Tag: Biden

Fumbling the Nuclear Football

W.J. Astore

Being President Is Not a Part-Time Job

Being President of the United States (POTUS) is not a part-time job.

Apologists for Joe Biden suggest that he’s capable of doing the job during normal office hours. Say roughly 10AM to 4PM. But sadly last week’s debate started at 9PM and Biden was tired, he had a cold, and he just couldn’t think and speak clearly and coherently.

So, let’s remind America’s rivals that if they are to launch any attack that might, just might, activate nuclear contingency plans in the Biden administration, they had best do it when the president is capable of clear thinking, which apparently means a six-hour window, Monday through Friday, 10AM-4PM EST.

Seriously, as an American, all my life I’ve been told that being POTUS is the toughest, most demanding, job in the world. That POTUS has in his charge the nuclear “football,” the codes that would unleash America’s awesome, possibly world-destroying, nuclear arsenal, and that therefore the president had to be a person of sound body and of soundest mind. And now I’m being told that Joe Biden, a man in obvious decline, is exactly that person of sound body and of soundest mind to serve another four years as president and commander-in-chief.

The nuclear “football” is actually a briefcase containing the codes needed to authorize and authenticate a nuclear attack

The nuclear football is not something to fumble. Once those missiles are unleashed, there will be no redo.

Joe Biden’s recent debate performance featured sustained moments where he stared blankly into space, where he was obviously confused, where he spoke nonsense. Put bluntly, there were times when he quite literally didn’t know what he was saying.

Sure, Biden isn’t always confused, muddled, or whatever term you care to use to describe obvious mental compromise. But no POTUS can afford to be mentally muddled or compromised because you never know when he or she may be needed to make a decision (under the severest pressure and in a matter of minutes) involving nuclear weapons. It’s an awesome, almost unimaginable responsibility that requires the most stringent vetting of America’s candidates for POTUS.

Today’s Joe Biden is not up to that responsibility. Anyone who says otherwise is denying the evidence of their own eyes and ears.

Standard Disclaimer: This is not in any way an argument for Trump. It’s an argument for a fitter president, right now, and for the Democrats to nominate someone other than Biden to run against Trump this November.

In Last Night’s Biden-Trump Debate, America Lost

W.J. Astore

Two Angry Old Men Tell Us Much About America

Last night’s political debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump was a sad spectacle. Clearly, Biden performed poorly. Trump, I suppose, was Trump. The CNN post-debate commentators were universal in saying the Democratic Party is panicking after Biden’s appearance and performance, almost as if they were reading from the same script. It’s finally OK in the mainstream media to state what’s been obvious for years: that Biden is simply too old and infirm to serve as president for another four years. Look for Biden to be replaced as the Democratic candidate, though how gracefully remains to be seen.

Neither candidate did well in last night’s debate

Biden started poorly and never fully recovered. He walked out haltingly. His voice was raspy. He was arguably over-prepared, talking too fast, spouting too much detail, looking confused. A low point came when he lost his train of thought and then concluded by saying “We finally beat Medicare.” Trump pounced. If this had been a fight, the referee would have stopped it then and there.

There’s a catchphrase from a Clint Eastwood movie that “A man’s got to know his limitations.” Biden doesn’t know them, not anymore, and the people around him are doing him a grave disservice in continuing to push him forwards, in continuing to prop him up. It’s time for Biden to retire, to be a one-term president, which was initially the plan when he ran and won in 2020.

After the debate, Trump walked grumpily off the stage. Biden stood there, seemingly at a loss, until Jill Biden came and guided him carefully down a few steps to greet the moderators.

The debate itself was a charisma-free zone. Both men spent most of their time bashing the other. It was a house of frowns. As I watched and took notes, I wrote this: Biden and Trump trade insults while America burns.

In a rare burst of pseudo-agreement, Trump and Biden both said their opponent was the worst president in U.S. history. Both also had surprisingly weak and inept closing statements.

That being said, Biden and Trump did offer a sharp contrast. Biden continues to assert America is the envy of the world, the best country bar none, with the finest military in all of human history. For Trump, America is a failing state, a “sick” country, akin to a “rat’s nest,” overrun with illegal immigrants.

Turning to foreign affairs, both men eagerly supported Israel, with Trump going the extra mile in saying he wants Israel to finish the job in Gaza, the job being genocide of the Palestinians there. Interestingly, Dana Bash, the CNN moderator, said only that Israel’s massive offensive in Gaza had killed “thousands” of Palestinians. She, of course, said nothing of ethnic cleansing or genocide, and neither did the candidates. Pro-Palestinian protests went unmentioned.

“We’re a seriously failing nation,” Trump said, and he’s right about that. The problem is that Biden is too old to run again and Trump remains temperamentally unfit to serve as a public servant at any level. Both men toward the end got into an argument about their respective golf handicaps. It was really that bad—and that out of touch with the needs and concerns of workers and families across America.

If Trump Wins, Resist Him!

W.J. Astore

Because Democracy

These are strange times in America. Today the New York Times is telling me there’s already a movement afoot to resist Donald Trump if he wins the election, in the cause of defending democracy, naturally. Here’s the blurb:

Top News

The Resistance to a New Trump Administration Has Already Started

An emerging coalition that views Donald J. Trump’s agenda as a threat to democracy is laying the groundwork to push back if he wins in November, taking extraordinary pre-emptive actions.

Now, as I’ve said on numerous occasions, I won’t be voting for Trump or Biden. I’m not a Trump supporter and I hope he loses. Yet, assuming the election isn’t “rigged,” as Trump likes to say whenever he loses, I’m prepared to accept the result as an expression of democracy, or at least as much “democracy” as the electoral college in America permits us to express.

I’m glad an “emerging coalition” is planning something, apparently, to curb the worst excesses of Trump and the Republicans. I hope this coalition will act to end Israel’s genocide in Gaza, pursue diplomacy to end the Russia-Ukraine War, pursue peace wherever and whenever possible, lower the threat of nuclear war on the planet, and cut the Pentagon budget while rebuilding America. How about fighting for America’s workers, raising the minimum wage, providing affordable health care for all that’s untied to employment, and similar steps that put the health and welfare of people first.

Or, is this “emerging coalition” motivated purely by animus against Trump and his followers? Is it still going to fully fund the Pentagon and wage war across the globe? In which case I’m not so excited.

Again, I come back to this question: If an “emerging coalition” is so worried about a Trump victory, why not put forward a candidate more fit to beat Trump than Joe Biden? Don’t “resist” Trump after he’s already won again—defeat him at the polls by putting forth a dynamic candidate with a populist worker-first platform.

I’m with James Madison that the biggest threat to liberty and freedom in America is perpetual war. War breeds authoritarianism and weapons built in the name of war represent, as Dwight D. Eisenhower famously said in 1953, a theft from the people. Weapons do not represent an “investment”; quite the reverse. And incessant preparations for war are not a recipe for peace.

If you truly want to defend democracy, resist war and the authoritarianism it breeds. Make major cuts to the Pentagon budget and invest in education and health rather than death and destruction. That’s the “emerging coalition” I’d like to see.

Trump Paying Stormy Means Biden Wins?

W.J. Astore

The Absurdity of Democratic “Strategy”

The vacuity of Democratic strategy is astonishing if you take at face value the claim that a Trump victory this November will “end democracy.” Apparently, Trump paying Stormy Daniels $130K in hush money, after which some creative accounting obscured the source of the payoff, renders him “unfit for office.” And that claim is now a “top 2024 issue” for Democrats, as The New York Times notes here:

Democrats Push Biden to Make Trump’s Felonies a Top 2024 Issue

Interviews with dozens of Democrats reveal a party hungry to tell voters that Donald Trump’s conviction makes him unfit for office, and hopeful that President Biden will lead the way.

Meanwhile, this was the lead headline in the NYT “top news” send-out this morning:

A Felon in the Oval Office Would Test the American System

Some are wondering how the Constitution’s checks and balances, meant to hold presidents accountable, would work if the next president elected were already a felon.

“Some are wondering”: What a vapid phrase!

I think there are more severe “tests” of the “American system.” How about a president enabling a genocide in Gaza, for example?

If you want to beat Donald Trump this November, how about running a more attractive, more dynamic, more charismatic, more populist and popular, candidate? Whatever else Biden is, he is very much lacking in dynamism even as his actions render him increasingly unpopular among key segments of the Democratic base.

My wife jokingly said today: Just what we need, another election featuring two tired and seriously old white guys. She has a point. It’s not that Trump is now a felon that renders him allegedly unfit. Trump is, in my view, constitutionally unsuited for the presidency. Biden, in contrast, is a fading political hack who will be 82 years of age at the end of this year. Yet, this is what the “American system” produces. Maybe that “system” needs an overhaul?

So, which tired and seriously old white guy do you want to vote for this year?

JFK in 1963. Read his famous “peace speech” at American University

It seems hard to believe that in my lifetime we had a young, dynamic, and visionary president, JFK, who was 43 years of age when elected. A president who grew in office, rather than fading. A president who in 1963 made a commitment to pursuing peace with the Soviet Union. A man with flaws, but also one with potential.

Of course, the DNC with its superdelegates has created a system to deny anyone like a JFK (or even RFK Jr.) any chance at securing the nomination. Only corporate stooges need apply. That has allowed a populist-fraud like Trump to emerge from the right, a billionaire who poses as a man of the people. That Trump’s claim is plausible to so many is a measure of how far the Democratic Party has fallen.

It’s already been a very long election cycle, and it’s only early June. Five more months of total BS to go, America.

“Order Must Prevail”

W.J. Astore

Biden denounces violence, destruction, and hate, but only in America

President Biden read a short statement today in which he stated “order must prevail” across America. Sometimes squinting at the teleprompter and occasionally slurring his words, Biden said there’s no place for violence, destruction, and hate in America. Apparently, there is a place for violence, destruction, and hate in Gaza, as his administration continues to send more bullets and bombs to Israel in its war of annihilation there, but no matter.

Follow this link for Biden’s statement.

The best part of Biden’s statement came at the end, when he was asked if student protests had changed his mind at all. “No,” Biden replied.

Who says Joe Biden can’t speak simply, clearly, and honestly?

Biden puts a premium on order in his short statement on campus protests

An important point I was reminded of as I read Helen Benedict at TomDispatch today is how campus protests and coverage of the same in the U.S. is being used to obscure ongoing mass death and suffering in Gaza. The mainstream media here loves a good domestic “law and order” issue featuring controversy and (limited) violence, but forget about honest coverage of massive destruction in Gaza and mass murder of Palestinians.

In sum, Biden has always been a law and order man, with an emphasis on order, boasting of using police and prisons for social control. So his stance today was totally predictable—and totally retrograde and unproductive.

Biden, who in 2018 confessed he had no empathy for youth today and their complaints about tough times, is certainly showing that he indeed has no empathy for them.

It’s Such a Strange Time in America

W.J. Astore

I went to a political debate and a hockey game broke out

America is in deep trouble, yet this year’s election is a rerun of 2020, of Biden against Trump, a singularly uninspiring “choice” for the presidency.

With respect to Biden, his handlers are doing their best to isolate him, to control his campaign events, and to limit the questions he has to face. Consider this example:

A Biden campaign aide says the president will take a few questions, and other staffers immediately step in to put an end to the event. No unscripted questions allowed!

Then there’s Trump. His campaign appearances are more unhinged than unscripted as Trump rails against immigrants, stolen elections, and various nasty people he doesn’t like. Trump is a collection of petty grievances.

An aspect of Trump’s personality that intrigues me is his almost complete inability to laugh. Rarely if ever do you see him enjoying a good laugh, and never at his own expense. The most you’ll get from Trump is a Cheshire-cat-like grin. He may be a “very stable genius,” but he’s largely a humorless one. His idea of humor is making fun of or insulting other people, notably women, for being ugly or otherwise unattractive to his alpha male gaze.

Meanwhile, both major parties, Republican and Democrat, seem most concerned to attack and vilify the other as extremist, as fascist, as un-American, or otherwise beyond the pale. I went to a political rally and a hockey game broke out. Seriously, last night’s game between the New Jersey Devils and New York Rangers features a line brawl that started as soon as the puck dropped. That’s basically our political scene today.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/phGAeWcsSw8?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

The Morally Bankrupt Biden Administration

W.J. Astore

Plenty of more bombs for Israel, together with billions in warplanes

The Biden reelection campaign tells me to fear MAGA and Donald Trump. I fear the Biden administration and its moral bankruptcy.

It’s been a grim 48 hours in the Middle East, as summarized here by Caitlin Johnstone:

In the span of just a few hours we learned that Israel committed a horrific massacre at al-Shifa hospital, struck an Iranian consulate in Syria killing multiple Iranian military officers, and killed a vehicle full of international aid workers in an airstrike. This murderous regime is out of control.

Out of control, indeed. The Biden administration claims it’s frustrated with the Netanyahu government, so how does it show its frustration? By approving the sale of more F-35 jets to Israel, together with more bombs to turn what’s left of Gaza into rubble. Just what Israel needs: 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs. That’s 1.8 kilotons of bombs right there, added to a bomb tonnage against Gaza that has already reached Hiroshima and Nagasaki levels. But I guess it’s OK if you drop thousands of bombs rather than just two atomic bombs.

It’s OK: Israel used a lot of “Made in USA” bombs to do this, not just a couple of atomic bombs.

Meanwhile, I saw this morning that the Biden administration is pressing to sell up to 50 newly built F-15 jets to Israel, a sale that will require Congressional approval. Not to worry—that sale will be approved.

Way to punish Israel, Joe Biden!

Even Trump, who’s professed his love of Israel, is not as slavishly obedient to Netanyahu as Biden is.

And the Palestinians in Gaza? They simply don’t matter, else the Biden administration wouldn’t be providing all those bombs and warplanes to Israel.

We need regime change in Washington, D.C.

MAGA, however, isn’t the answer. We don’t need to make America great again. We need to make America moral, ethical, compassionate, and humane. MAMECH?

More Weapons for Israel’s Genocide in Gaza

W.J. Astore

Focus on Reality, Not Kayfabe

In my email this morning is this short synopsis from Reuters:

US will send more bombs and warplanes to Israel

  • Details: The new arms package is worth billions of dollars and contains more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, sources said. President Joe Biden on the same day said he was devastated by the suffering of the people Israel is bombing in the Gaza Strip and that “we must also pause to reflect on the pain being felt by so many in the Arab American community with the war in Gaza.”

All credit to Reuters for juxtaposing those two items. As President Biden claims he is “devastated” by the Palestinian people and their suffering in Gaza, he’s sending Israel more bombs to devastate Palestinians in Gaza.

If the U.S. government were truly against genocide, it would stop sending genocide-enabling weapons to Israel. If Biden were truly frustrated by Bibi Netanyahu, an arms embargo would be an effective way to show it. But the Biden-Netanyahu spat is kayfabe, a staged event that we’re supposed to pretend is true.

Let’s pretend this is real and unscripted

Kayfabe is a useful concept from the world of “professional” wrestling. Bibi is now being set up as the bad guy, with Biden as something like a good guy, trying to get Bibi to moderate his behavior.

Very few people are fooled by this nonsense. Much more importantly, people in Gaza are dying while this staged nonsense is shoved in our faces by the corporate-owned media.

Extreme MAGA Extremists

W.J. Astore

The latest fear-raising fundraising letter from President Biden

I got another fundraising letter from Joe Biden and it’s a doozy. The words “extreme” and “extremist” are used a dozen times to describe MAGA Republicans. Other words used to describe Trump and MAGA include dangerous, threats, vengeance, vindictiveness, trample (“the American way of life as we know it”), and smashed (as in a MAGA movement that allegedly seeks to smash and destroy democracy).

Now, I’m no fan of Trump. He’s a con man, not a public servant, and I won’t vote for him. Even so, this Biden fundraising letter is the equivalent of promising a bloodbath if Trump gets elected again later this year.

I can’t recall a presidential campaign like the Biden/Harris effort. Its message is almost entirely negative. It’s based on fear. Fear of Trump, fear of MAGA, fear of “extremism.” There’s almost no hope and no promise of substantive changes for the better. It’s a singular message: Vote for Joe because Trump and his followers are very very bad.

This latest fundraising letter embraces Hillary Clinton’s rhetoric that Trump’s followers are irredeemable deplorables. It encourages Americans to fear their neighbors if they happen to wear a MAGA cap and support Trump. It stokes division rather than encouraging unity. And I simply don’t think it’s effective politics.

Biden’s message is simple: Vote for me because the other guy is even worse. Now I’m seeing claims from the Democrats that Trump is even more physically enfeebled and mentally confused than Biden.

If Biden loses this November, surely it will be due to a campaign that has no compelling and positive message to motivate and inspire people to vote for him. It’s just not enough, I think, to run on a message of fear.

“Fear MAGA extremism” isn’t enough

A Clash of Dinosaurs Marks the End of Empire

W.J. Astore

Joe Biden versus Donald Trump, again. That’s America’s choice in 2024.

Biden is mainly running to “save democracy” from Trump as well as on abortion rights. Trump is running on a MAGA platform that includes stopping the flow of “illegals” into America. You’re going to hear a lot about Biden’s age and Trump’s alleged designs for a dictatorship.

It’s Biden versus Trump again!

The presence of third-party candidates might enliven the race. Jill Stein is running again for the Green Party. She has good ideas but virtually no chance. Robert Kennedy Jr. may cause some excitement. especially if he chooses former governor Jesse Ventura as his running mate. Americans, unexcited by the Biden/Trump repeat, could conceivably vote in large numbers for RFK Jr.

As grim as the Biden/Trump repeat is, it does capture the end of the American empire. I’ve been reading an interesting book: “The Leading Man: Hollywood and the Presidential Image,” by Burton Peretti. Image may not be everything for a U.S. president, but it surely is vitally important. Biden and Trump capture something of the essence of America today. Biden, obviously in decline, is thoroughly obedient to corporate and banking entities, special interests like AIPAC, and the military-industrial complex. He is the “nothing will fundamentally change” guy.

If Biden were a dinosaur, he’d be a steady, stolid, past-his-prime triceratops.

Trump, with all his bluster, his boasting, his bragging, his bullying, is the image of a swaggering imperium that refuses to recognize its time has come and gone. Self-involved, bent on vengeance, spoiling for a fight against his enemies, real and perceived, he is the image of an angry America blinded by perceived slights and grievances, always demanding respect rather than earning it.

If Trump were a dinosaur, he’d be a predatory, angry, carnage-seeking T-rex.

Trump and Biden frame the other as a danger to democracy when it’s the both of them who demonstrate democracy is just a sham.  More than half of Americans said in 2021 they didn’t want to see a Biden/Trump rematch in 2024, but here we are. The DNC acted to ensure Biden had no real challenger and the RNC sold its soul to Trump, who has an ability to connect with people because he occasionally blurts out an uncomfortable truth, even as he’s spinning his usual con.

One thing is certain: It’s very difficult to reform entrenched power bureaucracies, especially when we’re given an illusion of “choice,” Biden or Trump. And when we’re so heavily propagandized to believe that we still have a democracy and that the biggest threats come from Russia and China.

As Yoda the Jedi Master once said, “You must unlearn what you have learned.” America needs to unlearn the idea that we’re a democracy, that we have choice, and it needs to learn the biggest threat to America is from within, partly our largely unaccountable government and partly a system that places nearly all the power in the hands of those with the most money.

How to effect a democratic awakening, without shedding barrels of blood, is a question for the ages. One thing is certain: no awakening is coming from either Biden or Trump. Both will ensure the further decline of the American empire; the problem is that, as empires decline, they tend to lash out militarily, in desperation, mistaking military action for a resurgence in strength and vitality.

Biden or Trump: Neither man has what it takes to manage the decline of the U.S. imperium. Neither man has the wisdom, the vision, the fortitude, to imagine a new path forward for America. Both men, in their own way, are dinosaurs.

It’s Triceratops Biden versus T-rex Trump. What drama! But both men are fossils—dinosaurs, after all, are extinct, much like democracy in America.