67 Comments

The oligarchs have been fighting workers, unions, regulations, and anything else that might get in the way of endless profits, since the New Deal. They really do have just about full control over the government, universities (through endowments), regulatory agencies (through capture), the news (through outright ownership) and Hollywood (doing its part to float The Blob). I don't see any clear path to undoing the control they now have, and as long as they have that level of control, we will only get a choice between people like Biden and Trump in all elections (or a choice between cholera and gonorrhea, as Julian Assange so aptly put it). Personally, I may just write in diphtheria or diarrhea since I really don't like cholera or gonorrhea. I wish Dennis Kucinich would run for president. I heard an interview with him recently and he would be a great candidate.

Expand full comment

won't vote of either and the duopoly will contine to win so things will stay the same. For don't rock the boaters this works out just fine. But for me and other FED UP WITH THE SYSTEM folks: it sucks.

We desperately need 3rd party choices

Expand full comment

"...DNC, whose main job it is to ensure no progressive Democrat ever wins the nomination."

Truer words were never spoken, Bill.

Expand full comment

An old Mexican joke ... What do you call a person that speaks two languages? Bi-lingual. What do you call a person that speaks three languages? Tri-lingual. What do you call a person that speaks one language? Gringo.

Expand full comment

How about this as a Real Alternative to the 77-year old Trump and the 81-year old Biden?

The 90-year old Ralph Nader.

Wouldn't You just love to see a globally-televised Presidential Campaign Debate involving all three?

To see what kind of cognitive, intelligence, and intellectual shape Nader is in [compared to Biden and Trump], go to his website and read his 5 March "Stop the Worsening UNDERCOUNT of Palestinian Casualties in Gaza," that begins:

"Since the Hamas raid penetrated the multi-tiered Israeli border security on October 7, 2023 (an unexplained collapse of Israel’s defensive capabilities), 2.3 million utterly defenseless Palestinians in the tiny crowded Gaza enclave have been on the receiving end of over 65,000 bombs/missiles plus non-stop tank shelling and snipers.

"The extreme right-wing Netanyahu regime has enforced its declared siege of, in its genocidal words, 'no food, no water, no electricity, no fuel, no medicine.'

"The relentless bombing has destroyed apartment buildings, marketplaces, refugee camps, hospitals, clinics, ambulances, bakeries, schools, mosques, churches, roads, electricity networks, critical water mains – just about everything.

"The U.S.-equipped Israeli war machine has even uprooted agricultural fields, including thousands of olive trees on one farm, bulldozed many cemeteries and bombed civilians fleeing on Israeli orders, while obstructing the few trucks carrying humanitarian aid from Egypt.

"WITH VIRTUALLY NO HEALTHCARE LEFT, NO MEDICATIONS, AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES SPREADING ESPECIALLY AMONG INFANTS, CHILDREN, THE INFIRM AND THE ELDERLY, CAN ANYBODY BELIEVE THAT THE FATALITIES HAVE JUST GONE OVER 30,000? WITH FIVE THOUSAND BABIES BORN EVERY MONTH INTO THE RUBBLE, THEIR MOTHERS WOUNDED AND WITHOUT FOOD, HEALTHCARE, MEDICINE AND CLEAN WATER FOR ANY OF THEIR CHILDREN, SEVERE SKEPTICISM ABOUT THE HAMAS HEALTH MINISTRY’S OFFICIAL COUNT IS WARRANTED.

"Netanyahu and Hamas, which he helped over the years, have a common interest in lowballing the death/injury toll. But for different reasons. Hamas keeps the figures low to reduce being accused by its own people of not protecting them, and not building shelters. Hamas grossly underestimated the savage war crimes by the vengeful, occupying Israeli military superpower fully and unconditionally backed by the U.S. military superpower."

Continued at https://nader.org/2024/03/05/stop-the-worsening-undercount-of-palestinian-casualties-in-gaza/ ; EMPHASIS added.

Expand full comment

And finally… :

MAINSTREAM MEDIA WARN IF TRUMP IS ELECTED HE MIGHT INDICT HIS POLITICAL ENEMIES, IMPRISON DETRACTORS, AND RIG ELECTIONS IN HIS FAVOR 030424

LOS ANGELES, CA — Mainstream media outlets warned this week that if former President Trump is re-elected, he might indict his political enemies, imprison opposing journalists, and change the voting rules of future elections to favor his party.

"If none of the Democrats' 73 indictments against Trump work, Trump might gain the power to have political opponents indicted," warned MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow. "It's terrifying to think what could happen if a President were to wield the power to bankrupt opponents with bogus charges or intimidate journalists with legal threats. We are talking a danger the likes of which we have never, ever seen."

Other outlets were reportedly quick to also sound the alarm, with CNN running a four-hour segment on how the DOJ must jail Republicans in order to keep Republicans from gaining the power to jail political opponents. CBS News, having recently seized confidential records from a journalist, called for the imprisonment of any journalist who does not write what the government tells them to write. "It's the only way to stop Trump from threatening journalists," explained CBS News President Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews. "We have to bend or break every moral and ethical rule in existence to keep Trump from breaking the rules."

As of publishing time, Trump had been indicted for mass murder after telling his supporters that he promised to drain the D.C. swamp and get rid of all the corruption in the federal government.

Source: https://babylonbee.com/news/mainstream-media-warn-if-trump-is-elected-he-might-indict-his-political-enemies-imprison-detractors-and-rig-elections-in-his-favor

Expand full comment

Voting for Trump.

Will enjoy the 4 years of deep state revenge propaganda.

Expand full comment

A vote for the Surprise Party is a vote for fun!

https://youtu.be/k6w8OaByPLg?feature=shared

Expand full comment

And speaking of SCOTUS... :

IN MAJOR BLOW TO DEMOCRACY, SUPREME COURT RULES VOTERS CAN VOTE FOR FAVORITE CANDIDATE 030424

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a stunning unanimous decision that dealt a shocking blow to democracy, the United States Supreme Court affirmed that people can vote for the candidate they want.

The landmark ruling, issued just as the 2024 Presidential Election prepared to ramp up, presents a grave new threat to American freedom, as all nine justices declared that voters can, in defiance of what the ruling authorities may want, select their preferred candidate.

"We've never seen democracy in such danger," said black and gay White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who is black and gay. "Today's ruling from the Supreme Court now adds credence to the belief held by fringe extremists that they are allowed to select the candidate they want in an election. This is terrifying."

The state of Colorado had boldly and bravely attempted to preserve democracy by removing former President Donald Trump from the ballot, but the nation's highest court ended all hope that freedom and liberty would reign.

"We don't have a country anymore," said a despondent Rachel Maddow. "You mean to tell me that — in a DEMOCRACY — people can just go out and vote for whoever they want?! Why don't you just burn the Constitution already? No, seriously, can we burn it?"

At publishing time, Democrats at all levels of government across the country decried the ruling as the end of America as we know it, ushering in a new and dangerous era of people getting to vote for the candidate they want to be in charge.

Source: https://babylonbee.com/news/in-shocking-blow-to-democracy-supreme-court-affirms-voters-can-vote-for-candidate-they-want

Expand full comment

DEMS QUIETLY ASK SCOTUS IF THEY CAN BAN BIDEN FROM BALLOT 030524

WASHINGTON, DC — According to unnamed sources, Democrats have discreetly petitioned the Supreme Court to keep current President and presumptive Democratic nominee Joeseph Biden from appearing on the ballot in any state.

"They were able to keep states from barring Trump from the ballot," Senator Chuck Schumer told reporters. "What we were wondering, I mean quietly of course, if it wouldn't be too much trouble that is, to, um, keep President Biden from being on the ballot in, say, all 50 states?"

Democrats explained they still very much support the President in his bid for reelection and think he's totally mentally fit to run, but that if some sort of legal maneuvering prevented him from running, as much as that would be a tragedy, they might be able to run a candidate who is a little more alive and slightly less dead.

"I love our President and wish he could run for 10 more terms," California Governor Gavin Newsom said. "But if the Supreme Court could find some sort of mechanism to keep him off the ballot nationwide I'd have no choice but to step in and run in his place. It would be a great sacrifice, but I'm literally sitting by my phone 24 hours a day in case SCOTUS does find a legitimate reason to keep him from running."

As of publishing time, Kamala Harris was seen quietly slipping a crisp $20 bill under Chief Justice Roberts's office door.

Source: https://babylonbee.com/news/dems-quietly-ask-scotus-if-they-can-ban-biden-from-ballot

Expand full comment

THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE AND THE BANKERS’ FOREVER WARS by Alex Krainer / Global Research 030424

Last week, former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss gave us a stonker of a revelation which, I believe deserves to be set to the record. Truss appeared in Steve Bannon‘s War Room and said this:

“WHAT I FOUND OUT WHEN I GOT INTO NO. 10 IS, I THOUGHT THAT IF I GOT TO THE TOP OF THE TREE, I WOULD BE ABLE TO IMPLEMENT THOSE CONSERVATIVE POLICIES… AND WHAT I DISCOVERED WAS THAT I WAS NOT HOLDING THE LEVERS. THE LEVERS WERE HELD BY THE BANK OF ENGLAND, BY THE OFFICE OF BUDGET RESPONSIBILITY, THEY WEREN’T HELD BY THE PRIME MINISTER OR THE CHANCELLOR…”

Truss goes on to point out the obvious problem with this: you can sack the Prime Minister, but you can’t sack the BOE officials who hold the levers of power. Around the same time of this revelation, GLENN BECK DROPPED A SIMILAR CLUE. IN HIS INTERVIEW WITH TUCKER CARLSON PUBLISHED ON 21 FEBRUARY 2024 HE SHARED A STORY OF HIS ENCOUNTER WITH GEORGE W. BUSH:

“I THOUGHT OF SOMETHING GEORGE BUSH TOLD ME IN THE OVAL OFFICE. I WAS ASKING ABOUT THE POLICIES AND HOW THEY WERE GOING TO CHANGE, AND HE SAID, ‘GLENN, DON’T WORRY, WHOEVER SITS BEHIND THIS DESK, IN THAT CHAIR, IS GOING TO HAVE THE SAME ADVICE GIVEN BY THE SAME ADVISORS AND THEY’LL REALIZE, THE PRESIDENT’S HANDS ARE TIED.’ I WALKED OUT OF THAT ROOM HORRIFIED… WHY DO WE EVEN HAVE ELECTIONS?”

What G. W. Bush had revealed to Beck and what Liz Truss discovered when she got to the top of the tree, has been the defining feature behind our “democracies” for a very long time. Former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli said in 1844 that, “The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.” Sir William Pitt, Prime Minister in 1770 said that, “There is something behind the throne greater than the King himself.”

The Power ‘Behind the Throne’ Are the Bankers

In untangling the causal factors behind the many crises we face today, the trail of breadcrumbs always leads to the international banking cartel which appears to have the determining influence shaping the system of governance under which our societies operate. This network likely constitutes the very “monolithic and ruthless conspiracy” that President John F. Kennedy had warned us about.

As a famous member of that cartel proclaimed, “Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws!” At the money power’s receiving end, Napoleon Bonaparte understood that relationship all too well: “When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation.” This, it would seem, is how it is today.

In his 1965 book “Tragedy and Hope,” Carroll Quigley warned us that, “The powers of financial capitalism had [a] far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. … The growth of financial capitalism made possible a centralization of world economic control and use of this power for the direct benefit of financiers and direct injury of all other economic groups.” That world system of financial control is what’s today being promoted as the “rules based global order.”

Bankers and Forever Wars

In particular, the banking interests appear to be the key movers behind the perpetual warfare we are witnessing today. The better we understand the way the systems work, the more the saying, “all wars are bankers’ wars” rings true. US Congressman Ron Paul said that IT WAS NO COINCIDENCE THAT THE CENTURY OF CENTRAL BANKING COINCIDED WITH A CENTURY OF TOTAL WAR.

Today we know, for example, that Adolf Hitler and his National Socialists were cultivated and lavishly funded by prominent Wall Street bankers (including George W. Bush’s grampa Prescott Bush) and that the multinational corporations they controlled provided the technology and assistance for Germany’s rearmament… .

Continued at https://www.globalresearch.ca/power-behind-throne-forever-wars/5851240 ; EMPHASES added.

Expand full comment

From the "Off Topic, but Not Really" Department:

The ten States with the highest Credit Card Payment Delinquency Rates in the US are as follows:

Texas 24.7%

West Virginia 25.2%

Tennessee 26.2%

South Carolina 26.9%

Kentucky 27.6%

Oklahoma 28.2%

Arkansas 30.1%

Alabama 30.5%

Louisiana 31.7%

Mississippi 39.1%

Isn’t it interesting that every one of those States was Trump Land in Election2016 and Election2020? Think there's any correlation?

Source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/credit-card-delinquency-rates-us-by-state/

Expand full comment

Does anybody here at Bracing Views ~ or any place else, on the internet, social media, or in the real world down on “Main Street,” etc ~ actually, really, honestly, and sincerely feel, believe, and/or think that it will make ANY DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER to and for the future of this Nation ~ or of this Planet ~ WHO the next President is? Or who controls the United States Senate and House of Representatives?

What changed when Biden took over from Trump, except for things to get worse by any and every possible measurement or criteria regarding Anything: the Economy, the National Debt, Foreign Affairs, the health, welfare, and well-being of the MICC and the Imperialist Warfare State, private, corporatist, or governmental Crime, or anything else? What changed for the better, as opposed to what changed except to get worse? Can anybody name even one thing?

And what changed after Trump took over from Obama, except for things to continue to get worse? Or after Obama took over from Cheney/Bush the Lesser? Or after those War Criminals took over from that other War Criminal Clinton? And after Clinton took over from those other War Criminals, Bush the Elder and Bozo? Except to get worse?

America is on a Collision Course With Reality, and when that Collision happens, it is going to be not merely Ugly, but Dangerous and Deadly to a significant number of Americans, if not a majority.

But America’s Ruling Political Class will continue to Roll and Rule On. And the American Peoples ~ or what’s left of them ~ will go right along for the ride, just as they have since America’s defeat in Vietnam under Nixon and Johnson, if not the end of World War II.

A Nation and a People get the system of government and governance that they deserve; and that is exactly what is happening in and to the United States today. And has been for a long, long time.

If the best America can come up with to be its next Supreme Leader is a choice between the likes of Trump or Biden ~ or anybody else currently on the scene, be they a so-called “independent” [independent of what?, one must ask of people like RFK, Jr] or from some 3rd, 4th, or 5th Party ~ this Experiment launched on July 4, 1776 is on the verge of coming to its ultimate conclusion as a collapsed, complete, and total failure.

Expand full comment

"As we get older and stop making sense, stop making sense, making sense" David Byrne, Girlfriend Is Better, Talking Heads-- 2 absolutely "Brutal" choices right there.

Expand full comment

Yeah, Bill, that one statement also stood out for me and no doubt lots of others. Some of us got a lot of humor (to offset the anger and dread) from Shrub (GW Bush). I even recall a humorous 1 page-per-day calendar full of Bush quotes. A 10 or 11-year-old neighbor of some Dublin, Ireland friends I was visiting at the time stopped me, in the middle of his attempt to teach me how to play soccer, to ask: "I just want to know one thing..... How could you (and i assumed he meant, Americans) vote for someone like George. W. BUSH?!!! ". I was nearly dumbstruck, but managed a weak, "Well I didn't.... but I can't speak for those who did!"

And yes, these are (if possible) even darker times, so keep the humor coming!

Expand full comment

a great year ahead for the third party voter!

Expand full comment