Today's IG

Press Poodles don't do much journalism. It's more profitable to platform conflict and confusion.

Reecie Colbert

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Asshole MAGAts

They can't stop telling us they're assholes.

So let's put aside for the moment that Gus Walz has some neurodivergence issues - including ADHD and some kind of anxiety - that can make it hard for him to regulate his emotions, especially in public.

And all of that is beside the fucking point.

Here's the fucking point:

When did it become a bad thing for a kid to react in a big way when his dad stands up in front of god and everybody - on national TV - to tell the world that he loves his family?

How the fuck is that something to be mocked? Whether they know about Gus's challenges or not, how the fuck is that something to be mocked?

These ass-dwellers will jump on anything they see as an opportunity to get shitty with somebody.

And getting shitty with Gus Walz is further proof of who they are. Gus is "other". Mocking him - trying to humiliate him - tearing him down in order to drive him from the public square - and to "rid the body politic of contamination" - it's all consistent with the worst of fascist (ie: Nazi) doctrine.

It's disgusting and unpardonable.

We have to stomp on MAGA

until there's nothing left

but a greasy spot on the rug.

Whistling Past The Graveyard

MAGA continues to campaign on a full-blown fascist platform ...

... and the Press Poodles at WaPo run this "analysis piece", trying to make it sound like they're pointing out the real threat to democracy, while actually saying,

"Here's a nice ham-n-cheese sandwich on white bread with a little mayo - it was made a few days ago, but it's still good and it'll get you through. Over here, we have a plateful of moldy dog shit with a little sugar sprinkled on it. We're gonna pretend there's no huge difference between the two, because we secretly believe you're all too fuckin' stupid to see the difference anyway, and we have to pimp ourselves down the middle - 'cuz fascist assholes buy ad space too, y'know."

It ends up sounding like just more Both-Sides bullshit:

Trump’s guilty verdict sharpens the two big questions of this election

Voters will have to decide whether Biden or Trump poses the bigger threat to the future of the country, and which candidate will make their lives better than they are today.

The felony conviction of former president Donald Trump might or might not become a turning point in the 2024 presidential election. But its precedent-breaking outcome has sharpened the competition between him and President Biden to define the stakes and the choices for voters in November.

Almost nothing has been normal about this election, and now, above all, is the sobering reality that one of the two likely major candidates for president will run as a felon convicted on 34 counts by a Manhattan jury. No former president has ever been so judged nor sought the nation’s highest office with such a badge of dishonor.

Nearly as striking is the degree to which the hierarchy of the Republican Party — and presumably tens of millions of ordinary citizens who follow its lead — have rallied behind Trump in questioning and in many cases condemning a judicial system that has been a pillar of American democracy. Measured responses about the jury’s work have been the exception rather than the rule.

Two big questions could define the debate between Trump and Biden from here forward. The first is which candidate poses the bigger threat to the future of the country. The second is which candidate will make the lives of Americans better than they are today. Though related, the first focuses on character and temperament, the second on substance and policy.

For supporters of the incumbent president, the answers to both are simple and straightforward. It is the former president who is the clear danger, someone who vows retribution against his adversaries; would allow a restriction of freedoms, including access to abortion; favors an expansion of executive power that could lead to authoritarian rule and undermine democratic institutions; and, internationally, to disrupt or shatter traditional alliances. And it is Biden who they see as both determined to protect democratic institutions while pursuing policies that would support American families, combat climate change and advocate a leadership role for the United States in the world.

William Galston of the Brookings Institution pointed to one domestic priority Trump has talked about as an example of the threat he would pose if elected to another term. “If Trump is serious about his plan to round up and deport 10 to 15 million illegal immigrants, that would require a profound transformation of not only law enforcement but the U.S. military and many, many aspects of American society,” he said. “It would represent a profound disruption to every town and city. Ripping 10 to 15 million people out of the body politic is momentous.”

But for every Biden supporter who believes these answers are obvious, polls suggest there are as many or more supporters of Trump who believe the opposite. The New York trial has heightened distrust of the judicial system by, in their view, unfairly targeting their champion to weaken his political standing. They blame Biden for bringing the pain of inflation to many families, increasing illegal immigration, degrading society itself and, globally, overseeing a decline in American power and prestige. They believe they were better off during Trump’s presidency than they are now — and that another four years with Biden as president is the greatest threat.

The seven-week trial of Trump on charges of falsifying business records as part of an effort to affect the outcome of the 2016 election amounted to an extended freeze in a campaign that has been static since last year. The former president was required to be in the courtroom most days, silent except for regular tirades to reporters on his way out of court. Meanwhile, Biden declined to comment in any way, lest he add fuel to the assertion by Trump and his allies that the trial was part of a political effort to bring down his rival.

On Friday, both men weighed in on the verdict. Trump offered a lengthy, grievance-laden monologue, replete with falsehoods and meandering asides about the state of the country and the unfairness of the trial — a “rigged” process, as he has said repeatedly — and a claim that “we’re living in a fascist state.” Hours later, Biden defended the judicial system and declared that it is “reckless … dangerous, and it’s irresponsible” for anyone to question the verdict simply because they don’t like the outcome, while acknowledging Trump’s legal right to an appeal.

Neither candidate nor their campaigns and surrogates are likely to back away from those positions. The bigger question is whether Trump in particular can begin to pivot from the trial and campaign with a focus on the American people rather than himself. History suggests he will struggle mightily to make that turn — and his extended rant Friday provided evidence of how the trial has affected him.

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, a onetime Trump confidant who ran against him in the primaries, told Democratic strategist David Axelrod and Republican strategist Mike Murphy for their “Hacks on Tap” podcast last week that too much attention was being paid to how a guilty verdict would affect voters.

“It’s not just what impact it will have on voters that’s important,” Christie said, “but it’s what impact it will have on him because he will get angrier and angrier and more paranoid. And I don’t think that makes him an attractive candidate to the very narrow swath of voters that he has to try to win in order to get the presidency back.”

Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg said in an email, “Trump is going to run on rigged courts and rigged elections. I don’t think he can help himself even though it would be better for him to talk about inflation. Biden is going to run on democratic norms, women’s rights — especially abortion — and the rule of law and be able to ask voters if they want a convicted felon as their president.”

In the end, said former Republican National Committee chair Rich Bond, “The tipping point will be who voters consider the most dangerous choice. Do they stick with an aging incumbent with a questionable record? Or do they entrust their future to a convicted felon who lies about nearly everything except his desire to be a wannabe dictator?”

Three other Trump cases are pending, two involving his role in trying to subvert the 2020 election; the third charges that he deliberately withheld classified documents. Given delays in all of them, it now appears likely, though not certain, that none of the others will be heard before the election.

But the New York trial is hardly the only big event in the weeks ahead that could influence voters and perhaps change minds. On Monday, Hunter Biden will go on trial in Delaware on felony gun charges, the first of two trials that could bring convictions for the president’s son. By the end of the month, the Supreme Court is likely to issue its ruling on Trump’s claim to absolute immunity from prosecution, which could impact the federal Jan. 6 case. And on June 27, Biden and Trump will meet in Atlanta for the first of two planned debates. (A second is scheduled for Sept. 10.)

On July 11, Trump will appear in court in New York for sentencing in the hush money trial. Four days later, Republicans will gather in Milwaukee for their national convention to formally nominate Trump, and sometime in that window, he will name his running mate. Democrats will meet in Chicago in August for their convention, with fears of protests over Biden’s handling of the Israel-Gaza war.

In the short term, Trump’s conviction has energized Republicans, much as the four indictments a year ago consolidated support around his bid for the GOP nomination. From House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.) to an array of other elected officials, the Republicans seized on the verdict as evidence of a weaponized judicial system. Trump’s campaign claimed to have raised $52.8 million in online donations in the 24 hours after the verdict, and some GOP strategists see the verdict as an opportunity now to play offense against Biden by portraying Democrats as defenders of a corrupted system.

Political strategists are rightly cautious about how or whether the conviction will affect the campaign. The polls have changed little for many months. Trump has been holding a slender advantage nationally and in battleground states but many of these polls are within the margin of error. They do suggest, however, that Biden faces a challenging path to an electoral college majority.

Some polls taken before the verdict indicated that a conviction could prompt some Trump supporters to peel off. Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said she is convinced that the outcome of the trial will have an impact, real or indirect, particularly in the perceptions of the character of the two candidates. “It helps shift the character axis from strength and weakness, which Trump wanted, to stability and presidential character, which serves Biden better,” she said.

Lake is part of the Biden campaign polling operation but said she was not speaking for the campaign.

The verdict does provide Biden with an opportunity to try to change the script and the Atlanta debate will be the most high-profile moment for him to do so. A Democratic strategist said one challenge for Biden until now has been that many voters had greater fears about a Biden second term than Trump returning to the Oval Office. The verdict could change those perceptions, especially with suburban women.

Many voters have expressed disappointment at having to choose between Biden and Trump. Many are cynical about the state of politics. What impact the verdict will have on them is also unknowable now, but there is a possibility that some will choose to vote for a third-party candidate or simply not vote in the presidential race.

The election is now five months away. After Thursday’s verdict, the election more than ever poses elemental questions for voters — about themselves, their own well-being and perhaps above all the country they want to see in the future. The question underlying them all is who they trust most to deliver it, Biden or Trump.

Today's Luke

I'm not looking to elect Democrats just so they have the power to "go after" the wingnut cranks on the right - to put the propaganda flacks at DumFux News in prison - to round up all the white people and do whatever it is "conservative" freaks say they wanna do to immigrants.

Trump and his MAGA rubes seem hellbent on doing every shitty thing they can think of to "liberals" and brown people and the Press Poodles of MSM, and they're not shy about it.

BOTH SIDES MY DYIN' ASS

But, c'mon - he's joking. It's all a joke

• ignoring the constitution
• the press shouldn't be allowed to do what they do
• "I'll be a dictator..."
• using the DOJ to punish dissent
• using the military to police US cities

If it's all a joke, then why the fuck would you vote for it?

DONALD TRUMP REPRESENTS an existential threat to democracy in the United States. If he is elected president, he will try to become a dictator.

That warning must be repeated, over and over again, so Americans don’t forget it in November.

But that’s not the daily news that you will read or hear in the American press today. Instead, it’s mostly coverage of polls favorable to Trump and cute scene-setting stories about the carnival-like atmosphere at his crazed rallies, where his massive cult following is on display.

That daily coverage ignores the five-alarm fire burning up the 2024 election. The mainstream political press is effectively ignoring the coming national apocalypse. How can that be? How can they once again screw up covering Trump?

After all, Trump isn’t hiding his lust for dictatorial power. He admits it publicly. In December, when his Fox News lackey, Sean Hannity, gave him an opportunity to dispel fears that he wanted dictatorial power, Trump instead offered a rare truth. “Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?” Hannity asked. “Except for day one,” Trump replied.

Trump is planning a second term that is nothing more than a revenge tour: Deploy the Insurrection Act to crush dissent, turn the Justice Department into a personal weapon to imprison government officials who previously investigated or prosecuted him, persecute former aides who turned against him, pardon himself and his lieutenants, and loot the government to enrich himself and his flailing businesses.

In case anybody has missed his autocratic plans, Trump promoted a video this week about “the creation of a unified Reich” if he is elected.

Even this social media callout to Hitler generated a generally tepid response from the press, like one from an ABC reporter who only dared to say that it was “not normal” for presidential candidates to share “references to Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler.”

TRUMP IS A fascist. But the mainstream political press doesn’t want to say it. They want to act like 2024 is just another election year.

With their obsession with horse-race coverage, political reporters tend to judge what Trump says or does by whether his words and actions will help him politically. By doing so, the press is saying that Trump’s racism, corruption, criminality, and insane abuses of power matter only so far as his electability.

There are exceptions: major news organizations, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, have done some important stories about Trump’s dictatorial plans for a second term. But those investigative stories are drowned out by the chorus of horse-race stories — sometimes published on the same days and by the same news organizations behind more substantial coverage.

The media is sleepwalking.

I’ve often wondered how the press, both in Germany and around the world, failed to see Hitler for the monster that he was before he gained power. After Trump, I think I understand.

Hitler took advantage of the incremental nature of daily journalism. For years, his rise in Germany was not taken seriously in the United States, and that period of American inattention and isolationism enabled Hitler to become a much greater global threat. The American press played a significant and ugly role in downplaying the threat Hitler posed to the Western world.

American journalists initially viewed Hitler as little more than a German version of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who they saw as a blustering demagogue, yet also a leader who had helped save Italy from the economic chaos of the post-World War I era.

The New York Times credited Mussolini “with returning turbulent Italy to what it called normalcy,” according to a study of the press coverage of Hitler and Mussolini in Smithsonian Magazine in 2016.

When Hitler first burst into German political life, the American press sought to downplay his importance by treating him as a joke; the Smithsonian notes how Newsweek called him a “nonsensical” screecher of “wild words” and that his appearance suggested “Charlie Chaplin.”

Over time, American journalists’ views of Hitler began to shift, but mostly just to show greater respect for his skills as a charismatic public speaker and a successful demagogue. Ultimately, through more than a decade in German politics before he came to power, Hitler was normalized by American reporters. The press became numb to the outrageous things he said and wrote and did. He kept saying the same things for years; he laid out many of his plans and intentions in “Mein Kampf” in 1925, eight years before he came to power. By the time of the crucial 1932 German elections and Hitler’s subsequent rise to power in 1933, his rabid antisemitism and his lust for power were treated as old news.

The American press is making the same mistake today.

EVER SINCE TRUMP announced he was running for president in 2015, reporters have alternated between depicting him as a goof who couldn’t be taken seriously and showing respect for his skills as a demagogue.

Two impeachments, four criminal indictments, and one insurrection later, Trump is normal now, at least as far as the political press corps is concerned. The January 6 insurrection, in which Trump tried to illegally hold on to power, is old news. Just like Hitler’s 1923 Beer Hall Putsch was old news by the 1932 German elections.

This leads to more coverage of Trump’s poll numbers than his criminality or the threat he poses to the United States.

After Trump’s chaotic four years in office, too many journalists think that everything about Trump’s insane record has already been reported and written. This leads to more coverage of his poll numbers than his criminality or the threat he poses to the United States.

Mainstream journalists are increasingly open about their refusal to cover the campaign in crisis terms. In a recent interview, New York Times executive editor Joe Kahn bristled at the notion that the Times needs to recognize the threat that Trump poses to the republic. He claimed that would just be doing the bidding of the Biden campaign and would turn the Times into a state propaganda organ like “Xinhua News Agency or Pravda.”

Kahn’s defensive crouch is symptomatic of the press today. After years of losing to social media companies in the fight for advertising and attention and fending off a constant barrage of attacks from right-wing critics who seek to discredit their journalism, major news organizations have become increasingly insular. A sudden surge in readership and viewership during the Trump administration has waned, while a drive to make newsrooms more diverse by hiring a wave of young progressive journalists has left older white editors embittered that the new generation has dared to challenge the status quo.

News organizations have always been hostile to outside scrutiny, but their hypocrisy about transparency and openness have reached new heights. Earlier this year the Times launched an ill-conceived leak investigation of its own staff to find out who talked to The Intercept for a story, while more recently the Washington Post has sought to downplay evidence that its new publisher, Will Lewis, was involved in a scheme to conceal evidence about phone hacking of British royals and celebrities while he was an executive at Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp in London. Semafor reported this week that an editor at the Post ordered the staff not to promote on its newsletters one of the Post’s own stories that included new allegations about Lewis from a lawsuit filed by Prince Harry in London.

Expect little accountability for these actions; the Post got rid of its ombudsman in 2013, and the Times got rid of its last public editor in 2017. Both the Times and the Washington Post have media reporters, but they rarely write about their own newsrooms and instead spend most of their time punching down on smaller news organizations.

Last year, CNN went through an internal crisis as well, after its new owners sought to force the newsroom to bend more toward Trump. That controversy ultimately led to the firing of CNN’s chief, but it is not clear whether the new ownership group still plans to push for more Trump-friendly coverage.

These efforts to build protective bubbles around their organizations at a time of unprecedented volatility in the news business seem to be at the heart of the refusal by the mainstream press to get out in front of the voters and take a stand on Trump.

In fact, many in the news business would secretly be thrilled by Trump’s return to the White House, particularly old, white pundits and commentators who claim to be liberal but quietly believe that “cancel culture” is a bigger threat than Trump. Many corporate executives in the news business would likewise be happy to see a return to Trump-era revenues.

But the basic reason the press isn’t sounding the alarm about the threat Trump poses to American democracy is much more banal. It’s about the structure of journalism.

All the President’s Crimes

Just like Hitler before him, Trump is benefiting from the fact that journalism is an incremental, daily business. Every day, reporters have to find something new to write or broadcast. Trump keeps saying dangerous and crazy things, but that’s not new. He’s said it all before. His impeachments and the January 6 insurrection happened years ago. True, he has been indicted four times and now faces up to four criminal trials, but that’s already been reported. What’s new today?

For political reporters covering the campaign, that means usually treating Trump’s authoritarian promises as “B-matter.” That’s an old newspaper phrase that refers to the background information that reporters gather about a story’s subject. B-matter is usually exiled to the bottom of an article — if not cut entirely to save space or time.

But the horrifying truth is that when Trump’s dictatorial ambitions are left on the cutting room floor as B-matter, America is in trouble.

Biden v Trump

More dishonest reporting at WaPo, merrily peddling the Both Sides bullshit.

• "...political dysfunction in congress" is plainly the responsibility of MAGA Republicans who are trying to tear it all down. Inviting the inference that it's a Both-Sides problem is a lie.
• "...deficit peaked under Trump, though both he and Biden have added trillions to the national debt." Are there any reasons you might wanna cite as to how those trillions got added to the debt? Say, for instance, Trump's TaxScam 2017®, vs Biden's application of Keynesian principles to keep us out of a full-blown  depression. Any of that sound familiar?
• "...Americans appear downright despondent..." And of course, that can't possibly have anything to do with outright propaganda coming from wingnut media - plus the Press Poodles at WaPo failing us because their "journalism" is driven solely by profit instead of an honest pursuit of the facts, right?

You have to do better, WaPo. If you go on trying to placate authoritarians, and allow the forces of plutocracy to succeed, you will not be protected.

That said, they do come thru on the Student Loan point - but damn, it's like pullin' teeth to get these boneheads to brighten up a little. 

Fuckin' Press Poodles, man.

Biden’s economy vs. Trump’s in 12 charts

Both presidents tout their contributions on the U.S. economy ahead of the 2024 election. But how do they stack up?

The presidential election is less than a year away, and economic issues are once again top of mind for voters around the country.

Despite the economy’s rapid recovery from the pandemic, President Biden has struggled to convince Americans that his policies are improving their finances. In polls, the majority of Americans still say they trust former president Donald Trump’s handling of the economy over Biden’s.

Both presidents’ economic records have been defined by the pandemic and its aftershocks. The covid crisis upended the job market, stoked decades-high inflation and added trillions to the federal debt.

The economy today is vastly different than it was in 2017, when Trump took office. But the data shows just how each administration has left its mark: Biden, by adding 14 million jobs in less than three years, bringing the Black unemployment rate to a record low and reducing student loan debt by billions. Trump, meanwhile, presided over a period of low inflation, low interest rates and low gas prices.

Here are 12 charts showing the state of the economy now vs. under Trump.

1. Job gains

The astoundingly strong labor market is arguably the White House’s biggest victory. In some ways, the bump was inevitable — Biden took office at a time when millions were still out of work because of the pandemic. Even so, the rapid job gains in recent years have blown past economists’ expectations and have fueled the economy’s blockbuster growth.

Even more remarkable is that the labor market has remained strong, despite the Federal Reserve’s aggressive efforts to slow the economy. As long as Americans are employed, they’ve been able to withstand inflation and keep spending, allowing the economy to grow.

Employers have created 14 million jobs during the Biden administration, with a monthly average of more than 400,000 positions. Recently, though, the pace of job creation has slowed, with 199,000 new jobs in November.

By contrast, the economy added an average 176,000 jobs a month during Trump’s first three years, before coronavirus-related closures and layoffs resulted in the sudden loss of more than 20 million jobs.

2. Unemployment rate

Aside from a covid-fueled surge in much of 2020 and 2021, the national unemployment rate has remained low through both Trump’s and Biden’s presidencies.

Joblessness fell during the Trump years to a half-century low of 3.5 percent in early 2020, just before the pandemic. During Biden’s presidency, the unemployment rate has inched down even further, to 3.4 percent earlier this year. It now stands at 3.7 percent.

The years-long pickup in hiring has been particularly good for workers who are typically underrepresented in the labor force. Unemployment rates for Hispanic workers, Black women and people with disabilities have all hit record lows under Biden’s watch.

The Black unemployment rate, which Trump liked to take credit for improving during his presidency, fell during both administrations, but reached an all-time low during the Biden era earlier this year.

Black women are finding better jobs than ever

3. Economic growth

For the most part, the U.S. economy has expanded at a steady pace under both Trump and Biden. Gross domestic product, a measure of all of the goods and services produced in the country, has grown about 22 percent since Biden took office. That’s compared with a 14 percent uptick during Trump’s presidency, when the pandemic forced the economy into a steep and sudden recession. Even so, the economy rebounded quickly — thanks in part to trillions in stimulus money — and was growing again by the time Trump left office.

Now, under Biden, the economy has notched five straight quarters of growth following a six-month slump last year. The latest expansion has been powered by heavy consumer spending, which makes up about 70 percent of the economy, and new infrastructure and green-energy projects spearheaded by the Biden administration. But economists note that the current rate of economic growth — an annualized rate of 5.2 percent, as of September — is unsustainable, and many expect growth to cool next year.

4. Gas prices

Presidents have very little control over gas prices. But this is one area where the Trump era was better for Americans — and could help explain some of the gloom Americans are feeling now.

Pandemic-related hiccups, the war in Ukraine and spikes in demand have all sent gas prices on a dizzying roller-coaster ride since 2020. Gas prices more than doubled between April 2020 and April 2022, from $1.84 a gallon to $4.11. They peaked at an all-time high of nearly $5 a gallon in June 2022 but have come down since. Analysts say prices gas prices could fall below $3 per gallon by the end of the year, thanks to a combination of increased production and slowing demand.

Gas prices have a direct effect on how Americans view the economy, and higher prices at the pump have translated to lingering pessimism for much of Biden’s presidency.

Pump shock: Why are gas prices so high?

5. Home prices

Homeownership is one of the biggest ways Americans create wealth, and the recent run-up in prices has been a double-edged sword: Many first-time home buyers been shut out of the market, but people who already own homes have benefited from soaring property values.

On the whole, though, homeownership has become far less accessible during the Biden administration. Home prices have surged during the pandemic, rising an eye-popping 49 percent between spring 2020 and fall 2022. Those higher costs have driven housing affordability to all-time lows, according to Goldman Sachs. Homes are currently selling for a median price of $431,000 — less than the $480,000 they were commanding last year, but still well over pre-pandemic norms.

Mortgage rates have more than doubled in the past two years — from about 3.1 percent to about 7 percent — making it that much pricier to purchase a home and putting a chill on the market. Prices, though, remain high because demand for homes continues to outpace supply.

6. Inflation

Inflation has been a persistent challenge for the Biden administration. A rapid run-up in prices after the pandemic resulted in the highest inflation in more than 40 years. Americans have been pinched by higher costs for just about everything, including groceries, gas, cars and health care.

Although inflation has recently come down from last summer’s peaks, prices are still about 3 percent higher than they were a year ago. Many Americans say higher costs have tainted their views of the economy, with voters consistently citing inflation as their top economic concern.

7. Interest rates

The president has very little power over interest rates. While the Federal Reserve’s chair and governors are appointed by the president and confirmed by Congress, the central bank operates independently.

But the Fed’s actions have a far-reaching impact on the economy. During Biden’s presidency, the central bank has raised interest rates 11 times as part of its effort to rein in inflation. The bank controls the federal funds target range — the interest rate banks use to lend money to each other overnight — which, at 5.25 to 5.5 percent, is at its highest level in 22 years.

Each time the Fed raises that rate, or even hints that it might, there are ripple effects across the economy, resulting in higher borrowing costs for loans of all types, including mortgages (currently at about 7 percent), personal loans (12 percent, according to Bankrate) and credit cards (above 20 percent).

8. Disposable income

Americans have less spending power than they did at the beginning of Biden’s term. A drop-off in stimulus money, plus rising prices, have caused large swings in household income since 2020. Still, many Americans are ending 2023 better off than they were a year ago, as wage gains outpace inflation.

During the Trump years, by comparison, Americans saw a steady increase in spending power until the start of the pandemic. Overall, real disposable income, or what Americans are left with after taxes and inflation, rose about 10 percent between January 2017 and January 2020.

9. Stock market

The stock market rose rapidly during Trump’s presidency and has continued its ascent under Biden. After a period of slowing last year — in anticipation of higher borrowing costs and increased volatility — stock prices have picked back up on optimism that the Fed is done raising interest rates. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq hit all-time highs this month, and the Standard & Poor’s 500 is on track to follow suit.

Trump kept a close eye on the stock market’s path during his presidency, often taking to social media to flaunt his successes. He also warned Americans that a Biden presidency would result in a “stock market collapse the likes of which you’ve never had.”

That has not happened — which the president was quick to note. “Good one, Donald,” Biden recently fired back on X.

10. Student loan debt

Outstanding student loan balances have been climbing for nearly two decades — until now.

Biden took office vowing to whittle down the debt burden on student and graduates. And while his most ambitious plans, including a $400 billion forgiveness plan, have been blocked by Republican lawmakers and the Supreme Court, his administration has found ways to offer relief.

To date, the White House has canceled some $132 billion in student loan debt for more than 3.6 million Americans. It has also increased federal Pell Grants to low- and middle-income students, allowing them to take on less debt. As a result, outstanding student loan balances have been falling for six months. Americans owed $1.74 trillion in student loans in October, down from a record $1.77 trillion at the beginning of the year.

11. Consumer sentiment

Despite the economy’s strength, Americans appear downright despondent when it comes to their finances during Biden’s tenure. Consumer sentiment dropped to its lowest level, ever, in June 2022, when gas prices were at a record high. Since then, sentiment has rebounded somewhat but remains lower than it was when Trump was president.

But although they say they feel crummy about the economy, Americans are continuing to spend heavily. That spending — on a range of goods and services, including cars, travel and dining out, has helped power the economy and keep it growing.

12. Federal deficit

The federal deficit peaked under Trump, though both he and Biden have added trillions to the national debt. The national deficit — or the gap between what the government brings in and what it spends — grew every year of Trump’s presidency. Sweeping tax cuts, followed by the government response to the pandemic, added an unprecedented $7.8 trillion to the country’s debt.

Since then, the deficit narrowed in the first two years of Biden’s presidency. But this year it grew again, by 23 percent, leaving the country with a $1.7 trillion shortfall.

That growing deficit, combined with political dysfunction in Congress, is setting off alarm bells for ratings agencies that track the United States’ financial standing. Fitch Ratings stripped the United States of its top AAA score in August. In November, Moody’s downgraded its outlook on U.S. sovereign debt, warning that “continued political polarization” threatens the country’s fiscal strength.

Think you can tame the national debt?

Play the budget game!

Today's Press Poodles

The Associated Press put up a poll in which they asked about Trump, and electability, and support for prosecuting him.

Here's how they (and others) headlined it:

And here's how it actually plays out:

Fuckin' Press Poodles

The PBS Problem

This is close to a perfect example of our media's whole goddamned problem.

In trying to encourage the kind of forceful response that McMorrow delivered, Capehart ends up making it sound like the same old bitch about how Dems don't stand up for themselves.

Maybe you could try a tiny bit harder to keep your fire concentrated on the shitty things Republicans do all the fucking time.

And of course that plays right into the bullshit that Brooks always peddles - turning the whole thing into a generic Both Sides argument.

All of which taken together serves to freeze people in place, which always redounds to the GOP's benefit because it works to preserve the status quo.

ie:

"The Republicans are asshole bullies,

but the Democrats are namby-pamby nerds who won't fight back.

It's a mess. Stay out of it. Stay home. Don't vote."

They're killin' us with that shit.

PBS News Hour - brought you by USAmerica Inc

Today's Press Poodle Award

It's like they just can't help themselves. When it starts to look like the reality of the situation is that yes, the shit going on in USAmerica Inc is in fact mostly because of the dog-ass GOP, the Press Poodles have to fuck with us - they feel the need to push some bullshit on us that "balances" it out again. 

I hate these fuckin' people sometimes.

WaPo: (pay wall)

Senate GOP prepares to block bill to fund government, stave off default

The expected opposition would deal a death blow to the measure, which had passed the House, and adds to pressure on Democrats to devise their own path ahead of a series of fiscal deadlines starting this week.

Senate Republicans on Monday prepared to block a bill that would fund the government, provide billions of dollars in hurricane relief and stave off a default in U.S. debts, part of the party’s renewed campaign to undermine President Biden’s broader economic agenda.

The GOP’s expected opposition is sure to deal a death blow to the measure, which had passed the House last week, and threatens to add to the pressure on Democrats to devise their own path forward ahead of a series of urgent fiscal deadlines. A failure to address the issues could cause severe financial calamity, the White House has warned, potentially plunging the United States into another recession.

Ahead of the planned Monday vote, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) staked his party’s position — that Republicans are not willing to vote for any measure that raises or suspends the debt ceiling, even if they have no intentions of shutting down the government in the process. GOP lawmakers feel that raising the borrowing limit, which allows the country to pay its bills, would enable Biden and his Democratic allies to pursue trillions in additional spending and other policy changes they do not support.

“If they want to tax, borrow, and spend historic sums of money without our input, they’ll have to raise the debt limit without our help. This is the reality. I’ve been saying this very clearly since July,” McConnell said last week.

Democrats have sharply rebuked that reasoning: They have pointed to the fact that the country’s debts predate the current debate, arguing that some of its bills, including a roughly $900 billion coronavirus stimulus package adopted in December, had been racked up on a bipartisan basis. Democrats also have stressed they had worked with Republicans under President Donald Trump to raise the debt ceiling even when he pursued policies they did not support, including the construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

But Democrats’ arguments have failed to sway Republicans, resulting in a widely predicted outcome that now forces Democrats to recalibrate their strategy on a tight timeline. They have until Thursday at midnight to craft a plan to fund the government, or else key federal operations will suspend or scale back many operations Friday morning. And they must act before mid-October to raise the debt ceiling, or they could risk a financial calamity that could destabilize global markets.

It is not clear how the Biden administration might respond in the event Congress failed to act in time to raise or suspend the debt ceiling, which would be an unprecedented event. Officials in the past have studied whether they could prioritize certain debt payments while delaying obligations, but some at the Treasury Department previously have described such a process as largely unworkable, since many investors could still consider the U.S. government to be in default if it started missing any scheduled payments.

The high stakes prompted Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard on Monday to stress that Congress has no alternative but to take action before the looming deadline.

“Congress knows what it needs to do. It needs to step up,” Brainard said at the annual meeting of the National Association for Business Economics. She added that the “American people have had enough drama” over the past year.

The standoff only serves to highlight the intensifying acrimony on Capitol Hill, where Democrats on Monday are also set to forge ahead on their plans to adopt as much as $4 trillion in new spending initiatives backed by Biden. That includes a plan to improve the nation’s infrastructure, which Republicans support, and another that raises taxes to fund new health-care, education and climate initiatives, which the GOP opposes. Those measures also hang in the balance, as the House had hoped to begin debating them — and potentially hold votes — as soon as this week.

Republicans say they are still willing to support a funding stopgap, so long as it is entirely divorced from the debt ceiling. Absent an agreement, Washington would grind to a halt, disrupting federal agencies that are responding to the coronavirus while leaving thousands of federal employees out of work and without a paycheck.

“There would be a lot of Republican votes for that,” Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) predicted Sunday during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Democrats have also pledged to prevent a government shutdown, raising the odds that lawmakers can still stave off a worst-case scenario by the end of week — so long as the two parties cooperate. Their eventual measure is also expected to include billions of dollars to respond to two recent, deadly hurricanes that devastated the Gulf Coast and Eastern Seaboard, as well as money to help resettle Afghan refugees.

But the fight over the debt ceiling is another matter entirely.

Even as they readied a vote against the suspension Monday, Republicans maintained they do not want the U.S. government to default. Instead, they have said Democrats should shoulder the burden on their own given their proposed increases in federal spending, including a roughly $3.5 trillion tax-and-spending package they hope to move through the House as soon as this week.

Democrats plan to advance that measure through a legislative maneuver known as reconciliation. The move allows them to sidestep Republican opposition, particularly once it reaches the Senate, where the party has only 51 votes — and otherwise would need 60 to proceed. But GOP lawmakers have seized on the process, demanding that Democrats also use it to increase the debt ceiling.

The move is easier said than done: It could be time consuming, and it could expose Democrats to a series of uncomfortable political votes. And it is guaranteed to force the party to choose a specific number by which to raise the country’s borrowing limit, rather than merely suspending it, perhaps turning the entire process into fodder for GOP attacks entering the 2022 congressional midterms.

The entire endeavor has frustrated Democrats, recalling for some the brinkmanship over the debt ceiling from a decade ago that hammered U.S. markets and spooked investors globally, as the country for the first time risked the potential for default. The standoff ended only after Democrats agreed to across-the-board budget cuts and caps that they say decimated the ability of federal agencies to provide much-needed health and education programs.

“It is bad for the economy. It is bad during this time we are struggling with a pandemic,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said during an interview on CNN over the weekend, noting that Republicans added more than $7 trillion to the deficit under Trump. “These are the kinds of things that should be pro forma.”

And the kicker:

If this isn't more of the usual cynical bullshit, it seems like Wall Street would be freaking out just a tiny bit.

So the real question is:

Why the fuck do we have to be forced to live on the knife's edge all the fuckin' time?

On Government Follies & Press Poodles

Axios:

(try to ignore the obvious attempts to Both Sides it)

The power outages in Texas are the latest in a series of disasters that will be harder to fix — or prevent from happening again — because Americans are retreating to partisan and cultural corners instead of trying to solve problems.

(and there it is)

The big picture: From COVID to the election fallout to the utter collapse of Texas' electric grid, America is no longer showing the rest of the world how to conquer its biggest challenges. Instead, there's always another uncivil war to be fought — even when democracy, global health and now climate change are on the line.

Between extreme weather events, a pandemic and an attack on democracy itself, America has been pummeled with the kinds of existential disasters that usually come along once every 100 years — and are testing whether we still have the ability to overcome them.

Texas has never been prepared for extreme winter — or, really, any winter — but now the consequences of its decisions, especially its independent power grid, have become inescapable.

So what were the first instincts of the partisan warriors as millions of Texans, freezing in dark houses and single-degree temperatures, waited for someone to give them their power and heat back?

• Gov. Greg Abbott singled out the loss of wind and solar power and turned it into a lesson about how "the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America" — even though breakdowns in thermal sources of energy, especially natural gas, were a far bigger factor, per the Texas Tribune.
• Democrats like Julián Castro and Beto O'Rourke piled on Abbott and blamed him for the mess, while others used the crisis as an opportunity to declare victory for the blue states.
• Meanwhile, Rick Perry — the former energy secretary under Donald Trump and Abbott's predecessor as Texas governor — said Texans are willing to sacrifice and endure blackouts to keep the feds from taking over the energy grid.
• And the mayor of Colorado City, Texas resigned after declaring on Facebook that "No one owes you [or] your family anything,” and “I’m sick and tired of people looking for a damn handout!”

None of this pattern should be new to anyone who watched how America responded to our other crises.

• We let COVID spread far more quickly than it needed to — not because all Americans ignored the danger, but because masks somehow became a cultural dividing line, with millions of Americans refusing to wear them despite all of the evidence that they save lives.
• A presidential election that should have been over in a few days dragged on for weeks. That was not just because Donald Trump fought the result every way he could find, as he'd signaled he would, but because so many Republicans, egged on by right-wing news organizations and social media, refused to acknowledge the clear outcome.
• The avalanche of lies about a stolen election set us on the road to the Capitol attack — led by gullible insurrectionists who overpowered a Capitol police force that should have had plenty of backup, given all the signs that a violent attack was on the way.

Flashback: The last time Americans felt their country was this far off the rails was in the 1970s, when the defeat in Vietnam, the crimes of Watergate, runaway inflation and energy shortages created what Jimmy Carter famously and accurately called a national "crisis of confidence."(His straight talk sabotaged his political fortunes.)

For all of our current failures, there are some reasons for optimism:

• People are finally getting vaccinated, and there are lots more doses on the way.
• Coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths are all going down in the U.S.
• The Capitol attack is going to be investigated by a 9/11-style commission, people who participated in it are being arrested, and for now, at least, the "stolen election" rhetoric is dying down.
• One element of politics has been removed from disaster response: President Biden declared an emergency in Texas quickly, in contrast to Trump's refusal to declare an emergency during California's wildfires last year.
• And the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the state's independent power grid, will be shamed in public hearings in the legislature. But it will be a while before we know whether there will be any fundamental changes, even if it's just to provide basic winter-proofing to power plants.

There is no reason (in my own personal mind) to lay any of this off on the Dems or the Blue People. I think about this, and every fuck up mentioned in this piece is directly attributable to GOP policies, while every criticism of what's been going wrong is warranted, because THE REPUBLICANS ARE FUCKING IT ALL UP.

And when they get around to it, the AXIOS guys mention that one of the bright spots is the fact that Biden - A DEMOCRAT - is acting in good faith by moving quickly to send help, and not trying to lord that federal help over the dumb fuckin' Republicans who're still busily fucking everything up in Texas.

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Today's Both Sides Don't

Let's be clear - our system was built on consumer demand, leveraged by an ever-lower profit margin, propelled by and dependent upon volume sales, which has forced a downward spiral of costs and wages.

Large companies have benefited greatly; have grown enormous; and have become powerful enough to own coin-operated politicians outright.

Those politicians have seen to it that even companies that aren't the biggest and most powerful have paid little or no taxes for many years.

We could ride out the COVID-19 thing if we provided each American a minimum basic income, financed by requiring companies like Amazon to pay up for all the benefits they've derived.

Democrats want everybody to pony up and share the burdens as well as the benefits.

Republicans are saying they prefer to see many thousands more dead Americans in order to prop up a way of doing things that is at least partly responsible for having led us to this disaster in the first place.

Getting Up With Fleas

WaPo Letters to the Editor 

Jan. 27, 2020 at 5:12 p.m. EST

I was braced for Dana Milbank’s usual snark, as he seems to have taken Maureen Dowd’s place in our national conversation, but his Jan. 24 Impeachment Diary column, “Roberts comes face-to-face with the mess he made,” was spot on and not for yuks.

Mr. Milbank is right about the legacy of Citizens United, but I wonder if the chief justice has a more basic problem. Sitting there while the president’s counsel spins lie after lie — and not saying a word about it — may be the death blow to the legitimacy of the Supreme Court.

The chief justice’s passive acceptance of obvious lies does not show him to be a neutral arbiter. It instead shows to those who might come before him in his day job that bad-faith arguments are acceptable rhetoric. In calling out some of those lies, and Republicans’ abdication of their credibility in accepting them, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) was intemperate!

So let’s scold the parties “in equal terms.” Hogwash. The chief justice’s fake neutrality may well neuter the Constitution.

Bill Kalish, Alexandria VA

Here's Milbank's piece:

There is justice in John Roberts being forced to preside silently over the impeachment trial of President Trump, hour after hour, day after tedious day.

The chief justice of the United States, as presiding officer, doesn’t speak often, and when he does, the words are usually scripted and perfunctory:

• “The Senate will convene as a court of impeachment.”
• “The chaplain will lead us in prayer."
• “The sergeant at arms will deliver the proclamation.”
• “The majority leader is recognized.”

Otherwise, he sits and watches. He rests his chin in his hand. He stares straight ahead. He sits back and interlocks his fingers. He plays with his pen. He takes his reading glasses off and puts them on again. He starts to write something, then puts his pen back down. He roots around in his briefcase for something - anything? - to occupy him.

Roberts’s captivity is entirely fitting: He is forced to witness, with his own eyes, the mess he and his colleagues on the Supreme Court have made of the U.S. political system. As representatives of all three branches of government attend this unhappy family reunion, the living consequences of the Roberts Court’s decisions, and their corrosive effect on democracy, are plain to see.

Ten years to the day before Trump’s impeachment trial began, the Supreme Court released its Citizens United decision, plunging the country into the era of super PACs and unlimited, unregulated, secret campaign money from billionaires and foreign interests. Citizens United, and the resulting rise of the super PAC, led directly to this impeachment. The two Rudy Giuliani associates engaged in key abuses — the ouster of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, the attempts to force Ukraine’s president to announce investigations into Trump’s political opponents — gained access to Trump by funneling money from a Ukrainian oligarch to the president’s super PAC.

The Roberts Court’s decisions led to this moment in indirect ways, as well. The court’s 2013 ruling in Shelby County gutted the Voting Rights Act and spurred a new wave of voter suppression. The decision in 2014′s McCutcheon further surrendered campaign finance to the wealthiest. The 2018 Janus decisionhobbled the ability of labor unions to counter wealthy donors, while the 2019 Rucho ruling blessed partisan gerrymandering, expanding anti-democratic tendencies.

The consequences? Falling confidence in government, and a growing perception that Washington had become a “swamp” corrupted by political money, fueled Trump’s victory. The Republican Party, weakened by the new dominance of outside money, couldn’t stop Trump’s hostile takeover of the party or the takeover of the congressional GOP ranks by far-right candidates. The new dominance of ideologically extreme outside groups and donors led lawmakers on both sides to give their patrons what they wanted: conflict over collaboration and purity at the cost of paralysis. The various decisions also suppress the influence of poorer and non-white Americans and extend the electoral power of Republicans in disproportion to the popular vote.

Certainly, the Supreme Court didn’t create all these problems, but its rulings have worsened the pathologies — uncompromising views, mindless partisanship and vitriol — visible in this impeachment trial. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), no doubt recognizing that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority is helping to preserve his party’s Senate majority, has devoted much of his career to extending conservatives’ advantage in the judiciary.

He effectively stole a Supreme Court seat by refusing for nearly a year to consider President Barack Obama’s eminently qualified nominee, Merrick Garland, to fill a vacancy. And, expanding on earlier transgressions by Democrats, he blew up generations of Senate procedures and precedents requiring the body to operate by consensus so that he could confirm more Trump judicial appointees.

It’s a symbiotic relationship. On the day the impeachment trial opened, the Roberts Court rejected a plea by Democrats to expedite its consideration of the latest legal attempt by Republicans to kill Obamacare. The court sided with Republicans who opposed an immediate Supreme Court review because the GOP feared the ruling could hurt it if the decision came before the 2020 election.

Roberts had been warned about this sort of thing. The late Justice John Paul Stevens, in his Citizens United dissent, wrote: “Americans may be forgiven if they do not feel the Court has advanced the cause of self-government today.”

Justice Stephen Breyer, in his McCutcheon dissent, warned that the new campaign finance system would be “incapable of dealing with the grave problems of democratic legitimacy.”

Now, we are in a crisis of democratic legitimacy: A president who has plainly abused his office and broken the law, a legislature too paralyzed to do anything about it — and a chief justice coming face to face with the system he broke.

Aside from the slight whiff of Both Sides - which of course is an absolute shibboleth for Press Poodles - I can get next to it.