It is somehow fitting that President Joe Biden’s farewell address to the nation, scheduled for 8:00 Eastern time tonight, was overshadowed today by the dramatic announcement that after months of negotiation backed by the United States and facilitated by Egyptian and Qatari mediators, negotiators from Israel and Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire and to exchange Israeli hostages taken on October 7, 2023, for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
“Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation,” he said, “enabling the abuse of power. The free press is crumbling [or] disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit…. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence is the most consequential technology of our time, perhaps of all time.” - President Joe Biden
In my opinion, Joe Biden is one of the best, but one of the most underrated and undervalued presidents of the United States - especially as a human being. Thank you, Mr. President; thank you, Joe.
Thank you, Dutch Mike and thank you, Heather! I watched Joe Biden's speech and I was proud of him and proud of America. I don't look forward to what is coming next and yet we have this great community to stand with, and Heather at the helm. May we stand strong.
The spudering of an ole man who allowed an inept ole AG to not go after the most pernicious monster in American history. Had he pursued the insurrection charges, there would be no President Donald Trump on January 20, 2025. I don’t want to hear anymore of this half-senile ole fart. And besides, he didn’t commute the life sentence of our longest political prisoner, Leonard Peltier. He is aware of the injustice of this Nstive American activist.
Ah, Bill, there are times when you make a great deal of sense, but this is not one of them.
The primary fault does not lie with either Biden or Garland, but instead with one of our two ossified political parties which began its descent into authoritarianism with Goldwater, continued with Nixon, and has now given us Trump, all aided and abetted by a weaponized Electoral College, n American electorate, a good half of which has utterly failed in its primary duty, to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, all in thrall to a man who has pulled off the greatest con job ever perpetrated on this nation, and finally a Supreme Court who gave him a virtually free pass on his road to rule.
Three times during their recent journey toward this present moment, that party had an excellent chance of altering their destructive trajectory - once in 2016 when they recognized the danger posed by Trump and yet allowed him the nomination in spite of his manifest unfitness for the presidency, again in 2021 when their leadership, having seen and publicly stated that Trump was responsible for the assault on the capital, failed to follow through during his second impeachment, and finally in 2024 when they slavishly pandered to his raging paranoia, faux victimhood, vengefulness, and a campaign largely based on fear, ignorance, prejudice, and plethora of lies, false promises, and increasing incoherence.
Neither Biden nor Garland pulled those levers for Trump, but rather half a nation who ignored the evidence right in front of their eyes, much of it put there by Trump himself and his myrmidons, made a hero out of a felon, and traded their responsibilities as citizens for the price of a dozen eggs and fear of all those hungry Haitians seeking ‘pet food’.
My only regret about President Biden's excellent speech is that this is the one he should have made years ago and could have repeated regularly. He has been too old school nice. Americans needed to hear this said with fire and anger. The middle class has been hollowed out. Instead of touting employment stat victories we should have been continuously harping on how we need to solve more problems in health care, child care, elder care, housing, retirement programs and food deserts.
It wasn't Biden's efforts at working across the aisle that created epic new programs - it was a slim majority in Congress during the first two years.
The "oligarchy", the unfair tax system, the flood of dark money into politics didn't just happen. It has been a fact of life for decades.
And the misinformation and disinformation campaign by the Morbidly Rich and Religiously Perverted should have been a major battle from day one.
The next sane administration will set up a Cabinet Level fact checking Communications Department that will clarify and tell the truth daily to the world.
For now, it will be up to the DNC and leaders like Senators Chris Murphy and Elizabeth Warren to offer up direct challenges to the avalanche of hogwash and bullshit flowing from Republicans. Blue State Governors will be the backbones of democracy.
That being said, Biden's legacy will be enhanced with the perspective of time. Just like Jimmy Carter, their qualities of character and empathy will be admired. They did more good for their nation in their one term presidencies than all the modern Republican presidents did combined - except for Ike who was the last Republican who was a president of all Americans.
Exactly. If there is one problem with Biden, it's this. He's trying to play a chess game, playing be the rules whilst his opponent is continually spitting and punching him in the face. That may be nice and honourable, but it simply doesn't work.
“Old school nice” (meaning good natured, compassionate kind, charitable) is not what a large chunk of Americans admire. Interview after interview with Trump voters proves that what they admire is the exact opposite: old school nasty (meaning, for example, unkind, spiteful, uncharitable). Perhaps we are entering the age of nastiness. Trump, psychologically projecting his own inner self as always, calls anyone he doesn’t like “nasty.”
Apparently, his voters have a lot of inner unrecognized nasty they project on people like Trump. Pretty soon nastiness will be acceptable, celebrated. It will be virtuous to be aggressive, unfriendly, uncharitable, spiteful, dishonest, brutal. Niceness will be for wimps. MAGA t-shirts emblazoned “Loud and proud MAGA Nasty” will be hot sellers.
Jennifer, MAGAs delight in being nasty, in your face people. It's their chance to get back at those people that they think wronged them in some way usually by being recognized as citizens who deserve rights and therefore sorta leveling the playing field although i would argue that is not actually the case in many instances.
To be replaced by something catastrophically worse, from a party that breaks all the old rules and standards.
Wait until you see their lies and broken oaths turn out for the real losers and suckers that voted for them. Do they think they will come out of this ill gotten power grab an better than the rest of us.
They booted the pilots and are claiming they know how to fly the plane with incompetent and malicious pretenders.
What could possibly go wrong.
I imagine it like a bunch of professional wrestlers putting on "entertaining" performances that will cost the audiences more than they can ever imagine.
Voters don't take the Oath of Office. Their primary duty is to inform themselves well enough that they elect representatives, who when elected, will honor that oath. In that task, voters have failed dismally. I'm convinced that a majority of those who voted for FELON47 could not pass a 6th-grade civics test. Did voters realize that they were facing a binary choice: the rule of law or Trump? How are we ever going to be able to elect good public officials when a large portion of the electorate lack critical thinking skills and can't distinguish fantasy from reality? This is the biggest challenge our democracy faces, and will be made even tougher by the gusher of lies we can expect from the new administration, and their amplification by right-wing media and normalization/equivocation from mainstream corporate media.
I think that many of those who cast their ballots for the convict were absolutely convinced that he would "restore" them to their "rightful place" at the top of society, just like their ancestors (or wished for ancestors) of southern "aristocracy", that is to say antebellum slave holders. What I see are men (and their wives) who are terrified of "others", like BIPOC, LGBTQ+, immigrants, non-Christians, and educated people. Some others, although I suspect a smaller percentage, want their perception of what a strong businessman is (although the multi-bankruptcy guy doesn't look like that to me). Even more (and maybe this is the "refuse to vote" crowd) could not vote for a woman, much less a woman of color.
Ally, don’t make it so complicated. We now know that social media was used on a youngish white male portion of the electorate that spends an in inordinate amount of time online on social media much on TiK Tok. Their minds have been corrupted and led to believe in you guessed it, the second coming. And so where were the massive wave of women disgusted with losing their rights?
Ally, I think you have the exact reasons why MAGAs vote for someone like death star. Not only are they terrified, but also angry because someone who doesn't look like them has a chance and some rights. It is no longer enough to be white, a white male, straight, Christian, here for more than a generation, and yes, not very well educated.
As usual, Ally, your observations elevate the stream of commentaries. The factors you mention are certainly at play. In addition, the "refuse to vote" crowd includes a substantial number of Americans who just don't care enough about the obligations of citizenship to bother.
I applaud the wording in your lead sentence: "those who cast their ballots." You highlight a key point I have come to embrace, first suggested by Eric Liu some time ago. It is this: All constitutionally qualified voters do vote in every election. I call the first group "active" voters; they cast a ballot and know then who received their vote. The second group I call "passive voters." They always vote for the winner of every election and only know who received their vote once the ballots are counted.
Our challenge, in part, is to accurately inform and motivate more of the passives to change to active. That process requires more words to describe than there is space for here.
Americans don't want to conscientiously work at being a good citizen. They want a "good" (meaning entertaining) fight or an even more entertaining show. That's why Republicans have adopted the WWE style of politics, combining the fight and the show into constructing a false "reality" that the racist, sexist, and uneducated voter was willing to vote for. It turns out that America has a lot of racist, sexist, and uneducated voters....and they include both Trump voters and people who didn't vote.
I agree. I’m just upset. I harken to the idea that when you lose, you are a loser. Biden is a complicated history. He has been on the wrong side at times; pushing segregation ideology, allowing Clarance Thomas to be nominated his probably biggest mistake. I think Biden was not a great PR for himself. Yes he enacted wise legislation I won’t deny him this. But I think his initial inaction at the border doomed him and his VP. He simply didn’t want to follow Trump by enacting strong security and this ultimately cost him and his VP. And it’s not just another missed opportunity. This one is the big one. Fours years of massive rearranging the bureaucracy and turning it into an autocracy. This is a big loss and it remains at his feet. Ironically, it was a republican Senator that came close to removing unlimited monies from campaigns. John McCain did well but the Supreme Court nipped that. I have sometimes called the United States the illegitimate bastard child of England. We almost got it right but not quite. From the planters who towed the slave trade to the oligarchs of today, it never ceased. So with a few bright places in our history, namely saving western civilization during the mid 20th century, we now fully enter a deep and dark place in the world. My opinion. And to be fully can, I’ve never felt that this was my place to live. For a brief time in the 1970s, I lived in Europe and I felt refreshed. My mistake was to return.
You've swallowed the Republican version of Biden's administration, hook, line, and sinker. I hope you find a way to consider the nuanced complexities of the challenges you say he failed at. If not... your loss.
I’m not a partisan. You apparently are. I think for myself. And i have some difficulties if some Republican talking points and mine are the same. I place much fault with democratic wokism. As close as I am to ideology of the democratic, I think they are their own worse enemy.
Bill, the thread from the planters to the oligarchs of today is a great observation. Since we are the land of "opportunity" the masses hold out that view that we all can become an oligarch.....
Believe me, I’m upset too. Or more accurately deeply saddened.
“
I have sometimes called the United States the illegitimate bastard child of England. We almost got it right but not quite”
How could we get it right, that first time around. We’ve had over two centuries to improve on the original. Not that we haven’t made some horrendous stumbles along the way, the latest of which is Trump 2.0.
There’s been a lot of talk recently about the resilience of our institutions. This comes most often from the right in an attempt to deflect the conversation away from what they know is a problem but are too deeply dug into Trump’s orbit to admit, even to themselves.
Having watched the relevant portion of Pam Bondi’s confirmation hearing, I’m hardly sanguine about that resilience, particularly the one she’s about to head. We know the power Trump now holds over his current set of Cabinet appointees, even her record didn’t already make her inclinations clear.
In the end, we have to depend on continuing the fight in every way we can, and hope that before the midterms enough Trumpists will see enough of the harsh light his new term is likely to shine on his motives and actions to swing them into our column, even if it’s in opposition to him rather than a full compliance with us.
Bill, live wherever you like my man, as long as you're able to feed your face, repair your body til you croak, and have somebody to do the dishes for ya, have a nice day. You're just a number. I pity you being homeless.
While Katz had sufficient reason for his rant it was too one-sided. Quin gave a balanced sensible summary of our dilemma. It was so painful to listen to Biden's farewell address. Absent trump, Biden would have been recognized as a great president. But the nice, decent guy was opposed by a bully and manipulative liar extraordinare. So we dive into the great unknown called the future. God help us all (this from an atheist).
Well said. I also need to point out our liberal leadership's failure to address the continuous assault of death by a thousand cuts approach the CONservatives have taken. While the liberals stopped focusing on legislation, the conservatives took the Lewis Powell Memo and went to work with the thousand cuts using a scalpel. Occasionally, they would try the hammer approach to distract their real intentions as was strategized in the book Democracy in Chains - Nancy MacLean. the Memo is the root of Project 2025.
As the CONservatives took small cuts at the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, reproductive rights, and the administrative agencies, the liberal leaders when they held majorities did little to counter these assaults. Their inaction has lead us to this point as they relied on the court system for defense. If you read the Memo, it targeted the court system as a long range plan to fill it with ideological picks that would come from law schools filled with like minded teachers. It has taken decades to get her, but here we are.
The liberals have got to realize that we are viewed as the enemy, not competitors and start acting as such.
Thank you, Rickey Woody, for bringing “Democracy in Chains” to our attention. I read it early on and learned about the Kochs, whose history should be known to all Americans. That they fund Hegseth’s former jobs with veterans’ groups is another reason he should not be Secretary of Defense. Russia and Nazi Germany are the source of their fortune and the remaining brother continues to aid Putin. Hegseth is the perfect “useful idiot” to join Trump. Watch for Trump Tower Moscow.
James, an excellent post, thank you. Biden is not responsible for the R party becoming the party of death. They chose that for power and money, aided and abetted by the Supreme Court and the Congress who could have done something. The Supreme Court gave him carte blanche to be lawless and the Congress aided and abetted him when the Senate should have voted to make the impeachment stick. Now we have a R Senate who will confirm most of the awful nominees for various posts. We will not be better or safer or healthier. At one point in my long life I thought we were making some progress, but now I will spend most, if not all, of my final days, watching the country circle the drain. I do hope for the younger people that I am wrong.
James, I hear what you are saying, and I agree with what you wrote. Nevertheless, Bill still has a point regarding the efficacy of going after Trump after Jan. 6th. I can't tell you how many times I've said to myself: "when the hell are they going to slam the door shut on this future felon?" The Jan. 6th committee had all the evidence; all their ducks were in a row, and Trump new it. It was Trump who controlled the dynamics of his fate in the courts, which clearly implies Garland's lethargy on this matter. My belief is that Garland got the DOJ job because of the travesty of McConnell's manipulations to deny him a SCOTUS position. Unfortunately, he didn't make the most of his good fortune. He did well in the Oklahoma bombing committed in April of 1995; somewhere along the way, he lost the killer instinct to convict one who would destroy more, over a period of time, than Timothy McVeigh could ever conjure. Although, in my high school youth of that time, I never supported Goldwater, I don't think one can blame much on him. After all, he laid out the facts in front of Nixon and either told him or forced him to resign. I also don't believe he would have let the Israelis slide on the attack on the USS Liberty in June of 1967 had he won the presidency over LBJ. That's just my opinion. The individual that I believe you may want to mention is Reagan. His governorship of California signaled in a far better trajectory for what we now have than Goldwater ever did.
If only Howard Dean's 50 state strategy would of been picked up by these democrats. But not?????????????? Dems are low keyed while they get walked all over by repugs.
The idea of 'reacting' to maga is a waste of energy. Biden did great things, but, dealing with dangerous forces like the present Republican party and Donald trump requires an effective use of the Department of Justice and I am safriad Garland was asleep at the wheel. Trump should be in jail, along with Mitch Mcconnell. Take the gloves off, Democrats and overcome what is the most serious attack on the American way of life since t he 'Civil War'.
As long as one remembers that phrase wasn’t added to the pledge until the Eisenhower administration as part of the conservative drive to distinguish us from 'godless communism’. In a way, it is the descendent of the Puritan view that financial success was an indication that one was among the predestined Elect who were bound for heaven.
Don't worry, Bill Katz, you won't be hearing anymore from the "half-senile ole fart" as you call him. You will be hearing ad nauseam from the orange old fart lunatic and his despicable side-kicks. Joe Biden may not have done everything you wanted, but he accomplished a great deal in spite of Republican obstruction and constant lies. And as always, trump will falsely take credit for these accomplishments since they will come to fruition during his term. The Biden bashing needs to stop.
Every president has his pros and cons. To your above list I would add cutting off military aid to Israel, but that would probably have been blocked by the MAGA congress. The Dems should have gotten rid of DeJoy and acted on the voter roll "cleanup" and laws enacted by red states to cheat in the election. Joe did a great job on the economy and in supporting Ukraine. I would fault the rest of the DEM party for not getting much done (Ethics laws for supreme court justices?, statehood for P.R.? A 3 lies and your out law on Faux News, et al?
Withdrawal of military aid to Israel would have been blocked by a Democratic Congress, especially after it had come under attack from Lebanon, Iran and Yemen.
Yes you and Carl are correct. The Jewish lobby in this country is extremely effective. Purposely so in order to insure unmitigated support of Isreal. It’s a shame of our modern times that this country wasn’t able to really fire a peace settlement. They say you can’t force peace but when you are the sole supporter of a country, I think there is potential. Chairman Arafat was the biggest loser when he refused the peace offering. Granted the whole of the West Bank wasn’t mandated but it was very generous offering. So both sides are at fault but America must take the greatest blame.
Israel would have continued on its path with or without our support. And that path has to be its self preservation.
The greatest blame for the devastation of Gaza ought to be assigned to the monsters who started this war by slaughtering 1200 people and taking more as hostages. Hamas has been the aggressor here. Hamas is the Taliban/KKK/Nazis/ISIS....a Mafia.
And even in the face of certain defeat, Hamas did not surrender - sacrificing thousands of their own. HAMAS could have stopped the war at any time, but it did not. With the support of Hezbollah and Iran it continued to rain rockets on Israel.
Should the response of Israel to such an attack have been different? Sure. Is Netanyahu a cold blooded monster? Yes. But I have yet to hear what the proper strategy should have been to defeat Hamas without the destruction that occurred. I am listening...
And now we have a chance at peace. Why did Hamas finally agree to a cease fire? Because it lost the support of Iran and Hezbollah due to Israel's actions. I hate that it is true - but when faced with an enemy that is at its core is committed to your destruction (river to the sea!), you don't bring anything to the fight other than superior strength.
Blaming Joe Biden for a conflict created by, continued by and supported by the enemies of peace and democracy is ridiculous.
The destruction of Gaza has been beyond awful. But sometimes there are insane leaders who refuse to surrender in the face of all reasoning and efforts at peace. The Nazis. The Japanese generals. Throughout history, negotiations begin when one side actually realizes it can't win. Hamas knew that months ago.
The people of Gaza have experienced horror beyond anything that we can feel or imagine. But the people of Gaza elected Hamas and did not tell Hamas to stop attacking Israel. They allowed their terrorist leaders to continue. They could have surrendered. Instead they sheltered the murderers.
But of course, it's complicated, isn't it? In the West Bank, the orthodox Jews who are stealing Palestinian land and assassinating people who have lived there for generations are no better than Hamas and act like the Taliban.
What is the simplistic solution for that situation? My idealistic and unlikely response would be that we should have a United Nations with teeth - with troops that would enforce the international agreements that provided a safe haven in the West Bank. Here, Israel is allowing militant extremists to act as if they are their own government. That is a situation where America could draw a line in the sand and make a difference. The West Bank Jewish "settlements" are an affront to everyone. They are a direct threat to peace in the region.
Of course, if we have an American civil war, would we welcome the UN to sort us out? I think not.
Sadly, the Confederacy still lives in the DNA of many - ironically now in the party that originally brought it to its knees.
And so it goes. Joe did a lot more right than wrong. He will be viewed as a Saint real soon.
The Pro right wing extremist Israeli government lobby including AIPAC (founded by an Israeli government lobbyist) and CUFI (founded by American Christian evangelicals.) There fixed it for you. Your talk of a "Jewish lobby" is dubious, at best.
[Speaker Mike]Johnson and [CUFI founder pastor] Hagee appear to be run-of-the-mill Christian Zionists, fueled by fantasies of a cataclysmic war in the Middle East that brings about the Second Coming of Christ, wherein all Muslims—and Jews, for that matter—either convert or face eternal damnation. It would be easy to dismiss these evangelicals and their apocalyptic fervor, but that would be a mistake, as their conceptualizations of Judaism and Israel are shared by many who are not so overtly eschatological, nor even Christian. In recent days, narratives of Jewish and Israeli exceptionalism have proliferated, as conservatives frame Hamas’s October 7 massacre as a blow, more fundamentally, to the West. . .
The weaponizing of Judaism against Islam was long a trademark of televangelists like Pat Robertson, who once claimed the entire world shook from the struggle between Israelis worshiping the “one true God” and Arabs worshiping Allah. It’s now a trademark of those white Christians who are now working to justify Israel’s obliteration of Gaza.
Bill, I agree that Leonard Peltier should have been finally freed. He has served his time and is now an ailing old man who should be free to end his days outside the "big house." But demeaning Biden does no good. Yes, he is old--something we all aspire to rather than the other option--but he did many many good--even great things during his administration.I regret that he felt the need to keep arming Israel so that they could pursue their long-time aim of genocide to the Palestinians. It will be many years and tons and tons of money that will be needed to help restore Gazan infrastructure but lives and allegiances may take even more time. And that is a tragedy that could have been avoided many many years ago--think 1948--when no thought was given to the hand-off of land without compensation or consideration. But Biden inherited a very broken system and I have to feel that he did the best he could with what he was given, and four years is hardly enough to correct all the sins of politics and the world.
Coulda, woulda, shoulda....reading these comments all I see are "Monday morning quarterbacks" thinking they know more than the person in the middle of it all. None of us have any idea what the President is dealing with minute by minute and yet all I see at the moment are comments "all he had to do!". He wasn't perfect BUT damn...he was effective and got things done. Very sad and disappointed a lot of Americans do not see what they voted for and all of us will be paying the price.
Yes Kathy. Even more simply, I see it as in Trumps 1st term he inherited the momentum of Obama. Then, Trumps term.., lousy as it was, it created the momentum for Biden. Biden ran with it, and has created the momentum which Trump wilol ride on and of course take credit for. And if this coming term does nothing, it too will create a momentum for the next President. And, we will have a "next president". We're gonna need one to see us through this little mid-life crisis we seem to be having. Rock on.
I wouldn’t say bad things about President Biden who did lots of good things but his legacy will be the coming second term of T. He picked an ineffective AG for the task that was ahead of him as well as wanting to not punish repigs for some misguided notion of unity with traitors.
An insurrection charge against Trump would have been very risky to land, as the special prosecutor rightly calculated. He would have successfully brought a conviction against Trump but for the scandalous intervention by the Supremes on the issue of immunity and consequent delays. Once a special prosecutor was appointed it was then outside the bailiwick of either Biden or Garland.
You have good points. However the January 6th committee forced AG’s hands and he appointed Jack Smith. If they(AG and Biden admin) had moved faster and when trump was still reeling from the failed insurrection something may have stuck. We’ll never know. I am also probably wish casting.
Way back when Trump firsst started arriving on the tarmac in his TRUMP B757..., none of us thought it would happen. But, he became "stock" which got the attention of Big-Money, and they invested in him like some kind of IPO. It's paid off for them. We were blindsided.., sucked in as it were after his first miserable term in office. And, we were about to be "had" a second time.., we just couldn't fathom it at first. But he had plenty of investors, most of whom we don't even know exist. Those folks were'nt about to lose their money.., that's why he won. And, that(!!!) is why "we"lost. While we laughed at the RNC, joked about his dick-size, made fun of his sons, ogled his wifes naked photos, called him names..., THIS is where it got us. Big-Money talks and the god of BS walks 'freely' amongst us. What're we gonna do? Call Ghostbusters? Hollywood is burning. Welp.. folks, we still are a country of laws and courts with judges who are not only educated, but human. Thanks to technology we can see the changes taking place in our short lifetime. Let's work on this.
Bill, I hear you and your disappointment. But consider the incredible amount of good he has done. We have had NO President without faults. None.
I agree that Merrick Garland was the absolute wrong choice for this time. I think Joe should have fired him and appointed someone with guts. Maybe Glenn Kirschner?
However, Joe brought us out of Covid, certainly saved me from the serious prospect of homelessness!
Infrastructure is finally getting repaired and built. More people have had a chance to succeed than ever under the false trickledown theories.
NATO is stronger. Ukraine is still alive. We have the beginning of a possible end to the horrors of Israel/Gaza.
Biden has done more for the American worker than anyone since FDR. And let's not forget, FDR ignored lynching in the South and interned Japanese Americans during WWII.
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, as the saying goes.
The ultimate blame should be on Trump and his billionaires, who engaged in a good deal of lying and deception. Biden, Congress, and the media could all have done a better job protecting our democracy, but it didn't happen. Since all the blame is out there, we must do what we can to keep the light burning. God help us.
Case in point right now— the cheating going on in North Carolina’s election by MAGats taking away the powers of a democratically elected DEMOCRATIC governor. Not a peep from media or the Democrats or the DOJ.
Wait....wait! There was a gathering protesting what is happening in NC. Read Marc Elias. As Biden said, "The free press is crumbling," so we know not to expect anything from them but substacks have arisen to change the information delivery method.
Thank you, MLMinET, for posting this. Jay Kuo's substack, the Status Kuo, is one of my favorites, This particular one explains in detail what obstacles Merrick Garland and Jack Smith were up against. I'm frankly getting tired of the blame game so many of us seem to be playing all the time. We must have all the facts before making such blatant judgments.
Adding my thanks for Kuo's writing that shows us just how far and wide the blame can be spread. It's an inside look at what we have been waiting to know about.
It’s free to just subscribe. My subscriptions are my main source of info and I generally subscribe for free until I see how serious they are about writing. (HCR is amazing and at the top of my paid list. ❤️😍)
Thank you MLM. I had not heard of Kuo before. He makes some excellent points that will become important to remember when tffdd (the first felon draft dodger) 🤮🤮 begins his new crime wave.
I agree that Garland was a big disappointment when he had an opportunity to stop the insurrectionists years ago. Also Biden's adoration of Bibi, allowing the destruction of Gaza and genocide of the Palestinians was inexcusable. But we must put this aside now as there are bigger problems coming!
Oh… i’m warmed by the cockles of your heart. I particularly love being called such. Thank you. How did you know that? I would like to nominate you to be on my Board of Directors of “Seven Cats and Me Foundation.” Let me give you a like.
Broaden your view, Bill. Just because Biden did not more as far as you would have liked, don’t diss his real achievements. And Jack Smith explained why charges of insurrection were not brought, and his explanation makes sense.
Where do you start? The American people have just voted for Techno- feudalism, and a few months before that your Supreme Court gave the president unlimited power.
We start where we are, on the ground, in our communities. Our Coalition for Safe Communities formed in 2017, passing resolutions at Town Meetings that we developed with our police chiefs emphasizing that their role was to protect all of us by building trust without regard to citizenship status. We elected a new sheriff who abrogated the 287(g) agreement the former sheriff had entered into with ICE. After a while, we went on hiatus since there was very little for us to do. Now we're back at work, making sure that our schools understand that, by state law, they must not allow ICE on their campuses, they must not supply any information about their students and their families. And we have resumed contact with our police chiefs, all of whom are on board with keeping all residents safe. Since we cannot currently control what happens nationally, we do what we can locally.
In bright-red Ottawa County, MI, this fall we voted out the far-right majority on the county commission--a group that took power in 2023 and fired competent appointees and installed incompetents, cost the county hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawsuits, severely damaged the morale of professional county employees, tossed out the county slogan "Where You Belong" and replaced it with "Where Freedom Rings," and did other harm. Now that group has only 4 of the 11 commission seats; moderate Republicans are in charge, and the lone Democrat was elected vice-chair of the commission. People here worked really, really hard for this result. It isn't perfect but it's hopeful and way better. And the new terms are for 4 years instead of 2 (new state law).
In Freedom Maine a town of 700 is in the midst of a shake down by emboldened young (I'm 70) power abusers. There is a home daycare mom, a petty nerdowell and a paranoid former star from the Blair witch project. They are proposing an ordinance to limit the profit of solar arrays to only the town restricting land owners. We vote Tuesday and finally a Democratic resident sent a letter to the residents to vote no. An outgoing select member altered the town charter after the committee submitted it, and then dismissed the committee. It made the appeals board act like a militia and I stood up to the select board along with the entire appeals board. They removed me from the board. Any suggestions?
Well, not exactly, if it’s AZ, under thumb of bigger majority in state legislature than before! But progress is being made locally, albeit slowly and incrementally.
Maybe too slowly . In any case i don't consider AZ uncivilized part of the country despite the fact that you have a considerable number of very extreme right people there. 😃
Betsy, are you in AZ by any chance? I wonder, because of your comment about electing a new sheriff. Yes, we all need to concentrate on what we can do locally, decisions made there have immediate impacts on our lives at this end.
The very best to you and your community. Lucky all !!!! May you share more and help this intelligent quest to flow into the water streams of and into communities all over our country.
The votes were paid for by billionaires riding the trained-by- Hollywood Trump make-believe-millionaire trainer of “apprentices” for a tv show ten + years ago. And now continuing to ride the crest of the wave of televised ‘drama’ which he’s been coached to continue by the billionaire leaders of the Heritage Foundation, purveyors of an incoming tidal wave of radical religious pseudo Christianity
( ’ upon which our country was ‘founded’ … note the “dramatic effect” of these words/beliefs).
We’ve got Work To Do to educate, build networks, and utilize the LEGAL RIGHTS embedded in our Democracy to right our SHIP OF STATE.
And writing checks from your company to the porn star with whom you cheated on your wife AND mistress is now an official presidential act. “I did nothing wrong” is an official presidential lie we will be hearing a lot more and should always be publicized and carefully documented. 💩🤡🎃
We were fools to let the Federalist Society stack the Supreme Court! They spent decades while we paid little or no attention. Now we are paying the price
No, not unlimited power, just immunity from criminal prosecution for acts authorised as part of his official capacity - although that extension of presidential privilege was quite startling in itself especially coming from justices who claim to be 'originalists'.
Time will tell, and I anticipate unbridled exercise of unlimited power. He will rattle the cage and pull the chains that restrain him. Both are weakened by the threats Biden cites.
It was not a free and fair election. The firstfelon draftdodger’s gerrymandering began 8 years ago and will be hard to undo but, as others have said, ACT LOCAL!!
And people listened to a person who had already proven himself to be a serial liar. INSANITY: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Tonight, President Joe Biden delivered a farewell speech that went beyond a simple reflection on his administration’s accomplishments. He issued a stark and urgent warning: America is facing a dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a few ultra-wealthy individuals.
Speaking from the historic Resolute Desk, he drew parallels to Dwight Eisenhower’s 1961 farewell address, which cautioned the nation about the emerging "military-industrial complex." Today, Biden identified a new and pressing threat: a "tech industrial complex" that threatens our democracy, our basic rights, and our collective ability to build a fair and just society.
This is not just a warning; it’s a call to action. The unprecedented influence of tech giants—who control vast amounts of wealth, data, and political sway—has already begun reshaping our lives, often at the expense of accountability, transparency, and equality. From the commodification of personal data to the unchecked spread of disinformation, we are witnessing the erosion of democratic values in real-time.
We must fight against abusive surveillance and erosion of privacy.
President Biden’s warning was clear: we are at a crossroads. The consolidation of power in the hands of a few threatens not just the economy but the very fabric of our democracy. It is up to us—the people—to rise to the challenge, remain vigilant, and act decisively.
Let’s ensure that the freedoms we cherish and the values we hold dear are preserved for future generations. Together, we can build a tech landscape that empowers rather than oppresses.
The time for vigilance is now. The time for action is ours.
President Biden accomplished many important things as stated in the White House letter release to the American people, but the letter did not include the warning which was directly to the viewers.
I would go one step further: Muskolini and the Zucc, and Putin no less, are actively unraveling the fabric of reality itself, replacing it with a reality THEY control. It’s the ultimate power grab: it means control not only over us, the people, but also absolute control over the world we experience.
We should sincerely take Joe Biden’s warning to heart - if it’s not already too late…
I wish this speech that turns the spotlight on the bitter fruit of Reaganomics, the growth of plutocracy to the point that it is clear and present threat to the Republic itself, had been given much earlier, but I am grateful and relived to hear it today. We have to focus or we'll lose the plot.
We must reward the corporations that stand up to the oligarchs whether they are small mom and pop stores in our communities or large corporations like Target.
My entire family and many of our friends are boycotting purchases from Amazon, Walmart, the Home Depot and many other corporations. Some of us have been stocking up on staples like paper towels and dry goods. Facebook and X are cesspools of misinformation as is Fox News, Newsmax, OAN and the Sinclair stations.
The oligarchs want to sell the idea of "states rights" to allow states to take away individual rights and freedoms. They prefer that families declare bankruptcy rather than provide basic health care to millions.
If you live in one of the 20 states which still has a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour write to your Congresscritters and Senators to raise it to $15.00 and index increases on COLA.
This is a significant crossroads moment. I'm very thankful that we had Joe at the helm for the past 4 years. He's so right that the time for our vigilance and action is now.
Just as in 1961, no one including the smiling handsome replacement, JFK who opened the 1960s door to the modern slaughter and war machine for almost 15 years, no one shall listen to this one either.
No one ever mentioned about all he gave up personally to do all he has accomplished for we the people The gait was never mentioned as due to his focus on work not age Tragic that he’s leaving the office and who so unworthy is coming in
One of Joe Biden's greatest strengths is his ability to delegate. What amazing things Pete Buttegieg has done and many others within the administration. Blinken has been tireless in his efforts as Secretary of State and Deb Haaland has protected or public lands better than any other Secretary of the Interior. The list goes on and on.
And Trump is replacing all of them with clueless ass-kissing oligarchs.
Gary I agree: Biden's team has been exceptionally competent and activist and it will be heartbreaking to see all of that destroyed in seconds come January 20. All I can say is that I hope Pete uses this as an opportunity to start working toward making a bigger political bid because, weirdly, a middle class white guy who is married to another man and has two children might be more acceptable to the misogynists and racists who refused to vote for Harris, one of the most competent candidates in 50 years simply because he's white and has a penis.
I hope you're right, Linda. In my experience in the LGBTQ+ community (spanning almost 50 years at this point), straight men are terrified of gay men, because they are afraid a gay man will treat them the same way straight men treat women when sexual conduct takes place. Flat ass terrified.
Gary, you didn't mention two of President Biden's biggest mistakes. First he hired Merrick Garland and second, he didn't fire Merrick Garland. Other than that his record is historical.
He didn't try staggering to his feet, blood POURING from an invisible wound on the edge of his ear, mouthing three words which appeared to begin with "F".
I would like to hear the story behind debate night which should have been postponed. Why was he not taken directly to the emergency room? Was there a reaction to cold medicine or something slipped into his food or water?
I sound old school, but I believe misinformation can be combatted through the basic Platonic doctrine of "that person is best fit to do what that person knows best". Why on earth would I listen to a US congressional representative give a history lesson rather than Heather Cox Richardson? Why would I endure an idiot like Sean Hannity holding forth on Mideast policy and history over an esteemed professor of it - who also knows the languages and culture - such as Juan Cole? Why would I listen to anyone talk about constitutional law over a lawyer or some one else who is a rank amateur talk about religion instead of a theologian?
What next? Have a crab fisherman do my plumbing? Have a French teacher work on my home's electrical wiring? RFK Jr. on vaccines . . . oh . . . wait . . . (!) Absurd!
The time for alternative media has long since come - I stopped reading the papers about the Middle East and turned to Juan Cole during the Second Gulf War that we were lied into. He actually knew - horror of horrors - the historical differences between a Sunni and a Shiite Muslim.
The ship has long since sailed on the US media. I knew that in '03 when W. was pretending he hadn't made the final decision yet to go to war. He had. I remember being in Rome in January and reading in a major Italian daily about how US troops had already entered Iraq. WaPo, the NYT, the LA Times . . . cricketes.
I recall on my first day of freshman English in college my English prof, a wonderful scholar of Chaucer, noted that there were even back then only five major liberal dailies in the US. She was making a larger point about writing, critical thinking, and the protection of our democracy, already clearly in jeopardy under Reagan on that cold day in Boston in 1986. "What happens the day those are shut down or their voices cease" she asked us.
When the foremost media entities in the US abandoned their place as the Fourth Estate and declared that their overarching mission was to "sell widgets" - my shorthand for what esteemed representatives of those same media told me and a few hundred others at a Princeton alumni panel a dozen years ago - I knew with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that we were doomed as a Constitutional democracy. How do we come back from this nadir when most of our fellow Americans are uninformed, misinformed, disinformed, intellectually incurious, undereducated, gullible, and lazy?
When it is all only about money, when that is our ultimate value and not the common good, we are lost. The two most pernicious phrases in US politics is "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" and "It's the economy stupid." We'd have done better to think, "Is the country, is my neighbor, better off than they were four years ago?", and "It's the well-being stupid."
If you want to know the values of a society look to its largest buildings. For Romans it was the amphitheater, the temple, and the bath; for the peoples of Medieval Europe the castle and the cathedral; for us it is the skyscraper, the sports arena, and (though less now) the shopping mall.
Sports, money, consumerism. That is no society at all. That is a squalid jumble of money, celebrity, and consumption.
Yes. I think we are really just a shell now of a country. The only thing uniting us are property agreements and property laws and interstate agreements (all about property). Thinking women meanwhile are distracted by the issue of reproductive rights. Without bodily autonomy in their most productive years how can they turn their focus to other matters? Anti-DEI, anti-critical race theory, anti-woke etc combined with evangelical hysteria can be wrapped up as anti-intellectual thinking and anti-scholarship. Forget expertise. Forget credentials. Now a whole country fashioned on a fake wrestling match—just a reality TV show to distract the undereducated masses. Meanwhile this country’s unregulated financial markets (are we really trading crypto now?) is the jumping off point through which to plunder the world. Everything is for sale. We U.S. citizens only have anything if we can outright pay for it. I do not see how in the heck we can call this a functioning Democratic government on the federal level. A lot of state legislatures are also no longer functioning democracies. The confederacy did win in the end—it has continued to function in many ways through Jim Crow laws and mass lynchings and real estate red lining and denying non-white soldiers their GI benefits and there’s more! Why have we named military bases in the U.S. after confederate generals? And there is much much more. Proof we should have put more people in jail after the Civil War just as the DOJ should have come down on DJT and his cronies right away after Jan 6. I cannot see how we think it will take less than a century for things to turn around in favor of human rights.
I would submit that the American Experiment was doomed from the start, for the reasons you have eloquently laid out. As best I can recall, most older nations were formed on some basis other than capitalism. Other countries had bazaars and markets, but those centers of commerce were not the heart and soul of those cultures.
When the European invaders had stolen enough land to form colonies, the first thing they did was to form a government and a treasury to protect and expand their assets. Almost from Day One, grabbing land and building wealth were the prime motivators of U.S. culture.
A culture based on quid pro quo is an empire. And empires always die.
We never really appreciate something we take for granted, until we lose it. My hope is that the further we are manipulated by autocracy, the more people will yearn for a return to democracy.
They are easier to rule. The dumbing of Americans was deliberate, public schools were starved, then came the charter schools, and vouchers, and book banning. It’s a big tangled mess.
But they have been entertained by the most ridiculous bullschittery. I can’t even watch 10 minutes of American TV without getting blasted by more ads than content. Noxious fun and games, Andy Cohen, Real Housewives. the Apprentice. Fox blondes, laced with a little propaganda. Such crap is mind-numbing. Your description of our fellow Americans is right on target.
Lol (got to have a LITTLE humor in these uneasy times, no?)
This reminds me of a moment in my first marriage (around 1996) when I bought us our first satellite dish (Direct TV). We had installed the dish, and connected it to our Tv in the bedroom and settled down after the kids went to sleep to check it out.
My wife picked up the remote and started going through the channels starting at the program guide (Channel 1 in those days). Slowly we progressed, each time looking at each other and agreeing, "No, not that channel. "
Click... click... click.
After about 25 minutes, all of a sudden the program guide popped up again.
We both just sat there for a moment, then we both broke out laughing.
I said, "299 channels and not one f**king thing to watch!"
And that was before ads took over the airwaves, and just when Fox came to solve everybody’s “what to watch problem.” My bff and family had Fox on 24/7, literally from 1996 probably to this day. I watched a lot of PBS and Golden Girls. (Still do). If I am not mistaken, Rupert had a stake in Direct Tv back then.
If I had a buck for every time I was bored and looked for something on TV and could not find anything at all to watch (and I've been known to watch a bunch of ESPN, The Weather Channel, and back in the day, the History Channel) I could most likely buy some nice, expensive gadget. The last times I sat and watched TV were to watch Oregon gack the Rose Bowl and to binge "For All Mankind" when Apple TV had a free weekend.
I think that the last sentence will doom us. IF we take this approach to the American people they will turn more and more to a Populist President, not unlike Andrew Jackson's day. We need to be cautious and not arrogant. We need to educate, not call people names. There is a backlash in progress against the Democrats and their perceived "intellectualism". I have a bright, educated friend who voted for the incoming President. She too believes that the media lie and it has lead her to take a different path then mine. I have watched in Maine as the northern more rural areas pull away from the perceived richer ( not rich, more Middle class) and more arrogant south. There are so many divisions at work in our country, lets not participate by making generalizations and namecalling.
A full 65% of Americans believed in W Bush attacking Iraq. I didn’t. I wrote a letter to my daily and I was convinced I had been placed on a no fly list. I wasn’t but to be against the obvious lies being told to the American public. And we fell for it. One cabinet member after another testified about WMD. I knew this was a lie to me it was obvious. That war had and has had devastating effects long lasting perhaps for 100 more years. It disrupted middle east governments. It caused migration unheard of in modern times. Human kind is on a path to limited destruction. I’m sensing human kind would be better to self destruct so to leave earth to regenerate and thrive before it suffers its own systemic collapse. How’s dat for an optimistic forecast, lol?
The Danger for Us that Care... Is that too many are fed their Reality thru the Social Media Platforms... Person-2-Person Communications, and Learning is slowly being Shutdown... The Techno-Dweebs control the Algorithmic Feeds... At this Years CES show, Life-Like Robots were the Rage.... Perfect for CyberTruck driving Incels... Robot Babies are already more popular in Japan then real Human Babies... Japan's Birthrate has Crashed... I'll Postulate that in a Generation, there will be more Humanoids than Humans in Japan... I will also Postulate that if that happens, that Humans will Escape into Virtual-Reality...
I’m writing my wedding vows right now to my new sweetheart, Lori the Ro-butt Baby. She is so shiny, metallic. I can’t wait to slip my arms around her and kiss her steel wet lips.
Sadly, the Supreme Court's overruling of the 'Chevron deference' last year is yet another indication of the loss of respect for professional expertise in the US. The field is now open to all sorts of unscrupulous corporations to justify their harmful activities using thier own 'experts'. The nascent Trump administration is already vetting career civil servants on the basis of their 'loyalty' and voting records rather than their abilities and replacing them with stooges. Trump will no longer need to amend National Weather Service hurricane maps with a sharpie as federal agencies will all bow to his will.
The hard part is not just that he is leaving but that so many other talented civil servants are likely going to be forced out…
I am reading Autocracy Inc now by Anne Applebaum. I wonder what Biden might have been able to do to further restrict the US from being a target country for the investments of kleptocrats from other nations….
We will definitely not be headed in that direction with the next guy.
The problems were developed before Biden took the reins in that Citizen United allowed us to have unchecked spending and corruption in campaigns. That needs to be dismantled as does the SCOTUS.
Industrial "Robber Barons" corrupt interference with representative government and the common weal really sucked, even if industrialization brought (with problems) many benefits. Prior to Nixon's appointment of tobacco company lawyer Lewis Powell, many of the abuses of "The Glided Age" were being remedied, and acknowledgement of human rights and the middle class were growing. Then the Empire struck back. Why have we allowed it? The doodoo is getting deep.
J L, when you say in reference to going back to the robber barons times, "why have we allowed it" I hope you are referring to the vast majority of felon 34 supporters not having a clue what they were voting for .
The Tragedy of Joe Biden is that he is not a Good Communicator... He is not an Orator like Obama, or JFK... He began his Presidency during a COVID Disaster, and ended it with it being handed to the Social-Media Dweebs... Joe Biden believed that his Accomplishments would speak loudly for themselves... DJT believes that Speaking Loudly is enough.... In this current Superficial Age, Speaking Loudly was enough keep DJT from Prison... I hope that the Techno-Dweebs don't Imprison Us with their Lies... BTW: I Applaud This Latest Ceasefire In Gaza, However ProPublica Released a Report that the Biden Administration has been running Cover for Netanyahu's War in Gaza intentionally... This may have cost Kamala Harris the Election in the Swing States... Now We Have DJT... DJT will try to Undo all of Biden's/Obama's Accomplishments... THIS COULD COST THIS COUNTRY GREATLY...
"Biden Administration has been running Cover for Netanyahu's War". This reads like clear propaganda. In looking at the big picture of the Biden Administration and Joe Biden's career does this sound like him?
"They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes)"
Source: Media Bias Fact Check
Apache we must, must learn to analyze and discard what doesn't ring true to fact.
Thanks Barbara... I look at the Carnage, and the Body-Counts... I read the Israeli Newspapers... Richard Engels of NBC had a Good Overview of this today... I look at the 'Supposed Red-Lines'... Joe Biden has declared himself a "Zionist To His Bones".... I believe that Biden has a very old Mental Picture of Israel dating from the early '70s... One of the worst Massacres of the Indigenous was Sand Creek in Southern Colorado of the Cheyenne Nation... It was conducted by the Pious Evangelicals led by one of their Ministers... It was Arguably worse than Wounded Knee...
I agree. As the modern day fascist orthodox thugs have murdered more than 45,000, Biden continuously sent our bombs. As an American who pays taxes to finance these bombs, I am disgusted with our support of human slaughter unseen since WWII. Yes Biden threw his warm arms around the mass murderer Bibi and gave him what he wanted; the continuation of ethnic clensing of Arabs from their lands.
Seriously? The casualty estimates in the Hamas war range from 45,000 to 100,000.
Do you know how many wars have FAR exceeded that count since WW2? Dozens!
Now admittedly many of these didn't involve any WHITE soldiers or civilians as many took place in Africa or Asia. But to suggest that the carnage in Israel is the worst since WW2 is just preposterous, Bill.
And please, I am NOT trying to minimize the death toll I'm Gaza, it is horrific. But to me, any death toll due to government power struggles is inexcusable.
Assad killed between 500,000 -600,000 of his own people in a civil war. Where was all the whining and crying then? Myanmar has either killer or exiled millions of Rohingya. Xi has an on-going persecution of the Uighyurs. Not a word of outrage.
Why is Israel always in the cross hairs? Oh, right. Because Jews.
First I was informed my original comment to you was off. If my delivery offended you my apologies. It was dashed off in the middle of the night after a week of packing and a brutal day of moving.
Thanks for sharing your further thoughts on this tragedy. Sounds like you have given this quite a lot of thought. I will think about you have said.
Presenting information out of context is disinformation, Barbara. In addition to noting ProPublica as Left-biased in its wording, Media Bias Fact Check report on ProPublica also rates ProPublica as highly credible and reveals that it has never failed a fact check.
An effort toward honest depiction would have cited the full source rather than fabricating a non-existent article title, presenting half-truths and innuendo with the emotional, highly-charged label of "propaganda." Here is that cited source.
Incidentally, Mark Zuckerberg and his minions at "Meta" have been banning citizens who dared to share high-credibility reports on the Middle East situation in their posts. Drop Site News' co-founder Ryan Grim has documented this "censorship"...an act by Zuckerberg that goes beyond censorship because it tries to punish and intimidate citizens who exercise free speech by sharing resourced information.
How do you suppose "Letters From an American" would be rated in bias and factual reporting? It surely seems very biased in its partisan slant, but its posts are well-resourced and like ProPublica, it does seem to strive to be credible.
As our posts are a part of this record, we would do well in the future to strive to be credible too.
But DonOLD can't undo the 74,000+ infrastructure projects or the pipelines that were canceled or hundreds of thousands of home that now have solar panels or heat pumps or the thousands of windmills that have been put into service. He can't undo the damage Ukraine has inflicted on Russia's economy thanks to our support.
And much of the Biden progress, DonOld will take credit for because that's who he is.
Many of which are being provided to Republican states. Indeed, Republican governors have been happy to take credit for these infrastructure projects, even some of those that voted against the enabling legislation and decried the spending plans of the outgoing administration.
I'm not so sure about the infrastructure projects. Many of the 74000 have not yet started or are still in early stages. Trump can and may suspend many of those.
He may have called him out but he is still allied with him and refused to use American political power to force Israel to the peace table earlier. And I am Jewish so believe me, I am no Hamas sympathizer.
Consult Open Secrets on the web. Amazing how many partisan true-believers do not. The greatest taker of AIPAC funds in Congress? Joe Biden holds the record.
"However ProPublica Released a Report that the Biden Administration has been running Cover for Netanyahu's War in Gaza intentionally...."
ProPublica did not do this research. Neither did Heather Cox Richardson. It was done by Institute for Middle East Understanding. The primary source is here:
It was further synthesized in more detail with other studies by Drop Site News. You should have properly credited the report to the primary source that did the actual research.
Both Drop Site News and ProPublica receive high credibility ratings from Media Bias Fact Check. They have never failed a fact check. To call either of these sources "pure propaganda" as Barbara Mullen did in her reply seems a disservice to research, investigative reporting, and to all readers.
Ed, even if President Biden really had been running cover for Netanyahu's war, and after expressing deep sorrow for all the tremendous suffering just look at the positive results. Hezbollah is a spent force in Lebanon and the Lebanese people can look into the future after decades of bloodshed. Hamas another spent force and the Palestinian people in Gaza should get rid of what's left of them and look into the great effort to rebuild their lives and cities with optimism. Syria and Lebanon are not longer under the control of a much weakened Iran. Cooperation and peace is at hand now instead of on/off war all the time for generations. The main problem left to be resolved is Netanyahu and 👋extreme right government. But that's is up to the Israeli people to accomplish.
I support Snopes and MediaBias Factcheck. There is a great deal of misinformation about the Middle East and its conflicts, some of it obviously even on sites like this.
There are so many places along the way where #45 could have been ushered out of government. The 2016 election, impeachment #1, impeachment #2, starting an investigation of January 6, 2021 immediately upon confirmation of the new Attorney General. Joe Biden did a remarkable job, given the relentless harassment of his predecessor. No other president has faced such a loud criminal predecessor.
However, President Biden either couldn’t or wouldn’t see that the R’s across the aisle would not deal in good faith. Not to mention that some members of Congress are just plain dumb and think being a member of Congress is a platform for attention (Marjorie Taylor Green).Others are ignorant AND stupid ((Tommy Tuberville).
Since the election of Reagan, there has been an incremental erosion of the separation of powers. Congress and the Supreme Court were not intended to be rubber stamps for the executive branch. The founders spread power out to curtail the power of the executive branch. Now look where we are. God help us all.
Heather, thank you for sharing President Biden’s words along with historical context. Once again, he’s shown that his heart has been focused on expanding the middle class and helping the average American.
Unfortunately, the work that he started on infrastructure, climate change and manufacturing can’t be accomplished quickly after the money is appropriated and allocated; it takes years between the drawing board and the finished project.
We have been lucky to see someone, along with Nancy Pelosi, who knew how to get things accomplished and we are the better for it.
Now we take up his baton and run the race, using our strengths to fight for our fellow citizens’ welfare and our (small d) democracy. We’ve had your words and those of other historians, journalists and economists to inform us and I, for one, am thankful.
He is a thoroughly decent man, and many aspects and achievements are stellar.
Hindsight is always 20/20, but I wish that in his 1st year or early in his second he had expanded the Supreme Court by two, nominated Garland for one of the posts, nominated someone with dispatch in performance of their duties as AG, and whispered Jack Smith’s name to him/her.
He cannot be held responsible for the origins of the Middle East situation, but he and his Party can be held responsible for how they dealt with it when they held power. They made some very bad choices.
Overall, I feel that he provided much better service to his country than did the operatives who ran his Party. That is not a feeling I expect others to agree with, just a personal disclosure.
Heather correctly gets Biden that "The concentration of wealth and power threatens democracy."
She correctly notes his own take on the dangers posed by oligarchs and the greater danger by the tech billionaires whose channeling of misinformation and disinformation may already be crumbling what may be left of a free press.
Sad part is the impotence already in Congress -- that even when Dems recently controlled the Senate, and could have voted on whether to free the insurrectionist from his disqualification ever again to hold public office, they chose to do nothing.
The orange felon, had there been a vote, could not have gotten the 2/3 necessary under the Constitution's Article 14 Section Three. The disqualification would clearly now be legally in force.
That Dems were so colossally impotent even so recently just underlines why the tens of millions of Americans couldn't be bothered to go out and vote for Dems in November.
Yes. It's bad. Oligarchs, tech billionaires, and others equally bad are taking power.
Dems always seem to have a few Trojan horses that love to jam up the works. Even Fetterman is trying that now. Herding cats would be easy. Bloomberg and his megaphone could give Rupert’s blather some competition. Of course, Vlad is the shadow puppet that lurks. Hard to know who is on what team. Maybe we need blue hats…
Good Post Phil... The Senior Democrats date from a Time before Newt Gingrich, or Mitch McConnell... DC Pols used to Socialize with each other, and stay over the Weekends in DC.. Now they rush Home to their contributors... Many people that I know that didn't Vote were Aghast over Gaza, or the Nastiness on Display in DC... They feel ignored, and don't feel that they have a Stake in the System... Too many get their info, if they do want to stay informed, from the Techno-Dweebs 'News-Drips' Mind Heroin...
No wonder they feel ignored, tune into Techno-Dweebs News Drips, and wonder what is wrong. Maybe if people feel a hunger, they should look at where they are shopping.
For months before the Nov. elections, Apache, I urged Dems to quote humanities.
That is, on the campaign trails, in public utterances, cite the apt novels, films, memoirs, histories, and various arts that show, contextualize, aptly highlight the problems facing working men and women.
Nope. Dems intuited that, if the schools could all drop humanities, so could ever-fundraising Dems.
They thought, hell, all Kamala and Tim need is celebrities. Glitz & glitter is all we need (plus lots of money, and more money, more money) to get all the votes we need.
Agreed Phil. The DNC and the DEM party needs a close look at itself and potentially a makeover that makes it a true force for Democracy. We must, in this time also stay a centrist party (which may be a meaningless term in the coming years).
Phil this is just more BS. There isnt and never was any "automatic" disqualification under the 14th Amendment. That requires EITHER a court adjudication of insurrection (via a trial by jury with a verdict) or an impeachment with a conviction. NEITHER of those outcomes ever happened (not my personal choice but it is what it is).
There was a trial in Colorado which found Trump to be an insurrectionist but the Supreme Court (regardless of their current bias they are still for the moment the highest court in the land) overturned the Colorado verdict and put Trump back on the ballot in Colorado because they said only federal courts or Congress can make the 14th Amendment determination for Presidential elections. Individual states do not have that power.
So where we stand is no insurrection conviction either in a federal court orby impeachment.
And therefore the party about 2/3 of the Congress removing the disqualification never comes into play because there has h never been a disqualification.
The cease fire between Israel and Hamas is a fitting conclusion to the Presidency of a decent, hard working, honorable man dedicated to the ideals that make America a great country. "Again" is redundant. Sad to say his contributions to our lives and to the betterment of people around the world are more appreciated abroad than by the American people. Thank-you President Biden for a great four years. Bill
I wonder if that's why Bebe has indefinitely postponed the vote by Israeli Cabinet required to make the deal official so it can become official when he's in office.
"A last-minute crisis, caused by Hamas", according to Bebe, without elaborating. Another criminal leader afraid of landing in jail if he is not listening to his far-right war mongers.
Biden is the president that goes out with the American Empire, since the incoming administration will destroy what we are and turn us into another third world country. It is too bad that an Empire that is so successful will be destroyed from within, leading to destruction from without.
Hold on there Linda - We all have the power to have our voices be heard. We’ve done it before. We can do it again. Complacency is over. We must demand our voices be heard for all the people.
I have never been complacent, but I am currently focusing my attention on both what is going on in the US, and the other country I live in which is having an election next month. That election is what I am focusing on now. Musk is trying to interfere here in a negative way, and we are all worried about the effects of his platform. South Korea sets a good example of rising to the occasion. There will be The People's March on Saturday. I hope it is well attended.
"Musk is trying to interfere here (Germany) in a negative way" - he is not only trying, he is doing it in his usual arrogant way, buddying up with an ultra-right party leader and rudely insulting other parties' top politicians. Hopefully, the rational citizens of the country will ignore him, while the courts are checking if election rules have been violated by the Musk-Weidel 'interview' on X.
One thing I do know, and that is AfD isn’t able to form any coalitions with the other German parties. They know what AfD is and want nothing to do with them.
I also wrote another piece on being unsure about the effects that Musk's support will have on the AfD. I am hoping that as he destroys the US, other countries will be less eager to jump on the Musk illiberal leader bandwagon. We know this is a formula for economic decline if not disaster, as Trump's administration is sure to be.
Exactly. My friend was analyzing the visual images of Alice Weidel and she showed that Weidel was using "Christian Posture" suggesting Salvation and mirroring what Trump was doing.
I had noticed that by calling Hitler and socialist and a communist, she saying that the social democrats and the Left, and also the Greens who are considered more socialist are Nazis. So, we see both in image and words she is not only mirroring Trump, but also calling us Nazis, which is also a Putin move as well.
Thanks Heather for tonight’s letter. Powerful in its truth about Biden that many never heard. He accomplished so much. And dispute all the lies and disinformation, his courage throughout all of it sets him apart as a great president in American History because he kept at it and never gave up. I truly respect what you have done for all of us which is to give us hope and courage every day. You are an American treasure 🇺🇸🗽🥁🕊️❤️🌻🕯️
I'm very grateful for most of the accomplishments of the Biden/Harris Administration.
Sadly, in his farewell address, President Biden is offering a warning for something that has already occurred.
For generations, many have had hope that we will evolve toward a “more perfect Union”. Public education, colleges and universities, libraries, scientific research, and exploration all once held promise to bring a significant part of the population along toward realizing our potential, overcoming the darkness of hate, fear, and willful ignorance; and being a beacon of democracy for the rest of the world. A glimpse of what is possible through self-governance. No Kings. No tyrants. No oligarchs.
We are not evolving. Instead, the nation is deeply divided. One-third of the nation embraces the concepts of justice, democracy, and equality. Now, slightly more than one-third reject those concepts and instead welcome tyranny, inequality, and injustice. And the last third of the nation couldn’t care less whether it is tyranny or democracy.
There are clear and present dangers that must be addressed, and others that are imminent threats. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of “The Fierce Urgency of Now” over sixty years ago.
As a nation we continue to be impeded by the insatiable greed of billionaires, elected officials for sale up to and including a criminal-elect President who offered Big Oil “favors” in exchange for $1 billion in "donations", unethical partisan, corrupt, and incompetent judges subverting justice, a legacy media focused only on profit instead of its responsibility to democracy, the willfully ignorant, the apathetic, religious extremists, and still others who thrive on hate, fear, and conspiracy theories.
Look at “justice” John Roberts, with his disingenuous smile - Citizens united “money is speech” - Voting Rights Act, who needs it? Trump is immune from any crime he commits while in office…Yet the outrage and attention goes to Thomas and Alito…flying the flag upside down, one of the wives participating in January 6, their outrageous acceptance of lavish gifts. Could that be the reason Roberts is quiet about their bad behavior - they serve as cover for him?
Reading preceding comments, I guess I'll be contrary. President Biden's speech was painful to hear. He had so many outstanding achievements in his single term, yet he failed at the the most important—protecting our Constitution. That was the oath he took. Yet he and his Justice Department made a decision not to aggressively pursue justice against Donald Trump and the instigators of the Jan. 6 insurrection. The first page of Jack Smith's report reminds us that he wasn't even appointed Special Counsel until long after the Jan. 6 Committee hearings had concluded, almost 2 years after the attack.
Tonight President Biden handed the nation into the hands of an autocrat. We all know in our heads and hearts that Donald Trump should not have been qualified to run for office again.
Donald Trump is the contrarian. Trump's past agenda has mostly been to undo what Democrats have done. You point out one item that Biden did not execute; there are many.
Biden's failure to win a democratic legacy is matched by Carter's, Clinton's, and Obama's. Where HW Bush turned his failure into GW, it remains to be seen how the Democrats will react and respond.
The presence of Biden's presidency lightens Trump's second term. Many good and functional actions can't be undone, and others show there is another way. The frightening item for most Democrats is that Trump is no longer the man he was, and he wasn't much of a man before. The Republicans can return to their playbook if they can avoid stepping on the narcissism that is Donald Trump. That playbook is Project 2025, and we need to turn our focus there while suffering through the fealty Trump extracts from his office and self-love.
The contrarian position would have been to open the convention. Instead, we chose joy. That didn't speak to the many who suffered even as the country righted itself post-COVID and watched the events unfold in Israel and Gaza. Those are the people the Democratic party needed/need to give voice. Moyers, Thomas Frank, and others have explicated the twisting of voter angst to the interests of corporations and oligarchs. We needed to find people who could speak to the policies and actions of the Biden administration and offer a cogent response to the 2025 agenda, as well as the character to show down Trump. They are out there. Kamala did well in many ways. Buttigieg was and is a boss. Let's find those new leaders.
I hear your contrarianism. We need to legislate our future, not litigate or regulate it. Biden resolved Gaza, much as Carter did the Iran hostage crisis. He didn't sleep with an intern or roast a narcissist to cement his legacy. There are actions I wish he had taken and choices I would that he had made. The contrary path is to have a congress that does something. For now, that means compromise to keep the lights on. In the future, it means speaking and choosing those who speak truth to power.
Tough day. TL;DR - I'm adding the contrary-to-fact Democratic Convention to your failure to litigate.
...And had Biden actually attempted to communicate all he'd done, perhaps we wouldn't be in the situation we are with the upcoming inauguration of a felon. C'mon Democrats! Learn to communicate and message! Biden should have held semimonthly "fireside" type chats where he let the American public know what his administration had done that month. You can't expect people to understand this unless you get the word out! I am amazed at how much info about what the administration has implemented that Heather finds to include in these Letters that I would not have otherwise known about.
Great points but unfortunately Biden is NOT a good communicator overall. He never has been. In Delaware, he way in a small state where he knew so many people that it wasn't important to getting elected over the years. In 2008 and 2012, he ran with Obama, a GREAT communicator. He abdicated to HRC in 2016 (possibly a tragic mistake for the county although he might not have won then either).
In 2020 he had the benefit of the Covid pandemic which meant almost all campaigning was remote by TV and of course Trump was in a huge slump so Biden won in a small landslide.
As President he had one of the fewest number of press conferences in history. He is just not a good communicator. And as a result despite doing many good things, he lost favor with the public.
And he decided to stick it out for too long, making Harris' efforts an uphill climb.
- Pulled Quote -
“Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation,” he said, “enabling the abuse of power. The free press is crumbling [or] disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit…. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence is the most consequential technology of our time, perhaps of all time.” - President Joe Biden
Let's get to work!
In my opinion, Joe Biden is one of the best, but one of the most underrated and undervalued presidents of the United States - especially as a human being. Thank you, Mr. President; thank you, Joe.
Thank you, Dutch Mike and thank you, Heather! I watched Joe Biden's speech and I was proud of him and proud of America. I don't look forward to what is coming next and yet we have this great community to stand with, and Heather at the helm. May we stand strong.
Dutch, the naysayers will disagree, but history will agree with you.
The spudering of an ole man who allowed an inept ole AG to not go after the most pernicious monster in American history. Had he pursued the insurrection charges, there would be no President Donald Trump on January 20, 2025. I don’t want to hear anymore of this half-senile ole fart. And besides, he didn’t commute the life sentence of our longest political prisoner, Leonard Peltier. He is aware of the injustice of this Nstive American activist.
Ah, Bill, there are times when you make a great deal of sense, but this is not one of them.
The primary fault does not lie with either Biden or Garland, but instead with one of our two ossified political parties which began its descent into authoritarianism with Goldwater, continued with Nixon, and has now given us Trump, all aided and abetted by a weaponized Electoral College, n American electorate, a good half of which has utterly failed in its primary duty, to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, all in thrall to a man who has pulled off the greatest con job ever perpetrated on this nation, and finally a Supreme Court who gave him a virtually free pass on his road to rule.
Three times during their recent journey toward this present moment, that party had an excellent chance of altering their destructive trajectory - once in 2016 when they recognized the danger posed by Trump and yet allowed him the nomination in spite of his manifest unfitness for the presidency, again in 2021 when their leadership, having seen and publicly stated that Trump was responsible for the assault on the capital, failed to follow through during his second impeachment, and finally in 2024 when they slavishly pandered to his raging paranoia, faux victimhood, vengefulness, and a campaign largely based on fear, ignorance, prejudice, and plethora of lies, false promises, and increasing incoherence.
Neither Biden nor Garland pulled those levers for Trump, but rather half a nation who ignored the evidence right in front of their eyes, much of it put there by Trump himself and his myrmidons, made a hero out of a felon, and traded their responsibilities as citizens for the price of a dozen eggs and fear of all those hungry Haitians seeking ‘pet food’.
Well said, James.
My only regret about President Biden's excellent speech is that this is the one he should have made years ago and could have repeated regularly. He has been too old school nice. Americans needed to hear this said with fire and anger. The middle class has been hollowed out. Instead of touting employment stat victories we should have been continuously harping on how we need to solve more problems in health care, child care, elder care, housing, retirement programs and food deserts.
It wasn't Biden's efforts at working across the aisle that created epic new programs - it was a slim majority in Congress during the first two years.
The "oligarchy", the unfair tax system, the flood of dark money into politics didn't just happen. It has been a fact of life for decades.
And the misinformation and disinformation campaign by the Morbidly Rich and Religiously Perverted should have been a major battle from day one.
The next sane administration will set up a Cabinet Level fact checking Communications Department that will clarify and tell the truth daily to the world.
For now, it will be up to the DNC and leaders like Senators Chris Murphy and Elizabeth Warren to offer up direct challenges to the avalanche of hogwash and bullshit flowing from Republicans. Blue State Governors will be the backbones of democracy.
That being said, Biden's legacy will be enhanced with the perspective of time. Just like Jimmy Carter, their qualities of character and empathy will be admired. They did more good for their nation in their one term presidencies than all the modern Republican presidents did combined - except for Ike who was the last Republican who was a president of all Americans.
"He has been too old school nice. "
Exactly. If there is one problem with Biden, it's this. He's trying to play a chess game, playing be the rules whilst his opponent is continually spitting and punching him in the face. That may be nice and honourable, but it simply doesn't work.
He has 2 days to act.
“Old school nice” (meaning good natured, compassionate kind, charitable) is not what a large chunk of Americans admire. Interview after interview with Trump voters proves that what they admire is the exact opposite: old school nasty (meaning, for example, unkind, spiteful, uncharitable). Perhaps we are entering the age of nastiness. Trump, psychologically projecting his own inner self as always, calls anyone he doesn’t like “nasty.”
Apparently, his voters have a lot of inner unrecognized nasty they project on people like Trump. Pretty soon nastiness will be acceptable, celebrated. It will be virtuous to be aggressive, unfriendly, uncharitable, spiteful, dishonest, brutal. Niceness will be for wimps. MAGA t-shirts emblazoned “Loud and proud MAGA Nasty” will be hot sellers.
Jennifer, MAGAs delight in being nasty, in your face people. It's their chance to get back at those people that they think wronged them in some way usually by being recognized as citizens who deserve rights and therefore sorta leveling the playing field although i would argue that is not actually the case in many instances.
I will forever be a wimp.
Thank you Bill, I hope to be around for the next sane administration.
Unfair tax system, is this a joke? They controlled the WHite House, Congress and Senate the first two years and didn't do a goddamn thing about taxes.
His son was a tax cheat. He pardoned him.
What planet are you living on?
As for disinformation Zuckerberg called out Biden and his administration for demanding posts be censored THAT WERE TRUE.
If he didn't like big money in politics why did he give the medal of freedom to George Soros. The Democrats raised over a 1Billion dollars
twice what the Republicans had.
Good riddance
To be replaced by something catastrophically worse, from a party that breaks all the old rules and standards.
Wait until you see their lies and broken oaths turn out for the real losers and suckers that voted for them. Do they think they will come out of this ill gotten power grab an better than the rest of us.
They booted the pilots and are claiming they know how to fly the plane with incompetent and malicious pretenders.
What could possibly go wrong.
I imagine it like a bunch of professional wrestlers putting on "entertaining" performances that will cost the audiences more than they can ever imagine.
Voters don't take the Oath of Office. Their primary duty is to inform themselves well enough that they elect representatives, who when elected, will honor that oath. In that task, voters have failed dismally. I'm convinced that a majority of those who voted for FELON47 could not pass a 6th-grade civics test. Did voters realize that they were facing a binary choice: the rule of law or Trump? How are we ever going to be able to elect good public officials when a large portion of the electorate lack critical thinking skills and can't distinguish fantasy from reality? This is the biggest challenge our democracy faces, and will be made even tougher by the gusher of lies we can expect from the new administration, and their amplification by right-wing media and normalization/equivocation from mainstream corporate media.
I think that many of those who cast their ballots for the convict were absolutely convinced that he would "restore" them to their "rightful place" at the top of society, just like their ancestors (or wished for ancestors) of southern "aristocracy", that is to say antebellum slave holders. What I see are men (and their wives) who are terrified of "others", like BIPOC, LGBTQ+, immigrants, non-Christians, and educated people. Some others, although I suspect a smaller percentage, want their perception of what a strong businessman is (although the multi-bankruptcy guy doesn't look like that to me). Even more (and maybe this is the "refuse to vote" crowd) could not vote for a woman, much less a woman of color.
Hate Trumps logic. Hate Trumps economics. Hate Trumps justice.
That hate was exacerbated and extenuated by Russian psy ops. Not only do they admit it, they brag about it.
Joe has 2 days to act.
Ally, don’t make it so complicated. We now know that social media was used on a youngish white male portion of the electorate that spends an in inordinate amount of time online on social media much on TiK Tok. Their minds have been corrupted and led to believe in you guessed it, the second coming. And so where were the massive wave of women disgusted with losing their rights?
Ally, I think you have the exact reasons why MAGAs vote for someone like death star. Not only are they terrified, but also angry because someone who doesn't look like them has a chance and some rights. It is no longer enough to be white, a white male, straight, Christian, here for more than a generation, and yes, not very well educated.
As usual, Ally, your observations elevate the stream of commentaries. The factors you mention are certainly at play. In addition, the "refuse to vote" crowd includes a substantial number of Americans who just don't care enough about the obligations of citizenship to bother.
I applaud the wording in your lead sentence: "those who cast their ballots." You highlight a key point I have come to embrace, first suggested by Eric Liu some time ago. It is this: All constitutionally qualified voters do vote in every election. I call the first group "active" voters; they cast a ballot and know then who received their vote. The second group I call "passive voters." They always vote for the winner of every election and only know who received their vote once the ballots are counted.
Our challenge, in part, is to accurately inform and motivate more of the passives to change to active. That process requires more words to describe than there is space for here.
Ally, we are on the same page.
Americans don't want to conscientiously work at being a good citizen. They want a "good" (meaning entertaining) fight or an even more entertaining show. That's why Republicans have adopted the WWE style of politics, combining the fight and the show into constructing a false "reality" that the racist, sexist, and uneducated voter was willing to vote for. It turns out that America has a lot of racist, sexist, and uneducated voters....and they include both Trump voters and people who didn't vote.
Correction - rule of law or ruled by law which exempts certain folks.
I agree. I’m just upset. I harken to the idea that when you lose, you are a loser. Biden is a complicated history. He has been on the wrong side at times; pushing segregation ideology, allowing Clarance Thomas to be nominated his probably biggest mistake. I think Biden was not a great PR for himself. Yes he enacted wise legislation I won’t deny him this. But I think his initial inaction at the border doomed him and his VP. He simply didn’t want to follow Trump by enacting strong security and this ultimately cost him and his VP. And it’s not just another missed opportunity. This one is the big one. Fours years of massive rearranging the bureaucracy and turning it into an autocracy. This is a big loss and it remains at his feet. Ironically, it was a republican Senator that came close to removing unlimited monies from campaigns. John McCain did well but the Supreme Court nipped that. I have sometimes called the United States the illegitimate bastard child of England. We almost got it right but not quite. From the planters who towed the slave trade to the oligarchs of today, it never ceased. So with a few bright places in our history, namely saving western civilization during the mid 20th century, we now fully enter a deep and dark place in the world. My opinion. And to be fully can, I’ve never felt that this was my place to live. For a brief time in the 1970s, I lived in Europe and I felt refreshed. My mistake was to return.
You've swallowed the Republican version of Biden's administration, hook, line, and sinker. I hope you find a way to consider the nuanced complexities of the challenges you say he failed at. If not... your loss.
I’m not a partisan. You apparently are. I think for myself. And i have some difficulties if some Republican talking points and mine are the same. I place much fault with democratic wokism. As close as I am to ideology of the democratic, I think they are their own worse enemy.
Bill, the thread from the planters to the oligarchs of today is a great observation. Since we are the land of "opportunity" the masses hold out that view that we all can become an oligarch.....
Any reasonable analysis of Trump’s life and record makes it plain he would have felt right at home as a member of the Slavocracy.
Believe me, I’m upset too. Or more accurately deeply saddened.
“
I have sometimes called the United States the illegitimate bastard child of England. We almost got it right but not quite”
How could we get it right, that first time around. We’ve had over two centuries to improve on the original. Not that we haven’t made some horrendous stumbles along the way, the latest of which is Trump 2.0.
There’s been a lot of talk recently about the resilience of our institutions. This comes most often from the right in an attempt to deflect the conversation away from what they know is a problem but are too deeply dug into Trump’s orbit to admit, even to themselves.
Having watched the relevant portion of Pam Bondi’s confirmation hearing, I’m hardly sanguine about that resilience, particularly the one she’s about to head. We know the power Trump now holds over his current set of Cabinet appointees, even her record didn’t already make her inclinations clear.
In the end, we have to depend on continuing the fight in every way we can, and hope that before the midterms enough Trumpists will see enough of the harsh light his new term is likely to shine on his motives and actions to swing them into our column, even if it’s in opposition to him rather than a full compliance with us.
Bill, live wherever you like my man, as long as you're able to feed your face, repair your body til you croak, and have somebody to do the dishes for ya, have a nice day. You're just a number. I pity you being homeless.
Far from it I’m doing quite well sorry to say.
Perhaps so, Bill
While Katz had sufficient reason for his rant it was too one-sided. Quin gave a balanced sensible summary of our dilemma. It was so painful to listen to Biden's farewell address. Absent trump, Biden would have been recognized as a great president. But the nice, decent guy was opposed by a bully and manipulative liar extraordinare. So we dive into the great unknown called the future. God help us all (this from an atheist).
If you love your neighbor you're not really an atheist.
Well said. I also need to point out our liberal leadership's failure to address the continuous assault of death by a thousand cuts approach the CONservatives have taken. While the liberals stopped focusing on legislation, the conservatives took the Lewis Powell Memo and went to work with the thousand cuts using a scalpel. Occasionally, they would try the hammer approach to distract their real intentions as was strategized in the book Democracy in Chains - Nancy MacLean. the Memo is the root of Project 2025.
As the CONservatives took small cuts at the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, reproductive rights, and the administrative agencies, the liberal leaders when they held majorities did little to counter these assaults. Their inaction has lead us to this point as they relied on the court system for defense. If you read the Memo, it targeted the court system as a long range plan to fill it with ideological picks that would come from law schools filled with like minded teachers. It has taken decades to get her, but here we are.
The liberals have got to realize that we are viewed as the enemy, not competitors and start acting as such.
Thank you, Rickey Woody, for bringing “Democracy in Chains” to our attention. I read it early on and learned about the Kochs, whose history should be known to all Americans. That they fund Hegseth’s former jobs with veterans’ groups is another reason he should not be Secretary of Defense. Russia and Nazi Germany are the source of their fortune and the remaining brother continues to aid Putin. Hegseth is the perfect “useful idiot” to join Trump. Watch for Trump Tower Moscow.
James, an excellent post, thank you. Biden is not responsible for the R party becoming the party of death. They chose that for power and money, aided and abetted by the Supreme Court and the Congress who could have done something. The Supreme Court gave him carte blanche to be lawless and the Congress aided and abetted him when the Senate should have voted to make the impeachment stick. Now we have a R Senate who will confirm most of the awful nominees for various posts. We will not be better or safer or healthier. At one point in my long life I thought we were making some progress, but now I will spend most, if not all, of my final days, watching the country circle the drain. I do hope for the younger people that I am wrong.
James, I hear what you are saying, and I agree with what you wrote. Nevertheless, Bill still has a point regarding the efficacy of going after Trump after Jan. 6th. I can't tell you how many times I've said to myself: "when the hell are they going to slam the door shut on this future felon?" The Jan. 6th committee had all the evidence; all their ducks were in a row, and Trump new it. It was Trump who controlled the dynamics of his fate in the courts, which clearly implies Garland's lethargy on this matter. My belief is that Garland got the DOJ job because of the travesty of McConnell's manipulations to deny him a SCOTUS position. Unfortunately, he didn't make the most of his good fortune. He did well in the Oklahoma bombing committed in April of 1995; somewhere along the way, he lost the killer instinct to convict one who would destroy more, over a period of time, than Timothy McVeigh could ever conjure. Although, in my high school youth of that time, I never supported Goldwater, I don't think one can blame much on him. After all, he laid out the facts in front of Nixon and either told him or forced him to resign. I also don't believe he would have let the Israelis slide on the attack on the USS Liberty in June of 1967 had he won the presidency over LBJ. That's just my opinion. The individual that I believe you may want to mention is Reagan. His governorship of California signaled in a far better trajectory for what we now have than Goldwater ever did.
If only Howard Dean's 50 state strategy would of been picked up by these democrats. But not?????????????? Dems are low keyed while they get walked all over by repugs.
Thank you, you're much kinder than I am.
The idea of 'reacting' to maga is a waste of energy. Biden did great things, but, dealing with dangerous forces like the present Republican party and Donald trump requires an effective use of the Department of Justice and I am safriad Garland was asleep at the wheel. Trump should be in jail, along with Mitch Mcconnell. Take the gloves off, Democrats and overcome what is the most serious attack on the American way of life since t he 'Civil War'.
well said.
Thank you.
Yo.. James.., c'mon.., we're "under God" here. No? Huh?
As long as one remembers that phrase wasn’t added to the pledge until the Eisenhower administration as part of the conservative drive to distinguish us from 'godless communism’. In a way, it is the descendent of the Puritan view that financial success was an indication that one was among the predestined Elect who were bound for heaven.
Don't worry, Bill Katz, you won't be hearing anymore from the "half-senile ole fart" as you call him. You will be hearing ad nauseam from the orange old fart lunatic and his despicable side-kicks. Joe Biden may not have done everything you wanted, but he accomplished a great deal in spite of Republican obstruction and constant lies. And as always, trump will falsely take credit for these accomplishments since they will come to fruition during his term. The Biden bashing needs to stop.
Yep! Did Lincoln get bashed?
Unfortunately, he did.
Every president has his pros and cons. To your above list I would add cutting off military aid to Israel, but that would probably have been blocked by the MAGA congress. The Dems should have gotten rid of DeJoy and acted on the voter roll "cleanup" and laws enacted by red states to cheat in the election. Joe did a great job on the economy and in supporting Ukraine. I would fault the rest of the DEM party for not getting much done (Ethics laws for supreme court justices?, statehood for P.R.? A 3 lies and your out law on Faux News, et al?
Withdrawal of military aid to Israel would have been blocked by a Democratic Congress, especially after it had come under attack from Lebanon, Iran and Yemen.
Yes you and Carl are correct. The Jewish lobby in this country is extremely effective. Purposely so in order to insure unmitigated support of Isreal. It’s a shame of our modern times that this country wasn’t able to really fire a peace settlement. They say you can’t force peace but when you are the sole supporter of a country, I think there is potential. Chairman Arafat was the biggest loser when he refused the peace offering. Granted the whole of the West Bank wasn’t mandated but it was very generous offering. So both sides are at fault but America must take the greatest blame.
Nah, Bill.
Israel would have continued on its path with or without our support. And that path has to be its self preservation.
The greatest blame for the devastation of Gaza ought to be assigned to the monsters who started this war by slaughtering 1200 people and taking more as hostages. Hamas has been the aggressor here. Hamas is the Taliban/KKK/Nazis/ISIS....a Mafia.
And even in the face of certain defeat, Hamas did not surrender - sacrificing thousands of their own. HAMAS could have stopped the war at any time, but it did not. With the support of Hezbollah and Iran it continued to rain rockets on Israel.
Should the response of Israel to such an attack have been different? Sure. Is Netanyahu a cold blooded monster? Yes. But I have yet to hear what the proper strategy should have been to defeat Hamas without the destruction that occurred. I am listening...
And now we have a chance at peace. Why did Hamas finally agree to a cease fire? Because it lost the support of Iran and Hezbollah due to Israel's actions. I hate that it is true - but when faced with an enemy that is at its core is committed to your destruction (river to the sea!), you don't bring anything to the fight other than superior strength.
Blaming Joe Biden for a conflict created by, continued by and supported by the enemies of peace and democracy is ridiculous.
The destruction of Gaza has been beyond awful. But sometimes there are insane leaders who refuse to surrender in the face of all reasoning and efforts at peace. The Nazis. The Japanese generals. Throughout history, negotiations begin when one side actually realizes it can't win. Hamas knew that months ago.
The people of Gaza have experienced horror beyond anything that we can feel or imagine. But the people of Gaza elected Hamas and did not tell Hamas to stop attacking Israel. They allowed their terrorist leaders to continue. They could have surrendered. Instead they sheltered the murderers.
But of course, it's complicated, isn't it? In the West Bank, the orthodox Jews who are stealing Palestinian land and assassinating people who have lived there for generations are no better than Hamas and act like the Taliban.
What is the simplistic solution for that situation? My idealistic and unlikely response would be that we should have a United Nations with teeth - with troops that would enforce the international agreements that provided a safe haven in the West Bank. Here, Israel is allowing militant extremists to act as if they are their own government. That is a situation where America could draw a line in the sand and make a difference. The West Bank Jewish "settlements" are an affront to everyone. They are a direct threat to peace in the region.
Of course, if we have an American civil war, would we welcome the UN to sort us out? I think not.
Sadly, the Confederacy still lives in the DNA of many - ironically now in the party that originally brought it to its knees.
And so it goes. Joe did a lot more right than wrong. He will be viewed as a Saint real soon.
"The Jewish lobby in this country..."
The Pro right wing extremist Israeli government lobby including AIPAC (founded by an Israeli government lobbyist) and CUFI (founded by American Christian evangelicals.) There fixed it for you. Your talk of a "Jewish lobby" is dubious, at best.
You don't have to be Jewish to ...
CUFI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christians_United_for_Israel
[Speaker Mike]Johnson and [CUFI founder pastor] Hagee appear to be run-of-the-mill Christian Zionists, fueled by fantasies of a cataclysmic war in the Middle East that brings about the Second Coming of Christ, wherein all Muslims—and Jews, for that matter—either convert or face eternal damnation. It would be easy to dismiss these evangelicals and their apocalyptic fervor, but that would be a mistake, as their conceptualizations of Judaism and Israel are shared by many who are not so overtly eschatological, nor even Christian. In recent days, narratives of Jewish and Israeli exceptionalism have proliferated, as conservatives frame Hamas’s October 7 massacre as a blow, more fundamentally, to the West. . .
The weaponizing of Judaism against Islam was long a trademark of televangelists like Pat Robertson, who once claimed the entire world shook from the struggle between Israelis worshiping the “one true God” and Arabs worshiping Allah. It’s now a trademark of those white Christians who are now working to justify Israel’s obliteration of Gaza.
https://newrepublic.com/article/176499/mike-johnson-israel-republican-rise-christian-zionism
Bill, I agree that Leonard Peltier should have been finally freed. He has served his time and is now an ailing old man who should be free to end his days outside the "big house." But demeaning Biden does no good. Yes, he is old--something we all aspire to rather than the other option--but he did many many good--even great things during his administration.I regret that he felt the need to keep arming Israel so that they could pursue their long-time aim of genocide to the Palestinians. It will be many years and tons and tons of money that will be needed to help restore Gazan infrastructure but lives and allegiances may take even more time. And that is a tragedy that could have been avoided many many years ago--think 1948--when no thought was given to the hand-off of land without compensation or consideration. But Biden inherited a very broken system and I have to feel that he did the best he could with what he was given, and four years is hardly enough to correct all the sins of politics and the world.
TFG’s reelection should set blame firmly at the feet of Merrick Garland. He did not do his job.
Nor did McConnell.
Okay Deborah.., and why do you suppose Merrick Garland, did as he did?
Coulda, woulda, shoulda....reading these comments all I see are "Monday morning quarterbacks" thinking they know more than the person in the middle of it all. None of us have any idea what the President is dealing with minute by minute and yet all I see at the moment are comments "all he had to do!". He wasn't perfect BUT damn...he was effective and got things done. Very sad and disappointed a lot of Americans do not see what they voted for and all of us will be paying the price.
I’m not Monday morning quarterbacking I’ve been saying and writing the same thing for at least 3 years. I not new with my critiques.
Yes Kathy. Even more simply, I see it as in Trumps 1st term he inherited the momentum of Obama. Then, Trumps term.., lousy as it was, it created the momentum for Biden. Biden ran with it, and has created the momentum which Trump wilol ride on and of course take credit for. And if this coming term does nothing, it too will create a momentum for the next President. And, we will have a "next president". We're gonna need one to see us through this little mid-life crisis we seem to be having. Rock on.
I wouldn’t say bad things about President Biden who did lots of good things but his legacy will be the coming second term of T. He picked an ineffective AG for the task that was ahead of him as well as wanting to not punish repigs for some misguided notion of unity with traitors.
An insurrection charge against Trump would have been very risky to land, as the special prosecutor rightly calculated. He would have successfully brought a conviction against Trump but for the scandalous intervention by the Supremes on the issue of immunity and consequent delays. Once a special prosecutor was appointed it was then outside the bailiwick of either Biden or Garland.
You have good points. However the January 6th committee forced AG’s hands and he appointed Jack Smith. If they(AG and Biden admin) had moved faster and when trump was still reeling from the failed insurrection something may have stuck. We’ll never know. I am also probably wish casting.
Way back when Trump firsst started arriving on the tarmac in his TRUMP B757..., none of us thought it would happen. But, he became "stock" which got the attention of Big-Money, and they invested in him like some kind of IPO. It's paid off for them. We were blindsided.., sucked in as it were after his first miserable term in office. And, we were about to be "had" a second time.., we just couldn't fathom it at first. But he had plenty of investors, most of whom we don't even know exist. Those folks were'nt about to lose their money.., that's why he won. And, that(!!!) is why "we"lost. While we laughed at the RNC, joked about his dick-size, made fun of his sons, ogled his wifes naked photos, called him names..., THIS is where it got us. Big-Money talks and the god of BS walks 'freely' amongst us. What're we gonna do? Call Ghostbusters? Hollywood is burning. Welp.. folks, we still are a country of laws and courts with judges who are not only educated, but human. Thanks to technology we can see the changes taking place in our short lifetime. Let's work on this.
Bill, I hear you and your disappointment. But consider the incredible amount of good he has done. We have had NO President without faults. None.
I agree that Merrick Garland was the absolute wrong choice for this time. I think Joe should have fired him and appointed someone with guts. Maybe Glenn Kirschner?
However, Joe brought us out of Covid, certainly saved me from the serious prospect of homelessness!
Infrastructure is finally getting repaired and built. More people have had a chance to succeed than ever under the false trickledown theories.
NATO is stronger. Ukraine is still alive. We have the beginning of a possible end to the horrors of Israel/Gaza.
Biden has done more for the American worker than anyone since FDR. And let's not forget, FDR ignored lynching in the South and interned Japanese Americans during WWII.
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, as the saying goes.
The ultimate blame should be on Trump and his billionaires, who engaged in a good deal of lying and deception. Biden, Congress, and the media could all have done a better job protecting our democracy, but it didn't happen. Since all the blame is out there, we must do what we can to keep the light burning. God help us.
Case in point right now— the cheating going on in North Carolina’s election by MAGats taking away the powers of a democratically elected DEMOCRATIC governor. Not a peep from media or the Democrats or the DOJ.
Exactly. Still completely baffled at how this can so blatantly happen
Wait....wait! There was a gathering protesting what is happening in NC. Read Marc Elias. As Biden said, "The free press is crumbling," so we know not to expect anything from them but substacks have arisen to change the information delivery method.
Money certainly pilots election wins. Is it possible that these gazillionaires will control our elected officials here on out?
https://open.substack.com/pub/statuskuo/p/jack-smith-has-his-say?r=3hwn3&utm_medium=ios
Thank you, MLMinET, for posting this. Jay Kuo's substack, the Status Kuo, is one of my favorites, This particular one explains in detail what obstacles Merrick Garland and Jack Smith were up against. I'm frankly getting tired of the blame game so many of us seem to be playing all the time. We must have all the facts before making such blatant judgments.
I agree about Jay Kuo. I find his Substacks interesting and informative.
Adding my thanks for Kuo's writing that shows us just how far and wide the blame can be spread. It's an inside look at what we have been waiting to know about.
Thanks for the link! I can't quite swing all the Substack subscriptions that I want... I might have to forego something for this one, though.
It's not just the financial commitment, it's the time commitment to read them all as well!
It’s free to just subscribe. My subscriptions are my main source of info and I generally subscribe for free until I see how serious they are about writing. (HCR is amazing and at the top of my paid list. ❤️😍)
Thank you MLM. I had not heard of Kuo before. He makes some excellent points that will become important to remember when tffdd (the first felon draft dodger) 🤮🤮 begins his new crime wave.
I agree that Garland was a big disappointment when he had an opportunity to stop the insurrectionists years ago. Also Biden's adoration of Bibi, allowing the destruction of Gaza and genocide of the Palestinians was inexcusable. But we must put this aside now as there are bigger problems coming!
Misinformation: " Biden's adoration of Bibi".
Bill Katz you are an A...Hole
Oh… i’m warmed by the cockles of your heart. I particularly love being called such. Thank you. How did you know that? I would like to nominate you to be on my Board of Directors of “Seven Cats and Me Foundation.” Let me give you a like.
I've long gotten really sick of your sad desperate for attention ego Bill. Wish I could mute you and not see your own elderly drivel any more.
I’ve said it before. Opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one. And btw it’s “sputtering”…
:)
Broaden your view, Bill. Just because Biden did not more as far as you would have liked, don’t diss his real achievements. And Jack Smith explained why charges of insurrection were not brought, and his explanation makes sense.
I agree ! He’s done many great things during his plague ridden time in office…
I was going to say that, but you already did. Thank you.
Really? Four years of the left and America crapping all over middle America is over.
They gave the finger to the middle class and the middle class gave it back.
Everybody has one.
Gee, I couldn’a said it better. 😎
But I’d wrap it up by calling out what he can’t: democracy and billionaires can NOT coexist in the same realm of influence.
Where do you start? The American people have just voted for Techno- feudalism, and a few months before that your Supreme Court gave the president unlimited power.
We start where we are, on the ground, in our communities. Our Coalition for Safe Communities formed in 2017, passing resolutions at Town Meetings that we developed with our police chiefs emphasizing that their role was to protect all of us by building trust without regard to citizenship status. We elected a new sheriff who abrogated the 287(g) agreement the former sheriff had entered into with ICE. After a while, we went on hiatus since there was very little for us to do. Now we're back at work, making sure that our schools understand that, by state law, they must not allow ICE on their campuses, they must not supply any information about their students and their families. And we have resumed contact with our police chiefs, all of whom are on board with keeping all residents safe. Since we cannot currently control what happens nationally, we do what we can locally.
In bright-red Ottawa County, MI, this fall we voted out the far-right majority on the county commission--a group that took power in 2023 and fired competent appointees and installed incompetents, cost the county hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawsuits, severely damaged the morale of professional county employees, tossed out the county slogan "Where You Belong" and replaced it with "Where Freedom Rings," and did other harm. Now that group has only 4 of the 11 commission seats; moderate Republicans are in charge, and the lone Democrat was elected vice-chair of the commission. People here worked really, really hard for this result. It isn't perfect but it's hopeful and way better. And the new terms are for 4 years instead of 2 (new state law).
In Freedom Maine a town of 700 is in the midst of a shake down by emboldened young (I'm 70) power abusers. There is a home daycare mom, a petty nerdowell and a paranoid former star from the Blair witch project. They are proposing an ordinance to limit the profit of solar arrays to only the town restricting land owners. We vote Tuesday and finally a Democratic resident sent a letter to the residents to vote no. An outgoing select member altered the town charter after the committee submitted it, and then dismissed the committee. It made the appeals board act like a militia and I stood up to the select board along with the entire appeals board. They removed me from the board. Any suggestions?
Recruit the local newspaper , the Bangor Daily News, and the
portland Herald to cover this story and trust your fellow citizens to make an informed decision. That's democracy.
Ouch!
Thank you Ann W. for this hopeful comment. We live in Berrien County, MI and it really gives us hope.
Betsy, you must be living in a civilized part of the country.
Well, not exactly, if it’s AZ, under thumb of bigger majority in state legislature than before! But progress is being made locally, albeit slowly and incrementally.
Key word in your reply Carol is "slowly" .
Maybe too slowly . In any case i don't consider AZ uncivilized part of the country despite the fact that you have a considerable number of very extreme right people there. 😃
Most extreme are concentrated in Phoenix (transplants from colder regions) and the military.
Betsy, are you in AZ by any chance? I wonder, because of your comment about electing a new sheriff. Yes, we all need to concentrate on what we can do locally, decisions made there have immediate impacts on our lives at this end.
The very best to you and your community. Lucky all !!!! May you share more and help this intelligent quest to flow into the water streams of and into communities all over our country.
Thank you Betsy!👏🏻🎶🥰
The votes were paid for by billionaires riding the trained-by- Hollywood Trump make-believe-millionaire trainer of “apprentices” for a tv show ten + years ago. And now continuing to ride the crest of the wave of televised ‘drama’ which he’s been coached to continue by the billionaire leaders of the Heritage Foundation, purveyors of an incoming tidal wave of radical religious pseudo Christianity
( ’ upon which our country was ‘founded’ … note the “dramatic effect” of these words/beliefs).
We’ve got Work To Do to educate, build networks, and utilize the LEGAL RIGHTS embedded in our Democracy to right our SHIP OF STATE.
And writing checks from your company to the porn star with whom you cheated on your wife AND mistress is now an official presidential act. “I did nothing wrong” is an official presidential lie we will be hearing a lot more and should always be publicized and carefully documented. 💩🤡🎃
They ain’t listening.. they get their information from Joe Fuckin Rogan, or that goddam facebook..
And Fox News.
We were fools to let the Federalist Society stack the Supreme Court! They spent decades while we paid little or no attention. Now we are paying the price
No, not unlimited power, just immunity from criminal prosecution for acts authorised as part of his official capacity - although that extension of presidential privilege was quite startling in itself especially coming from justices who claim to be 'originalists'.
“Just immunity…” Potato, Potahto
Are these semantic games you play?
Time will tell, and I anticipate unbridled exercise of unlimited power. He will rattle the cage and pull the chains that restrain him. Both are weakened by the threats Biden cites.
It was not a free and fair election. The firstfelon draftdodger’s gerrymandering began 8 years ago and will be hard to undo but, as others have said, ACT LOCAL!!
If we don't fight like hell, we won't have a country.
And people listened to a person who had already proven himself to be a serial liar. INSANITY: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
I thank President Biden first, then Professor for starting this news letter preparing for the dark periods of America.
I just felt compelled to post this quote on Facebook. Thanks
Yes. Biden lied and pushed the disinformation on COVID, Hunter Biden Laptop, and Foreign Policy.
As Mark Zuckerberg admitted, (Biden administration) would call screaming and cursing for us to take down posts we knew were true)
This was an abuse of POWER. Thank you for pointing it out.
You are spreading disinformation. Your trolling is evident.
Tonight, President Joe Biden delivered a farewell speech that went beyond a simple reflection on his administration’s accomplishments. He issued a stark and urgent warning: America is facing a dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a few ultra-wealthy individuals.
Speaking from the historic Resolute Desk, he drew parallels to Dwight Eisenhower’s 1961 farewell address, which cautioned the nation about the emerging "military-industrial complex." Today, Biden identified a new and pressing threat: a "tech industrial complex" that threatens our democracy, our basic rights, and our collective ability to build a fair and just society.
This is not just a warning; it’s a call to action. The unprecedented influence of tech giants—who control vast amounts of wealth, data, and political sway—has already begun reshaping our lives, often at the expense of accountability, transparency, and equality. From the commodification of personal data to the unchecked spread of disinformation, we are witnessing the erosion of democratic values in real-time.
We must fight against abusive surveillance and erosion of privacy.
President Biden’s warning was clear: we are at a crossroads. The consolidation of power in the hands of a few threatens not just the economy but the very fabric of our democracy. It is up to us—the people—to rise to the challenge, remain vigilant, and act decisively.
Let’s ensure that the freedoms we cherish and the values we hold dear are preserved for future generations. Together, we can build a tech landscape that empowers rather than oppresses.
The time for vigilance is now. The time for action is ours.
President Biden accomplished many important things as stated in the White House letter release to the American people, but the letter did not include the warning which was directly to the viewers.
I would go one step further: Muskolini and the Zucc, and Putin no less, are actively unraveling the fabric of reality itself, replacing it with a reality THEY control. It’s the ultimate power grab: it means control not only over us, the people, but also absolute control over the world we experience.
We should sincerely take Joe Biden’s warning to heart - if it’s not already too late…
We cannot let it be too late. It is only too late if we surrender.
Well stated in a unique way. Thanks
I wish this speech that turns the spotlight on the bitter fruit of Reaganomics, the growth of plutocracy to the point that it is clear and present threat to the Republic itself, had been given much earlier, but I am grateful and relived to hear it today. We have to focus or we'll lose the plot.
We must reward the corporations that stand up to the oligarchs whether they are small mom and pop stores in our communities or large corporations like Target.
My entire family and many of our friends are boycotting purchases from Amazon, Walmart, the Home Depot and many other corporations. Some of us have been stocking up on staples like paper towels and dry goods. Facebook and X are cesspools of misinformation as is Fox News, Newsmax, OAN and the Sinclair stations.
The oligarchs want to sell the idea of "states rights" to allow states to take away individual rights and freedoms. They prefer that families declare bankruptcy rather than provide basic health care to millions.
If you live in one of the 20 states which still has a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour write to your Congresscritters and Senators to raise it to $15.00 and index increases on COLA.
In my list of Biden "cons" above, I forgot that he didn't raise the national minimum wage.
This is a significant crossroads moment. I'm very thankful that we had Joe at the helm for the past 4 years. He's so right that the time for our vigilance and action is now.
Just as in 1961, no one including the smiling handsome replacement, JFK who opened the 1960s door to the modern slaughter and war machine for almost 15 years, no one shall listen to this one either.
JFK was a negotiator. His assassination was a military coup.
How so?
His assassination facilitated a military coup.
JFK was a product of WWII mentality of communism containment.
That, too. But he wasn’t afraid to think and negotiate.
🙄
Bravo to President Joe Biden and to you
No one ever mentioned about all he gave up personally to do all he has accomplished for we the people The gait was never mentioned as due to his focus on work not age Tragic that he’s leaving the office and who so unworthy is coming in
One of Joe Biden's greatest strengths is his ability to delegate. What amazing things Pete Buttegieg has done and many others within the administration. Blinken has been tireless in his efforts as Secretary of State and Deb Haaland has protected or public lands better than any other Secretary of the Interior. The list goes on and on.
And Trump is replacing all of them with clueless ass-kissing oligarchs.
Gary I agree: Biden's team has been exceptionally competent and activist and it will be heartbreaking to see all of that destroyed in seconds come January 20. All I can say is that I hope Pete uses this as an opportunity to start working toward making a bigger political bid because, weirdly, a middle class white guy who is married to another man and has two children might be more acceptable to the misogynists and racists who refused to vote for Harris, one of the most competent candidates in 50 years simply because he's white and has a penis.
I hope you're right, Linda. In my experience in the LGBTQ+ community (spanning almost 50 years at this point), straight men are terrified of gay men, because they are afraid a gay man will treat them the same way straight men treat women when sexual conduct takes place. Flat ass terrified.
I heart your first paragraph but the heart breaks for your second.
Gary, you didn't mention two of President Biden's biggest mistakes. First he hired Merrick Garland and second, he didn't fire Merrick Garland. Other than that his record is historical.
He didn't try staggering to his feet, blood POURING from an invisible wound on the edge of his ear, mouthing three words which appeared to begin with "F".
I would like to hear the story behind debate night which should have been postponed. Why was he not taken directly to the emergency room? Was there a reaction to cold medicine or something slipped into his food or water?
I sound old school, but I believe misinformation can be combatted through the basic Platonic doctrine of "that person is best fit to do what that person knows best". Why on earth would I listen to a US congressional representative give a history lesson rather than Heather Cox Richardson? Why would I endure an idiot like Sean Hannity holding forth on Mideast policy and history over an esteemed professor of it - who also knows the languages and culture - such as Juan Cole? Why would I listen to anyone talk about constitutional law over a lawyer or some one else who is a rank amateur talk about religion instead of a theologian?
What next? Have a crab fisherman do my plumbing? Have a French teacher work on my home's electrical wiring? RFK Jr. on vaccines . . . oh . . . wait . . . (!) Absurd!
The time for alternative media has long since come - I stopped reading the papers about the Middle East and turned to Juan Cole during the Second Gulf War that we were lied into. He actually knew - horror of horrors - the historical differences between a Sunni and a Shiite Muslim.
The ship has long since sailed on the US media. I knew that in '03 when W. was pretending he hadn't made the final decision yet to go to war. He had. I remember being in Rome in January and reading in a major Italian daily about how US troops had already entered Iraq. WaPo, the NYT, the LA Times . . . cricketes.
I recall on my first day of freshman English in college my English prof, a wonderful scholar of Chaucer, noted that there were even back then only five major liberal dailies in the US. She was making a larger point about writing, critical thinking, and the protection of our democracy, already clearly in jeopardy under Reagan on that cold day in Boston in 1986. "What happens the day those are shut down or their voices cease" she asked us.
Now we know.
When the foremost media entities in the US abandoned their place as the Fourth Estate and declared that their overarching mission was to "sell widgets" - my shorthand for what esteemed representatives of those same media told me and a few hundred others at a Princeton alumni panel a dozen years ago - I knew with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that we were doomed as a Constitutional democracy. How do we come back from this nadir when most of our fellow Americans are uninformed, misinformed, disinformed, intellectually incurious, undereducated, gullible, and lazy?
When it is all only about money, when that is our ultimate value and not the common good, we are lost. The two most pernicious phrases in US politics is "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" and "It's the economy stupid." We'd have done better to think, "Is the country, is my neighbor, better off than they were four years ago?", and "It's the well-being stupid."
If you want to know the values of a society look to its largest buildings. For Romans it was the amphitheater, the temple, and the bath; for the peoples of Medieval Europe the castle and the cathedral; for us it is the skyscraper, the sports arena, and (though less now) the shopping mall.
Sports, money, consumerism. That is no society at all. That is a squalid jumble of money, celebrity, and consumption.
“When it is all only about money, when that is our ultimate value and not the common good, we are lost.”
Superbly stated
Yes. I think we are really just a shell now of a country. The only thing uniting us are property agreements and property laws and interstate agreements (all about property). Thinking women meanwhile are distracted by the issue of reproductive rights. Without bodily autonomy in their most productive years how can they turn their focus to other matters? Anti-DEI, anti-critical race theory, anti-woke etc combined with evangelical hysteria can be wrapped up as anti-intellectual thinking and anti-scholarship. Forget expertise. Forget credentials. Now a whole country fashioned on a fake wrestling match—just a reality TV show to distract the undereducated masses. Meanwhile this country’s unregulated financial markets (are we really trading crypto now?) is the jumping off point through which to plunder the world. Everything is for sale. We U.S. citizens only have anything if we can outright pay for it. I do not see how in the heck we can call this a functioning Democratic government on the federal level. A lot of state legislatures are also no longer functioning democracies. The confederacy did win in the end—it has continued to function in many ways through Jim Crow laws and mass lynchings and real estate red lining and denying non-white soldiers their GI benefits and there’s more! Why have we named military bases in the U.S. after confederate generals? And there is much much more. Proof we should have put more people in jail after the Civil War just as the DOJ should have come down on DJT and his cronies right away after Jan 6. I cannot see how we think it will take less than a century for things to turn around in favor of human rights.
I would submit that the American Experiment was doomed from the start, for the reasons you have eloquently laid out. As best I can recall, most older nations were formed on some basis other than capitalism. Other countries had bazaars and markets, but those centers of commerce were not the heart and soul of those cultures.
When the European invaders had stolen enough land to form colonies, the first thing they did was to form a government and a treasury to protect and expand their assets. Almost from Day One, grabbing land and building wealth were the prime motivators of U.S. culture.
A culture based on quid pro quo is an empire. And empires always die.
Well said! Hard to admit this about sums it up.
We never really appreciate something we take for granted, until we lose it. My hope is that the further we are manipulated by autocracy, the more people will yearn for a return to democracy.
"You don't know what you've got till it's gone", sang the great folk poet from Canada.
Joni Mitchell... Forever!!!
They are easier to rule. The dumbing of Americans was deliberate, public schools were starved, then came the charter schools, and vouchers, and book banning. It’s a big tangled mess.
But they have been entertained by the most ridiculous bullschittery. I can’t even watch 10 minutes of American TV without getting blasted by more ads than content. Noxious fun and games, Andy Cohen, Real Housewives. the Apprentice. Fox blondes, laced with a little propaganda. Such crap is mind-numbing. Your description of our fellow Americans is right on target.
Lol (got to have a LITTLE humor in these uneasy times, no?)
This reminds me of a moment in my first marriage (around 1996) when I bought us our first satellite dish (Direct TV). We had installed the dish, and connected it to our Tv in the bedroom and settled down after the kids went to sleep to check it out.
My wife picked up the remote and started going through the channels starting at the program guide (Channel 1 in those days). Slowly we progressed, each time looking at each other and agreeing, "No, not that channel. "
Click... click... click.
After about 25 minutes, all of a sudden the program guide popped up again.
We both just sat there for a moment, then we both broke out laughing.
I said, "299 channels and not one f**king thing to watch!"
Then we rolled over and went to sleep.
And that was before ads took over the airwaves, and just when Fox came to solve everybody’s “what to watch problem.” My bff and family had Fox on 24/7, literally from 1996 probably to this day. I watched a lot of PBS and Golden Girls. (Still do). If I am not mistaken, Rupert had a stake in Direct Tv back then.
Excellent!
If I had a buck for every time I was bored and looked for something on TV and could not find anything at all to watch (and I've been known to watch a bunch of ESPN, The Weather Channel, and back in the day, the History Channel) I could most likely buy some nice, expensive gadget. The last times I sat and watched TV were to watch Oregon gack the Rose Bowl and to binge "For All Mankind" when Apple TV had a free weekend.
I think that the last sentence will doom us. IF we take this approach to the American people they will turn more and more to a Populist President, not unlike Andrew Jackson's day. We need to be cautious and not arrogant. We need to educate, not call people names. There is a backlash in progress against the Democrats and their perceived "intellectualism". I have a bright, educated friend who voted for the incoming President. She too believes that the media lie and it has lead her to take a different path then mine. I have watched in Maine as the northern more rural areas pull away from the perceived richer ( not rich, more Middle class) and more arrogant south. There are so many divisions at work in our country, lets not participate by making generalizations and namecalling.
Sadly, it fit’s some that I know. But tinged with a little racism and misogyny
My own reaction was a line from the novel “Auntie Mame:” “Drive on fool, hell’s only half full!” It was as disastrous as I expected.
A full 65% of Americans believed in W Bush attacking Iraq. I didn’t. I wrote a letter to my daily and I was convinced I had been placed on a no fly list. I wasn’t but to be against the obvious lies being told to the American public. And we fell for it. One cabinet member after another testified about WMD. I knew this was a lie to me it was obvious. That war had and has had devastating effects long lasting perhaps for 100 more years. It disrupted middle east governments. It caused migration unheard of in modern times. Human kind is on a path to limited destruction. I’m sensing human kind would be better to self destruct so to leave earth to regenerate and thrive before it suffers its own systemic collapse. How’s dat for an optimistic forecast, lol?
The Danger for Us that Care... Is that too many are fed their Reality thru the Social Media Platforms... Person-2-Person Communications, and Learning is slowly being Shutdown... The Techno-Dweebs control the Algorithmic Feeds... At this Years CES show, Life-Like Robots were the Rage.... Perfect for CyberTruck driving Incels... Robot Babies are already more popular in Japan then real Human Babies... Japan's Birthrate has Crashed... I'll Postulate that in a Generation, there will be more Humanoids than Humans in Japan... I will also Postulate that if that happens, that Humans will Escape into Virtual-Reality...
I’m writing my wedding vows right now to my new sweetheart, Lori the Ro-butt Baby. She is so shiny, metallic. I can’t wait to slip my arms around her and kiss her steel wet lips.
OMG that thought makes me...
...nauseous... 😀
And don’t worry, I’m no more antisemitic than I am anti human. I prefer the company of the four leggeds.
That what vomit bags are for.
Sadly, the Supreme Court's overruling of the 'Chevron deference' last year is yet another indication of the loss of respect for professional expertise in the US. The field is now open to all sorts of unscrupulous corporations to justify their harmful activities using thier own 'experts'. The nascent Trump administration is already vetting career civil servants on the basis of their 'loyalty' and voting records rather than their abilities and replacing them with stooges. Trump will no longer need to amend National Weather Service hurricane maps with a sharpie as federal agencies will all bow to his will.
Their voices were bought.
The hard part is not just that he is leaving but that so many other talented civil servants are likely going to be forced out…
I am reading Autocracy Inc now by Anne Applebaum. I wonder what Biden might have been able to do to further restrict the US from being a target country for the investments of kleptocrats from other nations….
We will definitely not be headed in that direction with the next guy.
The problems were developed before Biden took the reins in that Citizen United allowed us to have unchecked spending and corruption in campaigns. That needs to be dismantled as does the SCOTUS.
Industrial "Robber Barons" corrupt interference with representative government and the common weal really sucked, even if industrialization brought (with problems) many benefits. Prior to Nixon's appointment of tobacco company lawyer Lewis Powell, many of the abuses of "The Glided Age" were being remedied, and acknowledgement of human rights and the middle class were growing. Then the Empire struck back. Why have we allowed it? The doodoo is getting deep.
J L, when you say in reference to going back to the robber barons times, "why have we allowed it" I hope you are referring to the vast majority of felon 34 supporters not having a clue what they were voting for .
The Tragedy of Joe Biden is that he is not a Good Communicator... He is not an Orator like Obama, or JFK... He began his Presidency during a COVID Disaster, and ended it with it being handed to the Social-Media Dweebs... Joe Biden believed that his Accomplishments would speak loudly for themselves... DJT believes that Speaking Loudly is enough.... In this current Superficial Age, Speaking Loudly was enough keep DJT from Prison... I hope that the Techno-Dweebs don't Imprison Us with their Lies... BTW: I Applaud This Latest Ceasefire In Gaza, However ProPublica Released a Report that the Biden Administration has been running Cover for Netanyahu's War in Gaza intentionally... This may have cost Kamala Harris the Election in the Swing States... Now We Have DJT... DJT will try to Undo all of Biden's/Obama's Accomplishments... THIS COULD COST THIS COUNTRY GREATLY...
"Biden Administration has been running Cover for Netanyahu's War". This reads like clear propaganda. In looking at the big picture of the Biden Administration and Joe Biden's career does this sound like him?
"They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes)"
Source: Media Bias Fact Check
Apache we must, must learn to analyze and discard what doesn't ring true to fact.
Thanks Barbara... I look at the Carnage, and the Body-Counts... I read the Israeli Newspapers... Richard Engels of NBC had a Good Overview of this today... I look at the 'Supposed Red-Lines'... Joe Biden has declared himself a "Zionist To His Bones".... I believe that Biden has a very old Mental Picture of Israel dating from the early '70s... One of the worst Massacres of the Indigenous was Sand Creek in Southern Colorado of the Cheyenne Nation... It was conducted by the Pious Evangelicals led by one of their Ministers... It was Arguably worse than Wounded Knee...
Religion is the most destructive thing on this planet imho
I agree. As the modern day fascist orthodox thugs have murdered more than 45,000, Biden continuously sent our bombs. As an American who pays taxes to finance these bombs, I am disgusted with our support of human slaughter unseen since WWII. Yes Biden threw his warm arms around the mass murderer Bibi and gave him what he wanted; the continuation of ethnic clensing of Arabs from their lands.
It is hard to ignore a 2,000lb Bomb landing in your Children's Bedroom while they are sleeping...
"Human slaughter unseen since WW2"?
Seriously? The casualty estimates in the Hamas war range from 45,000 to 100,000.
Do you know how many wars have FAR exceeded that count since WW2? Dozens!
Now admittedly many of these didn't involve any WHITE soldiers or civilians as many took place in Africa or Asia. But to suggest that the carnage in Israel is the worst since WW2 is just preposterous, Bill.
You should know better than that.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll
And please, I am NOT trying to minimize the death toll I'm Gaza, it is horrific. But to me, any death toll due to government power struggles is inexcusable.
Assad killed between 500,000 -600,000 of his own people in a civil war. Where was all the whining and crying then? Myanmar has either killer or exiled millions of Rohingya. Xi has an on-going persecution of the Uighyurs. Not a word of outrage.
Why is Israel always in the cross hairs? Oh, right. Because Jews.
Aren’t we picky this morning. My bombs have scorched the Gazan earth and you’re worried about my number count? Oh really?
Thanks Apache.
First I was informed my original comment to you was off. If my delivery offended you my apologies. It was dashed off in the middle of the night after a week of packing and a brutal day of moving.
Thanks for sharing your further thoughts on this tragedy. Sounds like you have given this quite a lot of thought. I will think about you have said.
Presenting information out of context is disinformation, Barbara. In addition to noting ProPublica as Left-biased in its wording, Media Bias Fact Check report on ProPublica also rates ProPublica as highly credible and reveals that it has never failed a fact check.
An effort toward honest depiction would have cited the full source rather than fabricating a non-existent article title, presenting half-truths and innuendo with the emotional, highly-charged label of "propaganda." Here is that cited source.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/propublica/
The primary source of the study is here:
https://www.imeupolicyproject.org/postelection-polling
A link to another similarly rated left-leaning but high-credibility source, Drop Site News that synthesized this poll with other studies is here:
https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/kamala-harris-gaza-israel-biden-election-poll
Incidentally, Mark Zuckerberg and his minions at "Meta" have been banning citizens who dared to share high-credibility reports on the Middle East situation in their posts. Drop Site News' co-founder Ryan Grim has documented this "censorship"...an act by Zuckerberg that goes beyond censorship because it tries to punish and intimidate citizens who exercise free speech by sharing resourced information.
How do you suppose "Letters From an American" would be rated in bias and factual reporting? It surely seems very biased in its partisan slant, but its posts are well-resourced and like ProPublica, it does seem to strive to be credible.
As our posts are a part of this record, we would do well in the future to strive to be credible too.
????
But DonOLD can't undo the 74,000+ infrastructure projects or the pipelines that were canceled or hundreds of thousands of home that now have solar panels or heat pumps or the thousands of windmills that have been put into service. He can't undo the damage Ukraine has inflicted on Russia's economy thanks to our support.
And much of the Biden progress, DonOld will take credit for because that's who he is.
Many of which are being provided to Republican states. Indeed, Republican governors have been happy to take credit for these infrastructure projects, even some of those that voted against the enabling legislation and decried the spending plans of the outgoing administration.
I'm not so sure about the infrastructure projects. Many of the 74000 have not yet started or are still in early stages. Trump can and may suspend many of those.
Gary, he might not be able to undo the 74 000+ projects but fo sure he'll take credit for them.
And it has, but Joe called Netanyahu out for his evil. That he is still standing is a bad omen. He and chump are two peas in a pod.
He may have called him out but he is still allied with him and refused to use American political power to force Israel to the peace table earlier. And I am Jewish so believe me, I am no Hamas sympathizer.
Consult Open Secrets on the web. Amazing how many partisan true-believers do not. The greatest taker of AIPAC funds in Congress? Joe Biden holds the record.
"However ProPublica Released a Report that the Biden Administration has been running Cover for Netanyahu's War in Gaza intentionally...."
ProPublica did not do this research. Neither did Heather Cox Richardson. It was done by Institute for Middle East Understanding. The primary source is here:
https://www.imeupolicyproject.org/postelection-polling.
It was further synthesized in more detail with other studies by Drop Site News. You should have properly credited the report to the primary source that did the actual research.
Both Drop Site News and ProPublica receive high credibility ratings from Media Bias Fact Check. They have never failed a fact check. To call either of these sources "pure propaganda" as Barbara Mullen did in her reply seems a disservice to research, investigative reporting, and to all readers.
Ed, even if President Biden really had been running cover for Netanyahu's war, and after expressing deep sorrow for all the tremendous suffering just look at the positive results. Hezbollah is a spent force in Lebanon and the Lebanese people can look into the future after decades of bloodshed. Hamas another spent force and the Palestinian people in Gaza should get rid of what's left of them and look into the great effort to rebuild their lives and cities with optimism. Syria and Lebanon are not longer under the control of a much weakened Iran. Cooperation and peace is at hand now instead of on/off war all the time for generations. The main problem left to be resolved is Netanyahu and 👋extreme right government. But that's is up to the Israeli people to accomplish.
https://www.snopes.com/collections/israel-hamas-ceasefire/?_bhlid=96913997f44d3bd3f38a5c3a66679e5449623d32
I support Snopes and MediaBias Factcheck. There is a great deal of misinformation about the Middle East and its conflicts, some of it obviously even on sites like this.
Apache, THIS "COULD" COST THIS COUNTRY GREATLY ?
There are so many places along the way where #45 could have been ushered out of government. The 2016 election, impeachment #1, impeachment #2, starting an investigation of January 6, 2021 immediately upon confirmation of the new Attorney General. Joe Biden did a remarkable job, given the relentless harassment of his predecessor. No other president has faced such a loud criminal predecessor.
However, President Biden either couldn’t or wouldn’t see that the R’s across the aisle would not deal in good faith. Not to mention that some members of Congress are just plain dumb and think being a member of Congress is a platform for attention (Marjorie Taylor Green).Others are ignorant AND stupid ((Tommy Tuberville).
Since the election of Reagan, there has been an incremental erosion of the separation of powers. Congress and the Supreme Court were not intended to be rubber stamps for the executive branch. The founders spread power out to curtail the power of the executive branch. Now look where we are. God help us all.
Let's leave god out of it and figure out how to help ourselves.
Ummmm......some Democrats were prickly also. Sinema and Manchin did a lot of harm.
Why would this fall to Biden? This is decades in the making.
Andrea, I love your optimism when you say.... civil servants are "likely" going to be forced out....😊
Heather, thank you for sharing President Biden’s words along with historical context. Once again, he’s shown that his heart has been focused on expanding the middle class and helping the average American.
Unfortunately, the work that he started on infrastructure, climate change and manufacturing can’t be accomplished quickly after the money is appropriated and allocated; it takes years between the drawing board and the finished project.
We have been lucky to see someone, along with Nancy Pelosi, who knew how to get things accomplished and we are the better for it.
Now we take up his baton and run the race, using our strengths to fight for our fellow citizens’ welfare and our (small d) democracy. We’ve had your words and those of other historians, journalists and economists to inform us and I, for one, am thankful.
He is a thoroughly decent man, and many aspects and achievements are stellar.
Hindsight is always 20/20, but I wish that in his 1st year or early in his second he had expanded the Supreme Court by two, nominated Garland for one of the posts, nominated someone with dispatch in performance of their duties as AG, and whispered Jack Smith’s name to him/her.
Remember that in his first year he was literally trying to save people's lives and prop up the economy.
Joe Biden's Administration vaccinated over 200 million Americans against Covid in the first 90 days of taking Office.
He did some really great things for this country.
He cannot be held responsible for the origins of the Middle East situation, but he and his Party can be held responsible for how they dealt with it when they held power. They made some very bad choices.
Overall, I feel that he provided much better service to his country than did the operatives who ran his Party. That is not a feeling I expect others to agree with, just a personal disclosure.
"He did some really great things for this country." Our country. And he mentioned them in his speech.
I definitely agree with you, Ed!
I daresay he also wishes it, now.
If wishes were fishes...
Heather correctly gets Biden that "The concentration of wealth and power threatens democracy."
She correctly notes his own take on the dangers posed by oligarchs and the greater danger by the tech billionaires whose channeling of misinformation and disinformation may already be crumbling what may be left of a free press.
Sad part is the impotence already in Congress -- that even when Dems recently controlled the Senate, and could have voted on whether to free the insurrectionist from his disqualification ever again to hold public office, they chose to do nothing.
The orange felon, had there been a vote, could not have gotten the 2/3 necessary under the Constitution's Article 14 Section Three. The disqualification would clearly now be legally in force.
That Dems were so colossally impotent even so recently just underlines why the tens of millions of Americans couldn't be bothered to go out and vote for Dems in November.
Yes. It's bad. Oligarchs, tech billionaires, and others equally bad are taking power.
Dems always seem to have a few Trojan horses that love to jam up the works. Even Fetterman is trying that now. Herding cats would be easy. Bloomberg and his megaphone could give Rupert’s blather some competition. Of course, Vlad is the shadow puppet that lurks. Hard to know who is on what team. Maybe we need blue hats…
Know that Vlad is on the red team.
Good Post Phil... The Senior Democrats date from a Time before Newt Gingrich, or Mitch McConnell... DC Pols used to Socialize with each other, and stay over the Weekends in DC.. Now they rush Home to their contributors... Many people that I know that didn't Vote were Aghast over Gaza, or the Nastiness on Display in DC... They feel ignored, and don't feel that they have a Stake in the System... Too many get their info, if they do want to stay informed, from the Techno-Dweebs 'News-Drips' Mind Heroin...
No wonder they feel ignored, tune into Techno-Dweebs News Drips, and wonder what is wrong. Maybe if people feel a hunger, they should look at where they are shopping.
For months before the Nov. elections, Apache, I urged Dems to quote humanities.
That is, on the campaign trails, in public utterances, cite the apt novels, films, memoirs, histories, and various arts that show, contextualize, aptly highlight the problems facing working men and women.
Nope. Dems intuited that, if the schools could all drop humanities, so could ever-fundraising Dems.
They thought, hell, all Kamala and Tim need is celebrities. Glitz & glitter is all we need (plus lots of money, and more money, more money) to get all the votes we need.
Interesting thoughts here, Phil. Must ponder that.
Agreed Phil. The DNC and the DEM party needs a close look at itself and potentially a makeover that makes it a true force for Democracy. We must, in this time also stay a centrist party (which may be a meaningless term in the coming years).
Phil this is just more BS. There isnt and never was any "automatic" disqualification under the 14th Amendment. That requires EITHER a court adjudication of insurrection (via a trial by jury with a verdict) or an impeachment with a conviction. NEITHER of those outcomes ever happened (not my personal choice but it is what it is).
There was a trial in Colorado which found Trump to be an insurrectionist but the Supreme Court (regardless of their current bias they are still for the moment the highest court in the land) overturned the Colorado verdict and put Trump back on the ballot in Colorado because they said only federal courts or Congress can make the 14th Amendment determination for Presidential elections. Individual states do not have that power.
So where we stand is no insurrection conviction either in a federal court orby impeachment.
And therefore the party about 2/3 of the Congress removing the disqualification never comes into play because there has h never been a disqualification.
Sorry if you disagree, but you are wrong.
Read jack Smith's report in regard to this. (Insurrection conviction)
The cease fire between Israel and Hamas is a fitting conclusion to the Presidency of a decent, hard working, honorable man dedicated to the ideals that make America a great country. "Again" is redundant. Sad to say his contributions to our lives and to the betterment of people around the world are more appreciated abroad than by the American people. Thank-you President Biden for a great four years. Bill
Wouldn't you know that the orange weasel immediately got on his fake "truth(?) social" platform to claim HE brokered the ceasefire!
He's predictable.
Typical!
Lie!!!! But believed.
I wonder if that's why Bebe has indefinitely postponed the vote by Israeli Cabinet required to make the deal official so it can become official when he's in office.
"A last-minute crisis, caused by Hamas", according to Bebe, without elaborating. Another criminal leader afraid of landing in jail if he is not listening to his far-right war mongers.
A fig leaf to cover him doing a favor for his close personal friend whose help he may need to avoid jail?
Biden is the president that goes out with the American Empire, since the incoming administration will destroy what we are and turn us into another third world country. It is too bad that an Empire that is so successful will be destroyed from within, leading to destruction from without.
Hold on there Linda - We all have the power to have our voices be heard. We’ve done it before. We can do it again. Complacency is over. We must demand our voices be heard for all the people.
I have never been complacent, but I am currently focusing my attention on both what is going on in the US, and the other country I live in which is having an election next month. That election is what I am focusing on now. Musk is trying to interfere here in a negative way, and we are all worried about the effects of his platform. South Korea sets a good example of rising to the occasion. There will be The People's March on Saturday. I hope it is well attended.
"Musk is trying to interfere here (Germany) in a negative way" - he is not only trying, he is doing it in his usual arrogant way, buddying up with an ultra-right party leader and rudely insulting other parties' top politicians. Hopefully, the rational citizens of the country will ignore him, while the courts are checking if election rules have been violated by the Musk-Weidel 'interview' on X.
One thing I do know, and that is AfD isn’t able to form any coalitions with the other German parties. They know what AfD is and want nothing to do with them.
Let's hope the majority of Germans will want 'nothing to do with' the AfD extremists.
Right now it is the majority. I wrote an article on it recently.
This one is called The AfD in Germany.
https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/the-afd-in-germany?r=f0qfn
I also wrote another piece on being unsure about the effects that Musk's support will have on the AfD. I am hoping that as he destroys the US, other countries will be less eager to jump on the Musk illiberal leader bandwagon. We know this is a formula for economic decline if not disaster, as Trump's administration is sure to be.
Exactly. My friend was analyzing the visual images of Alice Weidel and she showed that Weidel was using "Christian Posture" suggesting Salvation and mirroring what Trump was doing.
https://www.eurotopics.net/en/332202/afd-elects-alice-weidel-as-its-candidate-for-chancellor
https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-01-13/alice-weidel-the-atypical-leader-driving-the-far-right-afd-to-new-heights.html
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/11/german-protesters-attempt-to-block-far-right-afd-congress
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/01/13/on-the-german-far-right-s-agenda-remigration-dropping-the-euro_6737009_4.html
I had noticed that by calling Hitler and socialist and a communist, she saying that the social democrats and the Left, and also the Greens who are considered more socialist are Nazis. So, we see both in image and words she is not only mirroring Trump, but also calling us Nazis, which is also a Putin move as well.
The forces from the past are gathering. Just like the descendant's of confederates. Same wars, over and over
Adinfi-freaking-nitum.
Empires Always Collapse From Hubris, And Corruption First...
Lincoln predicted this was the only way America could fall.
We will prevail.
Perhaps!
My son lives in Germany so I've been trying to keep an eye their election, as well. I hope German voters do a better job than voters here did!
From within, no shots fired.
Ever been to Rome?
Thanks Heather for tonight’s letter. Powerful in its truth about Biden that many never heard. He accomplished so much. And dispute all the lies and disinformation, his courage throughout all of it sets him apart as a great president in American History because he kept at it and never gave up. I truly respect what you have done for all of us which is to give us hope and courage every day. You are an American treasure 🇺🇸🗽🥁🕊️❤️🌻🕯️
Bittersweet.
Americans don't know what they have or could have, until it is taken away.
Freedom is not 'freedom from' - that isn't freedom.
That thinking is from a place of subjection.
Freedom is - 'freedom to'.
Thank you Professor Richardson.
I'm very grateful for most of the accomplishments of the Biden/Harris Administration.
Sadly, in his farewell address, President Biden is offering a warning for something that has already occurred.
For generations, many have had hope that we will evolve toward a “more perfect Union”. Public education, colleges and universities, libraries, scientific research, and exploration all once held promise to bring a significant part of the population along toward realizing our potential, overcoming the darkness of hate, fear, and willful ignorance; and being a beacon of democracy for the rest of the world. A glimpse of what is possible through self-governance. No Kings. No tyrants. No oligarchs.
We are not evolving. Instead, the nation is deeply divided. One-third of the nation embraces the concepts of justice, democracy, and equality. Now, slightly more than one-third reject those concepts and instead welcome tyranny, inequality, and injustice. And the last third of the nation couldn’t care less whether it is tyranny or democracy.
There are clear and present dangers that must be addressed, and others that are imminent threats. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of “The Fierce Urgency of Now” over sixty years ago.
As a nation we continue to be impeded by the insatiable greed of billionaires, elected officials for sale up to and including a criminal-elect President who offered Big Oil “favors” in exchange for $1 billion in "donations", unethical partisan, corrupt, and incompetent judges subverting justice, a legacy media focused only on profit instead of its responsibility to democracy, the willfully ignorant, the apathetic, religious extremists, and still others who thrive on hate, fear, and conspiracy theories.
Look at “justice” John Roberts, with his disingenuous smile - Citizens united “money is speech” - Voting Rights Act, who needs it? Trump is immune from any crime he commits while in office…Yet the outrage and attention goes to Thomas and Alito…flying the flag upside down, one of the wives participating in January 6, their outrageous acceptance of lavish gifts. Could that be the reason Roberts is quiet about their bad behavior - they serve as cover for him?
Good points Francine. Any judge or justice who is not advocating for strict ethics law and policy is highly suspect.
Thank you, Joe Biden, thank you.
Thank you Professor ⭐, thank you
Reading preceding comments, I guess I'll be contrary. President Biden's speech was painful to hear. He had so many outstanding achievements in his single term, yet he failed at the the most important—protecting our Constitution. That was the oath he took. Yet he and his Justice Department made a decision not to aggressively pursue justice against Donald Trump and the instigators of the Jan. 6 insurrection. The first page of Jack Smith's report reminds us that he wasn't even appointed Special Counsel until long after the Jan. 6 Committee hearings had concluded, almost 2 years after the attack.
Tonight President Biden handed the nation into the hands of an autocrat. We all know in our heads and hearts that Donald Trump should not have been qualified to run for office again.
Russell,
Donald Trump is the contrarian. Trump's past agenda has mostly been to undo what Democrats have done. You point out one item that Biden did not execute; there are many.
Biden's failure to win a democratic legacy is matched by Carter's, Clinton's, and Obama's. Where HW Bush turned his failure into GW, it remains to be seen how the Democrats will react and respond.
The presence of Biden's presidency lightens Trump's second term. Many good and functional actions can't be undone, and others show there is another way. The frightening item for most Democrats is that Trump is no longer the man he was, and he wasn't much of a man before. The Republicans can return to their playbook if they can avoid stepping on the narcissism that is Donald Trump. That playbook is Project 2025, and we need to turn our focus there while suffering through the fealty Trump extracts from his office and self-love.
The contrarian position would have been to open the convention. Instead, we chose joy. That didn't speak to the many who suffered even as the country righted itself post-COVID and watched the events unfold in Israel and Gaza. Those are the people the Democratic party needed/need to give voice. Moyers, Thomas Frank, and others have explicated the twisting of voter angst to the interests of corporations and oligarchs. We needed to find people who could speak to the policies and actions of the Biden administration and offer a cogent response to the 2025 agenda, as well as the character to show down Trump. They are out there. Kamala did well in many ways. Buttigieg was and is a boss. Let's find those new leaders.
I hear your contrarianism. We need to legislate our future, not litigate or regulate it. Biden resolved Gaza, much as Carter did the Iran hostage crisis. He didn't sleep with an intern or roast a narcissist to cement his legacy. There are actions I wish he had taken and choices I would that he had made. The contrary path is to have a congress that does something. For now, that means compromise to keep the lights on. In the future, it means speaking and choosing those who speak truth to power.
Tough day. TL;DR - I'm adding the contrary-to-fact Democratic Convention to your failure to litigate.
Tim
...And had Biden actually attempted to communicate all he'd done, perhaps we wouldn't be in the situation we are with the upcoming inauguration of a felon. C'mon Democrats! Learn to communicate and message! Biden should have held semimonthly "fireside" type chats where he let the American public know what his administration had done that month. You can't expect people to understand this unless you get the word out! I am amazed at how much info about what the administration has implemented that Heather finds to include in these Letters that I would not have otherwise known about.
Great points but unfortunately Biden is NOT a good communicator overall. He never has been. In Delaware, he way in a small state where he knew so many people that it wasn't important to getting elected over the years. In 2008 and 2012, he ran with Obama, a GREAT communicator. He abdicated to HRC in 2016 (possibly a tragic mistake for the county although he might not have won then either).
In 2020 he had the benefit of the Covid pandemic which meant almost all campaigning was remote by TV and of course Trump was in a huge slump so Biden won in a small landslide.
As President he had one of the fewest number of press conferences in history. He is just not a good communicator. And as a result despite doing many good things, he lost favor with the public.
And he decided to stick it out for too long, making Harris' efforts an uphill climb.
Way too much post-mortem autopsies going on here. Stop.