In answer to your last question, no one who is paying attention to the current condition of the United States and her people believes that either Trump or Biden is going to right the ship, as it were. The rest of the Americans vote and seem to be surprised that nothing changes. I'm afraid American collapse is inevitable. No nation can suffer this amount of endemic grift at all levels of power and not collapse. The only things that were propping up the United States Government were its willingness to subvert governments all over the globe, invade nations it couldn't be bothered to subvert, and having the world's reserve currency. Now that other nations are prepared for Washington's shenanigans (see, recently: Bolivia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and the Sahel), the US military's "wonderful toys" having been exposed as less effective than Russia's in Ukraine, the Saudis settling accounts in local currencies, and China leading the world in saying no to buying US debt, should indicate the general nature of what's going to happen in the next decade or so.
Alan MacLeod has a great piece at Consortium on the July election in Venezuela. Of course, our now decades-long sanctions and shenanigans there are as bad as ever. Given our failure rate of late, one can guess that Maduro will prevail as will our outrage over the "rigged elections." Meanwhile Guido lives the good life in Miami from our previous multi-million $$ meddling.
To your question, the ultimate DNC apologist, Heather Cox Richardson has the answer. As of this morning her post-debate post had 69,000 likes; 8,100 comments; 49,000 shares.
"Immediately after the debate, there were calls for Biden to drop out of the race, but aside from the fact that the only time a presidential candidate has ever done that—in 1968—it threw the race into utter confusion and the president’s party lost, Biden needed to demonstrate that his mental capacity is strong in order to push back on the Republicans’ insistence that he is incapable of being president. That, he did, thoroughly. Biden began with a weak start but hit his stride as the evening wore on. Indeed, he covered his bases too thoroughly, listing the many accomplishments of his administration in such a hurry that he was sometimes hard to understand ... as Monique Pressley put it, 'The proof of Biden’s ability to run the country is the fact that he is running it. Successfully.'"
I don't know who Monique is, but she is clearly living in the same alternate universe as Ms. HCR.
Another apologist thing going around is, "Give me the man who stumbles with his words as he tells you the honest truth over the man who can effortlessly tell you elegant lies with a silk tongue."
Now I'm at a loss as to who the hell is who in this. Oh, I know who I'm supposed to assume who is who, but alas I know Biden and his team are constant liers. And Trump has a big, boastful mouth but is far from elegant in silk-tongued lies. We have two versions of vapid, blithering idiots.
In short, this election is like many (most?) previous ones. In my lifetime, JFK was the only one with a real vision thus far, and look what happened to him. I don't count third-party candidates or those who lost out to DNC and RNC selection processes. Some of those people actually did have great ideas.
Denise, I think Reagan had a vision and it has come to pass, to set business and profit free. His vision has gone from strength to strength with the seal on it with the Citizens United decision.
I think Obama had a vision of "purple" America and of getting the U.S. out of the Iraq War. But the Republicans wanted him to fail and Obama fell for more wars in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, etc.
That's putting it generously, because Obama, I think, was just another Bill Clinton, a tool of rich oligarchs. His "vision" was malleable, changeable, protean. Or, if you prefer, slippery and slick.
Yes, I agree completely about Obama. He was a deep disappointment to me. I bought into his spiel for a few weeks before and after the 2008 election (he's a compelling speaker, if nothing else), but as soon as he appointed HRC as SoS, I knew the fix was in. By the time he abandoned single payer for the ACA, it was clear that he was a tool for the owners.
I have a friend whose theory is that, after his initial post-election meeting with GWB, Obama was a changed man. My friend says that a photo taken of Obama leaving the White House shows a cowed, shocked man, someone who was told the facts of life by the outgoing President, maybe whose family was threatened. I dunno. I could see that Obama was being set up for the Oval when he was tapped to speak at the 2004 Dem convention. Perhaps he initially meant well, but was later reined in, to give him the benefit of the doubt. Or, he was just bought.
Some people around the world may still envy the U.S., but the debacle (I mean debate) should have dispelled any remaining envy. I can't imagine anyone envying any country with people like Biden and Trump being the only two options for leadership.
Bill, we haven't had a captain to safely steer the ship of state in the last two decades.
Neither of these two fools mentioned - or has in any speech - the perilous financial condition of the country and the unpayable debt brought on by out-of-control spending over the last 20 years. Real inflation - not the artificial statistics produced by whoever is in charge - is now tearing through the economy and is collapsing what remains of the middle class.
In a very real sense, we have been living that witty idiom of arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The iceberg is out there and we are closing fast.
Is the answer Jesus!? By the same token I suppose. As Carl Sagan says No one is going to come here and save humanity from itself so we all better learn how to Co-exist, or it's the end. Its a shame people don't realize We are all stardust We couldn't be here if stars hadn't exploded, because the elements-- the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for Evolution and for life weren't created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get in your body is if those stars back then were kind enough to explode. So forget Jesus, or any one great Leader like JFK coming to save us. Just rem. stars died so that you could be here today. And we need to not blow it all up in a nuclear holocaust over our petty differences. Stop all the b.s. in Religion & Politics both!!!
I said it before and I'll say it again. Age isn't the issue. the issue is knowledge, wisdom and abilities a person has to do the job. Some people age better than others. My mother, at 101, had all her wits about her and would have beat the pants of both those two idiots.
Their problem isn't age, it's simple incompetence and stupidity (and in Trumps case, mendacity and vulgarity) - and in their case, it didn't come with age.
blazing, brilliant, and coruscatingly poignant comment, fireman1110. thank you for your precision and your intrepid anti-jesus lazar beams, aimed at the nescience of xian religiosity. i salute you; even most atheists, agnostics, and nullifidians are too cowed, too craven, to shine a light on all that mendacious balderdash.
Titanic such a great Analogy I saw the Titanic exhibition when in Boston even pieces of the Hull, and artifacts totally restored as if time had stood still. Much to learn there. Nothing is Unsinkable for one, and man's redeeming compassion and unselfish sacrifice even the ultimate sacrifice to save women & children. How the Band played on tho. doomed. The Astors, Isador & Ida Strauss so Noble. The Cowardice, all the human flaws and virtues exposed. Even how a drunk Chef managed to survive and avoid Hypothermia because he was so pickled with Whiskey that acted like anti-freeze in his body. I rem. it was the Ships Builders & Owner who were pushing her on the Maiden Voyage to break a speed record. Incredible disregard for and loss of souls!
Biden wants to protect the status quo where billionaires can now strive to become trillionaires. As the pie slices get bigger and bigger for the corporate masters, the slices for everyone else get smaller and smaller. Biden also wants to protect American hegemony and military dominance in the world because that is how we have made sure no other country can do well, because countries that do very well can't be intimidated by military force anymore (like Russia and China).
Trump must be elated. Biden needs to go immediately, he isn't going to improve. To expect us to accept him for another 7 months and then to re-elect him is testimony that the DP is not thinking of the people as it clutches the power of the empty office only to be swept away in November.
Biden believes in a larger, more oppressive government. With himself as king (czar, Fuhrer, etc.) I'm not sure what Trump believes in. Himself of course. But I don't think he believes in a more oppressive government. So that's good.
It was quite obvious that Joe Biden was ‘under the weather’ during the first debate – A GIANT HANDICAP. Let us not write him off so quickly and hope that his health rapidly improves. We should not forget that Joe is a very talented debater.
please do so via my email address: jeaniemce@me.com. gracias, mercis, aukun charans, shokrans, danyabats, agyaminaks, nakurmiiks, and tankiyus, dennis my friend!
please honour me w/ your email address, dennis, as i prefer to respond on a more personal level that is not divulgated throughout the 'vulgarity' of the vulgate, particularly regarding health issues.
In answer to your last question, no one who is paying attention to the current condition of the United States and her people believes that either Trump or Biden is going to right the ship, as it were. The rest of the Americans vote and seem to be surprised that nothing changes. I'm afraid American collapse is inevitable. No nation can suffer this amount of endemic grift at all levels of power and not collapse. The only things that were propping up the United States Government were its willingness to subvert governments all over the globe, invade nations it couldn't be bothered to subvert, and having the world's reserve currency. Now that other nations are prepared for Washington's shenanigans (see, recently: Bolivia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and the Sahel), the US military's "wonderful toys" having been exposed as less effective than Russia's in Ukraine, the Saudis settling accounts in local currencies, and China leading the world in saying no to buying US debt, should indicate the general nature of what's going to happen in the next decade or so.
Alan MacLeod has a great piece at Consortium on the July election in Venezuela. Of course, our now decades-long sanctions and shenanigans there are as bad as ever. Given our failure rate of late, one can guess that Maduro will prevail as will our outrage over the "rigged elections." Meanwhile Guido lives the good life in Miami from our previous multi-million $$ meddling.
Thanks, and here is the link (https://consortiumnews.com/2024/06/28/a-battle-for-venezuelas-future/). I wish Maduro good luck in the future and freedom from US meddling and violence, as I do everyone.
To your question, the ultimate DNC apologist, Heather Cox Richardson has the answer. As of this morning her post-debate post had 69,000 likes; 8,100 comments; 49,000 shares.
"Immediately after the debate, there were calls for Biden to drop out of the race, but aside from the fact that the only time a presidential candidate has ever done that—in 1968—it threw the race into utter confusion and the president’s party lost, Biden needed to demonstrate that his mental capacity is strong in order to push back on the Republicans’ insistence that he is incapable of being president. That, he did, thoroughly. Biden began with a weak start but hit his stride as the evening wore on. Indeed, he covered his bases too thoroughly, listing the many accomplishments of his administration in such a hurry that he was sometimes hard to understand ... as Monique Pressley put it, 'The proof of Biden’s ability to run the country is the fact that he is running it. Successfully.'"
I don't know who Monique is, but she is clearly living in the same alternate universe as Ms. HCR.
Another apologist thing going around is, "Give me the man who stumbles with his words as he tells you the honest truth over the man who can effortlessly tell you elegant lies with a silk tongue."
Now I'm at a loss as to who the hell is who in this. Oh, I know who I'm supposed to assume who is who, but alas I know Biden and his team are constant liers. And Trump has a big, boastful mouth but is far from elegant in silk-tongued lies. We have two versions of vapid, blithering idiots.
I read that HCR piece. What a stunning denial of reality! Amazing too how popular the piece was.
In short, this election is like many (most?) previous ones. In my lifetime, JFK was the only one with a real vision thus far, and look what happened to him. I don't count third-party candidates or those who lost out to DNC and RNC selection processes. Some of those people actually did have great ideas.
Denise, I think Reagan had a vision and it has come to pass, to set business and profit free. His vision has gone from strength to strength with the seal on it with the Citizens United decision.
Oh, yes, he had a vision. A nightmarish one, to be sure.
Well, OK, I guess Al Gore had vision. Until SCOTUS tanked his win. Maybe McGovern.
I think Obama had a vision of "purple" America and of getting the U.S. out of the Iraq War. But the Republicans wanted him to fail and Obama fell for more wars in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, etc.
That's putting it generously, because Obama, I think, was just another Bill Clinton, a tool of rich oligarchs. His "vision" was malleable, changeable, protean. Or, if you prefer, slippery and slick.
Yes, I agree completely about Obama. He was a deep disappointment to me. I bought into his spiel for a few weeks before and after the 2008 election (he's a compelling speaker, if nothing else), but as soon as he appointed HRC as SoS, I knew the fix was in. By the time he abandoned single payer for the ACA, it was clear that he was a tool for the owners.
I have a friend whose theory is that, after his initial post-election meeting with GWB, Obama was a changed man. My friend says that a photo taken of Obama leaving the White House shows a cowed, shocked man, someone who was told the facts of life by the outgoing President, maybe whose family was threatened. I dunno. I could see that Obama was being set up for the Oval when he was tapped to speak at the 2004 Dem convention. Perhaps he initially meant well, but was later reined in, to give him the benefit of the doubt. Or, he was just bought.
Certainly Obama's hair turned a lot more gray during his time in office.
What president since FDR wasn't a tool of the oligarchs?
Implement 25 Amendment Sect 4!
Biden is infirm and a "clear and present danger"!
Yeah, why is everyone worried about his ability to run the nation the next four years and NOT worrying about his ability to run it NOW?
Some people around the world may still envy the U.S., but the debacle (I mean debate) should have dispelled any remaining envy. I can't imagine anyone envying any country with people like Biden and Trump being the only two options for leadership.
Bill, we haven't had a captain to safely steer the ship of state in the last two decades.
Neither of these two fools mentioned - or has in any speech - the perilous financial condition of the country and the unpayable debt brought on by out-of-control spending over the last 20 years. Real inflation - not the artificial statistics produced by whoever is in charge - is now tearing through the economy and is collapsing what remains of the middle class.
In a very real sense, we have been living that witty idiom of arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The iceberg is out there and we are closing fast.
Is the answer Jesus!? By the same token I suppose. As Carl Sagan says No one is going to come here and save humanity from itself so we all better learn how to Co-exist, or it's the end. Its a shame people don't realize We are all stardust We couldn't be here if stars hadn't exploded, because the elements-- the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for Evolution and for life weren't created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get in your body is if those stars back then were kind enough to explode. So forget Jesus, or any one great Leader like JFK coming to save us. Just rem. stars died so that you could be here today. And we need to not blow it all up in a nuclear holocaust over our petty differences. Stop all the b.s. in Religion & Politics both!!!
Reg Dunlop for president! Use your imagination!
You look 1000 Years Old...!
It was a long trip on Air Force One ...
Ha, ha, ha, seriously tho we deserve better than two Elderly Old Men arguing over who is better at Golf to gain access to the nuclear codes....!
I said it before and I'll say it again. Age isn't the issue. the issue is knowledge, wisdom and abilities a person has to do the job. Some people age better than others. My mother, at 101, had all her wits about her and would have beat the pants of both those two idiots.
Their problem isn't age, it's simple incompetence and stupidity (and in Trumps case, mendacity and vulgarity) - and in their case, it didn't come with age.
blazing, brilliant, and coruscatingly poignant comment, fireman1110. thank you for your precision and your intrepid anti-jesus lazar beams, aimed at the nescience of xian religiosity. i salute you; even most atheists, agnostics, and nullifidians are too cowed, too craven, to shine a light on all that mendacious balderdash.
Thx. Jeanie Always enjoy hearing from...!
To the credit of anyone rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, at least they weren't demanding that the ship go faster.
Titanic such a great Analogy I saw the Titanic exhibition when in Boston even pieces of the Hull, and artifacts totally restored as if time had stood still. Much to learn there. Nothing is Unsinkable for one, and man's redeeming compassion and unselfish sacrifice even the ultimate sacrifice to save women & children. How the Band played on tho. doomed. The Astors, Isador & Ida Strauss so Noble. The Cowardice, all the human flaws and virtues exposed. Even how a drunk Chef managed to survive and avoid Hypothermia because he was so pickled with Whiskey that acted like anti-freeze in his body. I rem. it was the Ships Builders & Owner who were pushing her on the Maiden Voyage to break a speed record. Incredible disregard for and loss of souls!
Biden wants to protect the status quo where billionaires can now strive to become trillionaires. As the pie slices get bigger and bigger for the corporate masters, the slices for everyone else get smaller and smaller. Biden also wants to protect American hegemony and military dominance in the world because that is how we have made sure no other country can do well, because countries that do very well can't be intimidated by military force anymore (like Russia and China).
Trump must be elated. Biden needs to go immediately, he isn't going to improve. To expect us to accept him for another 7 months and then to re-elect him is testimony that the DP is not thinking of the people as it clutches the power of the empty office only to be swept away in November.
Biden believes in a larger, more oppressive government. With himself as king (czar, Fuhrer, etc.) I'm not sure what Trump believes in. Himself of course. But I don't think he believes in a more oppressive government. So that's good.
Abandon ship. Let's swim to socialist island to escape the existential threat of barbaric authoritanian capitalism.
It was quite obvious that Joe Biden was ‘under the weather’ during the first debate – A GIANT HANDICAP. Let us not write him off so quickly and hope that his health rapidly improves. We should not forget that Joe is a very talented debater.
please do so via my email address: jeaniemce@me.com. gracias, mercis, aukun charans, shokrans, danyabats, agyaminaks, nakurmiiks, and tankiyus, dennis my friend!
please honour me w/ your email address, dennis, as i prefer to respond on a more personal level that is not divulgated throughout the 'vulgarity' of the vulgate, particularly regarding health issues.
The ship has a rudder, but there's no one at the helm; and the ship is headed straight for the rocks.
Well said...
The Babylon Bee has the answer: https://babylonbee.com/news/top-10-candidates-democrats-are-considering-to-replace-joe-biden