Sen Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey)
was found guilty on 16 felony counts, and his party is telling him to GTFO.
ex-POTUS Donald Trump (R-Dumfukistan)
was found guilt on 34 counts, and his party nominated him for president.
Showing posts with label both sides don't. Show all posts
Showing posts with label both sides don't. Show all posts
Aug 24, 2024
Aug 15, 2024
Both Sides
4 letters: HATE vs LOVE
7 letters: ENEMIES vs FRIENDS
5 letters: LYING vs TRUTH
3 letters: CRY vs JOY
8 letters: NEGATIVE vs POSITIVE
PICK A SIDE
Jul 9, 2024
Contradiction Much?
It seems MAGA is having a difficult time deciding whether they want to strip authority out of the Executive, or imbue it with absolute unaccountable power.
Opinion A conservative Warren court
The Roberts Supreme Court faces the same critiques from its critics as Warren’s.
After a term in which the conservative Roberts court swept aside the Chevron doctrine, a decision that will clip federal agencies’ authority to enact policy, and granted a broad new immunity to former president Donald Trump, liberals are critical not only of the ideology behind the decisions but also the integrity of the court itself.
As Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) put it: “This activist, extremist MAGA court faces a legitimacy crisis,” which has in turn created “a crisis for our democratic republic.”
Many of the criticisms that this court is enduring — particularly being too political — have been leveled before at earlier courts. What we are seeing is a replay of sorts.
In the 1960s, conservatives were the critics of the bold, liberal decisions of the Warren court. “Impeach Earl Warren” became a popular slogan, and the likes of Barry Goldwater intoned that, “of all three branches of Government, today’s Supreme Court is the least faithful” to “the principle of legitimacy in the exercise of power.”
Today, it is the opposite. The fact of a 6-3 supermajority changes both legal conservatism and liberalism. These shifts reflect a natural process of legal change, as court majorities tend to enhance their own power, while dissenters advocate for legal constraint. That was true during the Warren court of the 1960s, when liberals led the judiciary. It is true today.
While the Warren court was accused of endangering the judiciary and the nation at the time — just think of that era’s explosive decisions on school prayer, the Miranda warnings, legislative districting and desegregation — history has deemed otherwise.
Today, the decisions of the Roberts court are likely to have profound implications as well, including majority opinions before this year, like Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which eliminated constitutional abortion rights, or Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which struck at affirmative action in higher education.
They sue the EPA to take the teeth out of regulations aimed at reining in the polluters, while they're fully behind Project 2025.
But it's a paradox, not a contradiction.
They want the Executive to have the power to kill whatever agencies they see as restricting business, keeping them from doing whatever they want to do in order to boost their market value.
The Plutocracy Project is aimed at "reforming" the federal government so that it fulfills only 3 directives.
- Defend commercial assets world-wide
- Keep the rabble in line
- Settle contract disputes
And the Roberts Court is working hard to pave the way to Gilead.
But instead of explaining how monumentally stoopid it is to compare the Warren Court (which affirmed people's rights under the law), this fuckin' idiot, Richard Re, tries to tell us the Roberts Court is doing basically the same thing by stripping those same rights away from people. And hey - it'll all come out in the wash. Right? It's just two sides of the same coin.
Right?
Opinion A conservative Warren court
The Roberts Supreme Court faces the same critiques from its critics as Warren’s.
By Richard M. Re, professor of law at UVa School of Law.
After a term in which the conservative Roberts court swept aside the Chevron doctrine, a decision that will clip federal agencies’ authority to enact policy, and granted a broad new immunity to former president Donald Trump, liberals are critical not only of the ideology behind the decisions but also the integrity of the court itself.
As Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) put it: “This activist, extremist MAGA court faces a legitimacy crisis,” which has in turn created “a crisis for our democratic republic.”
Many of the criticisms that this court is enduring — particularly being too political — have been leveled before at earlier courts. What we are seeing is a replay of sorts.
In the 1960s, conservatives were the critics of the bold, liberal decisions of the Warren court. “Impeach Earl Warren” became a popular slogan, and the likes of Barry Goldwater intoned that, “of all three branches of Government, today’s Supreme Court is the least faithful” to “the principle of legitimacy in the exercise of power.”
Today, it is the opposite. The fact of a 6-3 supermajority changes both legal conservatism and liberalism. These shifts reflect a natural process of legal change, as court majorities tend to enhance their own power, while dissenters advocate for legal constraint. That was true during the Warren court of the 1960s, when liberals led the judiciary. It is true today.
While the Warren court was accused of endangering the judiciary and the nation at the time — just think of that era’s explosive decisions on school prayer, the Miranda warnings, legislative districting and desegregation — history has deemed otherwise.
Today, the decisions of the Roberts court are likely to have profound implications as well, including majority opinions before this year, like Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which eliminated constitutional abortion rights, or Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which struck at affirmative action in higher education.
The legacies of these and other transformative rulings are yet to be decided.
It’s understandable for liberals to see this new era as beyond the scope of their understanding of democracy. But change doesn’t mean the court is broken. It means that the Roberts court is a conservative Warren court.
This role reversal is uncomfortable for liberals and conservatives alike, but it is also logical. The flexibility that conservative dissenters have long disdained is often essential to responsible judging. At the same time, the liberal justices, who are absorbing what were once strict, conservative principles, are performing a service by reminding the majority of its erstwhile views and curbing the court’s excesses.
Several cases this term illustrate these patterns. Start with judicial deference to administrative agencies. In the 1960s and 70s, liberal courts often looked skeptically on the work of administrative agencies. But with President Ronald Reagan in office and former president Jimmy Carter’s appointees staffing many courts of appeals, conservatives championed so-called Chevron deference, which required courts to accept reasonable agency interpretations of law.
Now the politics of agency deference have reversed. This year, in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the conservatives abandoned Chevron, over the liberal justices’ protest. The majority acknowledged that Justice Antonin Scalia, a leading conservative jurist, was “an early champion” of Chevron. But only the court’s three liberals defended ideas once espoused by the conservative icon.
“For its entire existence,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asserted, “Chevron has been a ‘rule in search of a justification,’ if it was ever coherent enough to be called a rule at all.”
A similar story has played out with stare decisis, or the principle that the court generally adheres to its past rulings. Many of the Warren court’s most famous rulings overruled long-standing precedents, despite cries from conservatives.
Likewise this year: When the court overruled the Chevron doctrine, the liberals argued that “a rule of judicial humility gives way to a rule of judicial hubris.”
But if the left and right are trading places, this repositioning will happen only gradually — as it should. Despite issuing many dramatic rulings, the Warren court also chose its moments. For example, it took several years for the liberal justices to identify a right to use contraception.
Because the justices, like most of us, do not like to be caught in a blatant contradiction, they do not seize on whatever views are most convenient in the moment.
Yet the conservatives’ gradual repositioning is often desirable. The justices now in the majority have to grapple with real problems in a workable, nuanced way, rather than relying on the stark logic that often appears in angry dissents.
Take United States v. Rahimi, which involved a federal law prohibiting people subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms. By an 8-to-1 vote, the Roberts court upheld the law. And that majority — composed of conservatives and liberals alike — relied more on “common sense” than the strict originalism long associated with conservative justices.
Some Roberts court critics object that the justices are cynically helping Trump or the Republican Party. Yet the court’s bold conservative vision, like the Warren court’s liberal one, cuts across party lines.
The recent Trump immunity ruling, for instance, might prove an asset for presidencies of both parties. Just imagine how the case would look if criminal charges were pending against a former Democratic president.
Other critics object that the justices are corrupt or have conflicts of interest. These concerns, too, call to mind the 1960s, when liberal justice Abe Fortas was severely criticized for, among other things, accepting large payments from business interests for teaching a series of classes. (Another scandal later prompted Fortas’s resignation.)
So while judicial ethics may be a ripe topic for reform, transformational courts have attracted harsh ethical criticism before.
Of course, the Roberts court is conservative whereas the Warren court was liberal. That fact alone guarantees that many commentators will adore one and loathe the other. But pitched debates about judicial politics should not obscure what the left and right have in common.
Today, much as in the 1960s, the rule of law persists — even as it changes.
It’s understandable for liberals to see this new era as beyond the scope of their understanding of democracy. But change doesn’t mean the court is broken. It means that the Roberts court is a conservative Warren court.
This role reversal is uncomfortable for liberals and conservatives alike, but it is also logical. The flexibility that conservative dissenters have long disdained is often essential to responsible judging. At the same time, the liberal justices, who are absorbing what were once strict, conservative principles, are performing a service by reminding the majority of its erstwhile views and curbing the court’s excesses.
Several cases this term illustrate these patterns. Start with judicial deference to administrative agencies. In the 1960s and 70s, liberal courts often looked skeptically on the work of administrative agencies. But with President Ronald Reagan in office and former president Jimmy Carter’s appointees staffing many courts of appeals, conservatives championed so-called Chevron deference, which required courts to accept reasonable agency interpretations of law.
Now the politics of agency deference have reversed. This year, in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the conservatives abandoned Chevron, over the liberal justices’ protest. The majority acknowledged that Justice Antonin Scalia, a leading conservative jurist, was “an early champion” of Chevron. But only the court’s three liberals defended ideas once espoused by the conservative icon.
“For its entire existence,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asserted, “Chevron has been a ‘rule in search of a justification,’ if it was ever coherent enough to be called a rule at all.”
A similar story has played out with stare decisis, or the principle that the court generally adheres to its past rulings. Many of the Warren court’s most famous rulings overruled long-standing precedents, despite cries from conservatives.
Likewise this year: When the court overruled the Chevron doctrine, the liberals argued that “a rule of judicial humility gives way to a rule of judicial hubris.”
But if the left and right are trading places, this repositioning will happen only gradually — as it should. Despite issuing many dramatic rulings, the Warren court also chose its moments. For example, it took several years for the liberal justices to identify a right to use contraception.
Because the justices, like most of us, do not like to be caught in a blatant contradiction, they do not seize on whatever views are most convenient in the moment.
Yet the conservatives’ gradual repositioning is often desirable. The justices now in the majority have to grapple with real problems in a workable, nuanced way, rather than relying on the stark logic that often appears in angry dissents.
Take United States v. Rahimi, which involved a federal law prohibiting people subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms. By an 8-to-1 vote, the Roberts court upheld the law. And that majority — composed of conservatives and liberals alike — relied more on “common sense” than the strict originalism long associated with conservative justices.
Some Roberts court critics object that the justices are cynically helping Trump or the Republican Party. Yet the court’s bold conservative vision, like the Warren court’s liberal one, cuts across party lines.
The recent Trump immunity ruling, for instance, might prove an asset for presidencies of both parties. Just imagine how the case would look if criminal charges were pending against a former Democratic president.
Other critics object that the justices are corrupt or have conflicts of interest. These concerns, too, call to mind the 1960s, when liberal justice Abe Fortas was severely criticized for, among other things, accepting large payments from business interests for teaching a series of classes. (Another scandal later prompted Fortas’s resignation.)
So while judicial ethics may be a ripe topic for reform, transformational courts have attracted harsh ethical criticism before.
Of course, the Roberts court is conservative whereas the Warren court was liberal. That fact alone guarantees that many commentators will adore one and loathe the other. But pitched debates about judicial politics should not obscure what the left and right have in common.
Today, much as in the 1960s, the rule of law persists — even as it changes.
Jul 5, 2024
Torpedoing Biden
Press Poodles love to stir the shit for the sake of stirring the shit - because calm, steady, and practical doesn't sell dick pills and panty liners as well as "Democrats In Disarray!"
Biden’s aging is seen as accelerating; lapses described as more common
Aides, foreign officials, members of Congress and donors say President Biden has seemed slower and more often loses his train of thought in recent months, though close aides insist he remains mentally sharp.
President Biden, who at 81 is the oldest person ever to hold the office, has displayed signs of accelerated aging in recent months, said numerous aides, foreign officials, members of Congress, donors and others who have interacted with Biden over the last 3½ years, noting that he moves more slowly, speaks more softly and has moments when he loses his train of thought more often than even just a year ago.
None of those who spoke to The Washington Post said they had seen Biden appear as lost and confused as he did at the presidential debate against Donald Trump on June 27, where his halting performance sent panic through the Democratic Party. They largely did not question his mental acuity, and several senior White House aides who interact with Biden regularly said that he continues to ask probing, detailed questions about complicated policy matters and can recall facts from previous briefings in minute detail.
Nevertheless, Biden has slowed considerably over the last several months, according to 21 people, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic and share candid assessments.
I'm not saying Biden has absolutely no problems. I've never said that, and I never will, so this time, I'll say it this way: The guy dodders, and he goes on side trips to Grandpa Land on occasion. That's Biden - and that's always been Biden.
And this:
For me, it's Biden -
until Biden tells me it's not Biden
Take a listen to Tennessee Brando talking about ratings, and then tell me the WaPo piece that follows couldn't possibly have anything to do with keeping up the drama for the sake of clicks, and the revenue they get from pimping the show to drive that traffic, to peddle their advertisers' shit.
In the end, it won't be an asshole fascist like Trump that blows it all up. It's going to be some schmuck in the Marketing Dept who's convinced the boss that simply getting eyeballs on a website is more valuable than providing voters a little boring truth about what's at stake in the election, and how mailing in one ballot can make enough of a difference that maybe we change things enough that we don't have to feel like we're at the broken end of the bottle every fucking minute of every fucking day.
And now it's time for WaPo to shit on Biden's head in a piece that spills a gallon of ink on a story that boils down to He Said / She Said.
They name names when there's something to say about how the old guy is sharp and involved, and asking pointed tough questions in (eg) a foreign policy meeting that was scheduled for 90 minutes and then goes for 3 hours, but all the shit-talk is from anonymous sources.
Aides, foreign officials, members of Congress and donors say President Biden has seemed slower and more often loses his train of thought in recent months, though close aides insist he remains mentally sharp.
President Biden, who at 81 is the oldest person ever to hold the office, has displayed signs of accelerated aging in recent months, said numerous aides, foreign officials, members of Congress, donors and others who have interacted with Biden over the last 3½ years, noting that he moves more slowly, speaks more softly and has moments when he loses his train of thought more often than even just a year ago.
None of those who spoke to The Washington Post said they had seen Biden appear as lost and confused as he did at the presidential debate against Donald Trump on June 27, where his halting performance sent panic through the Democratic Party. They largely did not question his mental acuity, and several senior White House aides who interact with Biden regularly said that he continues to ask probing, detailed questions about complicated policy matters and can recall facts from previous briefings in minute detail.
Nevertheless, Biden has slowed considerably over the last several months, according to 21 people, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic and share candid assessments.
No names - cuz we wouldn't want any verifiable sources now would we.
And 21 people - now there's a big time cohort. I guess we can't possibly get any kind of skewed results form a sample so huge.
They said Biden’s physical signs of aging have become more apparent — the stiff gait; the need at times for assistance in moving from place to place; a raspy, softened speaking voice that can make the lifelong politician known for impassioned and at times seemingly unending speeches now difficult to hear and understand. In addition to these traits, he has exhibited occasional lapses in which he has appeared to briefly freeze up or suddenly veer off topic, instances some said they easily dismissed before the debate but have now caused them to question his ability to do the job for another four years.
During the Group of Seven nations summit in Italy last month, several European leaders came away stunned at how much older the president seemed from when they had last interacted with him only a year, or in some cases, mere months earlier, several officials familiar with their reactions said. “People were worried about it,” said one person familiar with leaders’ reactions.
At an immigration event at the White House less than two weeks before the debate, some participants worried about the president’s frailty and how his energy ebbed and waned, wondering how he would be able to debate Trump. One person who attended termed Biden’s performance “terrifying.” Others said they thought the president seemed physically diminished but otherwise fine. At an internal meeting at the White House this spring, an official recalled struggling to hear Biden speak even though he sat just a few feet away and noticed that the president answered some questions with puzzling non sequiturs.
“There’s been a decline over the last year. He was much more vigorous in 2023,” one former administration official said. “His age is progressing, and I’m pretty sure that’s normal. … The question is how long can he do this job for, and I don’t know the answer to that.”
Biden has said he had a cold on the night of the debate. There is no indication he is more seriously ill, and a White House doctor declared him “fit for duty” after an examination in February 2024.
The White House has pointed to Biden’s long record of legislative successes and his management of complex foreign policy matters in numerous countries as evidence of his ability to continue for another four-year term.
“As he has proved by earning the strongest record of any modern President, Joe Biden is unflinchingly capable and fighting for American families, with sharpness and resolve, every moment of every day — whether it’s managing rapidly-evolving national security events in the Situation Room or working with members of Congress late to pass the biggest climate investments in history,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement.
Several White House aides who work with the president regularly and accompany him on foreign trips said that while he may move slower and look older, they do not see signs that he is mentally diminished and say his physical aging has no bearing on his ability to continue the job of president. And many Democrats and White House aides who interact with Biden regularly said they were stunned by his debate performance because he had appeared far sharper and more energetic in private meetings.
But during the Group of Seven nations summit in Italy last month, a number of European leaders were struck by Biden’s appearance and demeanor, according to four people who spoke directly with multiple leaders. The general impression among leaders, the people said, was that while Biden appeared capable of carrying out his duties today, they were concerned about how he would be able to serve another four-year term.
The leaders noted that Biden seemed more tired, frail and less lucid at certain moments. Several said he was hard to hear, prompting meeting participants to ask him to speak up at times, according to a summit participant. The president also sometimes lost his train of thought, though he would return to the point quickly, three of the people said.
Biden’s appearance at the G-7, coupled with his debate performance, has further heightened anxiety among European leaders about a possible second Trump term. European capitals have long been preparing for another Trump presidency, but Biden’s halting debate performance has put those efforts into sharp focus and made the stakes “more real,” one person familiar with the conversations said.
“The impression was, we don’t see him being able to run the country for four more years. How are you running this guy for four more years? How are you going to win this election?” said Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, who was familiar with several leaders’ reactions. “It’s very, very rare in a democracy that the person you run for an election is someone that you all know can’t lead the country for four more years.”
One person familiar with the conversations among leaders said Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni observed that Biden was “mentally on top of his game” but physically weak, leaving her worried. The person said those concerns became more pronounced after the debate. A spokesman for the Italian Embassy did not provide a comment.
“What has changed the discourse here in Europe is not the G-7. It’s the debate,” the person said. “Leaders were dismayed by Biden’s performance — they told themselves they should have realized at the G-7 … and came to the conclusion that he cannot win in November.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was with Biden at the G-7, and Amos Hochstein, a senior national security official also on the trip, said all the leaders at the G-7 looked to Biden for leadership on complex matters including Israel’s war in Gaza, the war in Ukraine, and China. Blinken said Biden held at least a half-dozen working sessions with other leaders, and Biden often came back to offer additional thoughts on various matters.
“What I saw and experienced at the G-7 is a president who was plunged into the work,” said Blinken, who like several others was made available by the White House to vouch for Biden’s fitness. “The question — and it’s a fair one — is ‘Does he have command of the job and is he getting results?’ And the answer to that is yes.”
But others who have interacted with Biden in recent months said they have been struck by changes in his demeanor.
One White House official said he noticed Biden had aged significantly over the past year during a meeting this spring when he found it difficult to hear and understand the president. In another meeting, a senior aide was telling Biden the order in which to call on people in an upcoming event. Biden was alert and engaged but jotted the names down slowly, the official recalled. “That took longer than one would expect,” the official said. “It wasn’t that his mind was trailing off. He was slowing down.”
While campaigning in 2020, Biden said he viewed himself as a “bridge” to the next generation of Democratic leaders. But after a string of legislative victories and a better-than-expected showing by Democrats in the 2022 midterms, Biden announced his intent to seek a second term.
Trump, who is 78 and prone to non sequiturs of his own, has also faced questions about his acuity, particularly as he has rambled incoherently at several recent public events. Still, polls show voters are more concerned about Biden’s age than Trump’s. In a post-debate CBS News-YouGov poll, 72 percent of voters said they did not believe Biden has the mental and cognitive health to serve as president, compared with 49 percent who said the same about Trump.
Biden’s age has been a frequent target of Republican attacks. They frequently take videos from public events — often with critical context missing — that make Biden appear confused and inept. White House aides have fiercely pushed back on any suggestion that Biden is too old to do the job, saying he aggressively asks questions in briefings and speech preps. They also point to his continued ability to work a rope line and talk about complicated policy matters on the fly.
Emmy Ruiz, the White House political director, recalled a meeting with Latino leaders that Biden held this spring that covered policy issues including housing, immigration and the border. She said Biden walked in with one card of notes, initially intending to simply drop by and say hello, and instead held a 45-minute unscripted policy meeting.
“He’s constantly pushing us,” Ruiz said in an interview. During speech preparation, she said, Biden often asks what people are expecting to hear from him and requests to speak with local politicians to better understand their constituents.
After a group of senators returned from the Middle East after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel, they went to the White House one evening to brief the president for a meeting they expected to last 30 minutes, said Jonathan Kott, an adviser to Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), a key ally of the president.
“They had a detailed conversation about foreign policy for over two hours and thought he was sharp, alert and in command,” Kott said.
Neera Tanden, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, said she attended a recent meeting where she briefed Biden on the minutia of the administration’s health-care policy, a plan to lower the cost of inhalers and talked through how the Medicaid rebate program works. Biden asked detailed questions about the policy and its real-world impact, she said.
“My experience with the president is that he is demanding on facts and policy and wants to deliver for the American people so he asks tough questions,” Tanden said.
Mark Shriver, a member of the Kennedy family who spent a day with Biden at the White House in March, said he “doesn’t move around like an athletic 55- or 60-year-old.”
“But he had a lot of energy. He was telling jokes and showing off the White House and was completely fine,” Shriver said.
Those who do not interact with Biden regularly, such as Democratic donors and foreign leaders, are often the ones who notice the change most acutely. Senior aides who interact with Biden regularly said they have not noticed stark changes.
And some of Biden’s lapses have taken place in public.
While addressing a crowd on the White House lawn during a commemoration of Juneteenth last month, Biden briefly became unintelligible, as he slurred his words before regaining his footing and completing his speech. At a White House meeting on reproductive health in January, Biden directed the crowd’s attention to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, who the president said was “sitting” in the room — but it was actually Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The two Cabinet secretaries do not look alike; Mayorkas is bald, while Becerra has a full head of hair and wears glasses.
During an impromptu news conference in February, Biden referred to Abdel Fatah El-Sisi, the president of Egypt, as the president of Mexico. Biden had called the conference to try to allay concerns about his age and memory after special counsel Robert K. Hur determined that he should not be prosecuted for careless handling of classified documents, in part because a jury might conclude that he was a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Biden had a childhood stutter that aides say sometimes resurfaces. Experts say lifelong speaking challenges are separate from lapses of memory.
Since the debate, Democrats have expressed frustration that Biden has been slow to forcefully come out and show to voters he is up to the job. He held a rally in Raleigh, N.C., the day after the debate, reading scripted remarks from a teleprompter, where he was energetic and impassioned, briefly allaying some concerns. But many Democrats and White House allies were befuddled as to why Biden and his team had not quickly scheduled a television interview that would demonstrate that Biden could handle unscripted settings and added more events to his schedule this week.
Biden is now set to record an interview with ABC News on Friday and has a series of campaign events in Wisconsin on Friday and Philadelphia over the weekend. Next week, the president is expected to hold a solo news conference during the NATO summit being hosted in Washington. Biden and his senior team have said they understand that the president must demonstrate his fitness for office to salvage his candidacy.
Much of the anger inside the White House and on Capitol Hill has been directed at Biden’s closest aides, who have largely kept the president away from spontaneous and unscripted events, sparking suspicion among those who interact with him less often that his condition may be worse than aides have acknowledged.
Bates, the White House spokesman, noted that Biden has done interviews with major networks and speaks in more informal settings with reporters, such as when he is boarding Marine One at the White House.
Biden has traveled the country over the last couple months campaigning, but the vast majority of his events are carefully choreographed, with the president reading from a teleprompter — even for intimate fundraisers or brief remarks. He does few media interviews, and even when the president does hold news conferences, they are often with foreign leaders and limited to a small number of questions. (White House aides counter that the president holds plenty of unscripted interactions in photo lines and in impromptu meetings and drop-bys, and that teleprompters are standard for presidential events.)
Donors have complained that Biden’s team has barred them from asking questions even at small group events, unusual at high-dollar political fundraisers.
Biden’s aides also adjust his schedule to avoid overly taxing him. During a private meeting with Democratic governors at the White House on Wednesday evening, Biden said that he needs to get more sleep and had instructed staff to avoid scheduling events for him after 8 p.m., a person familiar with his comments said.
Two former and one current White House official said most high-priority meetings and key events are scheduled midday, when aides believe Biden is at his best. They also said that White House schedulers keep meetings with the president as small as possible, particularly compared with prior administrations — a sharp departure from Biden’s earlier White House stint as vice president, when the garrulous politician loved to be at the center of large gatherings. Biden also sometimes wears tennis shoes and uses a shorter series of steps to Air Force One, to reduce the chances he might trip.
One veteran leader who has met Biden several times over the years said they were surprised by how much older Biden appeared when they saw him on May 27 for a Memorial Day breakfast in the East Room of the White House that was attended by a few hundred grieving military family members, veterans service organizations and administration officials.
While there were no “red flags” in Biden’s brief remarks at the event, the veteran leader said, the president had “noticeably aged a lot” since the previous Memorial Day weekend, noting his gait and physical demeanor, when he also greeted guests and took photographs.
At the White House nine days before the debate, four people who were present said they worried about the president’s fitness after observing him at a celebratory gathering to announce a new policy to help immigrants.
Under the sparkling chandeliers in the East Room on June 18, the president seemed off. He appeared frail as he navigated to the stage before the packed crowd of more than 100 people. He sometimes mumbled. In one jarring moment, he appeared to freeze while introducing Mayorkas, and then waved it off as a joke. A White House aide said the difficulty with Mayorkas’s name in that moment stemmed from Biden’s stutter.
Aides reportedly said it was Biden being Biden.
But others at the event said lawmakers and other attendees whispered concerns about Biden’s fitness over iced tea at the White House afterward, as a mariachi band played.
“Everyone talked about it with each other,” said a former Biden administration official who attended the event. “We were all like ‘That was horrible. We’re going to lose the election.’”
An advocate who was in the room recalled saying to others after the event, “he’s not going to make it four more years,” adding “he’s walking like an old man.”
“I was in shock,” the person said. “It was like I was seeing something nobody else was seeing. … It was so obvious to me.”
Rep. Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus who also attended the event, came away with a different impression. She said Biden seemed sharp, empathetic and capable of leading at the June 18 event.
Barragan said Biden at previous events has sometimes asked for her hand to help him descend from a stage. But she said she had confidence in his ability to be president.
“Joe may not walk the same. He might be stiffer,” she said. “I don’t think that goes to his inability to be president of the United States.”
But the former Biden official was struck by the moments the president seemed less like himself and worried about what it would mean about his ability to take on Trump.
The former official came away from the event thinking to themselves: “I don’t know how that man’s going to debate next week.”
During the Group of Seven nations summit in Italy last month, several European leaders came away stunned at how much older the president seemed from when they had last interacted with him only a year, or in some cases, mere months earlier, several officials familiar with their reactions said. “People were worried about it,” said one person familiar with leaders’ reactions.
At an immigration event at the White House less than two weeks before the debate, some participants worried about the president’s frailty and how his energy ebbed and waned, wondering how he would be able to debate Trump. One person who attended termed Biden’s performance “terrifying.” Others said they thought the president seemed physically diminished but otherwise fine. At an internal meeting at the White House this spring, an official recalled struggling to hear Biden speak even though he sat just a few feet away and noticed that the president answered some questions with puzzling non sequiturs.
“There’s been a decline over the last year. He was much more vigorous in 2023,” one former administration official said. “His age is progressing, and I’m pretty sure that’s normal. … The question is how long can he do this job for, and I don’t know the answer to that.”
Biden has said he had a cold on the night of the debate. There is no indication he is more seriously ill, and a White House doctor declared him “fit for duty” after an examination in February 2024.
The White House has pointed to Biden’s long record of legislative successes and his management of complex foreign policy matters in numerous countries as evidence of his ability to continue for another four-year term.
“As he has proved by earning the strongest record of any modern President, Joe Biden is unflinchingly capable and fighting for American families, with sharpness and resolve, every moment of every day — whether it’s managing rapidly-evolving national security events in the Situation Room or working with members of Congress late to pass the biggest climate investments in history,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement.
Several White House aides who work with the president regularly and accompany him on foreign trips said that while he may move slower and look older, they do not see signs that he is mentally diminished and say his physical aging has no bearing on his ability to continue the job of president. And many Democrats and White House aides who interact with Biden regularly said they were stunned by his debate performance because he had appeared far sharper and more energetic in private meetings.
But during the Group of Seven nations summit in Italy last month, a number of European leaders were struck by Biden’s appearance and demeanor, according to four people who spoke directly with multiple leaders. The general impression among leaders, the people said, was that while Biden appeared capable of carrying out his duties today, they were concerned about how he would be able to serve another four-year term.
The leaders noted that Biden seemed more tired, frail and less lucid at certain moments. Several said he was hard to hear, prompting meeting participants to ask him to speak up at times, according to a summit participant. The president also sometimes lost his train of thought, though he would return to the point quickly, three of the people said.
Biden’s appearance at the G-7, coupled with his debate performance, has further heightened anxiety among European leaders about a possible second Trump term. European capitals have long been preparing for another Trump presidency, but Biden’s halting debate performance has put those efforts into sharp focus and made the stakes “more real,” one person familiar with the conversations said.
“The impression was, we don’t see him being able to run the country for four more years. How are you running this guy for four more years? How are you going to win this election?” said Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, who was familiar with several leaders’ reactions. “It’s very, very rare in a democracy that the person you run for an election is someone that you all know can’t lead the country for four more years.”
One person familiar with the conversations among leaders said Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni observed that Biden was “mentally on top of his game” but physically weak, leaving her worried. The person said those concerns became more pronounced after the debate. A spokesman for the Italian Embassy did not provide a comment.
“What has changed the discourse here in Europe is not the G-7. It’s the debate,” the person said. “Leaders were dismayed by Biden’s performance — they told themselves they should have realized at the G-7 … and came to the conclusion that he cannot win in November.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was with Biden at the G-7, and Amos Hochstein, a senior national security official also on the trip, said all the leaders at the G-7 looked to Biden for leadership on complex matters including Israel’s war in Gaza, the war in Ukraine, and China. Blinken said Biden held at least a half-dozen working sessions with other leaders, and Biden often came back to offer additional thoughts on various matters.
“What I saw and experienced at the G-7 is a president who was plunged into the work,” said Blinken, who like several others was made available by the White House to vouch for Biden’s fitness. “The question — and it’s a fair one — is ‘Does he have command of the job and is he getting results?’ And the answer to that is yes.”
But others who have interacted with Biden in recent months said they have been struck by changes in his demeanor.
One White House official said he noticed Biden had aged significantly over the past year during a meeting this spring when he found it difficult to hear and understand the president. In another meeting, a senior aide was telling Biden the order in which to call on people in an upcoming event. Biden was alert and engaged but jotted the names down slowly, the official recalled. “That took longer than one would expect,” the official said. “It wasn’t that his mind was trailing off. He was slowing down.”
While campaigning in 2020, Biden said he viewed himself as a “bridge” to the next generation of Democratic leaders. But after a string of legislative victories and a better-than-expected showing by Democrats in the 2022 midterms, Biden announced his intent to seek a second term.
Trump, who is 78 and prone to non sequiturs of his own, has also faced questions about his acuity, particularly as he has rambled incoherently at several recent public events. Still, polls show voters are more concerned about Biden’s age than Trump’s. In a post-debate CBS News-YouGov poll, 72 percent of voters said they did not believe Biden has the mental and cognitive health to serve as president, compared with 49 percent who said the same about Trump.
Biden’s age has been a frequent target of Republican attacks. They frequently take videos from public events — often with critical context missing — that make Biden appear confused and inept. White House aides have fiercely pushed back on any suggestion that Biden is too old to do the job, saying he aggressively asks questions in briefings and speech preps. They also point to his continued ability to work a rope line and talk about complicated policy matters on the fly.
Emmy Ruiz, the White House political director, recalled a meeting with Latino leaders that Biden held this spring that covered policy issues including housing, immigration and the border. She said Biden walked in with one card of notes, initially intending to simply drop by and say hello, and instead held a 45-minute unscripted policy meeting.
“He’s constantly pushing us,” Ruiz said in an interview. During speech preparation, she said, Biden often asks what people are expecting to hear from him and requests to speak with local politicians to better understand their constituents.
After a group of senators returned from the Middle East after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel, they went to the White House one evening to brief the president for a meeting they expected to last 30 minutes, said Jonathan Kott, an adviser to Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), a key ally of the president.
“They had a detailed conversation about foreign policy for over two hours and thought he was sharp, alert and in command,” Kott said.
Neera Tanden, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, said she attended a recent meeting where she briefed Biden on the minutia of the administration’s health-care policy, a plan to lower the cost of inhalers and talked through how the Medicaid rebate program works. Biden asked detailed questions about the policy and its real-world impact, she said.
“My experience with the president is that he is demanding on facts and policy and wants to deliver for the American people so he asks tough questions,” Tanden said.
Mark Shriver, a member of the Kennedy family who spent a day with Biden at the White House in March, said he “doesn’t move around like an athletic 55- or 60-year-old.”
“But he had a lot of energy. He was telling jokes and showing off the White House and was completely fine,” Shriver said.
Those who do not interact with Biden regularly, such as Democratic donors and foreign leaders, are often the ones who notice the change most acutely. Senior aides who interact with Biden regularly said they have not noticed stark changes.
And some of Biden’s lapses have taken place in public.
While addressing a crowd on the White House lawn during a commemoration of Juneteenth last month, Biden briefly became unintelligible, as he slurred his words before regaining his footing and completing his speech. At a White House meeting on reproductive health in January, Biden directed the crowd’s attention to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, who the president said was “sitting” in the room — but it was actually Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The two Cabinet secretaries do not look alike; Mayorkas is bald, while Becerra has a full head of hair and wears glasses.
During an impromptu news conference in February, Biden referred to Abdel Fatah El-Sisi, the president of Egypt, as the president of Mexico. Biden had called the conference to try to allay concerns about his age and memory after special counsel Robert K. Hur determined that he should not be prosecuted for careless handling of classified documents, in part because a jury might conclude that he was a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Biden had a childhood stutter that aides say sometimes resurfaces. Experts say lifelong speaking challenges are separate from lapses of memory.
Since the debate, Democrats have expressed frustration that Biden has been slow to forcefully come out and show to voters he is up to the job. He held a rally in Raleigh, N.C., the day after the debate, reading scripted remarks from a teleprompter, where he was energetic and impassioned, briefly allaying some concerns. But many Democrats and White House allies were befuddled as to why Biden and his team had not quickly scheduled a television interview that would demonstrate that Biden could handle unscripted settings and added more events to his schedule this week.
Biden is now set to record an interview with ABC News on Friday and has a series of campaign events in Wisconsin on Friday and Philadelphia over the weekend. Next week, the president is expected to hold a solo news conference during the NATO summit being hosted in Washington. Biden and his senior team have said they understand that the president must demonstrate his fitness for office to salvage his candidacy.
Much of the anger inside the White House and on Capitol Hill has been directed at Biden’s closest aides, who have largely kept the president away from spontaneous and unscripted events, sparking suspicion among those who interact with him less often that his condition may be worse than aides have acknowledged.
Bates, the White House spokesman, noted that Biden has done interviews with major networks and speaks in more informal settings with reporters, such as when he is boarding Marine One at the White House.
Biden has traveled the country over the last couple months campaigning, but the vast majority of his events are carefully choreographed, with the president reading from a teleprompter — even for intimate fundraisers or brief remarks. He does few media interviews, and even when the president does hold news conferences, they are often with foreign leaders and limited to a small number of questions. (White House aides counter that the president holds plenty of unscripted interactions in photo lines and in impromptu meetings and drop-bys, and that teleprompters are standard for presidential events.)
Donors have complained that Biden’s team has barred them from asking questions even at small group events, unusual at high-dollar political fundraisers.
Biden’s aides also adjust his schedule to avoid overly taxing him. During a private meeting with Democratic governors at the White House on Wednesday evening, Biden said that he needs to get more sleep and had instructed staff to avoid scheduling events for him after 8 p.m., a person familiar with his comments said.
Two former and one current White House official said most high-priority meetings and key events are scheduled midday, when aides believe Biden is at his best. They also said that White House schedulers keep meetings with the president as small as possible, particularly compared with prior administrations — a sharp departure from Biden’s earlier White House stint as vice president, when the garrulous politician loved to be at the center of large gatherings. Biden also sometimes wears tennis shoes and uses a shorter series of steps to Air Force One, to reduce the chances he might trip.
One veteran leader who has met Biden several times over the years said they were surprised by how much older Biden appeared when they saw him on May 27 for a Memorial Day breakfast in the East Room of the White House that was attended by a few hundred grieving military family members, veterans service organizations and administration officials.
While there were no “red flags” in Biden’s brief remarks at the event, the veteran leader said, the president had “noticeably aged a lot” since the previous Memorial Day weekend, noting his gait and physical demeanor, when he also greeted guests and took photographs.
At the White House nine days before the debate, four people who were present said they worried about the president’s fitness after observing him at a celebratory gathering to announce a new policy to help immigrants.
Under the sparkling chandeliers in the East Room on June 18, the president seemed off. He appeared frail as he navigated to the stage before the packed crowd of more than 100 people. He sometimes mumbled. In one jarring moment, he appeared to freeze while introducing Mayorkas, and then waved it off as a joke. A White House aide said the difficulty with Mayorkas’s name in that moment stemmed from Biden’s stutter.
Aides reportedly said it was Biden being Biden.
But others at the event said lawmakers and other attendees whispered concerns about Biden’s fitness over iced tea at the White House afterward, as a mariachi band played.
“Everyone talked about it with each other,” said a former Biden administration official who attended the event. “We were all like ‘That was horrible. We’re going to lose the election.’”
An advocate who was in the room recalled saying to others after the event, “he’s not going to make it four more years,” adding “he’s walking like an old man.”
“I was in shock,” the person said. “It was like I was seeing something nobody else was seeing. … It was so obvious to me.”
Rep. Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus who also attended the event, came away with a different impression. She said Biden seemed sharp, empathetic and capable of leading at the June 18 event.
Barragan said Biden at previous events has sometimes asked for her hand to help him descend from a stage. But she said she had confidence in his ability to be president.
“Joe may not walk the same. He might be stiffer,” she said. “I don’t think that goes to his inability to be president of the United States.”
But the former Biden official was struck by the moments the president seemed less like himself and worried about what it would mean about his ability to take on Trump.
The former official came away from the event thinking to themselves: “I don’t know how that man’s going to debate next week.”
Again, I'm not saying there are no problems. I am saying I'm pretty fuckin' sick and tired of Press Poodles taking the word of anonymous sources, and then reporting it as if it was Gospel, and keeping me blind with no way to check it for myself.
If it's real, then show me. And as far as the observers making comments that border on diagnostics - let's look at where those folks took their clinical training.
Finally: Biden has always gotten himself off onto tangents. Maybe what we're seeing now as "glitches" are just Biden trying to self-discipline.
The big problem with going toe-to-toe with Trump is that the lies are so thick that you have to resist the natural reflex of trying to rebut everything in the Standard Trump Gish Gallop, and stay focused on the main point.
For a guy having to deal with that stutter, if his handlers aren't prepping him properly, he's going to come off as confused - and that perceived confusion is almost sure to be interpreted as "old and fuzzy-headed and not up to it" by Press Poodles looking to drive clicks and revenue from as wide an audience as possible, with no regard for reality-based consequences.
Apr 16, 2024
Feb 1, 2024
Vote Them Out
The GOP’s blunders take their toll
House Republicans who have become indifferent to the adverse consequences of nihilism and performative politics might want to consider the toll their chaos-producing antics are taking. From vowing to pursue meritless impeachments to nixing a border security measure to please former president Donald Trump, they have given Democrats plenty of ammunition to blast them out of the majority in November.
Republicans, by the admission of conservative Rep. Chip Roy (Tex.), have not a single accomplishment on which to run this year. “For the life of me, I do not understand how you can go to the trouble of campaigning, raising money, going to events, talking to people, coming to this town as a member of a party who allegedly stands for something … and then do nothing about it,” he bellowed on the House floor in November. “One thing: I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing — one — that I can go campaign on and say we did. One!” He got no answer.
Most Republicans voted against the overwhelmingly popular infrastructure bill. Now they routinely claim credit for it. Only occasionally do they get called out for hypocrisy. (Get ready to hear plenty of it as the campaign heats up.) With help from some Republicans in the Senate and very few in the House, Democrats were able to pass the infrastructure bill in 2021. As with infrastructure, Republicans have largely escaped blame for causing economic havoc thanks to Democratic votes for keeping the government open and avoiding a default on the debt.
Now, however, with no one to cover their tracks, Republicans risk making themselves vulnerable to voters disgusted with partisan melodrama. On the impeachment front, Republicans embarrassingly have come up with nothing to justify the impeachments of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas or President Biden. As for Mayorkas, Republicans’ favorite lawyer, Jonathan Turley, wrote in the Daily Beast that “being a bad person is not impeachable — or many cabinets would be largely empty,” nor is doing a bad job. He added that if poor performance were grounds for impeachment, Mayorkas “would be only the latest in a long line of cabinet officers frog-marched into Congress for constitutional termination.”
Norman Eisen, former impeachment counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, along with Democracy 21 founder Fred Wertheimer and researcher Sasha Matsuki, wrote for MSNBC: “Both the Biden and Mayorkas impeachments are clearly not backed up by evidence. … What really concerns us, though, is the way these impeachments will both weaponize a key constitutional remedy and undermine its sober original intent.” In turning impeachment into a “partisan joke” to satisfy four-times-indicted and twice-impeached Trump, they wind up revealing their own recklessness, irresponsibility and deep dishonesty. When Turley, a fierce defender of Trump during his impeachments, and Eisen, a counsel to House impeachment managers, agree these are baseless stunts, the jig might be up for Republicans.
Making matters worse, House and Senate Republicans’ objection to a massive funding bill to secure the border — to make Mayorkas’s job easier — only underscores their cynical disinterest in actually securing the border. Even for some Republicans, this is a bridge too far. “I didn’t come here to have the president as a boss or a candidate as a boss. I came here to pass good, solid policy,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said last week. “It is immoral for me to think you looked the other way because you think this is the linchpin for President Trump to win.”
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) denounced Republicans’ obstructionism as well. “The border is a very important issue for Donald Trump. And the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and Congress people that he doesn’t want us to solve the border problem — because he wants to blame Biden for it — is really appalling,” Romney said. “The American people are suffering as a result of what’s happening at the border. And someone running for president ought to try and get the problem solved, as opposed to saying, ‘Hey, save that problem! Don’t solve it! Let me take credit for solving it later.’”
Put differently, Republicans’ brazen objection to arguably the most serious border funding measure in decades makes both their Mayorkas impeachment and caterwauling about the border look absurdly cynical, even for them.
Unsurprisingly, the public is not buying any of it. Last year, a Wall Street Journal poll found that, concerning Biden, “while overwhelming shares of Republicans support impeachment and Democrats oppose it, independents on the whole side with the opponents, the poll found, with 51% against impeachment and 37% in favor.” As my Post colleague Aaron Blake found in a December review of polling that showed meager support for impeachment, “If the poll numbers don’t move significantly toward where they were for Trump’s impeachments (and are now for his indictments), a Biden impeachment vote could be tricky for a lot of Republicans — and for GOP leadership. And failing to even hold a vote would be a remarkable capitulation.”
Matters have not improved for Republicans. A USA Today-Suffolk University poll in January found, “Republicans’ impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden could be costing them with voters, particularly with America’s moderates. About twice as many of these middle-of-the-road voters — a crucial bloc for both parties in this year’s presidential election — said they oppose rather than support the House GOP’s recent impeachment inquiry.”
Republicans overwhelmingly were against Biden’s popular infrastructure bill and in favor of shutting down the government, defaulting on the debt and conducting bogus impeachment hearings that the voters do not want while opposing a tough border control bill. Democrats can hardly believe their good fortune heading into November. Chip Roy likely will not be the only one who cannot think of a single reason to keep them in power.
House Republicans who have become indifferent to the adverse consequences of nihilism and performative politics might want to consider the toll their chaos-producing antics are taking. From vowing to pursue meritless impeachments to nixing a border security measure to please former president Donald Trump, they have given Democrats plenty of ammunition to blast them out of the majority in November.
Republicans, by the admission of conservative Rep. Chip Roy (Tex.), have not a single accomplishment on which to run this year. “For the life of me, I do not understand how you can go to the trouble of campaigning, raising money, going to events, talking to people, coming to this town as a member of a party who allegedly stands for something … and then do nothing about it,” he bellowed on the House floor in November. “One thing: I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing — one — that I can go campaign on and say we did. One!” He got no answer.
Most Republicans voted against the overwhelmingly popular infrastructure bill. Now they routinely claim credit for it. Only occasionally do they get called out for hypocrisy. (Get ready to hear plenty of it as the campaign heats up.) With help from some Republicans in the Senate and very few in the House, Democrats were able to pass the infrastructure bill in 2021. As with infrastructure, Republicans have largely escaped blame for causing economic havoc thanks to Democratic votes for keeping the government open and avoiding a default on the debt.
Now, however, with no one to cover their tracks, Republicans risk making themselves vulnerable to voters disgusted with partisan melodrama. On the impeachment front, Republicans embarrassingly have come up with nothing to justify the impeachments of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas or President Biden. As for Mayorkas, Republicans’ favorite lawyer, Jonathan Turley, wrote in the Daily Beast that “being a bad person is not impeachable — or many cabinets would be largely empty,” nor is doing a bad job. He added that if poor performance were grounds for impeachment, Mayorkas “would be only the latest in a long line of cabinet officers frog-marched into Congress for constitutional termination.”
Norman Eisen, former impeachment counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, along with Democracy 21 founder Fred Wertheimer and researcher Sasha Matsuki, wrote for MSNBC: “Both the Biden and Mayorkas impeachments are clearly not backed up by evidence. … What really concerns us, though, is the way these impeachments will both weaponize a key constitutional remedy and undermine its sober original intent.” In turning impeachment into a “partisan joke” to satisfy four-times-indicted and twice-impeached Trump, they wind up revealing their own recklessness, irresponsibility and deep dishonesty. When Turley, a fierce defender of Trump during his impeachments, and Eisen, a counsel to House impeachment managers, agree these are baseless stunts, the jig might be up for Republicans.
Making matters worse, House and Senate Republicans’ objection to a massive funding bill to secure the border — to make Mayorkas’s job easier — only underscores their cynical disinterest in actually securing the border. Even for some Republicans, this is a bridge too far. “I didn’t come here to have the president as a boss or a candidate as a boss. I came here to pass good, solid policy,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said last week. “It is immoral for me to think you looked the other way because you think this is the linchpin for President Trump to win.”
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) denounced Republicans’ obstructionism as well. “The border is a very important issue for Donald Trump. And the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and Congress people that he doesn’t want us to solve the border problem — because he wants to blame Biden for it — is really appalling,” Romney said. “The American people are suffering as a result of what’s happening at the border. And someone running for president ought to try and get the problem solved, as opposed to saying, ‘Hey, save that problem! Don’t solve it! Let me take credit for solving it later.’”
Put differently, Republicans’ brazen objection to arguably the most serious border funding measure in decades makes both their Mayorkas impeachment and caterwauling about the border look absurdly cynical, even for them.
Unsurprisingly, the public is not buying any of it. Last year, a Wall Street Journal poll found that, concerning Biden, “while overwhelming shares of Republicans support impeachment and Democrats oppose it, independents on the whole side with the opponents, the poll found, with 51% against impeachment and 37% in favor.” As my Post colleague Aaron Blake found in a December review of polling that showed meager support for impeachment, “If the poll numbers don’t move significantly toward where they were for Trump’s impeachments (and are now for his indictments), a Biden impeachment vote could be tricky for a lot of Republicans — and for GOP leadership. And failing to even hold a vote would be a remarkable capitulation.”
Matters have not improved for Republicans. A USA Today-Suffolk University poll in January found, “Republicans’ impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden could be costing them with voters, particularly with America’s moderates. About twice as many of these middle-of-the-road voters — a crucial bloc for both parties in this year’s presidential election — said they oppose rather than support the House GOP’s recent impeachment inquiry.”
Republicans overwhelmingly were against Biden’s popular infrastructure bill and in favor of shutting down the government, defaulting on the debt and conducting bogus impeachment hearings that the voters do not want while opposing a tough border control bill. Democrats can hardly believe their good fortune heading into November. Chip Roy likely will not be the only one who cannot think of a single reason to keep them in power.
Aug 21, 2023
Aug 19, 2023
Today's "Deeply Divided"
Maybe I'm a little too tuned into "Both Sides", but this sounds a bit suspicious.
In the not so distant past, I've prophesied, "This country is already dead - we're just arguing over who gets to do what with the corpse."
At present though, in my estimation, we're showing some pretty strong signs that we're making the thing work.
In a recent poll, some Democrats and most Republicans share a sense of doom.
There are few things that Republicans and Democrats agree on. But one area where a significant share of each party finds common ground is a belief that the country is headed toward failure.
Overall, 37 percent of registered voters say the problems are so bad that we are in danger of failing as a nation, according to the latest New York Times/Siena College poll.
Fifty-six percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said we are in danger of such failure. This kind of outlook is more common among voters whose party is out of power. But it’s also noteworthy that fatalists, as we might call them, span the political spectrum. Around 20 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say they feel the same way.
Where they disagree is about what may have gotten us to this point.
Why Republicans say the U.S. is in danger of failing
Republican fatalists, much like Republican voters overall, overwhelmingly support Donald J. Trump. This group is largely older — two-thirds of Republicans over 65 say the country is on the verge of failure — and less educated. They are also more likely than Republican voters overall to get their news from non-Fox conservative media sources like Newsmax or The Epoch Times.
Many of these gloomy Republican see the Biden administration’s policies as pushing the country to the verge of collapse.
“Things are turning very communistic,” said Margo Creamer, 72, a Trump supporter from Southern California. “The first day Biden became president he ripped up everything good that happened with Trump; he opened the border — let everyone and anyone in. It’s just insane.”
She added that there was only one way to reverse course: “In this next election if Trump doesn’t win, we’re going to fail as a nation.”
Many Republicans saw the pandemic, and the resulting economic impact, as playing a role in pushing the country toward failure.
“Covid gave everyone a wake-up call on what they can do to us as citizens,” said Dale Bowyer, a Republican in Fulton County, Ind. “Keeping us in our houses, not being allowed to go to certain places, it was complete control over the United States of America. They think we’re idiots and we wouldn’t notice.”
Why Democrats say the U.S. is in danger of failing
While fewer Democrats see the country as nearing collapse, gender is the defining characteristic associated with this pessimistic outlook. Democratic and Republican women are more likely than their male counterparts to feel this way.
“I have never seen things as bleak or as precarious as they have been the last few years,” said Ann Rubio, a Democrat and funeral director in New York City. “Saying it’s a stolen election plus Jan. 6, it’s terrifying. Now we’re taking away a woman’s right to choose. I feel like I’m watching the wheels come off something.”
For many Democrats, specific issues — especially abortion — are driving their concern about the country’s direction.
Brandon Thompson, 37, a Democrat and veteran living in Tampa, Fla., expressed a litany of concerns about the state of the country: “The regressive laws being passed; women don’t have abortion access in half the country; gerrymandering and stripping people’s rights to vote — stuff like this is happening literally all over the country.”
“If things continue to go this way, this young experiment, this young nation, is going to fall apart,” he said.
More than just on the wrong track
Pollsters have long asked a simple question to take the country’s temperature: Are things in the U.S. headed on the right track or are they off in the wrong direction?
Americans’ views on this question have become more polarized in recent years and are often closely tied to views of the party in power. So it is not surprising, for example, that currently 85 percent of Republicans said the country was on the wrong track, compared with 46 percent of Democrats. Those numbers are often the exact opposite when there’s a Republican in the White House.
Views on the country’s direction are also often closely linked to the economic environment.
Jeezus H Fuq, you guys - the "economic anxiety" thing again?
Fake lord have mercy.
Currently, 65 percent of Americans say the country is headed in the wrong direction. That’s relatively high historically, though down from last summer when inflation was peaking and 77 percent of Americans said the country was headed in the wrong direction. At the height of the recession in 2008, 81 percent of Americans said the country was headed in the wrong direction.
Oddly (or not), Press Poodles never bother to ask some of the most relevant followups.
- Hey Dems, you say you don't like what Biden's doing, but we need to know if it's because you disagree with his policies, or is it that you think he should be doing more? Better? He hasn't addressed your pet issue?
- Is your dissatisfaction heightened by Republican obstruction and countervailing of everything he does or tries?
- Do you think your opinion might be affected by either the slant of the wingnut media, or by the chickenshit coverage by the legacy media? How about the gaslighting and outright lies of Republicans in Congress?
What seems surprising, however, is the large share of voters who say we're on the verge of breaking down as a nation.
“We’ve moved so far away from what this country was founded on,” said William Dickerson, a Republican from Linwood, N.C. “Society as a whole has become so self-aware that we’re infringing on people’s freedoms and the foundation of what makes America great.”
He added: “We tell people what they can and can’t do with their own property and we tell people that you’re wrong because you feel a certain way.”
“We’ve moved so far away from what this country was founded on,” said William Dickerson, a Republican from Linwood, N.C. “Society as a whole has become so self-aware that we’re infringing on people’s freedoms and the foundation of what makes America great.”
He added: “We tell people what they can and can’t do with their own property and we tell people that you’re wrong because you feel a certain way.”
Whatever you do, NYT, don't ask that guy to tell us what any of that means.
Voters contacted for the Times/Siena survey were asked the “failing” question only if they already said things were headed in the wrong direction. And while this is the first time a question like this has been asked, the pessimistic responses still seem striking: Two-thirds of Republicans who said the country was headed in the wrong direction said things weren’t just bad — they were so bad that America was in danger of becoming a failed nation.
“Republicans have Trump and others in their party who have undermined their faith in the electoral system,” said Alia Braley, a researcher at Stanford’s Digital Economy Lab who studies attitudes toward democracy. “And if Republicans believe democracy is crumbling, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, in that they will stop behaving like citizens of a democracy.”
56 words. These idiots think the whole thing can be summed up in a single 56-word paragraph buried at the end of a piece that few will even find, and most will never finish.
She added, “Democrats are often surprised to learn that Republicans are just as afraid as they are about the future of U.S. democracy, and maybe more so.”
And there it is - straight up and out in the open. Both Sides.
"So, Americans agree: We're fucked - why bother? Thanks for the eyeballs us, folks. And don't forget to click on the ads for dick pills and panty liners while you're here. Thanks again. Have an apple."
Jul 8, 2023
Both Sides Don't
It's a slow-moving, not-quite-boiling-over civil war?
OK, let's take a look at who's at war, and against what &/or who.
Republicans are at war against:
- Mickey Mouse
- Barbie
- Science
- Big Bird
- Mr Potato Head
- The green M&M
- Asian-American muppet
- Dr Seuss
- Women
- Voting rights
- Labor rights
- Equal justice
- Democracy
Dems are waging war against:
- Inflation
- Climate Change
- Poverty
- Medical bankruptcy
- Environmental damage
- Unfair taxation
- Predatory lending
- Inequality & inequity
- Police brutality
- Exclusion
- Fascism, theocracy & plutocracy
Don't bring that Both Sides bullshit in here.
May 14, 2023
Daddy State Awareness, Rule 1
After months of investigation and many public accusations of corruption against Mr. Biden and his family, the first report of the premier House G.O.P. inquiry showed no proof of such misconduct.
 |
| So sad |
At a much-publicized news conference on Capitol Hill to show the preliminary findings of their premier investigation into Mr. Biden and his family, leading Republicans released financial documents detailing how some of the president’s relatives were paid more than $10 million from foreign sources between 2015 and 2017.
Republicans described the transactions as proof of “influence peddling” by Mr. Biden’s family, including his son Hunter Biden, and referenced some previously known, if unflattering, details of the younger Mr. Biden’s business dealings. Those included an episode in which he accepted a 2.8-carat diamond from a Chinese businessman. G.O.P. lawmakers also produced material suggesting that President Biden and his allies had at times made misleading statements in their efforts to push back aggressively against accusations of wrongdoing by Hunter Biden.
But on Wednesday, the Republicans conceded that they had yet to find evidence of a specific corrupt action Mr. Biden took in office in connection with any of the business deals his son entered into. Instead, their presentation underscored how little headway top G.O.P. lawmakers have made in finding clear evidence of questionable transactions they can tie to Mr. Biden, their chief political rival.
It has not stopped them from accusing the president of serious misconduct.
“I want to be clear: This committee is investigating President Biden and his family’s shady business dealings to capitalize on Joe Biden’s public office that risks our country’s national security,” said Representative James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky and the chairman of the Oversight Committee. He emphasized that the president — not just his son — would be the target of his investigation, which he said would now “enter a new phase,” in which he would subpoena specific financial information based on material learned through bank records.
Federal prosecutors have examined Hunter Biden’s international business activities as part of a criminal investigation. But the only charges they are considering, according to people familiar with the case, are unrelated to his work abroad. They include tax charges related to his failure to file his tax returns over several years, and a charge of lying about his drug use on a federal form he filled out to purchase a handgun.
To date, Mr. Comer’s committee has issued four bank subpoenas, obtained thousands of financial records and spoken with several people he describes as whistle-blowers. Mr. Comer has also hired James Mandolfo, a former federal prosecutor who has experience investigating foreign corruption, to oversee the inquiry.
Here’s what we know so far.
Businesses connected to Hunter Biden received more than $10 million from foreign companies, some with criminal ties.
The House Oversight Committee report focused on payments made to companies connected to Hunter Biden from businesses and individuals in Romania and China. Bank records obtained by the committee show the receipt of money from a foreign company connected to Gabriel Popoviciu, who was the subject of a criminal investigation and prosecution for corruption in Romania.
In 2015, Mr. Popoviciu retained Hunter Biden, who is a lawyer, while his father was vice president, to help try to fend off charges. That effort was unsuccessful and, in 2016, Mr. Popoviciu was convicted on charges related to a land deal in northern Bucharest, the Romanian capital.
A Shanghai-based company, State Energy HK Limited, that was affiliated with CEFC China Energy sent millions to Robinson Walker LLC, a company associated with Mr. Walker, who then made payments to Hunter Biden and other Biden family members.
Hunter Biden had cultivated a business relationship with Ye Jianming, the founder of CEFC, who has been investigated by the Chinese authorities on suspicion of economic crimes. In 2017, Mr. Ye gave Hunter Biden a 2.8-carat diamond as a thank-you for a meeting.
“What would they be bribing me for? My dad wasn’t in office,” Hunter Biden told The New Yorker in 2019, adding that he gave the diamond to his associates. “I knew it wasn’t a good idea to take it. I just felt like it was weird.”
CEFC had hoped to invest in a liquefied natural gas venture in Louisiana, but that deal ultimately flopped.
Representatives of Hunter Biden characterize his business offerings at the time as providing legal and consulting services.
The payments came at a time when Hunter Biden’s life and finances were spiraling amid his drug addiction, and after the death of his brother, Beau Biden, from brain cancer. Hunter Biden had begun a romantic relationship with his brother’s widow. His business partner, Mr. Walker, and his uncle James Biden were pursuing international business work.
Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Hunter Biden, said in a statement that House Republicans had revealed nothing new in their report.
“Today’s so-called ‘revelations' are retread, repackaged misstatements of perfectly proper meetings and business by private citizens.” Mr. Lowell said.
President Biden has falsely denied his son had ties to Chinese businesses.
None of the payments detailed in the report went to President Biden himself, nor has Mr. Comer’s investigation produced any evidence that Mr. Biden ever took a corrupt action in connection with his son’s business dealings.
But Mr. Biden has made several false or misleading statements about the matter.
During the 2020 presidential debate, Mr. Biden claimed that no one in his family had received money from China.
“My son has not made money in terms of this thing about — what are you talking about, China,” Mr. Biden said, turning the charge on his opponent, President Donald J. Trump. “The only guy who made money from China is this guy. He’s the only one. Nobody else has made money from China.”
This year, Mr. Biden also claimed that it was “not true” that family members received more than $1 million from a Chinese firm.
Aides to Mr. Biden said he was speaking colloquially and was pushing back generally on claims that his administration had been corrupted by Chinese money.
Presidents’ families have long made money off the family name.
During his news conference, Mr. Comer acknowledged that Hunter Biden would have been far from the first relative of a president or vice president to try to make money off the family name.
He invoked Billy Carter, the brother of former President Jimmy Carter, who visited Libya and received a $220,000 loan; and Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law whose firm has received hundreds of millions from Persian Gulf nations.
“This has been a pattern for a long time,” Mr. Comer said. “Republicans and Democrats have both complained about presidents’ families receiving money.”
However, Mr. Comer has conceded that he has no interest in investigating Mr. Kushner’s conduct.
Officials allied with Mr. Biden played a role in wrongly discrediting Hunter Biden’s laptop.
The report from Mr. Comer came as a second Republican-led House committee is investigating a related issue. The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday released a report about a letter from 51 former intelligence and security officials in 2020 that questioned materials — substantial portions of which were later verified as authentic — from a laptop Hunter Biden abandoned at a Delaware repair shop and suggested they might be part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
The Republicans argue that the letter influenced the public to discount the materials on the laptop, which contained evidence of Hunter Biden’s drug use and sex life, which they believed would harm his father’s electoral chances against Mr. Trump.
The Judiciary Committee report detailed the role played by Antony J. Blinken, now the secretary of state and then a Biden campaign official, in spearheading the letter, and said a C.I.A. employee had been involved in soliciting at least one signature for it.
The intelligence officials maintain their letter stated they had no evidence of a Russian disinformation campaign, and that they were merely stating an opinion.
Mark Zaid, a lawyer who represents seven signatories to the letter, said on Twitter that the report merely proved that “private citizens lawfully exercised 1st Amendment rights” and added that there was not “even one falsehood” in the letter.
“I know of no signatory who retracts a single word,” Mr. Zaid wrote.
He invoked Billy Carter, the brother of former President Jimmy Carter, who visited Libya and received a $220,000 loan; and Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law whose firm has received hundreds of millions from Persian Gulf nations.
“This has been a pattern for a long time,” Mr. Comer said. “Republicans and Democrats have both complained about presidents’ families receiving money.”
However, Mr. Comer has conceded that he has no interest in investigating Mr. Kushner’s conduct.
Officials allied with Mr. Biden played a role in wrongly discrediting Hunter Biden’s laptop.
The report from Mr. Comer came as a second Republican-led House committee is investigating a related issue. The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday released a report about a letter from 51 former intelligence and security officials in 2020 that questioned materials — substantial portions of which were later verified as authentic — from a laptop Hunter Biden abandoned at a Delaware repair shop and suggested they might be part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
The Republicans argue that the letter influenced the public to discount the materials on the laptop, which contained evidence of Hunter Biden’s drug use and sex life, which they believed would harm his father’s electoral chances against Mr. Trump.
The Judiciary Committee report detailed the role played by Antony J. Blinken, now the secretary of state and then a Biden campaign official, in spearheading the letter, and said a C.I.A. employee had been involved in soliciting at least one signature for it.
The intelligence officials maintain their letter stated they had no evidence of a Russian disinformation campaign, and that they were merely stating an opinion.
Mark Zaid, a lawyer who represents seven signatories to the letter, said on Twitter that the report merely proved that “private citizens lawfully exercised 1st Amendment rights” and added that there was not “even one falsehood” in the letter.
“I know of no signatory who retracts a single word,” Mr. Zaid wrote.
It's classic. Spend months on DumFux News spouting off about the Biden Crime Family, then spend lots of time and money and effort finding nothing to support your suspicions, and then issue your findings, claiming to have found all kinds of shady shenanigans on the part of every relative of every American politician since the dawn of the republic - and so "we've proven what a scum that Biden guy is - and his demon spawn too!"
Some things:
- "Everybody does it" is a way to tear down government in general, which is what the basic plan has been for a long time. So when their latest Blockbuster Investigation du Jour fizzles - as they always do - the fallback position is "Both Sides", and they know they can count on the Press Poodles to run with it (as the NYT just did)
- They need to gaslight the shit outa the rubes. ie: "The fact that there's no evidence of wrongdoing is itself evidence of wrongdoing, because it just goes to show you how diabolically clever those guys are"
- GOP accusations are confessions (Daddy State Awareness Guide, Rule 1) - because they can't believe it's possible for anyone to live his life while not breaking the law
This stoopid shit ends only when we smarten up enough to vote these fuckers out. So let's do that.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)