Tag Archives: President Joe Biden

A Tale Of Two Speeches

Posted on by under education, Election 2024, Global Issues, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

In case you hadn’t noticed, the U.S. is gearing up for an election in November.  Personally, I’m already sick of it, wish we could fast-forward about ten years.  But alas, since we cannot do that, it’s inevitable that nerds like me will continue writing about it, trying to show the differences between candidates, hoping to help people understand what the candidates’ plans for the future would mean for us all.  Today, I turn the pen over to Robert Hubbell who takes a look at the speeches President Biden and Citizen Trump gave over the weekend … one an adult, the other a temperamental child in an adult’s body.

Weekend speeches: Competing visions of America

By Robert Hubbell

20 May 2024

For those readers nervous about the presidential debates scheduled for June and September, speeches delivered by President Biden and Defendant Trump over the weekend should assuage your concerns. As always, Joe Biden rose to the occasion. In a commencement speech at Morehouse College in Georgia, Biden delivered appropriate remarks that focused on the graduates and their challenges. Although he recounted struggles and tragedies in his own life, it was by way of example and inspiration rather than self-absorbed narcissism.

It was courageous for Biden to deliver a commencement address when college campuses are roiled by protests over Gaza. Biden addressed the issue head-on in candid remarks that recognized the strong feelings of some students. In the meantime, Trump lied, meandered, and froze his way through a glitch-filled campaign speech in Dallas.

As with the presidential debates, every Biden speech is pitched by the media as a “make or break” event for Biden—even though he continues to hit the ball out of the park. See the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Biden delivers high-stakes commencement address at Morehouse College. As one commentator noted,

“Of the many double standards employed by the media, Biden needing every speech to be some combination of Lincoln and Cicero while Trump’s public appearances are 90 minutes of word salad, non sequiturs, and dictatorial musings that get no push back, is among the worst.”

You can judge for yourself by watching the video of the entire speech or reading the text here: President Biden’s Morehouse commencement address | Full speech.

In his remarks at Morehouse, President Biden addressed the virulent racism and voter suppression that are alive in parts of Georgia, the economic struggles faced by college graduates, and the controversy over the war in Gaza. He said, in part,

“You started college just as George Floyd was murdered and there was a reckoning on race.

It’s natural to wonder if the democracy you hear about actually works for you. What is democracy if Black men are being killed in the street? What is democracy if a trail of broken promises still leave Black communities behind? [¶]

And most of all, what does it mean, as we’ve heard before, to be a Black man who loves his country even if it doesn’t love him back in equal measure?”

President Biden also addressed the terrorist attacks on Israel, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and the need for an immediate ceasefire and return of the hostages:

“What’s happening in Gaza and Israel is heartbreaking.  Hamas’s vicious attack on Israel, killing innocent lives and holding people hostage. . . . Innocent Palestinians caught in the middle of all this: men, women, and children killed or displaced in despite — in desperate need of water, food, and medicine.  It’s a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

That’s why I’ve called for an immediate ceasefire — an immediate ceasefire to stop the fighting [and] bring the hostages home.  And I’ve been working on a deal as we speak, working around the clock to lead an international effort to get more aid into Gaza, rebuild Gaza.”

You may not agree with everything President Biden said, but he addressed a difficult subject head on. And he did so in a somber, responsible manner expected of the US President.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch (in Dallas), Trump gave another wild, difficult-to-follow, and worrisome speech that raised questions (again) about his mental health. Among other choice moments,

  • He claimed that “There’s been no president since Abraham Lincoln, perhaps in a certain way including Abraham Lincoln, that has done more for the Black individual in this country that Donald J. Trump. Not even close.”
  • He compared himself to Al Capone.
  • He threatened to defund any school that included a vaccine mandate (which, for the record, is all of them).
  • He mused about whether his election in 2025 (if it happens) would be his “second or third term.”
  • He interrupted his speech to describe his struggles to swat a fly that was “brutally” attacking him. “I hate flies,” says Trump.
  • He described the overturning of Roe v. Wade as “an amazing thing.”
  • He nearly pushed over the lectern, and then said, “This is the worst platform, who put this stage up? The fricking place is falling down.”
  • The last portion of his speech was delivered over background QAnon music.
  • But, most ominously, he froze for about thirty seconds mid-speech. See The Independent, Trump appears to freeze for 30 seconds during NRA speech.

Trump’s campaign has given no explanation of the mid-speech freeze by Trump. However, his defenders speculated that his teleprompter froze or that he paused to “listen” to the creepy QAnon music playing in the background.

Whatever the reason for Trump’s mid-speech “glitch,” the American media is giving Trump a “pass” by not discussing the event. To state the obvious, if Joe Biden had stopped speaking for thirty seconds during his Morehouse College address—even because of a broken teleprompter—the media would be calling for the removal of Biden under the 25th Amendment.

Trump’s mental lapses and grandiose delusions on Saturday come hard on the heels of his claim on Thursday that he won the 2020 presidential vote in Minnesota—a state that he lost by 233,000 votes! Another hard disconnect from reality by Trump that is swept under the rug would that result in merciless negative coverage by the media if Biden had committed the same lapse.

Since the media is not going to report fairly on the comparative facts, we must be prepared to spread the good word for President Biden and cite the facts regarding Trump’s ongoing meltdown.

Filosofa Is Brain-Dead

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Free Press Issues, History, Humour, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Friends, I’m tired tonight.  Not sleepy-tired, but just brain-tired, the kind of tired that comes from … overload, overthinking.  My mind is shutting down.  I want to write about so many things:  House Speaker Johnson’s willingness to put his own career on the line to ‘do the right thing’ for Ukraine; the press’ responsibility to balance their duty to inform with their integrity; freedom of speech run amok;  the wicked witch of Georgia, Margie Greene; Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025”; and much more.  But I’m just too tired … my brain is too tired.  So instead, I’m sharing with you some memes related to some recent hot topics.  I grab these when I see them and once in a great while, I share them here.  They are a hodgepodge of Twitter posts, memes, pictures, signs, etc. that cross my radar and that I find apropos of something or another at the time.  Some are laugh-worthy, others cringe-worthy.  Take a look and hopefully I’ll be in better form later today to write a coherent post!

Enough Already!!!

Posted on by under Election 2020, Election 2024, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

What I want to share with you today is a post by Joyce Vance from Saturday.  I’ve had a welcome break for a day or two from writing about Donald Trump, but we all knew it couldn’t last forever.  So what’s the latest?  Threats, thinly-veiled threats against a judge, the judge’s daughter, and against the President of the United States.  And what are the courts doing to harness the person behind the threats?  So far, not much.  Neither is the media.  It’s time to put a stop to the madness before someone is killed. Remember January 6th 2021?  Read on to see what Ms. Vance says …

We Need To Talk About This

By Joyce Vance

30 March 2024

Today’s widely discussed Trump post on Truth Social isn’t just another instance of bad behavior. It’s not just a shrug of the shoulders and a resigned sigh of, “What are you going to do?” Far too often, people resignedly accept Trump’s behavior because they believe there’s no alternative. The zeitgeist is: We can’t make him stop, can we?

Here’s Trump’s Truth Social post. It’s a video, and although I hate to send you to Truth Social, you can watch the whole thing here. Or read on for my description. What you need to know is that this is unprecedented and out of bounds. If you or I did this, the Secret Service would be on our doorstep within hours.

Donald Trump, by the way, is out on bond ahead of trial in four separate criminal cases. Today, he threatened the President of the United States. It’s time for the people with authority to do so to deal with him. Sure, he’s the Republican Party’s presidential candidate, but they won’t reign him in. And someone is going to get hurt if he isn’t.

What is this? It’s a video that Trump posted on his Truth Social account today, around 12:38 p.m. The subject of the clip is two trucks in full “Trump 2024” regalia, driving down the highway. The second one has a full-size, full-color image across the back gate of Joe Biden, unconscious, arms and legs bound as though he’s been kidnapped and left in the back of the pickup truck. As the truck drives off the camera zooms in on the image, just to make sure there’s no missing it.

Trump supporters have claimed on social media that this was part of Trump’s drive to the wake for a slain police officer on Long Island today and that he probably didn’t even notice the photo of Joe Biden. They’re out on social media saying it’s not a threat. I won’t dignify any of that with a response.

I know from experience as a prosecutor how seriously the Secret Service takes every single threat, or anything close to a threat, made against the President of the United States. They take it seriously even when it looks like the person making it lacks any capacity to carry it out. They always check. They always have the talk.

Donald Trump is different from the person who makes a bad joke or an evil suggestion they don’t have the power to follow through on. We know, and more importantly, he knows, how his followers react when he suggests violence. It’s unthinkable, unconscionable for a former president to even intimate that violence against the current president is acceptable. I cannot imagine George W. Bush even joking about something like this when Barack Obama was in the White House, or Obama suggesting Trump should be kidnapped and trussed up in the back of a truck.

Trump is totally, and uniquely among our former presidents, out of bounds. It’s time to stop letting him break the rules. We’re entitled to more, not less, accountability from our presidents than from average citizens.

No one is saying Trump can’t campaign or that he can’t criticize Biden. What he can’t do is suggest he should be kidnapped, knocked out, and bound in the back of a pickup truck. I can’t believe that I have to write that out—there is no universe in which that’s acceptable.

Did you hear anyone in his own party calling him out for that?

Of course you didn’t. We’re long past that point.

So, where is the Secret Service? I hope they had a serious talk with the former president this afternoon. But his post is still up on Truth Social, which suggests that either they didn’t or that, if they did, he didn’t take it very seriously.

Either way, that means something more is required.

This is a five-alarm fire. We know what the reaction would be if Joe Biden tweeted a photo of a bound and gagged Donald Trump in the trunk of an electric car. Why does Donald Trump get more leeway, especially with his past history? He only continues to get it because our institutions—the courts, the Republican party—let him take it.

One of the problems with Trump is that he goes right up to the line and then hovers on top of it in a way that gives him plausible deniability he hasn’t quite crossed over. That’s what he’s doing when he targets the Judge’s daughter in Manhattan, just like he targeted Judge Engoron’s law clerk, and just like his buddy Roger Stone quite literally targeted the Judge in his criminal case, posting a picture of her on Instagram in what looked like crosshairs. That’s what Trump did today, posting an image of a kidnapped President Biden while letting his followers put on the story it didn’t mean anything.

Actions have consequences. Judges have the ability to compel good behavior from defendants on bond pending trial in their court. They can go so far as taking away their guns once they’re indicted or prevent them from contacting and threatening witnesses and victims. They should tell him he can’t threaten the President of the United States. It’s time for the courts to stop bending over backward to protect Trump. He’s entitled to all the constitutional protections any other criminal defendant receives, but he’s not entitled to more.

Imagine the impact all of this is having on potential witnesses and jurors in the criminal cases against Trump. If Trump can get away with threatening a Judge’s daughter, if he can do this to the President of the United States, then what’s going to happen to them if they take the witness stand against him or vote to convict? Judges are entitled, in fact they’re obligated, to protect the integrity of the proceedings in their courtrooms. As long as Trump can slash and burn his way through the system, there is an enormous risk that jurors and witnesses will feel intimidated, and may turn away from their duty out of fears about their own and their loved ones’ safety. Trump speaks with a powerful megaphone. When he targeted Judge Engoron’s law clerk, a court security official reported she was subject to constant threats and harassment. Regular folks don’t have a Judge to step in or long-term protection. Trump knows what he’s doing. The Judges in his cases can step in and prevent Trump from doing more of it.

This is a weekend talking point for us, too, because as voters, we have the final say on who gets to be president. Make sure your friends, especially those who are undecided or intend to vote for Trump, know about this. Would it be okay to do this with a picture of a child’s teacher? Of a kid at school they don’t like? Then it shouldn’t be acceptable for a political candidate to do it to the President. It’s not a question of politics, it’s a question of basic decency. This is a powerful story about why Donald Trump is unfit to be president.

Try out a little civil discourse of your own this weekend and make sure that people who would see Trump back in office understand what Trump did here and what it means. And please share your experiences in the comments so we can all learn how to get better at having these often difficult but incredibly important conversations.

We’re in this together,

Joyce

And About That State Of The Union …

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Economic issues, Election 2024, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

Tonight, we will hear President Biden give his annual State of the Union Address to Congress and the nation.  I don’t know if I will watch it … I’m still undecided, as I’m pretty sure that certain members of Congress will revert to their usual juvenile acts of heckling and disruption that will raise both my hackles and my blood pressure.  But, if I don’t watch it, I will read the transcript later, for I’m interested in what he will say.

When I first saw the title of Robert Reich’s post this morning, I thought, “No no no … we don’t need to tell President Biden what he should say … Joe’s a smart dude and he knows how to speak and what to say!”  But then, as I read Reich’s piece, the words made a lot of sense and I think that if Biden at least partly follows this playbook, his speech will be a success, at least with those of us who bother to listen rather than act like toddlers only trying to get the spotlight to shine on them.

Mr. President, what you should say tonight

Make it clear whose side you’re on when it comes to the economy

By Robert Reich

07 March 2024

President Biden is addressing the country tonight in his State of the Union address. Here’s some free advice about what he should say about the economy — which is the issue most voters care most about.

Instead of telling Americans the economy is great — which many won’t believe — he must tell them the truth: that most of the economic gains haven’t been felt by average working people because the gains have been going to the top.

Biden should denounce the greed and political corruption that have caused this.

He should explain that the biggest change in America over the last four decades — lurking behind the insecurities and resentments of many working people — has nothing to do with “wokeness,” immigration, critical race theory, transgender kids, the “deep state,” or any other Republican boogeymen.

It’s been a huge upward shift in the distribution of income and wealth.

The nation’s economy has seen massive gains, but the income and wealth of the bottom 80 percent of America have barely budged while the income and wealth of the richest Americans have exploded.

This change didn’t happen because of the so-called “invisible hand” of the free market.

It happened because of policy decisions pushed by the monied interests — decisions that deregulated Wall Street, allowed corporations to bash unions and monopolize their industries, opened the American economy to Chinese imports, let pharmaceutical companies charge exorbitant prices, cut taxes on the rich and bailed out the biggest banks while saddling working people with student debt and medical debt.

In Biden’s first term he reversed much of this. He negotiated lower drug prices, funded infrastructure that will create good jobs, forgave some student debt, attacked monopolies, and protected workers’ rights to organize. He even walked a picket line.

But Biden needs to tell Americans that in his second term, he’ll go even further.

Mr. President, tell us:

You’ll stop CEOs from raking in a record-breaking 350 times the pay of average workers. You’ll support legislation linking the rate of taxes a corporation pays to the ratio of its CEO pay to average worker pay.

You’ll enforce the antitrust laws against grocery chains and food processors that have kept food prices high.

You’ll make it illegal for hedge fund and private equity managers to buy up houses to drive up rents when average Americans can barely afford to keep a roof over their heads.

You’ll stop big banks and credit card companies from adding junk fees and charging usurious interest payments approaching 30 percent.

You’ll prevent monopolies like Amazon from hurting small businesses and firing their workers for unionizing.

You’ll raise taxes on the rich and lower them on average working Americans.

You’ll end corporate welfare — the special tax loopholes, bank bailouts, unconditional subsidies, loan guarantees, and no-bid contracts that have lined the pockets of the wealthy.

And you’ll stop big corporations from pouring money into politics to keep the corporate welfare flowing. You’ll get big money out of politics with legislation that prevents federal contractors (20 percent of big companies) from making political contributions.

And you’ll appoint Supreme Court justices who know the difference between money and speech, between corporations and people.

Let Republicans criticize corporate “wokeness.” You’re taking on corporate greed.

Let Republicans obsess about critical race theory and abortion. You’ll protect the freedom of speech of Americans, and their freedom to decide when and whether to have children.

Let Republicans rail against transgender kids. You’re focusing on how obscenely unfair and unequal America has become.

Let Republicans try to divide Americans into warring factions so we don’t look upward and see where the wealth and power have really gone. You’ll pull us together to get that wealth and power back for the people.

You wouldn’t be the first Democratic president to do something like this. On the eve of his 1936 reelection, President Franklin D. Roosevelt told the American people that in his first term of office:

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.

I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.

FDR won by a landslide.

Give ’em hell, Joe.

The Most Dishonest People In America

Posted on by under Election 2024, Free Press Issues, Political commentary, Social commentary

Way back in the day, political campaigns were based on a set of plans and ideologies.  A candidate spoke to the people about his vision for the country and about how he planned to achieve that vision.  He might talk about building up the military or enhancing social welfare programs or cutting taxes or raising the minimum wage or expanding on public education … things that actually had the potential to become policy, things that mattered to everyday working people.  Though those politicos often exaggerated, or embellished the truth, at least they had a platform, a set of goals and ideas on how to achieve those goals.  That has all changed, at least for one of the only two viable parties in the U.S., the Republican Party formerly known as the GOP (which once stood for Grand Old Party).  Today, the Republican Party has no platform, or its platform is whatever the presumptive nominee at this point wants it to be on any given day.

Yesterday, the headline in Axios read …

“House GOP plots lengthy probe on Biden’s age to keep it in spotlight”

A few snippets from the article …

Why it matters: Sources close to House GOP leaders are blunt that they don’t think it even matters what they find. These sources think that any fight will make the White House look bad — and keep a huge Biden vulnerability in the headlines.

  • The GOP planning includes hearings and possibly even subpoenas for documents and recordings.

Three House committee chairs wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland last evening to demand a transcript — plus any recordings — of Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.

  • Hur wrote he won’t charge the president with mishandling classified documents, but wrote that Biden suffers from a “poor memory.”

Next, we’re told, House Republicans plan to seek testimony from Hur — and would ask him both about how Biden’s storage of sensitive documents could have hurt national security, and about the president’s mental acuity in the interview.

In other words, there is no smoking gun, but there are lots of smoke and mirrors that will be used by unscrupulous Republicans to attempt to keep negative stories about President Biden front and center in the news from now until November.

Two things here:

  1. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!!! Donald Trump is only what … 3 years younger than President Biden, and his mental acuity has never been sharp, but has gone downhill dramatically in the past 9 years since we’ve come to know him.  Hell, he keeps thinking he ran against then-President Obama in 2016 … has said so on more than one occasion, and he frequently gets names, dates, and places wrong.  Not to mention the fact that he just makes stuff up, like saying he is responsible for Taylor Swift’s career success.  President Biden may forget things here and there, but heck … look how much the man has to worry about and keep up with right now … wouldn’t you forget a few things?  Bottom line … if Joe Biden is too old to be president, so is Donald Trump.  Biden is far more fit both physically and mentally than Trump was even 20 years ago.
  2. Donald Trump knowingly stole classified documents and refused to return them when caught. He also shared the information in some of those documents with people not authorized to have that information.  The documents that President Biden kept at the end of his vice-presidency were inadvertently taken, discovered by Biden’s own staff, and immediately and voluntarily returned!  Donald Trump had to be forced to return the documents he took.  Again, the pot is calling the kettle black here!

Robert Hur’s report was designed for just this purpose, to give red meat to the Republican Party that they could use to distract from the very fact that they have no agenda, no platform, no idea how they will govern if they win in November.  Instead of trying to think and develop an ideology, a set of values, it’s far easier just to paint the other guy with a target on his back, then give the media a truckload of arrows.  They don’t have to win … all they have to do is make the other guy lose.

Meanwhile, while the Republicans play their dangerous games, the clock is ticking … just 16 days now until a potential government shutdown and to the best of my knowledge, the House has not done a lick of work on a single appropriations bill to try to fund the government beyond the March 1st deadline.  Governance???  HAH!!!

Sadly, this is the sort of unscrupulous crappola that the mainstream media feeds on and they will no doubt keep the story front-and-center, just as they did Hillary Clinton’s emails back in 2016, playing into the hands of the Republican Party and its evil nominee.  I wish I had faith in an honest media and/or an intelligent voting public come November.  Sadly, I have neither.

So, You Want To Talk About President Biden’s Age?

Posted on by under Economic issues, Election 2024, Free Press Issues, Political commentary, Rants

The hulabaloo over President Biden’s age is making my head hurt.  For Pete’s sake, people!!!  The president is 81 and accomplished more good for this nation and its people in his first year than the former guy did in four years!  He is lucid, he is sharp, he is doing his job instead of posturing in front of television cameras all day!!!  Yes, he is old, but he has proven he is more than capable of doing the job he was elected to do, so leave the man alone and let him do his job!  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr …

Last October, as General Mark Milley was preparing to step down as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he was interviewed by 60 Minutes — and of course he was asked to comment on President Biden’s age, to which he replied …

“I meet frequently with the president, and every single time I meet with him, he is just fine. how people interpret that is up to them, but I engage with him frequently and he is alert, sound, does his homework, reads the papers, reads all the read-ahead material, and he’s very engaged in issues of very serious matters of war and peace and life and death. so if the American people are worried about an individual who is someone making decisions of war and peace, making decisions about nuclear weapons and that sort of thing, I think they can rest easy.”

I think I trust General Milley far more than I trust some wet-behind-the-ears Republican “special counsel” whose report went far beyond it’s intended scope.

Paul Krugman is an economist and columnist for the New York Times and I wish to share with you today his views of the latest circus …

The Disgusting Furor Over Biden’s Age

By Paul Krugman

09 February 2024

When the news broke about the special counsel’s hit job — his snide, unwarranted, obviously politically motivated slurs about President Biden’s memory — I found myself thinking about my mother. What year did she die? It turned out that I didn’t know offhand; I knew that it was after I moved from Princeton to CUNY, because I was regularly commuting out to New Jersey to see her, but before the pandemic. I actually had to look into my records to confirm that she died in 2017.

I’ll bet that many readers are similarly vague about the dates of major life events. You remember the circumstances but not necessarily the precise year. And whatever you think of me, I’m pretty sure I don’t write or sound like an old man. The idea that Biden’s difficulty in pinning down the year of his son’s death shows his incapacity — in the middle of the Gaza crisis! — is disgusting.

As it happens, I had an hourlong off-the-record meeting with Biden in August. I can’t talk about the content, but I can assure you that he’s perfectly lucid, with a good grasp of events. And outside of that personal experience, on several occasions when I thought he was making a serious misjudgment — like his handling of the debt ceiling crisis — he was right, and I was wrong.

And my God, consider his opponent. When I listen to Donald Trump’s speeches, I find myself thinking about my father, who died in 2013 (something else I had to look up). During his last year my father suffered from sundowning: He was lucid during the day but would sometimes become incoherent and aggressive after dark. If we’re going to be doing amateur psychological diagnoses of elderly politicians, shouldn’t we be talking about a candidate who has confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi and whose ranting and raving sometimes reminds me of my father on a bad evening?

So to everyone who’s piling on Biden right now, stop and look in the mirror. And ask yourself what you are doing.

There’s Method To This Madness …

Posted on by under Election 2024, Free Press Issues, Political commentary, Social commentary

Have you found it difficult to concentrate lately, had periods where you just wanted to shut out the political carnage and breathe normally?  I call it ‘mind bounce’ when my head goes in 15 directions at one time and I cannot seem to focus on a single topic for more than 30 seconds!  I don’t want to read or write or even hear about Donald Trump!  I would pay money for a week without hearing his name or seeing his ugly mug on my news feed!  But no matter where you turn, there he is.  And that, my friends, is intentional.  Robert Reich has more on this topic …

How Trump is exploiting our scarcest resource

And making Biden disappear

By Robert Reich

13 January 2024

Donald Trump is a master of exploiting our scarcest resource, with significant consequence for the 2024 election.

What’s that scarcest resource — the one thing you cannot get more of even if you had all the money in the world, which is rapidly becoming your most valuable asset?

Your attention.

Our brains can take in only a limited amount of stimuli at one time. Sure, we can multi-task. But there’s limit.

When I drive on an open highway with little traffic, I can easily talk with a friend at the same time. But when traffic intensifies and I have to make decisions about how to get where I’m going, I need quiet because I have to concentrate.

All conscious sensations (sight, touch, hearing and taste) are filtered through to our brain’s thalamus, and then to our cerebral cortex where we make sense of the cacophony. Whether we’re aware of it or not, we’re continuously filtering — choosing what to pay attention to and selectively processing it.

But demands on this scarce resource are growing. We commonly refer to them as demands on our “time” but they’re really demands on our attention.

They’re not only from spouses, children, parents, friends, and employers — people who deserve our attention, whom we want to pay attention to — but from increasingly enticing and provocative sensory gusher of social media, podcasts, music, films, videos, emails, texts, and ideas.

Algorithms are learning quickly how to precisely tailor these stimuli for each of us — to arouse our curiosity, hunger, hopes, and fears, and satisfy our deepest cravings to be loved, amused, nourished, and excited. Advances in AI and virtual reality will make them even more personally alluring.

Those seeking our attention — advertisers, marketers, and politicians — are facing increasing competition to grab it. When they succeed, our attention shifts away from everything else.

This is why attention is becoming such a scarce resource. The more it’s attracted to one stimulus, the less of it we have for others.

Donald Trump is as devious and dangerous a politician as America has ever produced, largely because he knows how to grab and keep our attention. He wants to make it difficult for us to focus elsewhere.

It’s not so much what he says but how provocative it is, and how that provocation is amplified in the media. Provocation is the point.

I’m not suggesting that what Trump says is unimportant, but that a key to understanding his demagoguery is to see how he uses agitation to claim attention.

Some of us are outraged by what he says; some of us, amused; some of us, fearful; some of us, thrilled. But all of us are paying attention. (How many times have you asked or been asked: “Did you hear what Trump said today?”)

Schooled in reality television and New York tabloids, Trump is a master at provocation and agitation.

Notwithstanding his attacks on the media, top media executives love it because they’re also competing for attention and Trump gives them the means.

As the 2016 presidential race heated up, Leslie Moonves, CEO of CBS, said the Trump phenomenon “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS,” adding, “Who would have expected the ride we’re all having right now? The money’s rolling in and this is fun. . . . I’ve never seen anything like this, and this is going to be a very good year for us. Sorry. It’s a terrible thing to say. But, bring it on, Donald. Keep going.” [Emphasis added]

In 2016, Trump received more coverage than any presidential candidate in American history. As president, he continued to dominate the news, for much the same reasons. Now, as a candidate for president once more, he’s doing it again.

Trump will use his upcoming criminal trials — just as he is using their preliminary processes — as further opportunities to claim our attention. He’ll vilify prosecutors, judges, Democrats, and the Justice Department. He’ll find ways to link his alleged persecution to allegedly lax treatment of Mexican Americans, Muslims, and undocumented immigrants. He’ll extol authoritarian rulers who aren’t subject to such treatment. He’ll denounce the press, and, of course, Joe Biden.

The real danger for Biden is not that he will have to defend himself against the charge that he is persecuting Trump.

The danger is that Trump will capture so much of the public’s attention that he will appears to be the more dominant and stronger candidate, and Biden will be left with so little attention that he appears to be the more submissive and weaker of the two. If Trump dominate the battle of attention, Biden will effectively disappear.

Gronda Returns With Words Of Wisdom!

Posted on by under Global Issues, History, Political commentary, Re-blogs

It’s been about a year since we’ve heard from our good friend Gronda, but she is back today (yesterday, actually) with an insightful assessment of the war between Israel and Hamas and what role the U.S. needs to play.  Thank you, Gronda, for your wisdom, and it’s so good to see you back! 

US / POTUS Biden Can No Longer Turn Blind Eye to Netanyahu’s Trump-like Tactics

Free Press? But Where’s The Integrity?

Posted on by under Election 2024, Free Press Issues, Political commentary, Social commentary

For some time now I have been disappointed and disgusted by the coverage in media outlets I have long placed much faith in, namely The Washington Post and the New York Times, but also Politico, CNN and others.  It seems almost as if they think that for every story they print about Donald Trump or other Republicans, they feel the need to seek a false equivalence by running a story about President Biden’s age, or some faux pas he made, such as tripping over a sandbag that shouldn’t have been there to start with.  I’ve long been a supporter and advocate for a free press, but in return I expect honest reporting with integrity … and lately I don’t think we’ve been getting that.  Turns out I’m not alone, and Robert Reich has a command of words and an understanding far better than my own, so I shall turn this post over to him.

Four ways the mainstream media is quietly helping Trump and his Republican allies

By Robert Reich

27 November 2023

The mainstream media is helping Trump and his authoritarian allies in four ways.

First, it’s drawing a false equivalence between Trump and Biden — claiming that Biden’s political handicap is his age, while Trump’s corresponding handicap is his criminal indictments.

Rubbish. Trump is almost as old as Biden, and Trump’s public remarks and posts are becoming ever more unhinged — suggesting that advancing age may be a bigger problem for Trump than for Biden.

Why isn’t the mainstream media reporting on Trump’s increasing senescence?

Secondly, every time the mainstream media reports on another move by Trump and his Republican allies toward neofascism, it tries to balance its coverage by pointing out some fault in the Democratic Party (such as the ongoing federal corruption and bribery case against Senator Bob Menendez).

The net effect is for readers to assume all politics is rotten. A recent Washington Post article was headlined, “In a swing Wisconsin county, everyone is tired of politics.”

Voters who are turned off by politics are less aware of Biden’s accomplishments — and the media is hardly reporting on them.

One person interviewed by the Post admitted, “I can’t really speak to anything [Biden] has done because I’ve tuned it out, like a lot of people have. We’re so tired of the us-against-them politics.”

As if the “us-against-them politics” is the fault of Democrats as much as it is Trump Republicans. In fact, Trump’s GOP is the party of dysfunctional politics.

Which brings us to the third way the mainstream media is quietly helping Trump. It makes it seem as if the dysfunction in Washington is coming from both parties.

“How do Americans feel about politics?” The New York Times asked recently, answering in the same headline: “‘Disgust isn’t a strong enough word.’”

What the Times failed to report is that much of the GOP no longer accepts the rule of law, or the norms of liberal democracy, or the legitimacy of the opposing party, or the premise that governing requires negotiation and compromise.

Yesterday, the Times attributed the coming wave of departing lawmakers across both chambers and parties to the “breathtaking dysfunction on Capitol Hill,” without telling readers that the dysfunction is entirely due to the Republican Party.

Finally, blaming both sides for this chaos plays into Trump’s and his allies’ goal of wanting Americans to believe the nation has become ungovernable, so it needs a strongman.

The worse things seem, the more convincing is Trump’s case for an authoritarian like him to take over. “I’d get it done in one day.” “I am your voice.” “Leave it all to me.”

Focusing on government dysfunction ignores Biden’s steady hand. This makes America more likely to fall into Trump’s and his allies’ neofascist hands.

As we head into the critical election year of 2024, the mainstream media must adapt to a new political reality: The contest is no longer between Democrats who want more government and Republicans who want less. It is between democracy and fascism.

Black Votes Matter — A LOT!

Posted on by under Election 2024, Global Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, voting rights

Although next year’s election is 346 days away, it is on all of our minds and is likely to be the hot topic in the news for the duration of that time.  Never before in our lifetime has so much hinged on the outcome of one single election.  I wish it weren’t so, I wish we could set it aside until late September of next year, but the reality is we cannot afford to.  Colbert King wrote a good analysis of it in The Washington Post yesterday that I’d like to share with you.  Pay particular attention to his analysis of how Black votes would have likely changed the outcome of the 2016 election.

Trump won’t need more Black votes. He just needs Black voters to stay home again.

By Colbert King

24 November 2023

When we sat down for dinner Thursday, I silently gave thanks that Donald Trump is not president of the United States.

My Thanksgiving Day invocation was inspired by remembrance of Trump’s dreadful presidency. But also by all the mean and ugly things he has said and done — along with his democracy-threatening actions — since his rejection by voters in the 2020 presidential election. (I think attempting to overturn a presidential election qualifies as antidemocratic.)

As a fourth-generation Washingtonian, I’m especially thankful that Trump isn’t in the White House. A vengeful Trump has called for a federal takeover of the District, which he regards as a “dirty, crime-ridden death trap.”

Why else am I thankful Trump’s not in the White House? He has publicly disclosed that if elected, he would consider weaponizing the federal government against those who would oppose his reign. He’s also made it known that he wants to strip career federal employees of civil service protections, to abolish the Education Department and to see more teachers trained to carry concealed weapons.

Trump’s thoughts on the NATO alliance and aid to Ukraine are life preservers to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

There are good and sufficient reasons to be thankful that Trump is running only his mouth, and not the government.

But where will we be in our Thanksgiving Day thoughts next year?

Will we be lifting prayers of thanks because Trump’s current bid for the presidency ultimately failed? Or will we be glumly staring at our plates, bemoaning the fate that awaits us after he takes the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2025?

In whose hands rests the answer? The best place to start is with those most responsible for deciding next year’s presidential election.

President Biden is a seasoned politician, but he might be sizing up the Trump situation all wrong.

Criticizing Trump for bragging on the stump about killing Roe v. Wade, Biden said: “Let’s be clear: The only reason a fundamental right has been stripped away from the American people for the first time in American history is because of Trump.”

Not accurate.

Trump was able to nominate the conservative Supreme Court justices who took a knife to Roe, and also struck down affirmative action programs a year later, because turnout among key Democratic voting blocs fell in the 2016 election, dooming Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the electoral college. Voters who skipped the balloting helped Trump make good on his word.

Trump did as president what he signaled as candidate. I wrote in a September 2016 column, less than two months before Election Day, “Examine [Trump’s] frightening list of right-wing court nominees. Install a Trump White House and say farewell to civil liberties, voting rights, consumer rights and reproductive rights.”

Numbers tell the story.

In 2016, the Black voter turnout rate in a presidential election declined for the first time in 20 years. At 59.6 percent, it was seven percentage points below the 2012 level, the largest decline on record for Black voters. But note well, Barack Obama was on the ballot in 2012 and 2008.

Obama got the turnout. In 2016, Clinton got the shoulder.

She did roll up, as expected, majorities in Black strongholds across the country. But Black voter turnout wasn’t there for her in states where it mattered most.

Trump won Michigan by 11,000 votes. But 277,000 eligible Black people didn’t vote. He won Wisconsin by 23,000 votes, but 93,000 eligible Black voters did not cast ballots. Trump’s 200,000-vote win in Georgia was helped when 530,000 eligible Black voters did not vote. Trump slipped by in North Carolina by a margin of 173,000 votes, while 233,000 Black voters stayed home. Much the same in Pennsylvania, which Trump won by 44,000 votes.

Who knew that better than Trump? Being Trump, he couldn’t just accept the unwarranted help and keep his mouth shut. He attended a mostly White victory rally in Hershey, Pa., in December 2016 and taunted: “They didn’t come out to vote for Hillary. They didn’t come out. And that was a big — so thank you to the African American community.”

Now, Trump’s 2016 campaign was helped by the heaps of negative ads about Clinton targeted to Black Americans by both his campaign and Russian interference in the election — well documented by the Mueller report.

That bit of history gets us back to the question: In whose hands rests the answer to the outcome of next year’s presidential election?

The voters, of course. But as with previous elections, Black voters in important battleground states are a key voting bloc and essential to the Democratic ticket.

And we are hearing echoes of the 2016 Clinton disaster. Flagging enthusiasm amid complaints that Democratic standard-bearer Biden, who can’t help it that he’s not Obama, is a bland motivator who has yet to meet all the Black community’s basic needs.

There’s little talk about a president hamstrung by a closely divided Senate, an extremist Republican House and a 24/7 opposition messaging campaign aimed at discouraging voting for someone of Biden’s age and political moderation. And not much serious thought is being given to the reactionary Republican candidates — as was true in 2016.

Will it work again?

We’ll know by next Thanksgiving.