Tag: Joe Biden

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The Boneheads, continued

It is no news that the United States is the land of the free and the home of the bonehead. We documented a few cases here. But last week saw them coming out of the ground like cicadas. The week’s news confirmed that the species is not confined to Congress.

Mainly, these are the people who refuse to take the vaccine. A recent poll found that 49% of Republican men wouldn’t take it. Some thought it was a scam; others claimed they had natural or God-given immunity.

“I just feel that God created us, made our bodies in such a wonderful way that we can pretty much do our own immunization,” [Ron] Holloway, 75, told The Guardian. “We’re equipped to do that in most cases. I just don’t see the need for it.”

This justification sounds like the Miami Beach partiers talking about their own immunity and their God-given right to stampede and go crazy. Another bonehead, Gov. Ron DeSantis, “has bragged that the state is an ‘oasis of freedom’ during the pandemic —and the stir-crazy are flocking to the state’s restriction-free beaches and nightlife.” De Santis, no stranger to dementia, is expected to run for president in 2024.

The spa murders in Atlanta, however, evidenced something beyond dementia. I found the only way to understand such actions was to reflect on how American culture has continued to generate one violent insanity after another. It is no wonder that we have produced a population of boneheads and misfits.

Yet it was Congress that set the pace last week. You had Sen. Rand Paul arguing about masks with Dr. Fauci. “If you have immunity, they’re theater,” Paul said. “If you already have immunity you’re wearing a mask to give comfort to others.” Fauci strongly disagreed, but it was like refuting the willful and repetitive ignorance of a moron.

Earlier, you had Sen. Ron Johnson claiming he felt no threat from the patriots who stormed the Capitol on January 6, but if it had been “Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned.” Ron is thinking about retiring, not a bad idea. Then, in a hearing about violence toward Asian Americans, Rep. Chip Roy (R.-Tex.) defended the good old remedy of lynching to “take out the bad guys. . . . We need more justice and less thought policing.”

The Democrats were not exempt from making fools of themselves. We heard the continuing upside-down comments of Sen. Joe Manchin about the filibuster—first agreeing there might be a reason to restore the “talking filibuster,” then dismissing it. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, under heavy fire for repeated attempts at sexual harassment, claimed he had instituted laws to prevent sexual harassment in New York State. The New York Post encapsulated his defense: “Calm down, ladies. Let’s not get hysterical.”

And finally, we had the image of Biden stumbling and falling while hurrying up the stairs to Air Force One, eager to express youthful vigor, one presumes. Joe, I’ve got a few years on you and have learned never to take the stairs with abandon. Your youthful vigor can be expressed in how well you deal with China and Russia.

And what will the coming week bring?

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What’s Next?

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Biden’s Win, House Losses, and What’s Next for the Left

 It’s Time to Look Ahead. Today is a victory, but the fight is far from over.

 The 2020 Election Has Brought Progressives to the Brink of Catastrophe

Thank God this overwrought election is behind us. Joe Biden will be a good (interim?) president. Yet major trials of governing are to come, and Joe will need all the good fortune and support his prayers can provide. I’m sure he also knows he’ll need more than prayer.

The election resulted in some Democratic House losses and a split Senate. As many have pointed out, this will make governing arduous and challenging. The near 50-50 split within the country is peculiarly reflected in the split between progressives and centrists in the Democratic party. It’s not up to Joe Biden to resolve this problem; it’s up to the party.

It will be interesting to see how Democrat leadership confronts the challenge. The essence of that issue is something I and many of you have dealt with: I want all the things that Sanders, Warren and AOC have stood for in their most progressive form. You know the list—climate change, healthcare, racial equity, constitutional reform. Yet the political outlook for getting these things passed is, shall we say, grim.

The centrists counter that, particularly with a split Senate, any gains toward those ends will be problematic at best. To get legislation passed, the Democrats have to become “trimmers,” compromisers, some would say, sell-outs. The conundrum is that the essence of politics is compromise, something Mitch McConnell has yet to recognize.

As writer Camonghne Felix puts it, “community organizers and policy makers from communities who bear the brunt of these problems have been offering up policy ideas and solutions, few of which truly exist at the center.” The center has taken control of the party for too long. It “has left marginalized communities on the fringe for decades and has left them out of conversations about who we are as a country. We cannot demand that people ‘Vote for Democrats’ simply because we are not Republicans.”

On Saturday Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez came on strong to The New York Times about the need for the party to move left. She made some vigorous points that without active reform the party is heading for obsolescence by taking the John Kasich approach.

If you’re not door-knocking, if you’re not on the internet, if your main points of reliance are TV and mail, then you’re not running a campaign on all cylinders. I just don’t see how anyone could be making ideological claims when they didn’t run a full-fledged campaign.

For the party, facing the challenge of a lifetime in the next four years, it is past time to get its act together. Eric Levitz talks about the structural, constitutional limitations of governing in the U.S. The Senate is the prime example.

If Democrats fail to pull off an improbable triumph in the Peach State [Georgia], then the Biden presidency will be doomed to failure before it starts. With Mitch McConnell in control of the Senate, Biden will not be allowed to appoint a Supreme Court justice, or appoint liberals to major cabinet positions, or sign his name to a major piece of progressive legislation; and that may very well mean that the U.S. government will not pass any significant climate legislation, or expansion of public health insurance, or immigration reform, or gun safety law this decade.

There are no easy ways to escape these binds. Biden’s bittersweet victory notwithstanding, the election has presented us with a bleak outlook for progressivism. Maybe AOC is right—that the party must commit to some truly progressive reforms to regain trust on the part of the electorate.

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Really, I Wouldn’t Have a Beer with Either of Them

Trump at the Debate Was Like America in 2020: Not Winning

 ‘The Debates, Like Everything Else in 2020, Were a Dumpster Fire’

 Malaika Jabali: ‘A frustrating debate that ignored big issues’

Trump would be insulting and contentious; Biden would bore you with policy and his accomplishments. That’s pretty much what they did last night at the last (thank God) presidential debate.

For many of us the race has become old and hackneyed, the participants frayed. I spent this morning looking for new insights on the internet and didn’t find many.

Of course I will vote for Biden, but that doesn’t mean he’s an appealing candidate. The man needs a shot of mezcal, not a beer. In the debate he was focused but often bland and wordy. He fumbled on answers regarding the 1994 crime bill and fracking. In his debate prep he could have done more work on sharp, memorable responses, though he did get off a few. Per Susan Glasser in The New Yorker:

“He’s a very confused guy,” Biden said of Trump when the President claimed, per usual, that Biden was some sort of radical socialist pawn. “He thinks he’s running against somebody else. He’s running against Joe Biden.”

Trump babbled incoherently about Hunter Biden’s emails, overriding the moderator, and frequently going off the deep end: “Who built the cages, Joe?” John Neffinger in Politico:

Having set the bar ridiculously low in his last few appearances, President Trump impressed just by not seeming out of control Thursday night. But if he was more conversational, it made it easier to hear him clearly when he declared himself the least racist person in the room, or criticized a public option, or talked about the great care the children he orphaned get, or made fun of Joe Biden talking to Americans about their own families, or declined to answer good questions from Kristen Welker about Covid or the Talk [that Black parents must have with their children about racism].

Malaika Jabali in The Guardian was angry about what she didn’t hear:

There was no discussion about potential domestic voter suppression, less than two weeks before the election. Nothing about far-right white supremacists, who pose the deadliest terror threat in the country. Nothing about policies to reduce racial disparities in unemployment, essential work, Covid-19 deaths and cases, or small business closures.

And not much about climate change except a lot of smoke. Anyhow, as to having a drink with either of these guys, Trump, who doesn’t drink, would be most likely to get in a bar fight and Joe would most likely put one to sleep. We all need better forms of entertainment, something like the new Borat movie which shows Rudy Giuliani in a delightfully compromising position. He too would be among the last guys to have a drink with.

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Trump Resignation Speech

Some misguided Democrats have said that we aren’t responding to the needs of our people. In fact, my administration already enacted $3 trillion in economic relief. It’s been very, very successful and you saw that by the numbers that were issued yesterday and the day before as to used car sales and auto production. They’ve been incredible numbers, actually. Our used car sales are way up.

This administration produces incredible numbers. But the Democrats have refused to negotiate so I took matters into my own hands and had this wonderful ceremony at Bedminster, celebrating the great sport of golf, and we’re going to take matters into our own hands now and sign into law another $400 a month for the unemployed, stop the evictions, cancel student loans and the payroll tax.

No president since Lincoln has done as much for this country. But the Democrats are primarily interested in a $1 trillion bailout of their poorly run states. You know what states I mean. We don’t have to go through names. But they’ve been very poorly run over the years and we can’t go along with the bailout money. We’re not going to go along with that, especially since it’s not COVID-related.

I am extremely tired of fighting with these Democrat losers who will never recognize the enormous progress we’ve made fighting COVID. Joe Biden and his crew of radical lefties have left God behind and can never recognize the progress we’ve made with outdoor dining, limited indoor dining and most of the other businesses in Arizona and Texas that have remained open and very vibrant. They’re doing just incredibly well. This is an approach and it’s an approach that’s been incredibly successful.

The Democrat losers don’t recognize the importance of getting kids back to school and how vigilant we are in shielding of the elderly and those with underlying conditions. They fight with us constantly and undermine our reelection efforts at every turn. You can’t negotiate with people like this.

I have brought peace and incredible prosperity to this country, only to endure constant sniping and criticism which is affecting my health and prevailing good humor. I aced the cognitive ability test, you know. But my doctors have told me that I have cerebral palsy and must avoid unnecessary stress. Stress kills, they tell me.

So it is with great reluctance that I must resign the office of the Presidency, effective tomorrow. Is it tomorrow, Kayleigh? My poll numbers have no bearing on this decision. Jared Kushner will assist Mr. Pence until the election. Then if he survives it you’ll have four years of Joe Biden. See how you like that.