The Biden Presidency

[Stavros]

Robert Reich does a good job defending the Biden Administation, but is anyone listening? It seems to me that while the evidence of the need to repair America's infrastructure has been evident for years, Congress seems to prefer nit-picking its way to not making a decision to do anything about it, and I don't know Biden can do anything to stop Congress from paralysing his ambitions- is it his fault? Is it the sectarian fight-do-the-death attitude of Trump's party of Sleaze, Sedition and Lies? Is it the divided Democrats torn between trimming the budget or claiming it's too small to deal with the problem?

From this side of the pond, it don't look good.

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...to-nothingness

[Nick Danger]

Why did I know I'd find Stavros in here blaming Biden on Trump?

[Stavros]

Anyone who links the Biden Presidency to 'economic ruin' is not reading the news, as these two reports on good news shows. There is just a possibility that if the Infrastructure Act delivers jobs and much needed repairs to bridges, dams, roads, reservoirs, public buildings, etc, that by 2024 the public will take the view Biden has not done such a bad job after all -and if by 2024 there has been a significant decliine in cases and deaths from Covid, that is another plus. A lot thus depends on the extent to which the public will be persuaded that so-called 'cultural' issues around the school/education curriculum and the anxiety over the reality of Race in American History, and Gender Identity, will swing it for the party of Sleaze, Sedition and Lies -assuming they have not fallen apart because of Cry-Baby Trump's sabotage of freedom....

Economy picking up-
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/05/e...den/index.html

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-than-expected

Dim-witted supportes of Cry-Baby Trump in denial -as usual-
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/nearly-hal...184420925.html

[Nick Danger]

Anyone who links the Biden Presidency to 'economic ruin' is not reading the news, as these two reports on good news shows. There is just a possibility that if the Infrastructure Act delivers jobs and much needed repairs to bridges, dams, roads, reservoirs, public buildings, etc, that by 2024 the public will take the view Biden has not done such a bad job after all -and if by 2024 there has been a significant decliine in cases and deaths from Covid, that is another plus. A lot thus depends on the extent to which the public will be persuaded that so-called 'cultural' issues around the school/education curriculum and the anxiety over the reality of Race in American History, and Gender Identity, will swing it for the party of Sleaze, Sedition and Lies -assuming they have not fallen apart because of Cry-Baby Trump's sabotage of freedom....

Economy picking up-
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/05/e...den/index.html

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-than-expected

Dim-witted supportes of Cry-Baby Trump in denial -as usual-
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/nearly-hal...184420925.html

Stavros, are you even peripherally aware that the American media is currently engaged in an ideological battle to see who can be the most partisan in their coverage? Any information you get from CNN or Bloomberg is garbage, with chewing gum and cigarette butts stuck to it. I mean, I could, at your request, list every single news service and which political party they're shilling for, if you actually don't know this. Let me know if this is something you need. The economy is shit now, if you lived in it, you'd know that.

I see you've also bought into the American racism narrative. There is no racism in America. None. If anything, there is the exact opposite of racism, there are white people who have created, and continue to create, programs to help black people; programs to ensure that black people don't starve or go homeless, and programs to ensure that blacks are given preferential treatment in both education and the workplace. There is literally nothing more we can do for black people. But without the "systemic racism" narrative, the Democratic Party ceases to exist. They certainly have nothing else to offer besides assurance that they will carry the program voters, i.e. the black vote, in every race, every time.

There are a lot of white people who "keep it real" about blacks, and this can be defined as racism by agitators. Some whites are scared of black people. Not because they're black, but because blacks commit a much higher proportion of crime than whites. It's 8 times more likely a random black person is a criminal than a random white person. Simple statistical fact, not racism. Being JUDGMENTAL about black people is no different than refusing to buy a Chevrolet because the last one you bought was a lemon. People are entitled to learn from experience; and to make judgments and decisions regarding their own self-interest and survival, and that of their family. Sometimes that decision is to walk down the other side of the street when they see a black man in a hoodie.

Critical Race Theory isn't evil, it's simply unnecessary, and that's what has parents angry - it's a waste of time. There are MUCH more important things to teach our children than the history of slavery and racism in the USA. Slavery and racism are global history, not just American history. What are you doing, Stavros, to address England's history of slavery? Hours a day in the classroom for years learning about it? Or nothing? Exactly, because there's nothing to be done. It's over. Our great-great-great grandfathers ended it. No one alive now even has a grandfather who was a slave owner, it's history. So teach it as part of history. But it's an absolutely wasteful thing to cram it down kids' throats as the centerpiece of their curricula, it's simply not important anymore. Do you want your kid to spend 12 years learning that he's a racist even though he isn't, or do you think that time could be better spent on more relevant material?

You're falling hook, line, and sinker for the media trap laid for you by the Democrats. They go out of business without racism. So they're lying to you, Stavros. In a VERY systemic way.

[Jericho]

Stavros, are you even peripherally aware that the American media is currently engaged in an ideological battle to see who can be the most partisan in their coverage? Any information you get from CNN or Bloomberg is garbage, with chewing gum and cigarette butts stuck to it. I mean, I could, at your request, list every single news service and which political party they're shilling for, if you actually don't know this. Let me know if this is something you need. The economy is shit now, if you lived in it, you'd know that.

I don't know about Stavros, but I'd be quite interested.
Also, just out of idle curiosity, what news services do you deem reliable?

[Nick Danger]

I don't know about Stavros, but I'd be quite interested.
Also, just out of idle curiosity, what news services do you deem reliable?

Gladly field that for you, Jericho.

The most obvious offenders are pretty well-known. Fox News is the national Republican circle jerk. The Democrats have several famous mouthpieces - The New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC and CNN leaning the most egregiously left and doing the most talking.

Of the major networks, NBC is far left, ABC is middle left, CBS is closest to neutral.

Far left news feeds also come from Buzzfeed, Daily Beast, Bloomberg, Mother Jones, Slate, the New Yorker, Vox, the Guardian, the Economist, Politico, ProPublica, USA Today, the Atlantic, Huffpost, and NPR.

Far right news comes from Breitbart, the Blaze, the Federalist, the Washington Examiner, the Daily Mail, and the National Review.

The Associated Press leans left but very...carefully.

Any Fact Check site is a Democrat site. Remember, Republicans are evil, Democrats are stupid - stupid enough to "fact-check" their news source through an equally unreliable source.

Most major cities have two newspapers, one a conservative mouthpiece and one a liberal mouthpiece. In New York, for example, the New York Post is conservative and the New York Daily News is liberal. In LA it's the LA Times that's liberal, and ostensibly the Los Angeles Daily News is conservative, though since it's California, even the conservative news is basically centrist. In Chicago it's the Tribune on the right, the Sun-Times on the left. And so on and on until you get to cities that can't support two newspapers.

For a long time the two major weekly news magazines in the USA, Time and Newsweek, were left and right - Time being left and Newsweek being right. Time's still left, but Newsweek has moved left as well.

As for a reliable news source, Reuters is as close to center as I've seen. The Christian Science Monitor is surprisingly centrist. The Hill isn't bad, it tends to go slightly in the direction of the party currently in power. I get most of my news from the Wall Street Journal and the BBC, but if I'm very interested in a story I'll read everything on it. When you start parsing the news for yourself you get a true feel for the gaslighting most people go through daily.

[broncofan]

This is a guy who thinks a school full of children that were murdered were crisis actors and that the covid numbers are fabricated and who is unvaccinated during a pandemic when there are several approved vaccines. Even the clinical trial data is unreliable apparently so what source can we depend on?

I expected him to tell you his neighbor Bill publishes a newsletter using a stick in the ground.

My favorite quote "Any fact check site is a Democrat site." Indeed. Thanks for that dude. This is about as telling as Dave Rubin's recent comment that he doesn't know any anti-vaxxers who regret their decision not to vaccinate. And not many russian roulette players ever warn about the dangers of the game. One in six are speechless. The Christian Science Monitor is surprisingly centrist among those who think there's no conflict between theology and science.

[Nick Danger]

This is a guy who thinks a school full of children that were murdered were crisis actors and that the covid numbers are fabricated and who is unvaccinated during a pandemic when there are several approved vaccines. Even the clinical trial data is unreliable apparently so what source can we depend on?

I expected him to tell you his neighbor Bill publishes a newsletter using a stick in the ground.

My favorite quote "Any fact check site is a Democrat site." Indeed. Thanks for that dude. This is about as telling as Dave Rubin's recent comment that he doesn't know any anti-vaxxers who regret their decision not to vaccinate. And not many russian roulette players ever warn about the dangers of the game. One in six are speechless. The Christian Science Monitor is surprisingly centrist among those who think there's no conflict between theology and science.

You seem angry, Bronco. Pretty sure nothing I said there was particularly controversial and can easily be verified by other sources than my mouth. Did I take a dump on your favorite news source, Bronco? Are you a Young Turk?

Also, theology and science are easily reconciled. No matter how much we find out about what makes the universe tick, we'll never be able to prove it wasn't created. But the Christian Science Monitor is actually pretty famous for its quality, non-sensationalist news coverage, despite what you may think of them as a cult.

[blackchubby38]

Anyone who links the Biden Presidency to 'economic ruin' is not reading the news, as these two reports on good news shows. There is just a possibility that if the Infrastructure Act delivers jobs and much needed repairs to bridges, dams, roads, reservoirs, public buildings, etc, that by 2024 the public will take the view Biden has not done such a bad job after all -and if by 2024 there has been a significant decliine in cases and deaths from Covid, that is another plus. A lot thus depends on the extent to which the public will be persuaded that so-called 'cultural' issues around the school/education curriculum and the anxiety over the reality of Race in American History, and Gender Identity, will swing it for the party of Sleaze, Sedition and Lies -assuming they have not fallen apart because of Cry-Baby Trump's sabotage of freedom....

Economy picking up-
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/05/e...den/index.html

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-than-expected

Dim-witted supportes of Cry-Baby Trump in denial -as usual-
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/nearly-hal...184420925.html

While the economy maybe picking up, there is still inflation and the supply chain issues that Biden has to deal with.

As for the Infrastructure Act, that should have been passed if not before the summer, when Congress returned from the summer break. But the moderate and progressive Democrats were too busy playing a game of mutually assured destruction with that act and the Social Spending one until it was too late to do anything before Election Day. Although I don't think it would have made a difference in Virginia's governor race.

As for Covid, until the experts decide what an acceptable and significant decline in deaths and hospitalizations are (not cases) Biden shouldn't be counting as that as plus for his reelection chances. That's if he decides to run again. But if he does, Covid can't be an issue in 2024. If it is, that means one of two things. The pandemic has gotten worse or leaders are still using it as an excuse to keep restrictions and mandates in place. Whatever the reason maybe, its not what I would call a winning an argument for Biden or whoever the Democratic nominee maybe.

Biden did wind up signing the Infrastructure Act and getting a much needed win. But with a possible Covid winter surge, rising gas prices, the aforementioned inflation and supply chain issues. Not to mention what the reaction to both the Rittenhouse and Arbery verdicts maybe I'm not sure if it was enough to consider his first year in office a success.

Then there was this from the past weekend:

Biden approval hits new low as economic discontent rises, Post-ABC poll finds

http:////www.washingtonpost.com/poli...bc-poll-biden/

Exasperation and dysfunction: Inside Kamala Harris' frustrating start as vice president

http://www.cnn.com/2021/11/14/politi...ent/index.html

[Stavros]

Thank you, Blackchubby for your rational post. And right on cue, Robert Reich has offered a rational explanation for the rise in inflation, arguing that corporate power has been able to concentrate power and control over production and pricing, and that corporations are raising prices and taking inflation with them. He argues the anti-trust law that has been all but abandoned -there wasn't muchof it when he was in the Clinton administation either- needs to be looked at again, and for someone to bite that bullet.
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...t-robert-reich


The assumption, as you suggests must be that once the worst of the Covid Pandemic is over, there will be a 'return' to a more healthy economy, though because they are global, the dislocation in supply chains and a concern that 'Just-in-Time' production methods have become vulnerable, may yet be part of a re-structuring, so one wonders if 'normal' needs to be re-defined. But politics always intervenes in these issues, just as our supply chain problems in the UK have been made worse by Brexit, something the US is free from, at least until Senator Cruz leads Texas out of the Union.

The Conservative Party/Brexit supporting Telegraph here has decided Kamala Harris is the weak link in this Presidency, my assumption is that it is always diffiicult for a Vice-President to be assertive, and the issues she has been tasked with, for example, immigration and border control, are not media friendly. But I don't know if it is the case that she is no good at her job, doesn't manage her staff welll, etc, so in the absence of more reliable reportage I don't know what to make of her.

The main worry for the Biden administration, other than the antics of Democrats in Congress, must be the posibility that the economy, 'stupid', doesn't become the critical issue on which voters make their decisions, but 'cultural' issues do, such as the hysterical attacks on Critical Race Theory in partcular, and the frankly shocking denial of Race as a driver of human relations in American society. It seems to me that any claim his killers made, that they thought Ahmaud Arbery was running from the scene of a robbery, is plain daft unless he stashed his loot in his underpants. And what proportion of the attacks on Harris are based on her actual performance, and what proportion shaped by the colour of her skin, and what Tucker might refer to as 'her Legacy'?

And, while it might be an issue over which 'Republican' voters get hyped up, rather than Democrats, the re-districting process taking place in many States has been designed to reduce the impact Democrat voters have on the result -various reports in Liberal Humanist newspapers like The Guardian (which offered an analysis of boundary changes in North Carolina and Texas) showed that wherever there are large Democrat majorities, the boundaries change to move a chunk of those voters into nearby, mostly rural districts. I think the word to use might be 'rigged', or more likely the people involved could have had a pep talk from Bannon Deux Chemises whose perambulations through the history of European Fascism and Nationalism will have led him to the quote attributed to Stalin, which seems to form the basis of the electoral strategy of Cry-Baby Trump's party of Sleaze, Sedition and Lies: It's not the Votes that Count, but who Counts the Votes.

You could end up with a scenario in which the majority of Americans vote Democrat, and get a Trumpy admin. How ironic that Cruz argued that Texas seceding would be justified if the Americans kept voting Democats into office!

"Now, listen, if the Democrats end the filibuster, if they fundamentally destroy the country, if they pack the Supreme Court, if they make D.C. a state, if they federalize elections and massively expand voter fraud, there may come a point where it’s hopeless,” Cruz continued. “We’re not there yet. And if it comes [to] a point where it’s hopeless, then I think we take NASA, take the military, take the oil.”
https://newrepublic.com/article/1643...on-texas-texit


Robert Reich's article is here-
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...t-robert-reich

The article on re-districting is here-
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...mocrats-visual