I believe he's done much better than "pretty well." In fact, he's one of the most consequential presidents of the last century. He's disliked by many people because he's very old and lacks charisma. It's terribly unfair considering his experience and accomplishments.
Another factor: the media historically tends to be far more critical of politicians who have been around for a long time — in Biden's case it's many decades. Again, unfair. But I know of what I speak. And let's not forget that ageism is real and prevalent.
I say all this as a committed Biden supporter who will vote for him again.
The short video clip of him and UAW pres. Obrian showed solid charisma. The smile and wink? His mind is at work constantly. He doesn't have time for BS.
Agree. But you see and appreciate subtleties. In a nation (and media) obsessed with youth and flashy, superficial entertainment, Biden’s demeanor doesn’t connect. And so many people have no clue what he’s accomplished - to their betterment.
Paul Krugman pointed out in today's newsletter some recent research that demonstrates people's views of the economy and their condition in it is far more a factor of political partisanship than actual analysis, the result of the media they consume. So it comes out that about 30% of the negative polling results are the result of partisan viewpoints, and it affects Republicans 3x more than Democrats (since all they watch is Faux Snooze, which makes them dumber and less informed than people who don't watch any news).
The not-so-hidden cost of this is the small businesses that are impacted by people thinking the economy is worse than it is and not spending $. Small businesses are hurting and closing. Media is doing so much damage to our country with the click bait and scare mongering, and it's not just Faux News, it's all of them.
I have been aware of flashyness and youth tageted marketing since the late 1950s. That's the way it is in a Capitalist economy, excellerated by television and now the instant gratification of the thumb texting gotta have it NOW young folks. Those are the ones that Robert Reich's Inequality Media is reaching out to, with influencers and information.
The partisanship, I would believe, is a given, considering most kids grow up and leave home with a significant amount of their parents points of view, as well as a reliance on the parents source of infomation. 30% does not seem unreasonable.
I read that as well TC. It certainly seems to be true, but the 30% is a pretty squishy number. I used to follow Galbraith years ago. To me, I thought he was a little more black and white, whereas Paul Krugman is willing to explore the gray areas of an issue and seems to follow a lot of different economists.
"Consuming" media is bad for the digestive tract. Better to read, watch, or listen to it. Usually, when you consume something, it's gone (eventually down the toilet). When you read/watch/listen, it's still there.
I don’t believe that is true, Michael. I follow Victor Shi and David Hogg who are Gen Zers. They are both very committed to Biden and they have millions of followers.
Good to know, Marlene! Lowers my anxiety level. Gonna keep my eye on Hogg; that young man is overflowing with potential, whatever he winds up choosing to do....
Check out the Wiki description of Hogg - he's walking the walk we all talk about here, and encouraging others to (successfully) do the same, e.g. this example in Maine:
When Republican candidate Leslie Gibson, who was running unopposed for the Maine House of Representatives, described González as a "skinhead lesbian", and also insulted Hogg as a "bald-faced liar",[43] Hogg called for somebody to challenge the Republican; Eryn Gilchrist, who was "horrified and embarrassed" by Gibson's comment, decided to run as a Democrat to challenge Gibson for the position,[44] as did Republican former State Senator Thomas Martin, Jr., who said Gibson's remarks did not represent the Maine Republican Party and that he planned to contact the survivors to commend their courage. Gibson dropped out of the race in response to public reaction critical of his comments.[45]
Sadly, Gilchrist lost this round to the Repug - but she'll probably be back.
They are very well-informed activists. They know the real deal with Biden — not so with many other young people. Nor do I see evidence of widespread support among young minority voters. Do they support Trump instead? No.
I would even vote for Biden if he was stuck in a wheelchair. I seem to recall we had a wheelchair-bound President at one point who did an exemplary job.
Michael, I so agree. So many people are obsessed with "Keeping Up With the Kooky Kardasians" that they fail to realize all the "Benefits brought by Biden."
Nor do they realize or are unaware of what they have or will need that will be eliminated by the GOP agenda. The GenZ has impression that Biden is the reason the student loan debt bill failed - unbelievable
Remamber, the "Media" exists to set product in front of consumer. Pay TV died an early death in the early 1950s. Viewers opted for Free over content with no advertising.
Ransom, you are so right. I used to time the commercials--a half-hour sitcom had 8 to 10 minutes; an hour netted up to 20 minutes! I used to call TV a 'consumer delivery machine.' Means the same thing as you are saying, just different way of saying it. Car and drug commercials were the worst! But they worked....
I think it's the "and media" and they way they have been covering (or not!) the president's accomplishments (not sexy enough to get clicks and likes) that has more to do with this phenomenon than any obsession with youth.
While copy cat trump visited small non union shop-most of the people there did not work there. 150 people at a trump rally is unheard of, so let's import some looky-loos who just want to see trump.
Aviators, leather jackets, has a vintage corvette and spun the tires test driving the new electric mustang at Fords race track. And he has two German Shepards. Joe is cool!
Pretty far false equivalence. Everyday personal style and dress vs a staged propaganda landing a jet on an aircraft carrier? Really…but the real test is his consistent empathy as the most powerful leader in the world, working selflessly to improve the lives of everyday people.
So personal style and dress, and being cool is your icing on the political cake now? Rather have a beer with Joe, would you?
Consistent empathy? Please. Tell that to the people in Gaza, in Ukraine, to the millions of everyday people still burdened by health care costs, student debt, food insecurity, housing insecurity, militarized policing…. Biden is the same corporate-owned politician he has always been.
Joe Biden has done more to improve the lives of everyday people in America more than Bill Clinton, or Barack Obama, or any of the lunatics in the GOP. But that’s a stinking low bar to clear in presidential appraisal.
Hah! Have my pair hanging out there for all to see ... on my walker. Go Joe. Your are our elder statesman. Adults in that home for elected representatives know when to comment about fragrances in the wind.
I agree with Jo (below); the President has a charismatic dignity that we've been missing terribly. The way he is navigating the process of living and ageing is tremendously inspiring. He has been wonderful.
I admire all of those qualities. Add to the list his deep and sincere empathy as well as his penchant for connecting to people one-on-one.
But in a nation replete with uninformed voters who often are attracted to smooth and entertaining talkers, Biden's style of speaking hurts him. I'm trying to view the election realistically rather than as an ardent Biden supporter.
I rely on Simon Rosenberg for hard facts on Biden's economic successes and I post them frequently on comments in the New York times and the Washington Post etc.
Here is a sample:
--Best economic recovery from COVID in the G7
--GDP growth has been on average 3% in Biden’s Presidency, 3 times higher than Trump. No recession on the horizon
--7 times as many Biden jobs in 32 months as last 3 GOP Presidents combined over 16 years. Rs averaged 120k jobs per year, 10k per month over 16 years - a truly terrible record. This past month was the equivalent of almost 4 years of job growth under the last 3 R Presidents
--Inflation has come back down to pre-pandemic levels - bouncing around between 2 and 3% now
--Lowest unemployment rate in peacetime economy since WWII
--Lowest poverty/uninsured rates ever
--Very elevated wage gains and new business starts. Worker satisfaction is at an all time high. Real earnings were up in 2022, real wages are back in positive territory
--1.4 job openings per unemployed person - an amazing stat - while declining still well below historic norm. Remains a very good time to find a job
--Domestic oil production is on track to set records in 2023, and we are making huge gains with non-carbon-based energy production
--Historic investments in our future prosperity (infrastructure, CHIPs, climate, health care)
Counter that list with what the GOP has cost the people and damages to the rule of law and the courts. Many do not connect the dots from GOP agenda to their own dismay.
People regurgitate what they hear & see on MSMs, that’s why polling is a joke now. Yes, the MSM has become a hinderance to progress in this country as they are addicted to train wrecks. When there is no longer a train wreck, they downplay the positives & incorrectly speculate on a possible train wreck ahead. I no longer watch MSM.
President Biden has done an outstanding job not only correcting & fixing all the issues created by his predecesor, but also in moving us forward. I am absolutely voting for him again!
This age-ism bias so needs to change. The combination of time, experience and hard earned successes combined with a still limber mind yields invaluable depth and wisdom. I've met my share of super sharp seniors and I'll vote Biden any day. Besides, old people are less likely to engage in fistfights in the hallways.
Berry M. (ME) - "This age-ism bias so needs to change. The combination of time, experience and hard earned successes combined with a still limber mind yields invaluable depth and wisdom. I've met my share of super sharp seniors..."
Oh, yes....but HOW old is McCarthy? Or McConnell? Certainly old enough to know better...but then you would expect to say that of a competent grade schooler. It is so irritating that we are paying their salaries and they choose disgrace the dignity of the office in such infantile ways.
I agree with you.Ageism is alive and well in this country and anyone over the age of 50 knows it especially women.The press has maligned Biden for years and they have really put the screws to him since he became POTUS.Despite his impressive list of legislative accomplishments and his superb diplomacy, he continues to be trashed as a decrepit old fool when nothing could be farther from the truth.He needs to be lifted up and We the People need to help him.
Ageism reared its ugly head during and after the pandemic. Several women I have talked to struggled to find work because so many employers wold only consider someone who would work long term. Some of them ended up taking SS to make ends meet, resulting in reduced benefits for the rest of their lives.
Agreed. Biden is the best president in my lifetime. His intelligence and experience show, and I don't have to agree with everything he says and does to see the reasons behind his actions or believe that there are reasons I cannot see. I don't assume that everything is obvious, and that I have all of the facts. We already know from Trump's behavior that there are lots of secrets and those are taken into account by the people who have the intel. Also, with the relentless ruthlessness of Trump and his people who are evil thuggish criminals, Biden perseveres with an agenda that is trying to get the USA to look more like comparable wealthy countries in terms of supports for the people, and undo the 40+ years of horrid Reagenomics that no one has done since Reagan was in power. I could go on and on with details of what is improving. Currently I am in another country and Biden is raising the bar on things that I care about for standard of living. Health, Education, Welfare, Jobs. Life expectancy is dropping--with stress paying a huge role thanks to little safety net for all but the very well off. An inability to pay off student debt in a timely manner, and buy a home is leading to women in the USA deciding they cannot afford to have children in a time when it is still easy to have them is lowering the replacement rate of people born in the USA. However, there is an infrastructure being set in place for so many of the pieces that contribute to just these two issues. Diminished life expectancy for those under 80, and diminished number of children born in the USA. I am not making a case for replacement theory because I am fine with us filling roles with immigrants. However, as a feminist I would also like to see American women feel like they can live the lives they want to, and I don't know if that is happening. Had a long discussion about the difference between options for women in USA and in the EU country we are living in which is Germany, where she is going to University. She will come out without debt. If she works here she will get many supports to parent that are not happening yet in the USA, although Biden is certainly trying to swim against the stream of Billionaire funding for ideas that do not support the USA. The bravery to take on programs and policies unpopular with the people who own most of the wealth in this country, is the most democratic thing one can do. Biden's policies represent the rest of the people, which is the 90-99% of us. So, I agree that he has done more than "pretty well" too.
He was not my first choice in 2020, however, I’m beyond impressed by his choices for nearly everything from the smart people around him to what he’s been able to accomplish domestically and internationally in the face of the mind numbing fractious house republicans and the two plus ongoing wars.
Michael, I agree with your comments, particularly the fact that "pretty well" doesn't begin to cover his accomplishments. When you consider all the fires he has had to put out, he's amazing.
Additionally, the MSM never publishes a photo of him where he's not squinting or stumbling. Ageism, for sure.
I agree! And I am so tired of hearing about his age. There's just a few years difference between him and Trump. But, because Biden takes care of himself and has a loving relationship with his wife, he's much more physically, mentally and emotionally fit.
Barbara M's list & Mary Hardt's list could be combined to make a terrific print & TV ad, reminding people of how much Pres. Biden has accomplished. The list is so long that many folks forget how consequential the Biden administration has been.
Best Pres of my lifetime--which began during the first summer of the Eisenhower Administration. Biden has accomplished so much--all to our good--under such difficult circumstances, with a razor thin margin in the Senate, made even skinnier by Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema--and the GOP with the House, albeit with an almost equally thin margin. And I say this despite the fact that Biden's not doing well on immigration IMO, but since when does anyone ever get EVERYTHING they want from a President?! I want immigration greatly reduced for environmental reasons and for the sake of American workers, and my feelings are strong on that. But Democracy is far more important, and besides, Biden is giving me everything else I want so I'm feeling something that I've never felt with a President before...
A powerful wind at my back! Like happened sometimes when I rode my bicycle cross the country, adding 20, sometimes even 30 miles to a day's total!
Biden is exactly what we need! I never felt that way about any of the others.
Always remember that conservatives do not want to solve immigration. Since Reagan eliminated the fines for employers for hiring illegals, it opened the door. Farm workers used to come in, do their work and then return. Employers were less likely to just hire them knowing they could be fined if caught. Now, not so much. They want this issue. It drives their base to be able to alarm people that they are losing their jobs to illegals. I love to ask "what jobs are they taking?". Then when they do not answer, I provide a list and ask if they are willing to work those jobs for the low pay the illegals receive. The response is worth a million bucks!
regarding jobs, I suggest you read Back of the Hiring Line: A 200 Year History of Immigration Surges, Employer Bias, and Depression of Black Wealth, by Roy Beck ($14 on Amazon).
In 1980, meat packers were black, and they were earning middle class wages. By that decade's end, they were immigrants, earning barely above minimum wage, toiling under atrocious conditions where amputations were common. .
Beck interviewed a bunch of black poultry workers who'd lost their jobs to immigrants. Wouild they take their jobs back if they could? he asked them. No, they told him. Under the current wages they'd have to live in their cars, or many to a house.
And this sort of thing was common in the computer industry long before the NYT reported on it:
The whole point of firing Americans and hiring illegals is that illegals are even more exploitable than legal immigrants. THEY SHOULD NOT HAVE TO WORK FOR THE WAGES ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS RECEIVE!
A note on immigration. I was a reality tv producer and immigrants from the UK took many many jobs that otherwise would've gone to the likes of me. It probably cost me personally a million dollars over the course of my career.
You're referring to an entirely different class of immigrants than those whom the ex-president says he'll deport if re-elected. I doubt if many, if any, of the Mexican and other southerners hopeful of reaching the U.S. would come close to having skills to challenge your job.
The wages are sh!t, because we've been importing people to do that work for decades. Crop pickers in parts of California get $2-$3/hour, and I suspect the wages aren't much more than that in Georgia. But Americans could'nt break in in California if they wanted to--Spanish speakers hire the crews and hire their own. See: The American Way of Eating, by Tracie McMillan. She worked among them as part of her research, and she speaks some Spanish.
And, by the way, the growers could afford to pay pickers a lot more. The cost of paying the pickers is a very small percentage of the cost of produce.
In his book, Back of the HIring Line: A 200-Year History of Immigration Surges, Employer Bias, and Depression of Black Wealth ($14 on Amazon), Roy Beck interviewed black poultry plant workers who'd been laid off their jobs as immigrants were hired. Would they take back their jobs if offered, he asked them? No, they told him, because on the new wages, they'd have to live in their cars, or many to a house.
David, can you delve deeper into what you mean about reducing immigration for climate reasons and for the sake of American workers?
From where I sit, it seems to me that climate change is going to drive even more population shifts, both from outside the US and within it. I think the right approach is to address the root causes of immigration first. But are we really so sure that we don’t want immigrants? I see lots of immigrants doing jobs that Americans don’t want to do.
I’m not so sure we don’t. I’m the daughter of an immigrant, and married to an immigrant. Both my father and my husband have made extraordinary contributions to our economy and our society, my husband in particular. I would also like to point out that during the course of a more than 30 year career in university engineering research, well over half of my husband’s PhD students have come from other countries, and the vast majority of them want to stay here. Maybe a bit under half the professors in his department are not native Americans. Don’t we want people like that to stay? And shouldn’t we be fixing the reasons why so few Americans pursue a STEM PhD?
Few Americans pursue STEM PhDs because the companies prefer to hire foreigners, who they can pay less than they pay Americans. Fixing the reasons why Americans don't pursue STEM PhDs would involve restricting immigration. There are plenty of Americans who've been fired and replaced by foreigners who then are paid less. The kind of thing the following link describes had been happening for a couple of decades in the computer industry before the NYT wrote about Disney.
As for climate reasons, the average immigrant's GH emissions rise threefold after arrival in t he US. The reason is that most of them come from countries with low per capita GH emissions, to the major industrialized nation with the highest per capita emissions. The average immigrant's GH emissions rise threefold after arrival.
And I don't know where your father and husband came from, but perhaps people like them should stay put and make contributions to those countries that probably needed it more than we did. Then we could have better trading partners.
Immigration is big biz' way of pushing wages down. In 1980, meat packers were black, making good middle class wages thanks to decades of union organizing. By that decade's end, meat packers were immigrants, making barely more than minimum wage, working under atrocious conditions where amputations were common. See: Back of the Hiring Line: A 200-Year History of Immigration Surges, Employer Bias, and Depression of Black Wealth, by Roy Beck, $14 on Amazon.
Why do you thihnk Mark Zuckerberg has his pro-immigration FWD.US? Why do you think the Koch organization supports more immigration?
I see your point, and I think you’re talking about people on H1B visas? My memory might be faulty, but I think we only award 80,000 H1B visas a year, which doesn’t sound all that significant. I’m not sure I agree that that is why Americans don’t pursue PhDs, though. I think that the salaries American engineering undergrads can get straight out of school are close to the salaries PhDs can earn, so it doesn’t seem worth it to them.
My dad was a refugee from Germany right before the war. If he had stayed put, he’d likely have died. His father was Jewish. My husband is Italian, and I would assert that the quality of life and the standard of living in Italy is at least as high as it is here. We do other countries (and ourselves) a disservice when we assume that things are better here than they are everywhere else. Not everything is. Take health care, longevity, working hours - all those things are significantly better in Italy than here. And Italy is no one’s idea of a model of efficient governance.
Regarding emissions, that’s a really interesting statistic, and one I had never thought of. It kind of is in line with my thinking that we ought to be addressing the root causes of immigration: climate change, political instability and violence, and economic opportunity - at the source so to speak. Thanks for pointing that out. I learned something new today!
It's lucky your father got out. Otherwise he probably would have been killed. I'm Jewish, but I don't know of any relatives killed in the holocaust. I'm aware of one relative in England, and she's the only one I know of on the other side of the pond.
I suspect people live better lives in much of Europe than they do here. What you say about Italy is quite compelling, although the politics of that country are pretty messy. We've certainly gone way downhill since Reagan was elected, in terms of social safety net, and financial equality (our GINI Quotient is quite large). Had I known where our country was going to be now when I was in my 20s or 30s (in the '70s or '80s) I would have moved probably to Scandinavia.
This article may be the most important article I've ever read, and you can infer just how badly our country is run:
Repubs will never help solve immigration, despite the fact that decent action could serve the refugees and us in ways that it has in the past. We all (well most) have immigrant ancestors. Of course some should have been deported (the Drumpfs) but most have contributed. But the hate is useful and divisive, repubs favorite things.
Republicans in the House did vote for a national, mandatory E-Verify last spring, which would have stanched the flood of immigrants at the border. Democrats mostly voted against it, and the Democratic run Senate did not take it up.
The hate from the republcians is horrible, and I wish Trump would up and die--he's been a terrible influence.
But immigration really does take jobs from American workers and depresses their wages (see a couple of my posts just a few above yours) and the US population is already environmentally unsustainable--we are running out of groundwater and if that doesn't stop, our agricultural production will fall, and Propublica projects that due to global warming, within several decades MILLIONS of Ameicans will become climate refugees--read this, it will scare you.
There is a little bit more than you are testifying to about the E-Verify bill, and it is understandable that Grassley and Tuberville were pushing it. Thank goodness for Democrats.
I'd say it in great part because the MSM is negative on Biden most of the time and fails to tell the truth about his major accomplishment and WHERE in physical space and real time the benefits are being felt (in a lot of RED country........) I sometimes feel the NYT is theoretically liberal but they really want the New Deal (what's left of it), social programs, and the restoration of tax cuts to simply go away.
Ironically, it looks like Paul Krugman might agree with you to some extent. This is from his newsletter for subscribers today. The topic was on why the polls reflect that people aren't giving Biden credit for a good economy. The conclusion was essentially that the polls reflect a political bias among many of the people responding to the polls, rather than lived experience:
'Wait, there’s more. The importance of partisanship in shaping economic perceptions tells us that a lot of what people say about the economy reflects what they hear, either from news organizations or on social media, rather than their own experiences. And it’s a running joke among economists I talk to that even mainstream news organizations apparently find it hard to say nice things about the Biden economy. When, say, a new employment report comes in, the headlines don’t usually say things like “Job growth comes in above expectations”; they’re more likely along the lines of, “Rapid job growth may slow soon, experts say, posing problems for Biden.”
You might say that such things can’t really matter, that people know what’s really happening. But the evidence on partisanship and perceptions suggests otherwise.'
And Republicans are 3x more likely to be affected this way than Democrats, since they all watch Faux Snooze, which means they are less knowledgeable and informed about reality than people who don't watch any news.
TC, in fact, that newsletter contained a discussion of the asymmetry between Republican and Democratic voters, if somewhat less succinctly than how you put it. IMO that asymmetry is something that we have to keep in mind when we're trying to reach the people who don't watch any news. The refusal of the MSM to recognize that asymmetry is what drives people on the left nuts. But the Democrats can't respond to that to the degree they've actually been driven nuts without turning off the people they need to reach. That's the dilemma. Instead of minimizing that dilemma for fear of offending or looking weak, I think the Democrats need to put it front and center in their messaging campaign in the coming months. They seem to be moving toward a narrative of "Who has your back, them or us?" I think that approach has room for highlighting the asymmetry of the parties in order to defuse the passive aggressive argument that "they're all the same." Which is a wall worth trying to knock down.
Tom, can you write a script for "Project 2025 " that will reveal the Nazi truth about what the Republicans intend to do if tRump is re-elected? Someone in Hollywood needs to take this takeover plan to the masses in a form they can quickly grasp. But the bad magot guys must be portrayed as really bad, not heroes.
I suspect that if a preponderance of the public grasped what is actually, empirically happening, a lot would be changing real fast.
(in 2021) Governor Jay Inslee of Washington told CNN over the weekend, “I don’t think you can be overly concerned about this. The American psyche has not recognized we were one vice-president away from a coup.”
We were fortunate that Pence asked Quayle if it would be OK. I don't know what would have been the eventual outcome if that had executed that charade. Certainly Mark Milley was not onboard. But it would have been way uglier, even if, in the end, it drained the abscess. TV has made us waaay to accustomed to watching political events unfold as a drama or a sporting event. As the scale of our society has grown immensely, and technology altered the ways we interact, we have not paid attention to providing conducive, safe spaces in which to confront our circumstances, plan and debate our shares of self governance. I think we do some of that here, but somehow the tent needs to be larger. What might promote good faith social dialog more effectively than what we are doing now. In the schools and as a component of everyday life? I think that just a recognition that it's needed and being willing to try would be a big step in that direction. Discussions about how to confirm what is real and what, in the end, is most important.
Those things absolutely do matter Jim, to those who are for whatever reason, not paying close attention to what the government is accomplishing, media slant, and they all have their slant, defiantly can suggest an examined truth, where there is none. People are known to vote based on the price of gas while driving 3 row SUV’s, all the while the president gets blamed for high prices that he had no responsibility for imposing. MSM is incredibly powerful in shaping public opinion, they can tilt this election, we have to be very much aware of that. The reaction the last few days, to the fascist statements that the insipid clown made, as well as the planning for internment camps and martial law decrees has been getting much needed attention. While there is reason to worry, there is reason to hope. 🙏
Damn, chump finally said it plain enough that even the news morons couldn’t ignore. He said it plain enough for me when he blathered on about Obama and Kenya. Saddest days for me were when I realized that MSM was mimicking Fox. Then social media. Joe was buried in an avalanche of bull Schitt, just like Bannon promised. Joe needs help digging out, not constant carping about his non-existent frailty.
Well said Jim, the bias is evident across the media spectrum outside most independent sources like The American Prospect are not afraid to report good news as good news. Krugman is the only person I miss for the reason you just gave.
Jo; I’m one of those people. I’ve been a NY Times subscriber for at least ten years. I am angry at the mainstream media for still enabling the dangerous political situation we are in.
Just hang around, they’ll do it again and again and again. It is a good resource for many things, but I can’t support a paper that won’t speak truth to power or treacherous stupidity. Remember Judith Miller and the many incidents since her debacle and ask yourself if it’s worth it.
A similar headline from 1865: "John Wilkes Booth Takes Visit to Ford's Theater in a Different Direction" (not too far off of what we're dealing with from MSM coverage of DT and company). :)
The editors of the NYT wrote a piece about Afghanistan and they wrote "the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan."
The MSM almost always adds the words "chaotic withdrawal" when mentioning Afghanistan, even if it's a current news story.
I sent an email to the editor telling them that it was lazy journalism to ALWAYS write "chaotic withdrawal" when writing anything about Afghanistan. Since that story, they don't seem to be writing "Afghanistan" sans "chaotic withdrawal."
The MSM is doing the same thing with Biden's age, but not Trump's. Let the MSM know you disapprove of this.
The NYT is Beltway fishwrap. The link below shows what journalism is supposed to be; remember comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable? You make bought and paid for politicians uncomfortable, and they will reveal their true selves.
I dropped the NYT the first time they ran a headline that said, “Trump criticizes(someone, don’t remember who) “, instead of “Trump’s long series of ranting posts on social media to (whoever) show how unhinged he has become.”
All the major media chases clickbait using a similar algorithm to FleeceBlock's - get people angry and upset and they stick around longer wasting time they'll never get back.
That said, there is a fair amount of stuff going down to get angry about that takes a fair amount of attention span to adequately grasp; like the climate unraveling; but that sort of stuff takes a fair amount of attention span in order to grasp, and is thus not the lowest hanging fruit. And that said, anger is a trigger for tantrums, but some adult forms of anger can also motivate what is need to be done.
It's an Orwellian con game to make serious bullying seem respectable, like all of the spurious rhetoric about how "religious freedom" to bully trumps national security by self-entitled holders of power like Tuberman do. It's the oldest trick in the book, "the pomp and circumstance of glorious war".
The NYT is a government mouthpiece. The only real journalism being practiced today, with few exceptions, is via alternative media outlets and individuals.
It is interesting to me how people vary in their preferences for information input. My wife saved her sanity during work commutes with audiobooks/podcasts, but I never could prevent my visual observations while listening from creating narrative gaps that drove me nuts.
I prefer print, but I enjoy video almost as much. Something about seeing the people conversing keeps me engaged. I despise talking on the telephone, but am happy to zoom/FaceTime. Different strokes, for different folks.
I heartily agree, and I freely admit that Joe was my "anyone but trump" choice in 2020. As many others have noted here, history will show this Biden-Harris administration to have been one of the most consequential and effective in modern history. This is even more impressive given the partisan roadblocks thrown up at every turn by cultists formerly known as Republicans. I think that a lot of the criticisms leveled at Biden, even by democrats, are nothing but rampant ageism. I am 71, still working and trying to do serious science, and I can tell you, I know what that looks like. More power to Joe and Kamala.
As honest as any US President can be. But yes, doing his best. I do believe that. Even though he was the Senator from Delaware. The Switzerland of American Banking. All the UAW Joe definitely has a grain of salt. When you're really old, you sometimes act on what you really hold true. The second term president has freedoms like no other. I pray they have no kompromat (they've certainly tried to unearth it - just like they went after the Clintons) so Joe can keep going on FDR redux and F the Oiligarchy even more than he has
The ever increasing concentration of wealth in the US is the overriding factor in average Americans economic anxiety.
Proof of it is easy to show in a simple inverted bell curve chart.
Start in the 1920s with wealth concentration at its then peak. Track the impact of the depression, New Deal, WW II, GI Bill, Domestic Infrastructure Investment, Great Society Legislation, Civil Rights Legislation (all of which had the US at it’s most egalitarian level in the 20th century).
Then the reversal began in earnest with Reaganism. Tax cuts, attack on unionism and employer funded pensions, supply side economics, business consolidation, the ever increasing spread in compensation between CEOs and workers, the emphasis on Price Earnings Multiples to drive asset values, the rise in consumer debt that inflated asset values while burdening household budgets, exploding deficit spending to fund wars and lower taxation on the wealthy (especially estate transfers), and the glorification of personal wealth (all of which has the US at its highest concentration of wealth in our history and a pervasive feeling of economic angst by average Americans).
A lot of great changes have moved the country forward during this period but wealth concentration is the overwhelming wind in our face.
It threatens democracy as many blame progressive legislation, immigration, civil rights gains and changing women’s roles as the source of their anxiety. They look for simple answers and simple solutions, including strongman leaders who promise to make America great again (Reagan did it before Trump).
Class war is the only war Americans are conditioned not to embrace. One might think that oligarchy and authoritarianism is reserved for Russia and China but we have grown comfortable with voting the same families/candidates into power.
Our major ally in the Middle East is led by a man that has stayed in power for the majority of years since 1996. Is that democracy?
Now Trump, despite political and personal debauchery (including an attempted coup), is running for the presidency for the third straight time and is the presumptive GOP nominee. Despite his populist rhetoric does anyone really believe Trump would slow, never mind reverse, wealth concentration?
He is the antithesis of a man of the people. That truth is self evident and should be clearly conveyed to all Americans.
May I suggest, when the Democrats have control of Congress to accomplish it, that a top priority should be to kill Citizens United and related Supreme Court abominations. Quote the Constitution's Article III, Section 2, Paragraph 2: "...the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make." in the legislation to tell SCOTUS "Hands off--this is outside your jurisdiction."
“The antithesis of a man of the people.” Yet the cult adores him, but cults always adore a charlatan. Joe is a true man of the people, get behind him with vigor.
Great comment. But let's remember that Reagan was a mouthpiece. An actor who knew his lines and liked what he was saying. Behind him were the same Oligarchs, as you say, the same families, that attempted a coup on FDR just months after his inauguration. Prescott Bush and his Banker father-in-law, JP Morgan, the Dupont patriarch, GM's CEO, et al. The Business Coup of 1933. They cynically planned to use the half a million WWI Veterans who were protesting that they were Still waiting for the extra pay they were promised to execute the coup at the White House, and then install General Butler as President and make FDR a figure head. Butler dobbed them in. There was an investigation. None were charged, although there was plenty of evidence. So the coup went on the QT. They learned to work from behind the scenes. McCarthyism. Nixon, using racism and abortion to split the Democrats. Bush 1 and Bush 2. Roger Stone, strange bedfellow, through it all. And then came Donald Trump. The wild card. Whom they have learned to embrace. sorry. my comments are becoming monotonous and too long.
I think we need to zoom out like you did and see that it's not the Republican presidents, or legislators, who come up with the laws and the schemes. It's their corporate pay masters. Who now own 6 members of the Supreme Court.
So how to we fight the Military Industrial Complex and the international Oiligarchy? Because that seems to be what it comes down to. Once again.
We start with getting out the vote. And subscribing $$ to real journalism, and substackers. Protests. Running for office. ...
Biden is saving the world, or at least slowing down, the weird slide into autocracy we are seeing everywhere. People who hate Biden, see he is a living example of an honest man wielding power for the benefit of us all, and he shames them. They hate him for showing them what they should be, and where they fail. Cowards hate him for being brave. Greedy men hate him for sharing. I love him because he seems like the grandpa I never had. And that saving the world for democracy thing. That, too!
He managed to get legislation passed that most (including me) thought was impossible, with the help of the equally extraordinary Nancy Pelosi. The rethugs loath her too.
I’m hoping Hakeem Jeffries gets the opportunity to show what he can do.
I offer Joe Biden much more that my feeble support.
I think Biden has done a stupendous job as well. As for age, dtrumpf may be 3 years younger than Biden chronologically, health wise, he is at least 10 years older.
Yes “an honest man” And he is not only doing the best he can he is doing a great job all around and better than most presidents given the dire situations in the world at large and especially at home. Ironically it is President Biden who is making America great. If the media continues to parrot pollsters that the president is very unpopular without pointing out the failure of pooling in the past decade and without explaining the pooling methodology so that people can evaluate those pools-------then IT WILL BECOME CONVENTIONAL WISDOM. This plays right into the GOP’s hands. Perhaps people are afraid to respond any other way when asked 🤔 The crazies have put fear into every aspect of the political process. Were the people called and asked or was the pooling an internet process or was it in person?Who reading this thread has not come to distrust? The crazies have actually done violent crazy stuff. It is possible that people either do not respond at all and yet see that the President is doing a great job or are afraid to say that he is doing a great job. There are so many technological possibilities to manipulate things. I know that I am resisting the idea that a president who has so many domestic and foreign policy triumphs is not appreciated by people who do not have the information and/or are intellectually lazy but such a large majority according to these pools ?..
After reading Joyce Vance’s informative Substack newsletter today, I was almost afraid to open Heather’s. I’m glad I did. Although the behavior of the so-called Republican leaders is beyond appalling, reading about all that Joe Biden is doing for our country has provided solace.
The brutish behavior of the Republicans is in extreme contrast to the Democrats, who are at the work of operating the government. The question we will have to answer is how did such low life individuals get elected in the first place.?
Although it might seem unrealistic, it would be a great idea to require all candidates to pass the same citizenship test that we require immigrants to pass. They should also demonstrate a working knowledge of American history, and how the process of government works. I suspect that some of the worst of the gang would not come close to passing this type of examination.
I think that is a perfectly reasonable idea. How can you possibly take on the function of a legislator without any knowledge of the law, or how government functions? Folks seem to willing to vote for anyone who has a modicum of “fame”. Hence the football coaches and in 1980, a movie star.
A US senator thought the three branches of government were house, senate and president! And he is now constipating the senate with his obstinate, stupid behavior. Too many footballs to the head.
Perhaps voters and reporters need to ask every candidate what the 3 branches are, who the Supreme Court justices are, state capitals, how far DC is from CA, and some basic arithmetic problems as well.
I have been saying that for years! My husband who is from Nepal and had no formal education, studied and passed his citizenship test 25 years ago. He knows more about how the U.S. government functions that our ex-prezidennt. Now, how sick is THAT?
I would expect that those who pass that test know a good deal more about civics than most Americans, and that most Americans know more about it than many in office; such as GWB or His Puerile Trumpiness.
I think that's a great idea, Marc. Maggot Traitor Goon and Tommy Tuberville would make a flat zero on the tests you suggested. Matt Gaetz and Larean Boebert would not fare much better.
Sorry about that, David. I am also laughing about the perfect name for that looney, uneducated, insane sorry excuse for a woman. I saw an ad on my TV for a movie about Neanderthals that had a photo of a Neanderthal man on there, and if not for his massive facial hair, he looked exactly like Maggot Traitor Goon. I assume she is a cross between a Goon and a Neanderthal. Her unhinged behavior suggests that also. Scary thing is,, her congressional district begins only about 35 miles north of where i currently live. I am wanting to move out of the state of Georgia and get away from the crazed TUMP and Fascist GQP hicks that vote for cretins like her.
That's a great idea 💡! But, they won't impose hard standards for themselves! Look at MTG! Does anyone here believe that she has any knowledge of how our government works? She attacked Ray yesterday for the responsibilities of Homeland Security. He has nothing to do with that!
Just read "Dark Money," the book by Heather Cox Richardson's friend, Jane Mayer.
It's a bit haunting, ominous to read, as Jane Mayer goes into detail on the many, many billionaires in the U.S. seeking to corrupt and succeeding in corrupting as many institutions as they can.
One result of this massive corruption: the Republican party got totally turned into what Marc Nevas here terms a mass of "low life individuals."
Money -- dark money -- has now long fed the lust for power by our billionaire classes. And, I'll add, it's done so in proportion to how the same billionaires killed off (or at best marginalized) the humanities from schools, all of them, K-12 to "higher."
Thugs largely rule Congress now.
Thanks anyway to Heather Cox Richardson, who concludes hers today with apt notes on good legislation many Dems yet push, in obvious spite of the "low life individuals" rife among them.
I would also add a recommendation for "Democracy in Chains" by Nancy MacLean. I first heard of it a while back from someone posting on this forum. No single book is enough on this subject, IMO. The Citizens United case, which legitimized corruption in government, was bought and paid for with dark money. The corruption we're seeing in SCOTUS is not just an accident of lax attention to ethics.
I appears to me that had the Reagan-GOP not successfully tarred democracy and legitimized plutocracy, America, and probably the world would be a very different place. Not with every evil put to right, but still quite measurably more livable and more just. Just how much our lives are impacted by post-Carter concentration of wealth would be the news story of the those intervening years, yet mostly attains only elephant in the room status for the MSM. Reaganomics was and is a fraud and absolute disaster for the public, in so many traceable ways, and yet, but for some of Biden's reforms, mostly running the show. What is wrong with that picture?
Democrats aided and abetted the legitimacy of plutocracy; Carter had a hand in neoliberal economic acceptance. Reagan just put it into hyperdrive, and both parties accepted Milton Friedman’s poison as a cost of doing ‘bidness’ in exchange for campaign donations, and here we are.
And neither party has been able to wrest control of foreign policy from the CIA and the MIC; just look a Biden’s lunacy in Ukraine and Gaza as the most recent case in point.
Excellent book! Thanks for sharing! Read it years ago and found out how my representative was a card carrying member of ALEC! Good Ole Tom Cole, the sensible one, actually signed up the first year of its inception!
I presume the most salient ones do, and and some might do their "thinking" from a cell. I guess it falls on us to strongly discourage food fights in public spaces on the public's "dime". The more they get away with, the worse they get. If self-determination is what we really, really want, we have to learn to say "NO".
I call it Welcome to the House of Jerry Springer. Where Republicans use a procedure called a Dick Measuring Contest in an attempt to govern. MTG is taken bets. Check your odds today.
The last sentence in your comment was worth it's weight in Gold, Marc. I would guess their low life individual voters would be responsible for electing those cretins. I should know, first hand as i am surrounded by those low life hicks in my community. Their IQ is probably south of 50.
As Dr. Richardson points out almost every day, the Trump/MAGA/Republican Party does not want to govern, many of them don’t seem to want a government. It’s not clear what they are so angry about, or what they want to accomplish. It’s clear that they can’t even get along with each other. Yet today, in order to appease his flock, the new Speaker endorsed Trump, the day after Trump did his “I wanna be Hitler” speech. This is not good for America or the world.
Yes. They've moved from "taxation is theft" to "government is theft." The new messaging from Democrats has to illuminate the fact that Republicans are now too dangerous to hold office. They are a metastatic cancer. Just eliminating the most radical among them isn't enough because even traditional Republicans are afraid of them and can't be counted on to, say, stand with Liz Cheney.
And yet "Republicans" use every (dirty) trick in the book to dominate government, and Trump crows about how he intends to abuse it's power. It's not "small" government they want, they what a very heavy handed government, that obeys and renders service only to them, and hold them responsible for nothing.
“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”— Frank Wilhoit
I'll add to they some memories from my teens that some of the adults that were so adamant and inflexible about their view of "the rules" were sometimes shamelessly discordant in their own breaking of them; as if beyond the reach of rules they were so zealous to enforce. And that's was nothing to what I am seeing lately. It is a weird and creepy kind of narcissism to assume you get to impose but not comply with codes of conduct. That's fundamentally part of what tyranny is; no? And 'equal protection" the alternative?
The Republican oligarchs are totally clear on what they want--extremely limited government with low taxation on the wealthy, no government regulation of business, cheap access to federal lands and natural resources, privatization of social security and medicare, elimination of the rest of the social safety net, and an isolationist foreign policy.
They want to rule not represent.
You can see a list of their successes over the last 50 years at the link below.
Please save us God and every sane patriot representing the United States of America!!!
The Republican Party is imploding before us!....and taking many of our friends and family members down with them.
Thank you Georgia!!!!.....for your clarity and reminders regarding the "successes" of the Heritage Foundation......which are NOT successes for the people of America!!!!
Yeah, "Home Despot" is not a place I frequent anymore, either. Over the years I found the staff at our local store to be poorly-trained and overtly sexist in their customer relations, to the point of not even making eye contact with me when I asked questions about products, talking to my husband or brother instead. What a bunch of knuckle draggers! That attitude obviously comes from the top.
I just had my last trip to HD about a week or so ago. I was looking for a pressure treated 2x6x12. I took a look at their paltry lumber selection and did not find one. I found an orange apron, and asked if he could check and see if there was any in stock. He waved his arm, and said "down that asile". I told him I'd already been down there and there were none, there was an empty bay, and that if they had any, it was probably "in back". He told me "No, it is out there, I'll show you." We went back, I showed him the empty bay where it could have gone (no sign), and he said "well, that product wouldn't go here." I asked him where they would put it, if not with the rest of the 2x6x pressure treated lumber. He didn't have an answer, and left.
Lowes (right next door) not only had it, but the guy helped me get it off the shoulder high rack, selected the better board, and took it to my truck.
Given that the "Speaker" is a full-on southern Fundamentalist (i.e., a complete moron), does this really surprise you? Given that he's the guy who is called "the architect," who organized 135 Republicans in the House to vote not to accept the electoral votes of the states on January 6
Indeed. Good for California. But remember that at one time California was the biggest emitter of air pollution in the country. I remember the brown air of LA, where the term “smog” was invented, in the 1960’s.
That’s because even in the 60s we were the most populous state in the union. If Wyoming had as many people as we do, it would have been as bad or worse.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the reddish brown air you remember was due to what was allowed out the tailpipe. Between the Clean Air Act, catalytic converters, and gasoline reformulations, most of what made the air brown—this is mostly nitrogen oxides—has been removed.
Since the 80s our biggest problem has been ozone, O3. Ozone is colorless, but puts a grayish smudge in the air. More gasoline reformulations have attacked and reduced ozone.
What California has done of its own accord is something entirely different: Our utilities’ electricity portfolios became 30% renewables—this excludes hydroelectricity—by 2020. By 2030 their portfolios must be 50% renewables. New dwellings are prohibited from having anything but electric appliances. All new cars sold in the state must be electric by 2035. Our freight truck fleet must be converted to electric somewhere in the 2030s. And we’ve been converting many of our locomotives to electricity for years.
This is very costly and has cost California some jobs—but the innovation is creating new jobs and making it possible for you to buy electric vehicles that aren’t Teslas—as well as Teslas.
California has indeed led the way in so many things, most of them good.
Full disclosure; I lived in San Bernardino County for a while as a child and in San Francisco as an adult (behaving like a child) for 30+ yrs starting in the early 70’s, and still consider myself a non-native Californian.
California as long been an innovative state, though ruled by Ronnie Reagan part of the time I was there. California set the standard for stricter emissions control. Trump wanted to prohibit that: state's right's, you know. I recall in the 1970's sometime driving by a setup that pumped water up a hill at night and than used the downflow for hydro-power when demand was higher. Dunno how efficient is was , but there seem to be versions of that sort of electrical load leveling on a number of drawing boards, but mostly not in service, so far as I can tell. This one was, half a century ago.
Today Nobel prize winning, NYT columnist Paul Krugman attempted to understand the gap between the reality of the economy and the perception of it by many Americans. These people are far more pessimistic than they should be compared to historical reality. Basically he states that what people feel about the economy has more to do of what they are told to feel about it by partisan organizations. To quote him “And it’s a running joke among economists I talk to that even mainstream news organizations apparently find it hard to say nice things about the Biden economy. When, say, a new employment report comes in, the headlines don’t usually say things like “Job growth comes in above expectations”; they’re more likely along the lines of, “Rapid job growth may slow soon, experts say, posing problems for Biden.”. “ So there you have it: by all facts inflation is down, wages up, gas prices down, and people are spending. As the actor in the movie “Cool Hand Luke” said, “What we've got here is failure to communicate.”
It’s sad to see both houses of Congress and SCOTUS behaving corruptly and uncivilly. May voters have intelligent civilized representatives to send to DC. To find and vote for these people is a challenge we have to meet if we are to continue as a democracy. Senator Klobuchar’s new rule for senatorial “holds” may save our military, but it is getting registered to vote and voting blue that will save US.
She's mine and Tina Smith and that beautiful man, Governor Walz. I was at a gas station in Nebraska when a big man saw my Minnesota license plates and started calling them bitches. My head snapped around and I said a few things. My husband just had hip surgery and he's giving me the get in the damn truck look. Of, course I walked real slow. I was pissed.
What Senator Klobuchar is proposing would make possible breaking holds that affect national security. What Senator Tuberville has done is dangerous and unprecedented.
Yes. I saw Dana Bash interviewing Klobuchar and Dana used the phrase “blockade of…” instead of “holds” and Klobuchar praised her for using a more accurate term to describe what Tuberville is doing.
“Hold” is indeed the term for what Tuberville is doing. Senator Klobuchar was “softening” the hold, so used the different term. That was my reference. So fed up with Republican misuse of congressional history.
EDIT: See bottom for how much Sen. Mullins is worth.
I retired to Oklahoma from NYC in 2021. I wanted to live in a small town on Route 66 instead of a big, expensive city. I watched video today that showed the Oklahoma Senator standing up as if about to fight but also saw his earlier claim to being an ordinary guy who had made $50,000 a year running a plumbing company. The union leader had called the Senator “greedy” in a tweet back in June, and one commentator (might have been Jake Tapper but I’m not sure) mentioned what thin skin you must have to want to fight someone over a Tweet from June. But here’s the kicker on this story to me: Tulsa World newspaper (the largest in the state I think) ran a report on all this today that said our Senator is worth somewhere in the neighborhood on $30 million dollars! So, his claim to being just an ordinary small businessman doesn’t fly!
And he got $$ from the PPP, while the mom and pop businesses mortgaged their homes, drained their retirement savings and kids' college funds to stay afloat.
Adolescent bullies will be adolescent bullies. Why should Bernie Sanders, or any other legislator, have to stop a fist fight from breaking out during a hearing?
Today's Republican antics weren't all physical. Let us not overlook another little tidbit:
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) began the morning by calling Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) a "p***y" for voting to block her impeachment resolution against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Honestly, it's like being in middle school ("junior high school", as it once was called) all over again.
Is it any wonder Congress has the lowest approval rating -- 17% -- since 2017??
When will the mainstream media realize that many of us want the “boring” news of Biden’s accomplishments and not the circus that is the Republican House of Representatives and the rants and dangerous rhetoric of Trump and his cronies? Soon, please.
Much that might be viewed as "boring", at least from a child's perspective, is actually the "chop wood, carry water" that keeps our way of life viable. Baby Trump was infamously unwilling to suffer intelligence briefings while in the role of Commander in Chief. Societies require work. Democracy requires work. Food fights don't (except for whoever cleans up after them).
"everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses."
There is always an audience for someone who tells people that what they fallaciously would prefer to believe is real, such as that climate change is a hoax. That they are the "righteous" or the "master race". That said, reality trumps even Trumpeters in end. The odds are always with the house, and nature is indifferent to our suffering. We lucked out big time on this planet, but we will wear out our welcome if we keep being an ass about it.
No party is perfect, and Democrats have some major historical skeletons in their closet, but are vastly more responsible today than nominal "Republicans". "Republican" now openly announce their contempt for the republic, and have backed it up by their actions. Everyone who see it needs be to calling attention to our current circumstances.
With all the information available to everyone, I'm dumbfounded that people still vote for these childish political hacks to make decisions affecting not just the US, but the entire world. Shameful. Which makes me realize there are a lot of Americans who admire the violence, ignorance, treason, and corruption demonstrated by some Congressional Republicans and other MAGAs.
Which means the rest of us have to WORK WORK WORK - not just comment on Substack - to elect people who practice decency, trust, and patriotism.
A typical day on Capitol Hill which 50 years ago would seem outrageous, at least the senators don’t use canes like the southern representative who attacked Charles Sumner back before the civil war. I guess not much has changed. Thank you Heather!
Probably no cane incidents today because canes are no longer in fashion. But it is clear that a lot of them don't like each other in the House. The news featured both the House and the Senate incidents. No wonder so many have decided not to run for reelection. I note to that one poster has called for us to WORK and that's what we need to do. I am glad that the House did manage to fund the government a while longer as well.
Mullin put out a tweet yesterday evening, posing in front of a table full of guns, saying that he’s ready. He basically threatened to shoot a witness. They are so dangerous.
Well dang HCR, some good news--and I consider the idiotic toddler tantrums of the Rethuglicans to be good news because they are so ridiculous that if the commnercial media actually reports on this it'll be a revelation to at least some folks.
Someone please get Bernie a bigger gavel. It looked like a baby rattle on tv. He needs a big, loud gavel to interrupt the fool sitting next to him, who wants to fist fight committee witnesses. The Congressional GOP is a motley crew.
And why is it that so many people dislike Joe Biden?
He may not be progressive enough for me, but given the situation we're in (2024/trump/maga), he's actually done pretty well.
I will vote for him, and not just to defeat trump.
I think he's an honest man who is doing the best he can for America.
I believe he's done much better than "pretty well." In fact, he's one of the most consequential presidents of the last century. He's disliked by many people because he's very old and lacks charisma. It's terribly unfair considering his experience and accomplishments.
Another factor: the media historically tends to be far more critical of politicians who have been around for a long time — in Biden's case it's many decades. Again, unfair. But I know of what I speak. And let's not forget that ageism is real and prevalent.
I say all this as a committed Biden supporter who will vote for him again.
Oh , I disagree. He has plenty of charisma with those aviator glasses on. He’s a cool Kat!
The short video clip of him and UAW pres. Obrian showed solid charisma. The smile and wink? His mind is at work constantly. He doesn't have time for BS.
Agree. But you see and appreciate subtleties. In a nation (and media) obsessed with youth and flashy, superficial entertainment, Biden’s demeanor doesn’t connect. And so many people have no clue what he’s accomplished - to their betterment.
Paul Krugman pointed out in today's newsletter some recent research that demonstrates people's views of the economy and their condition in it is far more a factor of political partisanship than actual analysis, the result of the media they consume. So it comes out that about 30% of the negative polling results are the result of partisan viewpoints, and it affects Republicans 3x more than Democrats (since all they watch is Faux Snooze, which makes them dumber and less informed than people who don't watch any news).
Yes, and I don't know that just watching CNN instead is a good answer. Reading seems to be somewhat better, certainly reading HCR!
The not-so-hidden cost of this is the small businesses that are impacted by people thinking the economy is worse than it is and not spending $. Small businesses are hurting and closing. Media is doing so much damage to our country with the click bait and scare mongering, and it's not just Faux News, it's all of them.
I have been aware of flashyness and youth tageted marketing since the late 1950s. That's the way it is in a Capitalist economy, excellerated by television and now the instant gratification of the thumb texting gotta have it NOW young folks. Those are the ones that Robert Reich's Inequality Media is reaching out to, with influencers and information.
The partisanship, I would believe, is a given, considering most kids grow up and leave home with a significant amount of their parents points of view, as well as a reliance on the parents source of infomation. 30% does not seem unreasonable.
"Faux Snooze". I love it!
I read that as well TC. It certainly seems to be true, but the 30% is a pretty squishy number. I used to follow Galbraith years ago. To me, I thought he was a little more black and white, whereas Paul Krugman is willing to explore the gray areas of an issue and seems to follow a lot of different economists.
Do you follow Catherine Rampell?
"Consuming" media is bad for the digestive tract. Better to read, watch, or listen to it. Usually, when you consume something, it's gone (eventually down the toilet). When you read/watch/listen, it's still there.
Bon appetit!
Thanks TCinLA!
I don’t believe that is true, Michael. I follow Victor Shi and David Hogg who are Gen Zers. They are both very committed to Biden and they have millions of followers.
Good to know, Marlene! Lowers my anxiety level. Gonna keep my eye on Hogg; that young man is overflowing with potential, whatever he winds up choosing to do....
Check out the Wiki description of Hogg - he's walking the walk we all talk about here, and encouraging others to (successfully) do the same, e.g. this example in Maine:
When Republican candidate Leslie Gibson, who was running unopposed for the Maine House of Representatives, described González as a "skinhead lesbian", and also insulted Hogg as a "bald-faced liar",[43] Hogg called for somebody to challenge the Republican; Eryn Gilchrist, who was "horrified and embarrassed" by Gibson's comment, decided to run as a Democrat to challenge Gibson for the position,[44] as did Republican former State Senator Thomas Martin, Jr., who said Gibson's remarks did not represent the Maine Republican Party and that he planned to contact the survivors to commend their courage. Gibson dropped out of the race in response to public reaction critical of his comments.[45]
Sadly, Gilchrist lost this round to the Repug - but she'll probably be back.
They are very well-informed activists. They know the real deal with Biden — not so with many other young people. Nor do I see evidence of widespread support among young minority voters. Do they support Trump instead? No.
I would even vote for Biden if he was stuck in a wheelchair. I seem to recall we had a wheelchair-bound President at one point who did an exemplary job.
Michael, I so agree. So many people are obsessed with "Keeping Up With the Kooky Kardasians" that they fail to realize all the "Benefits brought by Biden."
What is a kardashian?
Nor do they realize or are unaware of what they have or will need that will be eliminated by the GOP agenda. The GenZ has impression that Biden is the reason the student loan debt bill failed - unbelievable
Remamber, the "Media" exists to set product in front of consumer. Pay TV died an early death in the early 1950s. Viewers opted for Free over content with no advertising.
Ransom, you are so right. I used to time the commercials--a half-hour sitcom had 8 to 10 minutes; an hour netted up to 20 minutes! I used to call TV a 'consumer delivery machine.' Means the same thing as you are saying, just different way of saying it. Car and drug commercials were the worst! But they worked....
Had no idea back then that advertising would dominate our lives to an unbearable extent.
I think it's the "and media" and they way they have been covering (or not!) the president's accomplishments (not sexy enough to get clicks and likes) that has more to do with this phenomenon than any obsession with youth.
The media's coverage of Biden's age has been nothing short of disgusting.
While copy cat trump visited small non union shop-most of the people there did not work there. 150 people at a trump rally is unheard of, so let's import some looky-loos who just want to see trump.
Aviators, leather jackets, has a vintage corvette and spun the tires test driving the new electric mustang at Fords race track. And he has two German Shepards. Joe is cool!
And a cat!! :-D
Yes, Joe is a cool cat!
If Joe is good enough for Jill, then he is good enough for ‘merica
You do realize you’re posting just like the GOP sycophants who swooned over Bush landing on the aircraft carrier for the Mission Accomplished speech.
Pretty far false equivalence. Everyday personal style and dress vs a staged propaganda landing a jet on an aircraft carrier? Really…but the real test is his consistent empathy as the most powerful leader in the world, working selflessly to improve the lives of everyday people.
So personal style and dress, and being cool is your icing on the political cake now? Rather have a beer with Joe, would you?
Consistent empathy? Please. Tell that to the people in Gaza, in Ukraine, to the millions of everyday people still burdened by health care costs, student debt, food insecurity, housing insecurity, militarized policing…. Biden is the same corporate-owned politician he has always been.
Joe Biden has done more to improve the lives of everyday people in America more than Bill Clinton, or Barack Obama, or any of the lunatics in the GOP. But that’s a stinking low bar to clear in presidential appraisal.
Hah! Have my pair hanging out there for all to see ... on my walker. Go Joe. Your are our elder statesman. Adults in that home for elected representatives know when to comment about fragrances in the wind.
Right on, Michael, Joe Biden is a gift that keeps on giving.
Biden seems mature, ripe, not infected with rot like Trump was at an early age, spoiling the whole barrel of bruised, abused children.
"simply sane" works miracles for me :)
I agree with Jo (below); the President has a charismatic dignity that we've been missing terribly. The way he is navigating the process of living and ageing is tremendously inspiring. He has been wonderful.
Yes...he is the "statesman" sorely needed to navigate through the grok of unthinking rethugs in congress.
I admire all of those qualities. Add to the list his deep and sincere empathy as well as his penchant for connecting to people one-on-one.
But in a nation replete with uninformed voters who often are attracted to smooth and entertaining talkers, Biden's style of speaking hurts him. I'm trying to view the election realistically rather than as an ardent Biden supporter.
I rely on Simon Rosenberg for hard facts on Biden's economic successes and I post them frequently on comments in the New York times and the Washington Post etc.
Here is a sample:
--Best economic recovery from COVID in the G7
--GDP growth has been on average 3% in Biden’s Presidency, 3 times higher than Trump. No recession on the horizon
--7 times as many Biden jobs in 32 months as last 3 GOP Presidents combined over 16 years. Rs averaged 120k jobs per year, 10k per month over 16 years - a truly terrible record. This past month was the equivalent of almost 4 years of job growth under the last 3 R Presidents
--Inflation has come back down to pre-pandemic levels - bouncing around between 2 and 3% now
--Lowest unemployment rate in peacetime economy since WWII
--Lowest poverty/uninsured rates ever
--Very elevated wage gains and new business starts. Worker satisfaction is at an all time high. Real earnings were up in 2022, real wages are back in positive territory
--1.4 job openings per unemployed person - an amazing stat - while declining still well below historic norm. Remains a very good time to find a job
--Domestic oil production is on track to set records in 2023, and we are making huge gains with non-carbon-based energy production
--Historic investments in our future prosperity (infrastructure, CHIPs, climate, health care)
Love Rosenberg take on our economy
I also love his election stats. His data and strategy are impeccable. I use his words and numbers constantly.
Counter that list with what the GOP has cost the people and damages to the rule of law and the courts. Many do not connect the dots from GOP agenda to their own dismay.
It's up to each of us to spread the word about President Biden's economic successes. I don't let the bad guys get me down. I just don't.
Great list, Barbara. I am stealing it. Thanks!
It's from Simon Rosenberg. Steal away!
I don't see anybody on YT slighting Noam Chomsky, 12 years older than Biden.
People regurgitate what they hear & see on MSMs, that’s why polling is a joke now. Yes, the MSM has become a hinderance to progress in this country as they are addicted to train wrecks. When there is no longer a train wreck, they downplay the positives & incorrectly speculate on a possible train wreck ahead. I no longer watch MSM.
President Biden has done an outstanding job not only correcting & fixing all the issues created by his predecesor, but also in moving us forward. I am absolutely voting for him again!
and being a thoroughly decent human being throughout!!
Such a rarity, thoroughly decent gets no notice. Shame on us.
Absolutely. Loyal, true, and kind.
You are so right.
Sorry but what is MSM?? I need a glossary.
I think they mean MainStream Media
What is MSM?
Main Stream Media.
Oh I thought it was short for msnbc
Most of the people slighting Biden have no idea who Chomsky is or why he might be important.
Sad but true. That's why it's so striking that the admiration for Chomsky flows in such uninterrupted streams.
Because Chomsky is a member of the crowd of idiots.
You let your personal bias show when you call a brilliant man you disagree with an idiot.
I generally enjoy your comments, TC, but don’t take cheap shots at Noam—not a good look.
He is brilliant but a little over the top for me. May have to reconsider as the Nazis gain ground.
Ouch! Did that idiotic comment make you feel good? Did it match the leg tingle you got from trashing Code Pink recently?
Please don’t email me any more of your stupidity.
This age-ism bias so needs to change. The combination of time, experience and hard earned successes combined with a still limber mind yields invaluable depth and wisdom. I've met my share of super sharp seniors and I'll vote Biden any day. Besides, old people are less likely to engage in fistfights in the hallways.
Seems all are bullies on the political playground. So sick of the elementary playground “intelligentsia.”
Berry M. (ME) - "This age-ism bias so needs to change. The combination of time, experience and hard earned successes combined with a still limber mind yields invaluable depth and wisdom. I've met my share of super sharp seniors..."
"𝘛𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘦𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭. 𝘔𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭" --Lady Gaga
Oh, yes....but HOW old is McCarthy? Or McConnell? Certainly old enough to know better...but then you would expect to say that of a competent grade schooler. It is so irritating that we are paying their salaries and they choose disgrace the dignity of the office in such infantile ways.
I agree with you.Ageism is alive and well in this country and anyone over the age of 50 knows it especially women.The press has maligned Biden for years and they have really put the screws to him since he became POTUS.Despite his impressive list of legislative accomplishments and his superb diplomacy, he continues to be trashed as a decrepit old fool when nothing could be farther from the truth.He needs to be lifted up and We the People need to help him.
Ageism reared its ugly head during and after the pandemic. Several women I have talked to struggled to find work because so many employers wold only consider someone who would work long term. Some of them ended up taking SS to make ends meet, resulting in reduced benefits for the rest of their lives.
Agreed. Biden is the best president in my lifetime. His intelligence and experience show, and I don't have to agree with everything he says and does to see the reasons behind his actions or believe that there are reasons I cannot see. I don't assume that everything is obvious, and that I have all of the facts. We already know from Trump's behavior that there are lots of secrets and those are taken into account by the people who have the intel. Also, with the relentless ruthlessness of Trump and his people who are evil thuggish criminals, Biden perseveres with an agenda that is trying to get the USA to look more like comparable wealthy countries in terms of supports for the people, and undo the 40+ years of horrid Reagenomics that no one has done since Reagan was in power. I could go on and on with details of what is improving. Currently I am in another country and Biden is raising the bar on things that I care about for standard of living. Health, Education, Welfare, Jobs. Life expectancy is dropping--with stress paying a huge role thanks to little safety net for all but the very well off. An inability to pay off student debt in a timely manner, and buy a home is leading to women in the USA deciding they cannot afford to have children in a time when it is still easy to have them is lowering the replacement rate of people born in the USA. However, there is an infrastructure being set in place for so many of the pieces that contribute to just these two issues. Diminished life expectancy for those under 80, and diminished number of children born in the USA. I am not making a case for replacement theory because I am fine with us filling roles with immigrants. However, as a feminist I would also like to see American women feel like they can live the lives they want to, and I don't know if that is happening. Had a long discussion about the difference between options for women in USA and in the EU country we are living in which is Germany, where she is going to University. She will come out without debt. If she works here she will get many supports to parent that are not happening yet in the USA, although Biden is certainly trying to swim against the stream of Billionaire funding for ideas that do not support the USA. The bravery to take on programs and policies unpopular with the people who own most of the wealth in this country, is the most democratic thing one can do. Biden's policies represent the rest of the people, which is the 90-99% of us. So, I agree that he has done more than "pretty well" too.
Michael, I completely agree with you.
He was not my first choice in 2020, however, I’m beyond impressed by his choices for nearly everything from the smart people around him to what he’s been able to accomplish domestically and internationally in the face of the mind numbing fractious house republicans and the two plus ongoing wars.
A truly great leader.
Michael, I agree with your comments, particularly the fact that "pretty well" doesn't begin to cover his accomplishments. When you consider all the fires he has had to put out, he's amazing.
Additionally, the MSM never publishes a photo of him where he's not squinting or stumbling. Ageism, for sure.
Oh I totally agree with you! So sick of this age argument..look how he has saved us from the past administration
I agree! And I am so tired of hearing about his age. There's just a few years difference between him and Trump. But, because Biden takes care of himself and has a loving relationship with his wife, he's much more physically, mentally and emotionally fit.
I can only hope that I'll be as with it as Joe when I'm in my 80s, which is closing in on seven years.
And for the last 80 years we have kept our Democracy even though there have been those that have worked to destroy it!
I hope Joe knows how much we love him. A wonderful loving and intelligent man.
Me too Michael
jdhinckley,
What Biden’s done:
CREATING MORE JOBS
14 million jobs added
STRONGER ECONOMY
Strongest economic recovery in the G7 since the pandemic
U.S. MANUFACTURING
Bringing semiconductor manufacturing back to the U.S.
CANCELING STUDENT DEBT
Canceled $127 billion in student loan debt for nearly 3.6 million Americans
IMPROVING OUR INFRASTRUCTURE
Passed the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law
SUPPORTING VETERANS
PACT Act for veterans and their survivors
GUN SAFETY
Most significant gun safety law in decades
CLIMATE ACTION
Passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which takes historic climate action
REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS
Executive orders protecting reproductive rights
STRENGTHENED GLOBAL ALLIANCES
Strengthened U.S. alliances and partnerships around the world
LOWERING COSTS
Lowered prescription drug and health care costs
Barbara M's list & Mary Hardt's list could be combined to make a terrific print & TV ad, reminding people of how much Pres. Biden has accomplished. The list is so long that many folks forget how consequential the Biden administration has been.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👍👍
THANK YOU, Mary!
borrowed and posted. good list
Best Pres of my lifetime--which began during the first summer of the Eisenhower Administration. Biden has accomplished so much--all to our good--under such difficult circumstances, with a razor thin margin in the Senate, made even skinnier by Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema--and the GOP with the House, albeit with an almost equally thin margin. And I say this despite the fact that Biden's not doing well on immigration IMO, but since when does anyone ever get EVERYTHING they want from a President?! I want immigration greatly reduced for environmental reasons and for the sake of American workers, and my feelings are strong on that. But Democracy is far more important, and besides, Biden is giving me everything else I want so I'm feeling something that I've never felt with a President before...
A powerful wind at my back! Like happened sometimes when I rode my bicycle cross the country, adding 20, sometimes even 30 miles to a day's total!
Biden is exactly what we need! I never felt that way about any of the others.
Always remember that conservatives do not want to solve immigration. Since Reagan eliminated the fines for employers for hiring illegals, it opened the door. Farm workers used to come in, do their work and then return. Employers were less likely to just hire them knowing they could be fined if caught. Now, not so much. They want this issue. It drives their base to be able to alarm people that they are losing their jobs to illegals. I love to ask "what jobs are they taking?". Then when they do not answer, I provide a list and ask if they are willing to work those jobs for the low pay the illegals receive. The response is worth a million bucks!
Big biz GOPers like the cheap labor.
regarding jobs, I suggest you read Back of the Hiring Line: A 200 Year History of Immigration Surges, Employer Bias, and Depression of Black Wealth, by Roy Beck ($14 on Amazon).
In 1980, meat packers were black, and they were earning middle class wages. By that decade's end, they were immigrants, earning barely above minimum wage, toiling under atrocious conditions where amputations were common. .
Beck interviewed a bunch of black poultry workers who'd lost their jobs to immigrants. Wouild they take their jobs back if they could? he asked them. No, they told him. Under the current wages they'd have to live in their cars, or many to a house.
And this sort of thing was common in the computer industry long before the NYT reported on it:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff-at-disney-train-foreign-replacements.html
The whole point of firing Americans and hiring illegals is that illegals are even more exploitable than legal immigrants. THEY SHOULD NOT HAVE TO WORK FOR THE WAGES ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS RECEIVE!
A note on immigration. I was a reality tv producer and immigrants from the UK took many many jobs that otherwise would've gone to the likes of me. It probably cost me personally a million dollars over the course of my career.
You're referring to an entirely different class of immigrants than those whom the ex-president says he'll deport if re-elected. I doubt if many, if any, of the Mexican and other southerners hopeful of reaching the U.S. would come close to having skills to challenge your job.
My response is often, “How many of your children are picking tomatoes in South Georgia in July?” I already know the answer is a big, fat zero.
The wages are sh!t, because we've been importing people to do that work for decades. Crop pickers in parts of California get $2-$3/hour, and I suspect the wages aren't much more than that in Georgia. But Americans could'nt break in in California if they wanted to--Spanish speakers hire the crews and hire their own. See: The American Way of Eating, by Tracie McMillan. She worked among them as part of her research, and she speaks some Spanish.
And, by the way, the growers could afford to pay pickers a lot more. The cost of paying the pickers is a very small percentage of the cost of produce.
Too sadly true about the wages.
In his book, Back of the HIring Line: A 200-Year History of Immigration Surges, Employer Bias, and Depression of Black Wealth ($14 on Amazon), Roy Beck interviewed black poultry plant workers who'd been laid off their jobs as immigrants were hired. Would they take back their jobs if offered, he asked them? No, they told him, because on the new wages, they'd have to live in their cars, or many to a house.
David, can you delve deeper into what you mean about reducing immigration for climate reasons and for the sake of American workers?
From where I sit, it seems to me that climate change is going to drive even more population shifts, both from outside the US and within it. I think the right approach is to address the root causes of immigration first. But are we really so sure that we don’t want immigrants? I see lots of immigrants doing jobs that Americans don’t want to do.
I’m not so sure we don’t. I’m the daughter of an immigrant, and married to an immigrant. Both my father and my husband have made extraordinary contributions to our economy and our society, my husband in particular. I would also like to point out that during the course of a more than 30 year career in university engineering research, well over half of my husband’s PhD students have come from other countries, and the vast majority of them want to stay here. Maybe a bit under half the professors in his department are not native Americans. Don’t we want people like that to stay? And shouldn’t we be fixing the reasons why so few Americans pursue a STEM PhD?
Few Americans pursue STEM PhDs because the companies prefer to hire foreigners, who they can pay less than they pay Americans. Fixing the reasons why Americans don't pursue STEM PhDs would involve restricting immigration. There are plenty of Americans who've been fired and replaced by foreigners who then are paid less. The kind of thing the following link describes had been happening for a couple of decades in the computer industry before the NYT wrote about Disney.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff-at-disney-train-foreign-replacements.html
As for climate reasons, the average immigrant's GH emissions rise threefold after arrival in t he US. The reason is that most of them come from countries with low per capita GH emissions, to the major industrialized nation with the highest per capita emissions. The average immigrant's GH emissions rise threefold after arrival.
And I don't know where your father and husband came from, but perhaps people like them should stay put and make contributions to those countries that probably needed it more than we did. Then we could have better trading partners.
Immigration is big biz' way of pushing wages down. In 1980, meat packers were black, making good middle class wages thanks to decades of union organizing. By that decade's end, meat packers were immigrants, making barely more than minimum wage, working under atrocious conditions where amputations were common. See: Back of the Hiring Line: A 200-Year History of Immigration Surges, Employer Bias, and Depression of Black Wealth, by Roy Beck, $14 on Amazon.
Why do you thihnk Mark Zuckerberg has his pro-immigration FWD.US? Why do you think the Koch organization supports more immigration?
I see your point, and I think you’re talking about people on H1B visas? My memory might be faulty, but I think we only award 80,000 H1B visas a year, which doesn’t sound all that significant. I’m not sure I agree that that is why Americans don’t pursue PhDs, though. I think that the salaries American engineering undergrads can get straight out of school are close to the salaries PhDs can earn, so it doesn’t seem worth it to them.
My dad was a refugee from Germany right before the war. If he had stayed put, he’d likely have died. His father was Jewish. My husband is Italian, and I would assert that the quality of life and the standard of living in Italy is at least as high as it is here. We do other countries (and ourselves) a disservice when we assume that things are better here than they are everywhere else. Not everything is. Take health care, longevity, working hours - all those things are significantly better in Italy than here. And Italy is no one’s idea of a model of efficient governance.
Regarding emissions, that’s a really interesting statistic, and one I had never thought of. It kind of is in line with my thinking that we ought to be addressing the root causes of immigration: climate change, political instability and violence, and economic opportunity - at the source so to speak. Thanks for pointing that out. I learned something new today!
It's lucky your father got out. Otherwise he probably would have been killed. I'm Jewish, but I don't know of any relatives killed in the holocaust. I'm aware of one relative in England, and she's the only one I know of on the other side of the pond.
I suspect people live better lives in much of Europe than they do here. What you say about Italy is quite compelling, although the politics of that country are pretty messy. We've certainly gone way downhill since Reagan was elected, in terms of social safety net, and financial equality (our GINI Quotient is quite large). Had I known where our country was going to be now when I was in my 20s or 30s (in the '70s or '80s) I would have moved probably to Scandinavia.
This article may be the most important article I've ever read, and you can infer just how badly our country is run:
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2015/04/the-science-of-scarcity
Repubs will never help solve immigration, despite the fact that decent action could serve the refugees and us in ways that it has in the past. We all (well most) have immigrant ancestors. Of course some should have been deported (the Drumpfs) but most have contributed. But the hate is useful and divisive, repubs favorite things.
Republicans in the House did vote for a national, mandatory E-Verify last spring, which would have stanched the flood of immigrants at the border. Democrats mostly voted against it, and the Democratic run Senate did not take it up.
The hate from the republcians is horrible, and I wish Trump would up and die--he's been a terrible influence.
But immigration really does take jobs from American workers and depresses their wages (see a couple of my posts just a few above yours) and the US population is already environmentally unsustainable--we are running out of groundwater and if that doesn't stop, our agricultural production will fall, and Propublica projects that due to global warming, within several decades MILLIONS of Ameicans will become climate refugees--read this, it will scare you.
https://www.propublica.org/article/climate-change-will-force-a-new-american-migration
There is a little bit more than you are testifying to about the E-Verify bill, and it is understandable that Grassley and Tuberville were pushing it. Thank goodness for Democrats.
I think you would be saying if there was something wrong with the E-Verify bill. Without that, I'm inclined to doubt you.
Too many Democrats deny the problems of too much immigration in the same way so many GOPers are climate change deniers.
I'd say it in great part because the MSM is negative on Biden most of the time and fails to tell the truth about his major accomplishment and WHERE in physical space and real time the benefits are being felt (in a lot of RED country........) I sometimes feel the NYT is theoretically liberal but they really want the New Deal (what's left of it), social programs, and the restoration of tax cuts to simply go away.
Ironically, it looks like Paul Krugman might agree with you to some extent. This is from his newsletter for subscribers today. The topic was on why the polls reflect that people aren't giving Biden credit for a good economy. The conclusion was essentially that the polls reflect a political bias among many of the people responding to the polls, rather than lived experience:
'Wait, there’s more. The importance of partisanship in shaping economic perceptions tells us that a lot of what people say about the economy reflects what they hear, either from news organizations or on social media, rather than their own experiences. And it’s a running joke among economists I talk to that even mainstream news organizations apparently find it hard to say nice things about the Biden economy. When, say, a new employment report comes in, the headlines don’t usually say things like “Job growth comes in above expectations”; they’re more likely along the lines of, “Rapid job growth may slow soon, experts say, posing problems for Biden.”
You might say that such things can’t really matter, that people know what’s really happening. But the evidence on partisanship and perceptions suggests otherwise.'
And Republicans are 3x more likely to be affected this way than Democrats, since they all watch Faux Snooze, which means they are less knowledgeable and informed about reality than people who don't watch any news.
TC, in fact, that newsletter contained a discussion of the asymmetry between Republican and Democratic voters, if somewhat less succinctly than how you put it. IMO that asymmetry is something that we have to keep in mind when we're trying to reach the people who don't watch any news. The refusal of the MSM to recognize that asymmetry is what drives people on the left nuts. But the Democrats can't respond to that to the degree they've actually been driven nuts without turning off the people they need to reach. That's the dilemma. Instead of minimizing that dilemma for fear of offending or looking weak, I think the Democrats need to put it front and center in their messaging campaign in the coming months. They seem to be moving toward a narrative of "Who has your back, them or us?" I think that approach has room for highlighting the asymmetry of the parties in order to defuse the passive aggressive argument that "they're all the same." Which is a wall worth trying to knock down.
Yep, been driving me nuts for so long I look like a walnut.
LOL!!
🤣🤣🤣
That message reinforces the "other" type of political polarization we currently see.
Tom, can you write a script for "Project 2025 " that will reveal the Nazi truth about what the Republicans intend to do if tRump is re-elected? Someone in Hollywood needs to take this takeover plan to the masses in a form they can quickly grasp. But the bad magot guys must be portrayed as really bad, not heroes.
I agree, but the intergalactic widget-makers would say no because they have to CYA in case he wins.
TC does Indie streaming from LA with burned out downtown not-so Freeway as a backdrop.
Ah. There's that. Of course, without it, he could win.
I suspect that if a preponderance of the public grasped what is actually, empirically happening, a lot would be changing real fast.
(in 2021) Governor Jay Inslee of Washington told CNN over the weekend, “I don’t think you can be overly concerned about this. The American psyche has not recognized we were one vice-president away from a coup.”
If. Only.
They have no flippin' clue how close we were. Or how close we are now.
We were fortunate that Pence asked Quayle if it would be OK. I don't know what would have been the eventual outcome if that had executed that charade. Certainly Mark Milley was not onboard. But it would have been way uglier, even if, in the end, it drained the abscess. TV has made us waaay to accustomed to watching political events unfold as a drama or a sporting event. As the scale of our society has grown immensely, and technology altered the ways we interact, we have not paid attention to providing conducive, safe spaces in which to confront our circumstances, plan and debate our shares of self governance. I think we do some of that here, but somehow the tent needs to be larger. What might promote good faith social dialog more effectively than what we are doing now. In the schools and as a component of everyday life? I think that just a recognition that it's needed and being willing to try would be a big step in that direction. Discussions about how to confirm what is real and what, in the end, is most important.
Dan Quayle saved democracy. Is this a Vonnegut novel?
Those things absolutely do matter Jim, to those who are for whatever reason, not paying close attention to what the government is accomplishing, media slant, and they all have their slant, defiantly can suggest an examined truth, where there is none. People are known to vote based on the price of gas while driving 3 row SUV’s, all the while the president gets blamed for high prices that he had no responsibility for imposing. MSM is incredibly powerful in shaping public opinion, they can tilt this election, we have to be very much aware of that. The reaction the last few days, to the fascist statements that the insipid clown made, as well as the planning for internment camps and martial law decrees has been getting much needed attention. While there is reason to worry, there is reason to hope. 🙏
Damn, chump finally said it plain enough that even the news morons couldn’t ignore. He said it plain enough for me when he blathered on about Obama and Kenya. Saddest days for me were when I realized that MSM was mimicking Fox. Then social media. Joe was buried in an avalanche of bull Schitt, just like Bannon promised. Joe needs help digging out, not constant carping about his non-existent frailty.
Well said Jim, the bias is evident across the media spectrum outside most independent sources like The American Prospect are not afraid to report good news as good news. Krugman is the only person I miss for the reason you just gave.
Thank you Jim! Good to know. Wow....
The NYT has been horribly deficient in its reporting lately. I know a
Number of people who are dropping subscriptions:
Jo; I’m one of those people. I’ve been a NY Times subscriber for at least ten years. I am angry at the mainstream media for still enabling the dangerous political situation we are in.
I've dropped mine. Wrote a letter to say why.
Think I'm gonna do it today too ... with a letter.
I was about to this weekend after the non-reporting of tffg's Hitleresque speech. They've since corrected, but I'm watching them.
Just hang around, they’ll do it again and again and again. It is a good resource for many things, but I can’t support a paper that won’t speak truth to power or treacherous stupidity. Remember Judith Miller and the many incidents since her debacle and ask yourself if it’s worth it.
Trump’s “different direction” headline
A similar headline from 1865: "John Wilkes Booth Takes Visit to Ford's Theater in a Different Direction" (not too far off of what we're dealing with from MSM coverage of DT and company). :)
The editors of the NYT wrote a piece about Afghanistan and they wrote "the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan."
The MSM almost always adds the words "chaotic withdrawal" when mentioning Afghanistan, even if it's a current news story.
I sent an email to the editor telling them that it was lazy journalism to ALWAYS write "chaotic withdrawal" when writing anything about Afghanistan. Since that story, they don't seem to be writing "Afghanistan" sans "chaotic withdrawal."
The MSM is doing the same thing with Biden's age, but not Trump's. Let the MSM know you disapprove of this.
The NYT is Beltway fishwrap. The link below shows what journalism is supposed to be; remember comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable? You make bought and paid for politicians uncomfortable, and they will reveal their true selves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubwwsv95Sx8&t=14s
I dropped the NYT the first time they ran a headline that said, “Trump criticizes(someone, don’t remember who) “, instead of “Trump’s long series of ranting posts on social media to (whoever) show how unhinged he has become.”
Jo, I was thinking of subscribing just so I could cancel in protest
Dropped mine
Me
They are addicted to drama and excitement. He's too quiet and competent to be the entertainment they want.
All the major media chases clickbait using a similar algorithm to FleeceBlock's - get people angry and upset and they stick around longer wasting time they'll never get back.
That said, there is a fair amount of stuff going down to get angry about that takes a fair amount of attention span to adequately grasp; like the climate unraveling; but that sort of stuff takes a fair amount of attention span in order to grasp, and is thus not the lowest hanging fruit. And that said, anger is a trigger for tantrums, but some adult forms of anger can also motivate what is need to be done.
But Repub anger is like which bully is the one who can take your lunch money
It's an Orwellian con game to make serious bullying seem respectable, like all of the spurious rhetoric about how "religious freedom" to bully trumps national security by self-entitled holders of power like Tuberman do. It's the oldest trick in the book, "the pomp and circumstance of glorious war".
So true drama, outlandish behavior sells papers. Calm, steady doing the job for which you were elected doesn’t. It’s all about the $$$
Precisely!
The NYT is a government mouthpiece. The only real journalism being practiced today, with few exceptions, is via alternative media outlets and individuals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deCsxakJU4c
Or, if you prefer print to video - https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/14/patrick-lawrence-the-hinge-of-history/
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-us-has-a-standing-policy-of-ignoring
It surprises me, as an auditory learner, that I prefer print to video news. Thank you for those links.
It is interesting to me how people vary in their preferences for information input. My wife saved her sanity during work commutes with audiobooks/podcasts, but I never could prevent my visual observations while listening from creating narrative gaps that drove me nuts.
I prefer print, but I enjoy video almost as much. Something about seeing the people conversing keeps me engaged. I despise talking on the telephone, but am happy to zoom/FaceTime. Different strokes, for different folks.
DemocracyNow
I heartily agree, and I freely admit that Joe was my "anyone but trump" choice in 2020. As many others have noted here, history will show this Biden-Harris administration to have been one of the most consequential and effective in modern history. This is even more impressive given the partisan roadblocks thrown up at every turn by cultists formerly known as Republicans. I think that a lot of the criticisms leveled at Biden, even by democrats, are nothing but rampant ageism. I am 71, still working and trying to do serious science, and I can tell you, I know what that looks like. More power to Joe and Kamala.
Biden is doing the best anyone could do, with Donnie the Devil blathering away every day and the msm covering it like news.
The only thing "exceptional" about America is the exceptional number of Americans who are drooling morons.
Way more than I ever imagined. Sad thing is that those who are not morons are greedy bastards or power-hungry cretins.
Vogons
As honest as any US President can be. But yes, doing his best. I do believe that. Even though he was the Senator from Delaware. The Switzerland of American Banking. All the UAW Joe definitely has a grain of salt. When you're really old, you sometimes act on what you really hold true. The second term president has freedoms like no other. I pray they have no kompromat (they've certainly tried to unearth it - just like they went after the Clintons) so Joe can keep going on FDR redux and F the Oiligarchy even more than he has
The ever increasing concentration of wealth in the US is the overriding factor in average Americans economic anxiety.
Proof of it is easy to show in a simple inverted bell curve chart.
Start in the 1920s with wealth concentration at its then peak. Track the impact of the depression, New Deal, WW II, GI Bill, Domestic Infrastructure Investment, Great Society Legislation, Civil Rights Legislation (all of which had the US at it’s most egalitarian level in the 20th century).
Then the reversal began in earnest with Reaganism. Tax cuts, attack on unionism and employer funded pensions, supply side economics, business consolidation, the ever increasing spread in compensation between CEOs and workers, the emphasis on Price Earnings Multiples to drive asset values, the rise in consumer debt that inflated asset values while burdening household budgets, exploding deficit spending to fund wars and lower taxation on the wealthy (especially estate transfers), and the glorification of personal wealth (all of which has the US at its highest concentration of wealth in our history and a pervasive feeling of economic angst by average Americans).
A lot of great changes have moved the country forward during this period but wealth concentration is the overwhelming wind in our face.
It threatens democracy as many blame progressive legislation, immigration, civil rights gains and changing women’s roles as the source of their anxiety. They look for simple answers and simple solutions, including strongman leaders who promise to make America great again (Reagan did it before Trump).
Class war is the only war Americans are conditioned not to embrace. One might think that oligarchy and authoritarianism is reserved for Russia and China but we have grown comfortable with voting the same families/candidates into power.
Our major ally in the Middle East is led by a man that has stayed in power for the majority of years since 1996. Is that democracy?
Now Trump, despite political and personal debauchery (including an attempted coup), is running for the presidency for the third straight time and is the presumptive GOP nominee. Despite his populist rhetoric does anyone really believe Trump would slow, never mind reverse, wealth concentration?
He is the antithesis of a man of the people. That truth is self evident and should be clearly conveyed to all Americans.
May I suggest, when the Democrats have control of Congress to accomplish it, that a top priority should be to kill Citizens United and related Supreme Court abominations. Quote the Constitution's Article III, Section 2, Paragraph 2: "...the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make." in the legislation to tell SCOTUS "Hands off--this is outside your jurisdiction."
One can try, but who has the money
“The antithesis of a man of the people.” Yet the cult adores him, but cults always adore a charlatan. Joe is a true man of the people, get behind him with vigor.
Paul, I think you nailed it. Excellent comment.
Great comment. But let's remember that Reagan was a mouthpiece. An actor who knew his lines and liked what he was saying. Behind him were the same Oligarchs, as you say, the same families, that attempted a coup on FDR just months after his inauguration. Prescott Bush and his Banker father-in-law, JP Morgan, the Dupont patriarch, GM's CEO, et al. The Business Coup of 1933. They cynically planned to use the half a million WWI Veterans who were protesting that they were Still waiting for the extra pay they were promised to execute the coup at the White House, and then install General Butler as President and make FDR a figure head. Butler dobbed them in. There was an investigation. None were charged, although there was plenty of evidence. So the coup went on the QT. They learned to work from behind the scenes. McCarthyism. Nixon, using racism and abortion to split the Democrats. Bush 1 and Bush 2. Roger Stone, strange bedfellow, through it all. And then came Donald Trump. The wild card. Whom they have learned to embrace. sorry. my comments are becoming monotonous and too long.
I think we need to zoom out like you did and see that it's not the Republican presidents, or legislators, who come up with the laws and the schemes. It's their corporate pay masters. Who now own 6 members of the Supreme Court.
So how to we fight the Military Industrial Complex and the international Oiligarchy? Because that seems to be what it comes down to. Once again.
We start with getting out the vote. And subscribing $$ to real journalism, and substackers. Protests. Running for office. ...
His best is not bad at all. In fact, it's pretty good. Thanks, jdh, that's the real America.
I agree.
Biden is saving the world, or at least slowing down, the weird slide into autocracy we are seeing everywhere. People who hate Biden, see he is a living example of an honest man wielding power for the benefit of us all, and he shames them. They hate him for showing them what they should be, and where they fail. Cowards hate him for being brave. Greedy men hate him for sharing. I love him because he seems like the grandpa I never had. And that saving the world for democracy thing. That, too!
I think he’s been an extraordinary president.
He managed to get legislation passed that most (including me) thought was impossible, with the help of the equally extraordinary Nancy Pelosi. The rethugs loath her too.
I’m hoping Hakeem Jeffries gets the opportunity to show what he can do.
I offer Joe Biden much more that my feeble support.
Biden is not a prancing show pony. He is a steady reliable workhorse, who has accomplished amazing things.
I think Biden has done a stupendous job as well. As for age, dtrumpf may be 3 years younger than Biden chronologically, health wise, he is at least 10 years older.
Yes “an honest man” And he is not only doing the best he can he is doing a great job all around and better than most presidents given the dire situations in the world at large and especially at home. Ironically it is President Biden who is making America great. If the media continues to parrot pollsters that the president is very unpopular without pointing out the failure of pooling in the past decade and without explaining the pooling methodology so that people can evaluate those pools-------then IT WILL BECOME CONVENTIONAL WISDOM. This plays right into the GOP’s hands. Perhaps people are afraid to respond any other way when asked 🤔 The crazies have put fear into every aspect of the political process. Were the people called and asked or was the pooling an internet process or was it in person?Who reading this thread has not come to distrust? The crazies have actually done violent crazy stuff. It is possible that people either do not respond at all and yet see that the President is doing a great job or are afraid to say that he is doing a great job. There are so many technological possibilities to manipulate things. I know that I am resisting the idea that a president who has so many domestic and foreign policy triumphs is not appreciated by people who do not have the information and/or are intellectually lazy but such a large majority according to these pools ?..
Amen
After reading Joyce Vance’s informative Substack newsletter today, I was almost afraid to open Heather’s. I’m glad I did. Although the behavior of the so-called Republican leaders is beyond appalling, reading about all that Joe Biden is doing for our country has provided solace.
The brutish behavior of the Republicans is in extreme contrast to the Democrats, who are at the work of operating the government. The question we will have to answer is how did such low life individuals get elected in the first place.?
Although it might seem unrealistic, it would be a great idea to require all candidates to pass the same citizenship test that we require immigrants to pass. They should also demonstrate a working knowledge of American history, and how the process of government works. I suspect that some of the worst of the gang would not come close to passing this type of examination.
I think that is a perfectly reasonable idea. How can you possibly take on the function of a legislator without any knowledge of the law, or how government functions? Folks seem to willing to vote for anyone who has a modicum of “fame”. Hence the football coaches and in 1980, a movie star.
I taught with a high school social studies teacher who told her students that the three branches of government were city, state, and federal. Really.
A US senator thought the three branches of government were house, senate and president! And he is now constipating the senate with his obstinate, stupid behavior. Too many footballs to the head.
Perhaps voters and reporters need to ask every candidate what the 3 branches are, who the Supreme Court justices are, state capitals, how far DC is from CA, and some basic arithmetic problems as well.
!!!!!
Lordy, she would have flunked
Oh, good grief!!!
OMG
I think the chimp was the star. And better looking.
"B" movie star. Even as a kid, I thought he was creepy.
And smarter
I have been saying that for years! My husband who is from Nepal and had no formal education, studied and passed his citizenship test 25 years ago. He knows more about how the U.S. government functions that our ex-prezidennt. Now, how sick is THAT?
I would expect that those who pass that test know a good deal more about civics than most Americans, and that most Americans know more about it than many in office; such as GWB or His Puerile Trumpiness.
There would be no Republican Party if you did that. (which makes it an excellent idea!)
I think that's a great idea, Marc. Maggot Traitor Goon and Tommy Tuberville would make a flat zero on the tests you suggested. Matt Gaetz and Larean Boebert would not fare much better.
John T Phillips;
Maggot Traitor Goon !
That almost made me blow my coffee out of my nostrils!
Sorry about that, David. I am also laughing about the perfect name for that looney, uneducated, insane sorry excuse for a woman. I saw an ad on my TV for a movie about Neanderthals that had a photo of a Neanderthal man on there, and if not for his massive facial hair, he looked exactly like Maggot Traitor Goon. I assume she is a cross between a Goon and a Neanderthal. Her unhinged behavior suggests that also. Scary thing is,, her congressional district begins only about 35 miles north of where i currently live. I am wanting to move out of the state of Georgia and get away from the crazed TUMP and Fascist GQP hicks that vote for cretins like her.
Agree 100%
That's a great idea 💡! But, they won't impose hard standards for themselves! Look at MTG! Does anyone here believe that she has any knowledge of how our government works? She attacked Ray yesterday for the responsibilities of Homeland Security. He has nothing to do with that!
Simple answer to Marc's good question.
Just read "Dark Money," the book by Heather Cox Richardson's friend, Jane Mayer.
It's a bit haunting, ominous to read, as Jane Mayer goes into detail on the many, many billionaires in the U.S. seeking to corrupt and succeeding in corrupting as many institutions as they can.
One result of this massive corruption: the Republican party got totally turned into what Marc Nevas here terms a mass of "low life individuals."
Money -- dark money -- has now long fed the lust for power by our billionaire classes. And, I'll add, it's done so in proportion to how the same billionaires killed off (or at best marginalized) the humanities from schools, all of them, K-12 to "higher."
Thugs largely rule Congress now.
Thanks anyway to Heather Cox Richardson, who concludes hers today with apt notes on good legislation many Dems yet push, in obvious spite of the "low life individuals" rife among them.
I would also add a recommendation for "Democracy in Chains" by Nancy MacLean. I first heard of it a while back from someone posting on this forum. No single book is enough on this subject, IMO. The Citizens United case, which legitimized corruption in government, was bought and paid for with dark money. The corruption we're seeing in SCOTUS is not just an accident of lax attention to ethics.
I appears to me that had the Reagan-GOP not successfully tarred democracy and legitimized plutocracy, America, and probably the world would be a very different place. Not with every evil put to right, but still quite measurably more livable and more just. Just how much our lives are impacted by post-Carter concentration of wealth would be the news story of the those intervening years, yet mostly attains only elephant in the room status for the MSM. Reaganomics was and is a fraud and absolute disaster for the public, in so many traceable ways, and yet, but for some of Biden's reforms, mostly running the show. What is wrong with that picture?
Deliberate and with a goal of future control
Democrats aided and abetted the legitimacy of plutocracy; Carter had a hand in neoliberal economic acceptance. Reagan just put it into hyperdrive, and both parties accepted Milton Friedman’s poison as a cost of doing ‘bidness’ in exchange for campaign donations, and here we are.
And neither party has been able to wrest control of foreign policy from the CIA and the MIC; just look a Biden’s lunacy in Ukraine and Gaza as the most recent case in point.
Jane Mayer is among the very top journalists of her generation.
A good and a clear answer---unfortunately it makes it too clear!
Excellent book! Thanks for sharing! Read it years ago and found out how my representative was a card carrying member of ALEC! Good Ole Tom Cole, the sensible one, actually signed up the first year of its inception!
Republicans’ masculinity is easily threatened, it seems. I loved Bernie’s response! Sit down, you’re Senators!
He should have sent them to their rooms.
I agree, put them in the corner or give them a time out!
they need the time to think about their behavior.
They know exactly what they are doing
I presume the most salient ones do, and and some might do their "thinking" from a cell. I guess it falls on us to strongly discourage food fights in public spaces on the public's "dime". The more they get away with, the worse they get. If self-determination is what we really, really want, we have to learn to say "NO".
Sit in a “Time-Out” chair
I call it Welcome to the House of Jerry Springer. Where Republicans use a procedure called a Dick Measuring Contest in an attempt to govern. MTG is taken bets. Check your odds today.
Racism. It's a helluva drug.
The last sentence in your comment was worth it's weight in Gold, Marc. I would guess their low life individual voters would be responsible for electing those cretins. I should know, first hand as i am surrounded by those low life hicks in my community. Their IQ is probably south of 50.
Gerrymandering. Partisan primaries. $$$. Defunct newspapers and media.
I wonder the same thing!
Propaganda works, especially if it is rich
As Dr. Richardson points out almost every day, the Trump/MAGA/Republican Party does not want to govern, many of them don’t seem to want a government. It’s not clear what they are so angry about, or what they want to accomplish. It’s clear that they can’t even get along with each other. Yet today, in order to appease his flock, the new Speaker endorsed Trump, the day after Trump did his “I wanna be Hitler” speech. This is not good for America or the world.
Yes. They've moved from "taxation is theft" to "government is theft." The new messaging from Democrats has to illuminate the fact that Republicans are now too dangerous to hold office. They are a metastatic cancer. Just eliminating the most radical among them isn't enough because even traditional Republicans are afraid of them and can't be counted on to, say, stand with Liz Cheney.
And yet "Republicans" use every (dirty) trick in the book to dominate government, and Trump crows about how he intends to abuse it's power. It's not "small" government they want, they what a very heavy handed government, that obeys and renders service only to them, and hold them responsible for nothing.
“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”— Frank Wilhoit
I'll add to they some memories from my teens that some of the adults that were so adamant and inflexible about their view of "the rules" were sometimes shamelessly discordant in their own breaking of them; as if beyond the reach of rules they were so zealous to enforce. And that's was nothing to what I am seeing lately. It is a weird and creepy kind of narcissism to assume you get to impose but not comply with codes of conduct. That's fundamentally part of what tyranny is; no? And 'equal protection" the alternative?
Maybe substitute "American fascists" for conservatives.
Synonyms for predatory bullies.
Old adage: Republicans want to keep government out of business. Democrats want to keep government out of the bedroom.
The Republican oligarchs are totally clear on what they want--extremely limited government with low taxation on the wealthy, no government regulation of business, cheap access to federal lands and natural resources, privatization of social security and medicare, elimination of the rest of the social safety net, and an isolationist foreign policy.
They want to rule not represent.
You can see a list of their successes over the last 50 years at the link below.
https://www.heritage.org/article/timeline-heritage-successes
But they want to impose their social agenda on all of us while they pick our pockets
The Republican interpretation of "The Invisible Hand".
Georgia Fisanick,
"They want to rule not represent."
Please save us God and every sane patriot representing the United States of America!!!
The Republican Party is imploding before us!....and taking many of our friends and family members down with them.
Thank you Georgia!!!!.....for your clarity and reminders regarding the "successes" of the Heritage Foundation......which are NOT successes for the people of America!!!!
Some very nasty diseases are "inheritable", so I guess that's "heritage" too.
People are saying, "The evil that men do lives after them".
Oaitw, that endorsement is awful. That smarmy ChistoFascist just endorsed a man who wants to recreate what Hitler did in Germany.
They don't believe in Democracy!
The Speaker endorsed Trump? I had to read that sentence a few times. Trumps "vermin" speech is as sick as it gets.
So did Bernie Marcus, who started Home Depot - another store I’m never shopping at again. As a bonus, the folks at Lowe’s are nicer.
Yeah, "Home Despot" is not a place I frequent anymore, either. Over the years I found the staff at our local store to be poorly-trained and overtly sexist in their customer relations, to the point of not even making eye contact with me when I asked questions about products, talking to my husband or brother instead. What a bunch of knuckle draggers! That attitude obviously comes from the top.
I just had my last trip to HD about a week or so ago. I was looking for a pressure treated 2x6x12. I took a look at their paltry lumber selection and did not find one. I found an orange apron, and asked if he could check and see if there was any in stock. He waved his arm, and said "down that asile". I told him I'd already been down there and there were none, there was an empty bay, and that if they had any, it was probably "in back". He told me "No, it is out there, I'll show you." We went back, I showed him the empty bay where it could have gone (no sign), and he said "well, that product wouldn't go here." I asked him where they would put it, if not with the rest of the 2x6x pressure treated lumber. He didn't have an answer, and left.
Lowes (right next door) not only had it, but the guy helped me get it off the shoulder high rack, selected the better board, and took it to my truck.
I haven’t been going to Home Depot for years. I take that back, I go to walk my dog when it’s too hot or rainy.
Learn something new everyday. Lowe’s it will be!
Given that the "Speaker" is a full-on southern Fundamentalist (i.e., a complete moron), does this really surprise you? Given that he's the guy who is called "the architect," who organized 135 Republicans in the House to vote not to accept the electoral votes of the states on January 6
The Hateful Moron party has a ring to it. Or just the Hateful Gang group.
He is the vermin, attracting more of the same
Yes he did.
Thank California, the fifth largest economy in the world, for aggressively cutting emissions.
You’re welcome.
Indeed. Good for California. But remember that at one time California was the biggest emitter of air pollution in the country. I remember the brown air of LA, where the term “smog” was invented, in the 1960’s.
That’s because even in the 60s we were the most populous state in the union. If Wyoming had as many people as we do, it would have been as bad or worse.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the reddish brown air you remember was due to what was allowed out the tailpipe. Between the Clean Air Act, catalytic converters, and gasoline reformulations, most of what made the air brown—this is mostly nitrogen oxides—has been removed.
Since the 80s our biggest problem has been ozone, O3. Ozone is colorless, but puts a grayish smudge in the air. More gasoline reformulations have attacked and reduced ozone.
What California has done of its own accord is something entirely different: Our utilities’ electricity portfolios became 30% renewables—this excludes hydroelectricity—by 2020. By 2030 their portfolios must be 50% renewables. New dwellings are prohibited from having anything but electric appliances. All new cars sold in the state must be electric by 2035. Our freight truck fleet must be converted to electric somewhere in the 2030s. And we’ve been converting many of our locomotives to electricity for years.
This is very costly and has cost California some jobs—but the innovation is creating new jobs and making it possible for you to buy electric vehicles that aren’t Teslas—as well as Teslas.
Thank you, Cindy.
California has indeed led the way in so many things, most of them good.
Full disclosure; I lived in San Bernardino County for a while as a child and in San Francisco as an adult (behaving like a child) for 30+ yrs starting in the early 70’s, and still consider myself a non-native Californian.
California as long been an innovative state, though ruled by Ronnie Reagan part of the time I was there. California set the standard for stricter emissions control. Trump wanted to prohibit that: state's right's, you know. I recall in the 1970's sometime driving by a setup that pumped water up a hill at night and than used the downflow for hydro-power when demand was higher. Dunno how efficient is was , but there seem to be versions of that sort of electrical load leveling on a number of drawing boards, but mostly not in service, so far as I can tell. This one was, half a century ago.
Today Nobel prize winning, NYT columnist Paul Krugman attempted to understand the gap between the reality of the economy and the perception of it by many Americans. These people are far more pessimistic than they should be compared to historical reality. Basically he states that what people feel about the economy has more to do of what they are told to feel about it by partisan organizations. To quote him “And it’s a running joke among economists I talk to that even mainstream news organizations apparently find it hard to say nice things about the Biden economy. When, say, a new employment report comes in, the headlines don’t usually say things like “Job growth comes in above expectations”; they’re more likely along the lines of, “Rapid job growth may slow soon, experts say, posing problems for Biden.”. “ So there you have it: by all facts inflation is down, wages up, gas prices down, and people are spending. As the actor in the movie “Cool Hand Luke” said, “What we've got here is failure to communicate.”
Krugman is always worth reading. He does “wonking out” articles sometimes, but always has a readable piece even I can usually understand.
That and a whole lot of coverup.
It’s sad to see both houses of Congress and SCOTUS behaving corruptly and uncivilly. May voters have intelligent civilized representatives to send to DC. To find and vote for these people is a challenge we have to meet if we are to continue as a democracy. Senator Klobuchar’s new rule for senatorial “holds” may save our military, but it is getting registered to vote and voting blue that will save US.
Thank goodness for Amy Klobuchar! I want her to be Senate leader.
She's mine and Tina Smith and that beautiful man, Governor Walz. I was at a gas station in Nebraska when a big man saw my Minnesota license plates and started calling them bitches. My head snapped around and I said a few things. My husband just had hip surgery and he's giving me the get in the damn truck look. Of, course I walked real slow. I was pissed.
Good for you for walking slowly! Every act of resistance to the “deplorables” (HRC’s word in 2015), supporters of autocracy, is a gift to all of US.
You said it, Virginia!!!
Blockades, not “holds”.
What Senator Klobuchar is proposing would make possible breaking holds that affect national security. What Senator Tuberville has done is dangerous and unprecedented.
Yes. I saw Dana Bash interviewing Klobuchar and Dana used the phrase “blockade of…” instead of “holds” and Klobuchar praised her for using a more accurate term to describe what Tuberville is doing.
“Hold” is indeed the term for what Tuberville is doing. Senator Klobuchar was “softening” the hold, so used the different term. That was my reference. So fed up with Republican misuse of congressional history.
EDIT: See bottom for how much Sen. Mullins is worth.
I retired to Oklahoma from NYC in 2021. I wanted to live in a small town on Route 66 instead of a big, expensive city. I watched video today that showed the Oklahoma Senator standing up as if about to fight but also saw his earlier claim to being an ordinary guy who had made $50,000 a year running a plumbing company. The union leader had called the Senator “greedy” in a tweet back in June, and one commentator (might have been Jake Tapper but I’m not sure) mentioned what thin skin you must have to want to fight someone over a Tweet from June. But here’s the kicker on this story to me: Tulsa World newspaper (the largest in the state I think) ran a report on all this today that said our Senator is worth somewhere in the neighborhood on $30 million dollars! So, his claim to being just an ordinary small businessman doesn’t fly!
More on how much Mullins is worth...
https://tulsaworld.com/news/local/mullins-and-herns-net-worth-jump-with-sale-of-businesses/article_8be47a40-3e7a-11ed-97ba-fbb2aa7c3285.html
Like Clarence Thomas claiming to like to hang out at Walmart (when Harlan Crow is out of town).
Then there's Trump, the self-made playboy.
And he got $$ from the PPP, while the mom and pop businesses mortgaged their homes, drained their retirement savings and kids' college funds to stay afloat.
Makes me 🤢
Steven Brant, Charlatans!
Paywall.
The White House is looking into women's health issues.
Meantime in Congress, "Boys will be boys."
Adolescent bullies will be adolescent bullies. Why should Bernie Sanders, or any other legislator, have to stop a fist fight from breaking out during a hearing?
Money Manipulates the Mob.
Nailed it, David!
Today's Republican antics weren't all physical. Let us not overlook another little tidbit:
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) began the morning by calling Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) a "p***y" for voting to block her impeachment resolution against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Honestly, it's like being in middle school ("junior high school", as it once was called) all over again.
Is it any wonder Congress has the lowest approval rating -- 17% -- since 2017??
She is simply a horrible specimen of a human.
Would I be guilty of "othering" for suggesting that Margorie Taylor Greene is a HINO (Human In Name Only"? (Sorry, I had to get that out.)
🤣
Between the steroids and the coke, you get MTG.
Comparing MTG to middle schoolers is unkind to middle schoolers. They are MUCH better than her.
When will the mainstream media realize that many of us want the “boring” news of Biden’s accomplishments and not the circus that is the Republican House of Representatives and the rants and dangerous rhetoric of Trump and his cronies? Soon, please.
Much that might be viewed as "boring", at least from a child's perspective, is actually the "chop wood, carry water" that keeps our way of life viable. Baby Trump was infamously unwilling to suffer intelligence briefings while in the role of Commander in Chief. Societies require work. Democracy requires work. Food fights don't (except for whoever cleans up after them).
"everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses."
Juvenal - early 2nd century C.E
Dems have been cleaning up since Hoover, maybe before. It should be well known, but the likes of blathering republican idiots scream at 90 decibels
There is always an audience for someone who tells people that what they fallaciously would prefer to believe is real, such as that climate change is a hoax. That they are the "righteous" or the "master race". That said, reality trumps even Trumpeters in end. The odds are always with the house, and nature is indifferent to our suffering. We lucked out big time on this planet, but we will wear out our welcome if we keep being an ass about it.
No party is perfect, and Democrats have some major historical skeletons in their closet, but are vastly more responsible today than nominal "Republicans". "Republican" now openly announce their contempt for the republic, and have backed it up by their actions. Everyone who see it needs be to calling attention to our current circumstances.
I do, ad nauseam
With all the information available to everyone, I'm dumbfounded that people still vote for these childish political hacks to make decisions affecting not just the US, but the entire world. Shameful. Which makes me realize there are a lot of Americans who admire the violence, ignorance, treason, and corruption demonstrated by some Congressional Republicans and other MAGAs.
Which means the rest of us have to WORK WORK WORK - not just comment on Substack - to elect people who practice decency, trust, and patriotism.
The truth is often complex and Magas appeal to lazy thinkers.
I may have asked this already; where in Oregon? I'm in Eugene.
Clatsop County.
A typical day on Capitol Hill which 50 years ago would seem outrageous, at least the senators don’t use canes like the southern representative who attacked Charles Sumner back before the civil war. I guess not much has changed. Thank you Heather!
Probably no cane incidents today because canes are no longer in fashion. But it is clear that a lot of them don't like each other in the House. The news featured both the House and the Senate incidents. No wonder so many have decided not to run for reelection. I note to that one poster has called for us to WORK and that's what we need to do. I am glad that the House did manage to fund the government a while longer as well.
Mullin put out a tweet yesterday evening, posing in front of a table full of guns, saying that he’s ready. He basically threatened to shoot a witness. They are so dangerous.
Not surprised. Threats and intimidation are the R MO these days.
Maybe canes will come back in fashion...
The Rs seem to like guns these days.
Well dang HCR, some good news--and I consider the idiotic toddler tantrums of the Rethuglicans to be good news because they are so ridiculous that if the commnercial media actually reports on this it'll be a revelation to at least some folks.
Someone please get Bernie a bigger gavel. It looked like a baby rattle on tv. He needs a big, loud gavel to interrupt the fool sitting next to him, who wants to fist fight committee witnesses. The Congressional GOP is a motley crew.