit in American history.
Biden listed these comparisons to make the point that, as he said, “[f]or the past 40 years, too many leaders have sworn by an economic theory that has not worked very well at all: trickle-down economics. Cut taxes for the very wealthy…and hope the benefits trickle down. Well, guess what? Not a whole lot trickled down to my dad’s kitchen table. It’s clear, especially under my predecessor, that trickle-down economics failed. And he’s promised it again—trickle-down economics—but it will fail again.” He noted, as former president Bill Clinton pointed out at the Democratic National Convention, that since 1989 the U.S. has created about 51 million jobs, and 50 million of them have come under Democratic presidents.
“I’m a capitalist,” Biden said, “but I believe capitalism is the greatest force to grow the economy for everybody.” He called for more affordable housing, affordable childcare, and lower healthcare costs, noting that those policies will increase economic growth. He called for higher taxes on the very wealthy to pay for those pro-growth policies and to cut the deficit.
And then Biden brought the economic discussion back to his argument before the State Department in 2021, just after he took office. He told the audience at the Economic Club that we have such a dynamic system, and foreign companies are willing to invest here, because of the stability provided in the U.S. by the rule of law. Indeed, it is the rule of law that protects investments and capital, as evidenced by the fact that autocrats stash their money not in their own countries or other dictatorships, but in liberal democracies where investments cannot be taken away or legal protections changed on a dictator’s whim.
After listing the extraordinary economic successes of the past three and a half years, Biden told the audience: “American business, our economic dynamism can’t succeed…without a stability and security that makes us the envy of the world.”
It's hard to even imagine Trump addressing a group like this and delivering an honest and meaningful appraisal of the government's role in the economy and his administration's achievements.
A poll from the Associated Press released Sunday found that only 14 percent of U.S. adults believe the word “Christian” describes either Vice President Kamala Harris or former president Donald Trump “very” or “extremely” well.
About half of Americans said they believe the term at least “somewhat” describes Harris, the poll found, while around one-third said that it at least “somewhat” describes Trump.
Per the poll, White evangelical Protestants appear not to mind that Trump — who in 2020 said he identifies as nondenominational Christian and grew up Presbyterian — is not particularly religious. While 7 in 10 White evangelical Protestants in the poll view Trump favorably, only half said he represents their religious beliefs, and about 2 in 10 said the word “Christian” describes Trump “extremely” or “very” well.
Harris is a Baptist, and the AP poll found that 75 percent of Black Protestants view her favorably, while 6 in 10 said she represents their religious beliefs. Still, only about 4 in 10 respondents in this group said the label “Christian” describes her “extremely” or “very” well.
The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs poll of 2,028 U.S. adults has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 points, and was conducted between Sept. 12 and 16.
“Republicans Boost Jill Stein as Potential Harris Spoiler”
September 22, 2024, 5:36 pm
Rick Hasen
Quote:WSJ:
Some Republicans are supporting Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s long-shot bid for the presidency, attempting to bolster a campaign that could siphon liberal voters from Vice President Kamala Harris.
The support, including from allies of former President Donald Trump, has Democrats worried Stein will be a spoiler for Harris in places such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Stein is very unlikely to win any of them or reach the White House, but the Democrat’s path to victory is greatly diminished if Harris loses any of the three, where she is locked in a tight race with Trump. The prospect of Stein taking some of Harris’s support in those states causes heartburn for Democrats still smarting over Hillary Clinton’s loss there in 2016, when Stein was also on the ballot.
All that is beside the point, according to Stein. She says her candidacy represents a legitimate moral challenge to America’s two-party system, and she pitches herself as the change agent sought by millions of voters—not just liberals. She rejects the notion that her presence in the race could help Trump.
“It is a propaganda campaign intended to tell the voters that resistance is futile, that you just need to accept being thrown under the bus,” Stein said in an interview. “There is no lesser evil in this race.”…
The Green Party is poised to be on the ballot in most battleground states and at times accepted help from Trump-affiliated lawyers to secure ballot access.
Former Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow, who worked on the defense team in one of the former president’s impeachments, was among those representing the Green Party in efforts to get Stein back on the Nevada ballot after she was removed because of incorrect petition forms. The Supreme Court on Friday rejected the Nevada Green Party’s bid to restore Stein to the ballot….
MELANIA TRUMP@MELANIATRUMP
To all of my passionate collectors, I am thrilled to unveil 2024’s Limited Edition Ornament series, “Merry Christmas, AMERICA!”
Each unique piece captures the magic of the holiday season. Let these ornaments inspire cherished memories & bring warmth to your entire family. Happy collecting! [link removed]
Republicans against Trump@RpsAgainstTrump
3h
The Trump family is selling like there's no tomorrow and they're not going to win in November
Josh Marshall@joshtpm
1h
Fascinating & potentially hilarious part of the 2024 campaign puzzle. Trump camp removed canvassing from the RNC and outsourced it to SuperPACs, the largest of which is Elon's personal superpac run by the guys who ran desantis's campaign.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp withdrew his support Monday from beleaguered North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who was linked in a CNN report to a series of inflammatory comments on a pornographic website.
The Georgia governor’s statement came after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution obtained photographs of Kemp speaking at an August fundraiser in North Carolina for Robinson, the GOP nominee for governor in that state...
“There’s nothing sadder than an aging salesman trying to close one last deal,” MSNBC’s Ryan Teague Beckwith wrote on September 21. Beckwith went on to list seven of Trump’s most recent campaign promises, most delivered off the cuff at rallies, that are transparent attempts to close the deal with different groups of voters.
Trump is also threatening voters. On September 19, he told two Jewish audiences that he had not been “treated properly by voters who happen to be Jewish,” and that if he doesn't win the 2024 election, “the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss,” adding in that case, “Israel, in my opinion, will cease to exist within two years.” Opponents were quick to point out that these threats echo old antisemitic tropes scapegoating Jews. When Jake Tapper asked Arkansas senator Tom Cotton to comment on Trump’s statement on Sunday, Cotton’s answer brought small comfort: “Well, Jake, Donald Trump has been saying things like this for at least 11 months.”
Trump’s social media posts about women sounded both desperate and delusional. Trump has boasted of overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized the constitutional right to abortion, but that loss is enormously unpopular. So he is caught between the reality that his white extremist evangelical base continues to support banning abortion while voters in a general election are just as adamant that they want abortion rights protected.
Trump insists that there was a driving popular demand for returning decisions about abortion to the states, but this is a lie; there was no such popular demand. And now a two-year lag in the commissions that study maternal death means that stories of women who died because the new laws deprived them of medical care are beginning to hit the news.
On Friday, news broke that maternal deaths in Texas skyrocketed after the state’s 2021 abortion ban, rising by 56% compared to an 11% increase across the rest of the nation. Just before midnight, Trump posted a rant that included his usual lie about after-birth executions:
“WOMEN ARE POORER THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO, ARE LESS HEALTHY THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO, ARE LESS SAFE ON THE STREETS THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO, ARE MORE DEPRESSED AND UNHAPPY THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO, AND ARE LESS OPTIMISTIC AND CONFIDENT IN THE FUTURE THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO! I WILL FIX ALL OF THAT, AND FAST, AND AT LONG LAST THIS NATIONAL NIGHTMARE WILL BE OVER. WOMEN WILL BE HAPPY, HEALTHY, CONFIDENT AND FREE! YOU WILL NO LONGER BE THINKING ABOUT ABORTION, BECAUSE IT IS NOW WHERE IT ALWAYS HAD TO BE, WITH THE STATES, AND A VOTE OF THE PEOPLE - AND WITH POWERFUL EXCEPTIONS, LIKE THOSE THAT RONALD REAGAN INSISTED ON, FOR RAPE, INCEST, AND THE LIFE OF THE MOTHER - BUT NOT ALLOWING FOR DEMOCRAT DEMANDED LATE TERM ABORTION IN THE 7TH, 8TH, OR 9TH MONTH, OR EVEN EXECUTION OF A BABY AFTER BIRTH. I WILL PROTECT WOMEN AT A LEVEL NEVER SEEN BEFORE. THEY WILL FINALLY BE HEALTHY, HOPEFUL, SAFE, AND SECURE. THEIR LIVES WILL BE HAPPY, BEAUTIFUL, AND GREAT AGAIN!”
In North Carolina the core members of Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson’s campaign staff resigned yesterday along with all but three members of the campaign staff—two spokespeople and a bodyguard—after the CNN report about Robinson’s offensive writings on a pornography website, including his declaration that he considers himself a “black NAZI,” and that he would like to own slaves. And yet the North Carolina Republican Party is openly defending Robinson. Today the Republican Governors Association announced it was not going to buy any more ad time in North Carolina, a potential disaster for Trump as well as Robinson.
Trump’s ability to command the Republicans appears to be waning. House Republican leadership has apparently accepted a deal to fund the government through December 20 without the addition of the voter suppression bill Trump wanted, and today Nebraska Republican state senator Mike McDonnell said he would not vote to change the way Nebraska allots its electoral votes so close to the election despite great pressure from Trump loyalists to do so.
Meanwhile, MyPillow executive Mike Lindell, a Trump loyalist, is using a neo-Nazi code to advertise his pillows for $14.88, a reference to the fourteen words “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children,” and, since “H” is the eighth letter of the alphabet, a reference to “Heil Hitler.”
When the Trump campaign released a photo of the candidate with his grandchildren near him on a plane, Ron Filipkowski of MeidasTouch noted: “When he lets the grandkids near him on the plane for a photo op, that’s when you know he’s really panicking.” Today, Trump had an event stop at a grocery store in Kittanning, Pennsylvania, where he chatted with supporters. He handed a $100 bill to a customer and promised that “we’ll do that for you from the White House, all right?”
The election is not the only reason Trump might be worried. Shares of Trump media continue to fall, and his new crypto platform does not appear to be taking off. On Sunday he announced “the launch of our Official Trump Coins! The ONLY OFFICIAL coin designed by me—and proudly minted here in the U.S.A.,” but his other meme coins have lately aroused little interest in what seems to be an oversaturated market. Technology reporter Brian Krassenstein noted that the new coins cost $100, while the 1 ounce of silver in one costs $30. Veterans’ advocate Travis Akers pointed out on social media that less than 24 hours after Trump’s advertisement, the Jacksonville FBI office warned against collectible coin scams.
Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, is also looking for cash. On Wednesday, September 18, she released a video to advertise her forthcoming book. In the video, she said she stands “proudly behind my nude modeling work.” Since her nude photos were 100% not in the public conversation, her statement seemed designed to pump sales by suggesting there are nude photos of her in the book.
Today, Pamela Brown, Jeremy Herb, and Shoshana Dubnow of CNN reported that Trump’s most recent financial form reveals that Melania was paid $237,000 to appear at a campaign event in April, although it is not clear who cut the check for that appearance. The reporters say that such six-figure payments for her campaign appearances are not unusual, although payment for a spouse’s campaign appearances at all is highly unusual.
On Saturday, Trump said he would not debate Vice President Harris again, saying it was “too late” for another debate, although he then suggested he would be interested in doing one if the Fox News Channel broadcast it.
The Trump campaign is openly vowing to use federal forces against political opponents, but it is not clear the news is coming from Trump himself, so much as from those surrounding him. Vice presidential candidate Ohio senator J.D. Vance has doubled down on his insistence that a Trump administration will deport legal as well as undocumented immigrants.
His stand has earned him a rebuke from the editorial board of the Dayton [Ohio] Daily News, which expressed alarm at Vance’s lies about immigration and his evident belief that the ends justify the means. “History, of course, offers no shortage of atrocities committed when the truth is viewed as an inconvenient obstacle in your way,” the board wrote. It called Vance “an embarrassment not only to himself, but to Ohio.”
On Sunday, the “Trump Team” posted on social media that “As soon as I take office, we will immediately surge law enforcement to every city that is failing to turn over criminal aliens” and “bring down the full weight of the federal government on any jurisdiction that refuses to cooperate with ICE and Border Patrol.”
This threat is in keeping with Michael Schmidt’s report in the New York Times yesterday outlining how Trump used the criminal justice system to retaliate against those he saw as his enemies.
Bipartisan endorsements for Democratic candidates Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota governor Tim Walz continue to pile up. Today, three former chairs of the Maine Republican Party “enthusiastically” endorsed Harris.
After Teamsters president Sean O’Brien said the 1.3-million-member organization would not endorse either candidate in 2024, making the Teamsters the only one of the nation’s ten major unions not to endorse Harris, joint councils of the Teamsters have endorsed Harris and Walz on their own. These endorsements matter not only for votes, but also for get-out-the-vote efforts in crucial Midwestern states. Also crucial to Pennsylvania is today’s endorsement of Harris by members of the state’s Polish American community, who expressed concern that Trump would enable Russian president Vladimir Putin to invade Poland. There are 800,000 people of Polish descent in Pennsylvania.
On Sunday, a bipartisan group of 741 national security leaders—some of the biggest names in the field—endorsed Harris. “To the American People,” they wrote. “We are former public servants who swore an oath to the Constitution. Many of us risked our lives for it. We are retired generals, admirals, senior noncommissioned officers, ambassadors, and senior civilian national security leaders. We are Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. We are loyal to the ideals of our nation—like freedom, democracy, and the rule of law—not to any one individual or party.
“We do not agree on everything, but we all adhere to two fundamental principles. First, we believe America’s national security requires a serious and capable Commander-in-Chief. Second, we believe American democracy is invaluable. Each generation has a responsibility to defend it. That is why we, the undersigned, proudly endorse Kamala Harris to be the next President of the United States.
“This election is a choice between serious leadership and vengeful impulsiveness. It is a choice between democracy and authoritarianism. Vice President Harris defends America’s democratic ideals, while former President Donald Trump endangers them.
“We do not make such an assessment lightly. We are trained to make sober, rational decisions. That is how we know Vice President Harris would make an excellent Commander-in-Chief, while Mr. Trump has proven he is not up to the job.”
This morning, President Joe Biden spoke to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. Earlier in the day, Secretary General António Guterres of Portugal warned that “our world is in a whirlwind” and, having lost the “hot lines, red lines and guard rails” of the Cold War, is dangerous and adrift. In contrast, Biden in his final speech before the body offered optimism.
The president noted that when he first was elected U.S. senator in 1972, the world was also in a time of “tension and uncertainty.” The Cold War simmered, the Middle East was headed toward war, and the U.S. was in one in Vietnam. The United States was “divided and angry, and there were questions about our staying power and our future.” The U.S. and the world made it through that moment, he recalled, but it “wasn’t easy or simple or without significant setbacks.” Nonetheless, the world went on to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons, end the Cold War, forge a historic peace between Israel and Egypt, and end the war in Vietnam.
Last year, Biden noted, the U.S. and Vietnam elevated their partnership to the highest level, “a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the capacity for reconciliation…proof that even from the horrors of war there is a way forward,” he said.
Biden’s message continued to be one of optimism as he recalled the world history he has seen. In the 1980s, he said, the racist regime of apartheid in South Africa fell; in the 1990s, Serbian president Slobodan Milošević was prosecuted for war crimes after presiding over chaos and mass murder in southeastern Europe. At home, Biden recalled, although there is more to do, he “wrote and passed the Violence Against Women Act to end the scourge of violence against women and girls not only in America but across the world.” Then, after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S. brought the attack’s mastermind, Osama bin Laden, to justice.
Turning to his own presidency, Biden noted that it, too, began in “crisis and uncertainty.” Afghanistan had replaced Vietnam as America’s longest war, and after four American presidents had had to decide whether to withdraw, Biden “was determined not to leave it to the fifth.” Biden said he thinks every day of the 13 Americans who lost their lives along with hundreds of Afghans in a suicide bombing, the 2,461 U.S. military deaths and 20,744 American personnel wounded over the 20 years of that war, and the service personnel of other countries who died there.
Biden said that he came to office determined to rebuild the alliances and partnerships of the U.S. He worked to rebuild the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and NATO allies and partners in more than 50 nations supported Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s February 2022 invasion. Now NATO is “bigger, stronger, and more united than ever with two new members, Finland and Sweden,” he noted. Biden also worked to strengthen new partnerships like the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, known as the Quad, which brings together the U.S., Japan, Australia, and India, and whose leaders met last weekend in Delaware to affirm their commitment to the partnership.
Biden listed the many crises around the world today. “[F]rom Ukraine to Gaza to Sudan and beyond,” he said, we see “war, hunger, terrorism, brutality, record displacement of people, a climate crisis, democracy at risk, strains within our societies, the promise of artificial intelligence and its significant risks.”
In 1919, Biden recalled, Irish poet William Butler Yeats described a world where “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” But, Biden said, [in our time, the center has held.” Leaders and people around the world have stood together to turn the page on Covid, defend the charter of the United Nations, and ensure the survival of Ukraine in the face of the 2022 Russian invasion.
“There will always be forces that pull our countries apart and the world apart: aggression, extremism, chaos, and cynicism, a desire to retreat from the world and go it alone,” Biden said. “Our task, our test, is to make sure that the forces holding us together are stronger than those that are pulling us apart, that the principles of partnership that we came here each year to uphold can withstand the challenges, that the center holds once again.”
Biden reiterated the themes of his administration’s foreign policy, urging the countries in the United Nations to continue to stand with Ukraine and to manage competition with China responsibly so that competition does not become conflict. He noted that the U.S. and China are working together to combat the flow of deadly synthetic narcotics around the world, but said the U.S. will continue to push back against unfair economic competition and the military coercion of other nations in the South China Sea, while strengthening a network of alliances and partnerships across the Indo-Pacific.
Turning to the Middle East, Biden reiterated the horrors of October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and killed more than 1,200 people—including 46 Americans—and pointed out that “innocent civilians in Gaza are also going through hell. Thousands and thousands killed, including aid workers. Too many families dislocated, crowding into tents, facing a dire humanitarian situation. They didn’t ask for this war that Hamas started.”
Biden noted that the U.S., Qatar, and Egypt have put forward a ceasefire and hostage deal that was endorsed by the U.N. Security Council, and urged Israel and Hamas to finalize it. “Even as the situation has escalated,” Biden said, “a diplomatic solution is still possible.” Indeed, he said, “a two-state solution…where Israel enjoys security and peace and full recognition and normalized relations with all its neighbors, where Palestinians live in security, dignity, and self-determination in a state of their own,” remains “the only path to lasting security.”
Progress toward peace in the Middle East will put countries “in a stronger position to deal with the ongoing threat posed by Iran,” Biden said, to deny oxygen to the terrorists Iran supports and to “ensure that Iran will never, ever obtain a nuclear weapon.”
“Gaza is not the only conflict that deserves our outrage,” Biden said. In Sudan, a bloody civil war has put eight million people on the brink of famine, and caused death and atrocities. The U.S. has led the world in providing humanitarian aid, Biden said, and is leading diplomatic talks to avert a wider famine.
The U.S. stands behind the idea that people “need the chance to live in dignity,... protected from the ravages of climate change, hunger, and disease,” Biden said, and he noted that during his presidency the U.S. has invested more than $150 billion in sustainable development—including $20 billion for food security and more than $50 billion for global health—and has mobilized billions in private-sector investment. These principles were laid down in the 1950s by Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower, who feared that impoverished populations would be easy prey for religious or political demagogues who could use them to start wars. Biden did not acknowledge that a Trump presidency, devoted to isolationism, would almost certainly abandon them.
Biden did note that the U.S. worked to repair the damage of Trump’s administration by rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change. It also passed the most ambitious climate legislation in history, is on track to cut emission in half by 2030, and has promised to quadruple climate financing to developing nations, investing $11 billion so far this year. The U.S. also rejoined the World Health Organization and donated almost 700 million doses of Covid vaccine to 117 countries. Biden vowed to address the outbreak of mpox in Africa and urged other countries to join the effort. He noted that the U.S., the Group of Seven industrialized democracies (G7), and partners have launched an initiative to finance infrastructure in the developing world.
Biden took office warning that the international institutions set up after World War II had concentrated wealth and power among the hands of a few and thus people left behind around the globe were losing faith in democracy. That sentiment is shared at the U.N, and today he sided with those countries calling for an expanded U.N. Security Council, greater youth engagement, and stronger measures against climate change.
At length, Biden urged the U.N to take advantage of the possibilities and manage the risks of artificial intelligence (AI), which can both usher in scientific progress and push disinformation and create bioweapons. “We must make certain that the awesome capabilities of AI will be used to uplift and empower everyday people, not to give dictators more powerful shackles on…the human spirit,” he said.
So far, Biden’s speech was a retrospective of the changes he had seen in the world in more than 50 years in public service, and how he had tried to approach present-day changes by reinforcing and expanding America’s engagement with the world. But in his last address to the United Nations, he also had something personal to say.
“Even as we navigate so much change,” he said, “[w]e must never forget who we’re here to represent.”
“‘We the People,’” he said, the first words of the U.S. Constitution, and the words that inspired the opening words of the U.N. Charter, which begins: “We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war….”
Biden noted that he “made the preservation of democracy the central cause of my presidency.” He recalled the difficulty of deciding to step away, concluding that “as much as I love the job, I love my country more.”
“My fellow leaders, let us never forget, some things are more important than staying in power. It’s your people…that matter the most. Never forget, we are here to serve the people, not the other way around. Because the future will be…won by those who unleash the full potential of their people to breathe free, to think freely, to innovate, to educate, to live and love openly without fear. That’s the soul of democracy. It does not belong to any one country.”
It lives in “the brave men and women who ended apartheid, brought down the Berlin Wall, fight today for freedom and justice and dignity,” he said. It’s in Venezuela, where millions voted for change; in Uganda, where LGBTQ activists demand safety and recognition of their humanity; in citizens from Ghana to India to South Korea peacefully choosing their leaders.
“Every age faces its challenges,” Biden said. “I saw it as a young man. I see it today. But we are stronger than we think. We’re stronger together than alone. And what the people call ‘impossible’ is just an illusion. [As] Nelson Mandela taught us…: ‘It always seems impossible until it’s done.’”
Judge Tanya Chutkan is plainly ready to get on with presiding over something. Since the Supreme Court’s unconscionable decision regarding presidential immunity dumped the case back in her chambers with one of its legs chopped away, Judge Chutkan seems to have responded by getting it on. So on Tuesday afternoon, she ruled in favor of special counsel Jack Smith and allowed him to present a nearly two-hundred-page brief of the evidence his office compiled supporting the insurrection charges against the former president*. From ABC News:
Smith faces a Thursday deadline to file his opening brief about how the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity applies to the former president’s criminal case. Smith had sought the judge’s permission to file an oversized brief, including more than 30 pages of exhibits. Filings are normally limited to 45 pages. While U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is allowing the lengthy filing, the materials will likely be filed under seal—with a public version likely to be released, with redactions, at a later date. Trump’s lawyers had opposed the request, calling the proposed filing a “monstrosity” and a “biased list of grievances,” and arguing that the filing would allow prosecutors to unfairly publicize evidence.
The European Greens have been infiltrated to the degree that they pursue punitive laws and regs on the people rather than corporations to improve green policies—which is a huge sign to me they’re bullshit.
The leaders of Germany’s Greens, partners in the embattled central government of Olaf Scholz, have announced their resignation, saying that a series of election defeats requires a radical reset.
Ricarda Lang and Omid Nouripour, joint leaders since 2022, said on Wednesday that the environmental party, a trailblazer in Europe and the first to have MPs elected to a national parliament, faced its deepest crisis in a decade after the result of the Brandenburg state election on Sunday.
“It is time to lay our beloved party’s fate in others’ hands,” said Nouripour.
The surprise announcement comes at a time when Germany’s political landscape has been shaken by the rise of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and the unexpected success of a fledgling populist leftist-conservative party, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW).
... ... ...
