McConnell’s freezes complicate Republican attacks on Biden’s age
nbcnews.com
Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell struck up a friendship during their nearly quarter-century in the Senate together. Now in their 80s, the Democratic president and the Senate GOP leader appear to be giving political cover to each other as they fend off questions about their advanced age and health issues.
Notably, McConnell, R-Ky., 81, hasn’t joined Donald Trump, 77, and other Republicans who have attacked Biden’s age, health and mental acuity as he seeks re-election.
And after McConnell’s second freeze-up last week, Biden was one of the first to call McConnell, telling reporters that his “friend” sounded like “his old self” and that such episodes are a “part of his recovery” from a fall and a concussion this year.
No they really don't. They'll talk about Biden's "obvious mental decline" and they'll just not talk at all about Mitch's very public 30 second Journeys Beyond the Stars. They'll absolutely say Biden is too old but that Trump, who is only 3 years younger, isn't. The right is absolutely capable of that level of doublethink. Stop assuming anything matters to them other than getting power they can use to hurt people. They don't care about policy. They don't care about seeming like hypocrites. They've been whipped into a paranoid frenzy and they'll do anything they need to do in order to hurt the people they're afraid of. Start looking at their behavior through that lens and see if it doesn't start to make a lot of sense to you.
I think Trump is younger. He's a monster, but still younger than Biden.
Yup, Biden is 3 years older than trump.
I don't see any mental decline... Biden has always been a gaffe machine and he has a stutter he struggles to suppress. He's the same as ever.
While on the other side, Trump seems to be already through with his mental decline...
And Biden still jogs & bikes.
Trump doesn’t exercise which means his battery remains fuller than Biden, who frivolously depletes his battery through exercise. Humans have a finite amount of energy and you have to conserve it (this is an actual thing he believes.)
He might gaffe but he's not wrong lol
My mistake, edited. Ty!
Indeed, so if Trump was theoretically elected, he'd be the oldest elected president of all time, beating Joe from 2020 lol.
He's also wildly unhealthy, and if his lifestyle is to be believed, he probably should've died years ago. The only thing keeping him going is fake tan, hair dye, and hate.
Biden is too old, but he at least looks somewhat healthy.
I do have to admit, after getting concussed I also appeared to freeze but I was thinking hard of what the right word is to say next.
That said, probably anyone in concussion recovery should be on leave from legislating. The brain will heal more slowly, and your work will be of poor quality.
That's all before getting into the actual politics of having a gerentocracy.
I know a lot of people have talked a out adding an age limit, but it seems to me most of the ancient ones are skating by on incumbent effect. If we had term limits it would resolve that. Alternatively something like the Virginia Gubernatorial rules where you cannot hold the position successively.
I have the same occasional issue with forgetting words after a TBI, and have worked with people in recover who have it much worse than I. It's an interesting outcome when simple words just cannot be recalled. To fabricate an example; I know what this object is, a tool for writing, it's in my hand, it has ink, but what the hell is it called. (a pen) - it can be for the most mundane and common words.
However; I don't go slackjaw and become completely nonresponsive for 10-20 seconds. This guy needs to be in medical care.
You're right, it's never as long as this. I am young, though so I don't know how it would show in an ancient man hahaha.
I don't see the appeal in insisting everything is fine. I would rather see my leaders saying "hey, I don't feel good so I'm going to take some time to get healthy".
The hubris of man
I appreciated that about Fetterman. I feel as though he presented his injury as something humans go through. He will continue his job, at times with assistance, and do the best he is able. He didn't need to step down and he is not incapable of doing his job, but he has a flaw and is honest of it.
I dunno I don't feel good about setting laws about who should be eligible to run for public office. The voters should decide who is eligible and who isn't.
Yeah there's a lot of dumb voters out there, but the general idea that we're smarter than the voters and therefore need to make laws that supersede the voters feels wrong to me.
I think the problem of voters being dumb is just something we have to accept about democracy.
Voters being dumb and electing incumbent yet incapable people is not just democracy, but populism. Especially when those in power have been in power for so long that they meddle in education funding to keep said voters dumb
Democracy and populism are mutually exclusive?
Improving education is indeed the solution to the problem. And it's a thing that is more likely to happen than a law prohibiting those currently in power from running again.
IMO it's useless talking about what laws or policies need to change to fix this because the people with the power to change it know that doing so will affect their ability to stay in power and just won't change it to their detriment. It's the same reason protesting won't ever fix the fundamental issues. The people currently at the top aren't just going to hand their power away or cripple their ability to easily generate or access wealth. If it comes to it, they'll go to war before giving that up.
Then it follows that it's also useless to even discuss such things on the internet. So why even bring up these topics if it's impossible to change anything?
Or are you just spending time posting on the internet in an attempt discourage others from trying to improve things?
Solving a problem requires understanding it. I'm not trying to discourage improvement but want more people to see what I see about the nature of what's going on and how many of these flaws in the system aren't seen that way by the people who pass the laws and make the policies.
That's the beauty of the "can't hold the position consecutively" rule.
It doesn't matter what age, party, or how long you've been in office.
You can always run for a different office, or wait for the next term to run again.
Might be a bit weird with the House.
I don't know either. It feels shortsighted and bigoted to do things like that. The issue is that when votes in Kentucky vote the rest of us have to endure how they vote. Term limits could and should be tried. So even when the voters make a mistake the mistake doesn't linger around.
It would solve a lot of problems of the Senate if we set the term limit to 0.
The solution is simply better education. Which solves a lot of problems beyond codgers like Mitch McConnell. There are plenty of other terrible people running for office that wouldn't be prevented from doing so by such laws. But these terrible people wouldn't have a chance of winning an election in a better educated population.
Literally just yesterday Fox had some other attack piece on Biden and the picture they used of Biden he looked totally zonked-out.
McConnell's walking-dead impersonation changes nothing for Republicans. Hypocrisy means nothing to those people.
Fox is so fucking bizarre. I mean, everyone hears about it, but unless you're stuck in some type of torture chamber where you can't switch the channel, you just can't comprehend how overt and low effort the fake propaganda is on there. It blows my mind every year or three when I get stuck somewhere where it's on.
You'd be surprised at the number of American households that voluntarily put themselves in such a torture chamber
I have a couple friends who's older family members just run Fox 24/7. And from what they tell me, it's not fun having family members like that. I feel very lucky.
It is not. Before Fox we had Alex Jones, Coast-to-Coast, Imus, and Rush on all the time at my house growing up. Mom would get really angry if you tried to turn the radio volume lower. Of course we lived in the middle of nowhere so it was mostly static. It was this constant background noise of my childhood.
I can still remember being about 6 or so and asking my mom "what did liberals do to that man to make him so angry all the time?". Pretty sure it was Rush I was referring to but might have been some other screaming radio guy. My dad lost it when Imus said something bigoted, and got fired. I endured two weeks of rants about it.
Part of the reason why I avoid talking about politics around my kids. I am a bit leftwing and that is my thing, my kids don't need to be captive audiences to me about this stuff. Besides we got Legos and woodwork to do.
The same people who voluntarily put themselves in that torture chamber then tell me that Fox "has really gone downhill" so they've gotta get their Newsmax. Totally disconnected from the reality of the world.
What annoys me is their main demographics are about the same age. I would have thought moving the elderly while begging for their vote was a bad idea but I guess that is why I am not in politics.
This would be devastating if conservatives cared at all about hypocrisy or logical consistency.
No one over 70, period. Go home. Retire. Make way.
Keep in mind that includes Bernie Sanders.
And that would be okay.
It's so weird how everyone expects progressives to be just as hypocritical as moderates and conservatives...
Bernie would 100% be down for it and immediately pivot to outreach or something else if he could hold office.
He's been saying he's not more important than the movement for decades now
I'm by no means obsessed with the guy, but one thing really solidified my respect for him: before I ever knew who he was he always would show up in a random documentary if US government was ever spoken about, and he was always on the "right side" of whatever the documentary was about. Then in the run up to 2016 he shows up and I'm like "holy crap it's that guy!"
Bernie is an ineffectual, failure of a career politician who can't get anything done, not even rally the support of his own party, let alone the whole country. He's a dinosaur who has been too long in politics and lives a few rungs above us all on the ladder and has no idea how we really live.
We need someone young and capable to rally behind, forget Bernie.
Literally what Bernie has been saying for 20 years champ, glad you agree with him
Yet HE ran for president and failed. If Bernie wants young blood, why the fuck was he running?
What he said...
Raising awareness for the progressive cause, and motivating the youth to participate in politics. Not just voting in the general, but voting in the primary and running for office.
You've got really strong opinions about him, but don't seem to know anything about him.
It really seems like the two of you agree on a lot. You're just really uninformed...
Who, pray tell, should have run in his place on his platform?
It is a failure of our system that a populist candidate without his name recognition would have no chance against the incredibly well-funded corporate shill neoliberals/conservatives we usually have to choose between.
About a hundred of his amendments made it in various bill proposal. A bunch of which became laws. You can't really blame him for the broken party system in which he's not even taking part. One man can't single handly fix congress
If he can't fix the broken system then he's useless to us
Gee, I had no idea that it was his responsibility alone to run this government.
The u.s has a sickness. You guys are such sycophants for your politicians. It's like watching a sports team fandom, but for politics.
Answer him you coward
There is no answer to cult fandom. The u.s is two cults, one more conservative than the other and when you call out a democrat they immediately go tribal and call you a right winger, without thinking that to me you're the one who is way too fucking conservative.
You guys will blame each other for everything the government does, while saying "it's not my guys fault, he's only president he has no power!" With a straight face. You guys are fucked, utterly fucked if you've gone tribal and thrown up Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders as your examples of what politics should be.
I'm not American so I don't have a horse in the race beyond how much your country's sick politics infect mine. You guys are all gross. Stop defending billionaires and politicians.
But you didn’t call anyone out. You made an ignorant statement, and then deflected when you were confronted.
The irony of going on a "both sides" rant because you were called on your bullshit on an independent senator out of all things. One of the few 2 or 3 senator that isn't part of this tribal cult you're going on about. You really sound like an ignorant stupid person tbh.
Maybe you’d should read a book on political movements.
While I agree he didn't do much from a legislative point of view, calling him a failure is missing the fact that he represented a voice that's rarely heard in American politics, which might have paved the way people like AOC or Fetterman. Also the fact that he still holds the same views after 30 years is something that can serve as an antidote to cynicism. He's an inspiring figure to many, and inspiration is important in politics.
but he alone didnt change legislation (in a democracy) therefore he's a failure
The ignorance of this comment is astounding
Yes just like the anti-abortionists failed again and again until they succeeded in taking away rights. Building a movement takes time, especially if it’s not flush with corporate money.
Correct. Bernie needs to retire
Age limit tied to Social Security retirement age and joining the military, voting, smoking, and drinking tied to the same age (18 or 21, take your pick). We either need to say people are of the appropriate age to do these things, or not. This cherry-picking bullshit has to go. Also, term limits. The constitution wasn't meant for a congressperson or senator to be in the same seat for 40+ years.
If only there was some sort of system by which voters could choose who their candidates are. Like before the general election parties could have internal elections to decide the candidates.
They could call it like a "First election" or even a "Primary election."
At this point it is economically unfeasible for anyone under 40, unless you are an affluent trust fund baby, to pay all the money required to run for a presidential campaign.
This is why it's always skewed towards old white men (hint: they can afford losing millions).
Literally no one ever has paid all of the money required to run a Presidential Campaign.
Sounds like you can easily run for president then, eh? Hypothetically speaking, if you were forced by gunpoint to run, what's stopping you in particular?
My criminal history wouldn't play well with voters. Small time drug possession, misdemeanor. It's since been expunged (hence me having my current job), but that doesn't mean it wouldn't come up.
Fun fact: I was actually offered the opportunity to run for state gov by my states party, and turned it down due to aforementioned criminal history.
I don't know what fucking fantasy reality you live in where no criminals run for office; we the attorney General of Texas, George Santos indictment, Americas mayor Rudy Juliani indictment, fucking Trump. We can keep going on literally forever listing criminal pieces of shit who have been in government positions.
Your argument here is failing.
You're describing situations that the public very much is aware of.
I'm not concerned with getting in trouble. I was concerned with winning the election and I know who my potential constituents would have been and their feelings on marijuana possession.
It's on the ballot to be recreational in my state so maybe I'll revisit after that passes, as the optics would improve significantly.
I'm not interested in running an already-uphill campaign with an albatross around my neck. Consider that, as a potential candidate, I have superior knowledge of my electorate than some random dude who doesn't even know where I live.
Judging from the Republicans presidential candidates debate, the selection is limited to idiots, stupid idiots, and dangerous idiots.
That's who their voters want. You're mad at republican voters. I don't know why people don't realize that.
I am constantly angry at ignorant, uneducated, rural retards. Yes, you are correct.
As long as you take Bernie with you. As a liberal I hate the hypocrisy of calling for term limits, while rallying behind Bernie, an ineffectual career politician who can't get shit done and is all nice soundbites. He's also a dinosaur.
IMHO Bernie is best suited to be an advisor or advocate, if he wants to continue.
For sure. He's got great ideas, but he doesn't have that thing that makes people want to rally behind him. Like I mentioned, he couldn't even get his own party's nomination, which means he would have gotten wrecked in Presidential election.
Tell me more about politics please.
No they don't.
It's incredible how fucking stupid news media is, huh?
And that’s the problem. People aren’t well informed because of their sources. Media literacy/ skepticism/ critical thinking should be taught throughout our education. But that would transform the whole system , so it won’t. If you know how to do it, pass it on.
Imagine what a cakewalk it would be if the Democrats could scrape up a viable candidate under 65
democrats don't want to win all the time, then they'd have to do stuff and keep improving
Wait. Trump, three years younger than Biden, is attacking Biden on his age?
Trump also thinks he's 215 pounds.
I'm 6'2 230 lbs and I look WAY slimmer than Trump. He is lying about all of it.
My guess is if you took away the lift shoes and actually measured the guy he'd be a bit shy of 6 foot and well over 300
He was already attacking Biden on his age during the election. At the age Trump now is.
Why do Democrats keep entertaining the notion that rank hypocrisy will ever be a dealbreaker for Republicans? They have decades of evidence to the contrary.
See also: finally, this heinous act will make Republicans see the light and abandon the assholes manipulating them!
There's a 4 year age gap between Trump and Biden. Funny how 4 years ago Trump was saying Biden was too old for the job...
If trump were smart, (lol, bear with me) he would say "people didn't mind voting for Biden at this age, so they shouldn't mind me at this age either. But I promise not to run after the age of 80, unlike that frail old man who just wants to hide in his basement" or some shit like that. He lies all the fucking time, so he has nothing to lose and everything to gain by spinning that just a little bit.
If Trump were smart, he would have also said "we have the best scientists, and I only hire the best, you know, my personal friend Dr Fauci agrees with me that all patriots should wear masks to beat the China virus, and we're going to have beautiful vaccines, the very very best vaccines, and we're gonna use so much of them you won't believe how great we are at beating this virus, we're gonna be sick of being healthy." and would probably have handily won reelection.
I mean, he did at first. Lmao and then (idk the order in which it happened) he flipped with his base to "vaccines will give you rabies and chemically castrate you" when they started coming out. He initially bragged about how fast he was helping companies develop the vaccine, then it came out and he decided to trash them
They celebrate Operation Warp Speed at the same time they talk about being "pure blooded" lmao
These people do not have brains.
what a timeline that would be
Not only that, but he could've made millions off of red maga facemasks too. All he had to do was let the experts run the shit they're experts in while taking credit for putting the right people on top of it. The election wouldn't have even been close. It would've been like the Reagan reelection.
These are people that have mastered doublethink, there is absolutely no such complication for people inside the GOP bubble. For everyone else, yeah, it's one more minor bit of hypocrisy, but it's not even a thing for the bleach-koolaid drinkers.
No it doesn't, because the same people complaining about Biden are usually masters of doublethink anyway.
Well it's not like they both arent too old or anything...
The choice is between a kindly (somewhat weird) old man and a mean, petty (and extremely weird) old man.
I hate to break it to everyone, but we're all weird. You just stop trying to hide it at a certain age, or forget to. But yes, Biden weird and Trump weird are two different universes.
Yeah really. Biden might sniff your hair, Trump wants to sniff his daughter's pubic hair.
I paid with my phone in the grocery store today and the 80yo behind me was mind blown.
Yeah bruh, I’ll take Brandon over any traitor republican.
I’ll take my neighbors over any rich ass hole.
You have to have a sense of irony for that to be true, and conservatives tend to lack a sense of irony.
They also don't care about hypocrisy. So shit like this doesn't phase them one bit, yet MSM still hasn't gotten the memo lol.
Why do we get Biden? Is there NO other democrat that can beat Trump, etc? None whatsoever?
The Dems need to stop fighting one election at a time. They're fighting on their back foot!
There are at least 2 other democrats in the running that could beat Trump that are polling >10%, but the DNC won't allow debates. If the DNC believed in Biden, they should allow debates to show all of us that he's competent.
Dnc has been entirely fucked since they froze out Bernie. That's why Trump won.
Who are those 2?
I'm assuming they are talking about Kennedy and Williamson. Which are absolute batshit insane people that have no chance at beating trump. They say a lot of progressive stuff that sounds great but then you find out the crystal healthcare program and that anti semitism
Yeah RFK is a joke and is bankrolled by the far right. Republicans like him more than Dems. Calling him a serious contender is a joke and a half.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/rfk-jr-democrat-republican-primary-favorability/
Trumps age complicate republican attacks on bidens age...
More than anything I just hope this could get the US term limits. If an older person gets elected so be it, but let's get rid of people serving in Congress for 20+ years. Two terms Senate, two House gets you twenty years, that is long enough and follows the existing model with the Presidency.
Amen to that.
There's a few good dynasty reps, but for every one good one it seems like there's 4-5 bad ones.
Being a representative is not supposed to be a career job. You can't represent the people if you haven't been one of the people for 20+ years and you have no idea what life in your district is actually like.
Plus there's a natural predisposition to re-elect incumbents. Thus you get dinosaurs like McConnell and Pelosi who both should be in nursing homes but they stick around because they have seniority. These people are not doing a good job of representing the will of their constituents, if only because it's been longer than anyone can remember since they've been one of those constituents.
This exactly. This is at the heart of so much of the corruption. Someone in public service shouldn't be able to make it a life time appointment and come out 100s of millions in net worth.
Bought and sold by corp interest all along the way. It becomes a lot harder to purchase power when there's a regular rotation of new people every 4-8 years
You make a good point- along with term limits there has to be something to prevent a revolving door of people going between government regulating industry and the industry they regulate. An insider trading law for Congress is a good start- if not requiring investments to go into a blind trust, to at least require Congress representatives and spouse to publicly declare all holdings and trades so insider trading would be obvious.
I'd really like to make elections publicly funded though. Get the money out of Washington.
And while we're at it, let's reform primaries by removing them entirely. Let anyone with some number of petition signatures get on the main ballot, and use ranked choice voting so you can vote 'for' the best guy without losing your vote 'against' the worst guy. Then we might actually get some GOOD politicians.
Fundamentally disagree. You are just opening the system to cheaper bribery. Senators like Bernie Sanders would be thrown out even when he has one of the highest approval ratings by his constituents. Term limits do nothing for congress but make said congress people look for their next opportunity after the gig (which is already a problem). Its on voters to make sure candidates like Mitch McConnell or Dianne Feinstein get replaced. The call for term limits is just change for change without any thought on its possible effects. You may ask why do I have this double standard for congress but not the president? The simple answer is there are 100 senators and 435 House Representatives, most people barely fucking know who their senators/reps are but you are just making for a revolving door to disincentivize even caring about them now since eh they are going to disappear in a couple years anyway, the power difference between being the sole power of a branch of government vs being merely a member with either 1/100 or 1/435 the power of the body changes things since congress is far more a collective than any of the other branches.
Do they, though? For that to be true, the following would also have to be true:
The people mad about Hunter Biden making money on his dad's name would also be mad about Trump's kids doing that
The people mad about Obama taking vacations (or golfing) while in office would also have been mad when Trump took more vacation time and golfed more
The people mad about Clinton lying about a blowjob would also be mad about Trump's infidelity and lying
etc.
I'm going with: it doesn't complicate anything. They don't care about their people living up to the standards they demand others live up to, the point for them is that double-standards are a feature, not a bug.
Ok, no attacks. But are we talking about how experience is far less valuable in the age of information and that average cognitive ability peaks at around 30, begins to decline at 45, then - on average - rapidly deteriorates after 70?.. because it definitely seems like something we should be talking about.
Oh ya? Brings to mind this maxim, "there's no substitute for experience like being 16"
Hello, I don't think I'm understanding the maxim correctly. Does it mean that the boldness of youth is better than experience or the other way around?
I take it to mean a 16 year old thinks they know everything and have the whole world figured out.
They’re both too old! And McConnell is a rhino who secretly is best friends with Nacy Pelosi and senator Feinstein. They all sit around together on the weekends babbling, freezing, forgetting where they are and pooping their pants like little babies.
Speaking of shitty ass cancerous Kentucky politicians, whats brother Racist Rand been up to? Sucking Putins old dick?
What do you mean? Rank and file Republicans hate him as much as Biden.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Now in their 80s, the Democratic president and the Senate GOP leader appear to be giving political cover to each other as they fend off questions about their advanced age and health issues.
Notably, McConnell, R-Ky., 81, hasn’t joined Donald Trump, 77, and other Republicans who have attacked Biden’s age, health and mental acuity as he seeks re-election.
McConnell's public health incidents have come as Republicans are ramping up attacks on Biden’s age and mental fitness, a subject voters are expressing major concerns about heading into the 2024 election cycle.
A Wall Street Journal poll out this week found that 73% of registered voters believe Biden is too old to run for president, while 60% said they think he isn’t “mentally up for the job.”
Returning to the Senate this week after the monthlong summer recess, McConnell sought to project a business-as-usual attitude and calm his colleagues’ nerves about his latest health scare.
Immediately after McConnell spoke, one of his former top aides, Steven Law, who runs a McConnell-aligned super PAC, gave a presentation touting strong GOP fundraising numbers — which Hawley described as “a little surprising for the setting.”
The original article contains 1,375 words, the summary contains 190 words. Saved 86%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
You could have stopped after the first sentence. That’s the whole enchilada.
Yeah it cannot be just used on Biden anymore.
When has being hypocritical ever stopped the GOP?
Attacking somebody else for something they do themselves has never been an issue for them before now.
Its supporting evidence to me. Neither should be in office.
how? people vote for the seniors to lead no matter what letter their name starts with or what color their shirt is
but there was noone else on the ballet but the other person with a different name and color would win if we do not vote for this person
Obama and Biden had someone chained to chair for eight hours because she wanted to be on the same debate floor as the demopublicans Biden still got votes https://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/17/green_partys_jill_stein_cheri_honkala
Sickening to hear Biden call McConnell a friend. His fucking serious? Because if he is then means he dumber than thought. Our the whole blue vs red is all theater and they are all playing us for fools. Which is the most likely case.
If you're confused why Joe Biden is doing this, you don't understand the American form of government, how no one party can achieve anything on it's own without consensus, and that the hyper partisan fuck it all Republicans must be wooed, and have their balls cupped, in order to be soothed and tricked into thinking they really don't need to be so destructive, and that is what Joe Biden does, then you don't know much, and you don't know Joe Biden. He's been doing exactly this for the last 5 decades in elected office, and he's really really really fucking good at it.
This. He's not nearly as progressive as I'd like, but he accomplished much more in his first 2 years than I thought he could get done in 2 terms. The railroad strike thing was a massive letdown, but I understand that a major focus in that moment was the state of the economy, and it was very much getting back on track and an industry-wide strike would've resulted in more supply chain shit, more inflation, and damning criticisms that he failed to solve economic woes because he's too weak. He was looking at the bigger picture. A decent person would've supported the strikes, but Jimmy Carter proved that a decent person doesn't make for a very good president. Sometimes, you have to make tough decisions that conflict with your personal beliefs for the good of the entire country.
As an armchair quarterback who doesn't really know the nitty gritty details, I think I would've looked into nationalizing the rail industry entirely. If it's so important to national security that the workers are barred from striking and the companies are running the industry so poorly that even with unions they are skeleton crews with shit benefits and pay with an awful safety record, then those companies have lost the privilege of privatization.
Jimmy Carter would also not have allowed rail workers to illegally strike, in violation of their contract, and in such a way that thousands of people would literally die. That is why their contract forbids striking.
Like Biden, Carter would have sought to continue to address issues regardless of the strike not materializing.
https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid
Then maybe we shouldn't have allowed the railway companies to try and fuck them over into suicide schedules for profit.
Or, and I'm just spitballing here, if the rail companies are that important then maybe they shouldn't be allowed to be run for profit. If they're that critical, maybe they should be GASP nationalized.
Maybe you should be angry at the financiers that bought the companies and forced the workers to run suicide schedules for forcing the workers into a position where they started to feel like they had to strike to have normal human lives.
You're blaming the victims here.
Vote for Congresspeople who will change the law.
I do not appreciate Presidents changing laws on a whim. That's Trumpian horseshit.
I haven't blamed anyone for anything - I've simply explained the end result that occurred, because of Biden, after you stopped paying attention.
If you'd cared enough to continue following the story, I wouldn't need to explain any of these things to you. I knew what to look for because I did care enough to continue following the story.
We've had an imperial presidency since at least bush. If you'd cared enough to pay attention recently, you'd know that legal precedent has already occurred to give the president almost any power they want.
Calling that Trumpian either shows your age, or how long you've cared about this.
Incrementalism is an intentional tactic used by liberals to explain why they can't undo the things the right wing does, and to explain why they can't change things themselves when they are in power.
Liberalism is a fucking disease.
EDIT: Congress sure as shit wasn't required to fuck over all the air traffic controllers. Funny that. Congress is never required to fuck over workers, but it is always an excuse as to why we can't do things for the workers.
"imperial presidency" is not a phrase with any meaning. Imperialism isn't "shit I don't like."
In this case, Congress is literally the authoring body of the contract's binding legislation.
https://www.npr.org/2022/11/30/1139876084/congress-house-railroad-strike-bill
Consider knowing what you're talking about before getting mad about it.
The precedent had been set that the US president can assassinate US Citizens without trial or judicial overview, right?
You know who set that precedent, right? That it wasn't Trump, and there was no talk of impeaching the president that set that precedent, right?
We have a fucking imperialist presidency for the same reason people hated Trump (not a fan, or a right winger, before you accuse me of that.) People hated Trump for violating the norms of the office. Most of the powers Presidents have now are based on executive orders and precedent from previous presidents, not, you know, by actual laws. I am exaggerating for effect here somewhat, but not a lot. But violating norms is not a crime, especially when you don't have clear laws delineating what a president can and can't do. And it apparently isn't a broken norm to assassinate US citizens without a trial. I don't know how you don't consider that an imperial presidency. Or, you're just younger then 40 and haven't been paying attention.
If norms are all that define a position, and you have one side breaking the norms, and the other side following them and whining to a non-existent hall monitor that the other side is breaking, not the rules but the norms, then you get what we have now.
Justifying Democratic presidents not using power they absolutely have because of subsection 6 of paragraph 5 is just a self righteous way to justify why they didn't fight for you when the time came.
A drone strike against a terrorist group is both legal and not an assassination. They didn't isolate that one guy. He was killed while doing terrorist shit with a terrorist group, and the entire group was killed.
In other words, legal. Don't join Al Qaeda if you don't want to be hit by a drone.
Imperialism isn't "violating the norms of office" any more than it is "shit you personally don't like," and the above is not a violation of the norms of office, but rather something the President was given power to do by Congress, twice by that point.
I'm not sure what you wanted Biden to do here when he accomplished his goal without overstepping the bounds of his office, per the union that asked for help.
I wasn't talking about him, I was talking about his two children. Whom were absolutely not members of Al-Qaeda.
Remember, under Obama, the definition of being a terrorist was that you were male, over 14, and you were killed by the U.S.
Being a civilian in the Afghan/Yemen war was a privilege only women were afforded.
Finally, it wasn't Al-Qaeda. I will excuse this one, because you wouldn't know it based on US reporting unless you specifically interested in the Yemeni conflict. The genocide we assisted in perpetrating in Yemen against the people of Yemen who would not/did not ally themselves, and never would with Al-Qaeda for religious reasons. The US did what it did in Yemen under the auspices of the AUMF. Which has, as the one limiting factor, that force be used against countries with an Al-Qaeda presence. Nevermind that they were the ones we were arming and backing in Syria. Nevermind that they didn't REALLY exist in Yemen, and the few that did were imported by 'us' (Saudi Arabia, not the US), and the houthi did fight quite hard against them, and certainly not in the area this individual was killed. Nevermind that the Yemeni 'Government' that was forced in by Saudi Arabia was not accepted as the legit government of the majority of the Yemeni people (hence the reason for the 'civil war'. We had to say they did to give the assistance that Saudi Arabia was demanding. The Yemeni 'government' was literally of puppet of Saudi Arabia that any sane person wouldn't listen to. They accused everyone of being Al-Qaeda because, as puppets of Saudi Arabia, they had explicit instructions on what to say to allow the US to continue supporting their puppet regime. You won't find this in the wikipedia article, by the by, this actually required some thought, analysis, and paying attention to the situation when it was happening.
And no, it was not approved twice by congress. Unless you are again counting the AUMF. which seems a pretty big stretch. That law wasn't written addressing the assassination of US citizens, does not explicitly state anywhere that it can be used for those purposes. Instead, Obama used the law in a way it was written to do something he wanted to do. I.E. he used powers not explicitly given to him to accomplish his goals. Huh. Imagine if his goals were to help workers.
Give me a definition of imperial that we don't fit then. I'm sure I'll enjoy the internal inconsistencies in the definition you give.
I want Biden to use power to help the people, and not the financier owners of the rail companies that exist to siphon of America's productivity like parasites. Because, frankly, there are far less bounds of the office than you are implying. This appeal to notional bounds is what Democrats always do to justify their feckless helplessness when it comes to helping their constituency.
Fuck, you're the definition of 'Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds.'
If you hadn't been wrong almost immediately I may have taken the time to respond to the entire post, but I did catch the end and our conversation is only happening in response to a post in which I showed, with citations, that Biden did use his power to help the people, and that the union in question directly credits him for it.
Anyway here's a page about AQY (AL-Qaeda in Yemen)
https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingmilitants/profiles/al-qaeda-yemen#:~:text=Executive%20Summary%20Al%20Qaeda%20in,the%20Arabian%20Peninsula%20(AQAP).
But then, if you knew things, you wouldn't be dumb enough to think "Lib" is an insult.
Edit: since I already know you won't click the link:
Surely you're not deadnaming AQY by pretending they aren't who they identify as.
Exactly how many Republican votes has Biden got for Democratic legislation? Have you ever watched a Republican primary? Bipartisanship is the easiest way to lose a Republican race.
Only liberals believe bipartisanship works both ways. I get it, I was liberal once. But I stopped reading liberal op-eds and now I don't have this urge to blame everyone else when Biden does things that are unpopular with the majority of voters.
Who do you like to blame nowadays?
I blame the system, not the voters. Humans operating under good faith are well equipped to make sane and mutually beneficial decisions. So when the opposite is happening that is a sign of systemic problems.
This is Biden mistaking class solidarity with friendship because Democrats like him have to lie to themselves everytime they fuck over the many in service to the few.
I agree its always Democrats reaching across the aile while Republicans are straight up stripping our rights away and giving all the money to the top 1%.
It one big club and we aren't in it.
Yea, realizing it's all one club really opened up my political thinking.
Sorry they are down voting your top post to hell.
If only liberals had the same outrage for "moderate" Republicans supporting GOP propaganda as they do for people criticizing Biden from the left.
During the primary Biden kept saying he should be president because of his great relationships with republican Senators and that because of that he'd be able to get R's to vote with the Dem party...
He legitimately believes they're all a bunch of buddies.
I still dont know if it's better or worse if he's delusional... But either option isn't great
He literally accomplished that goal numerous times already.
It's not that hard to believe.
You have to remember that many politicians aren't true believers. From gay men who run on a 'family values' platform, black men or people in interracial relationships who run on a (borderline) racist platform, rich ultra-capitalists who pretend to be men of the people and promote populist crap, ultra conservatives who are privately quite liberal, highly educated people who pretend to be morons, city folks who pretend to be cowboys, those who run on a green platform while privately investing in fracking from the comfort of their private jet, those who promote conspiracy theories they find stupid, those who hate the people who elect them, etc. etc.
Just like someone on QVC selling overpriced watches, it's their job to pretend the product they're selling is the best option for those watching. When the cameras are turned off, even the more extreme ones inevitably drop the act and act more like normal human beings.
It's deeply cynical, it's caused damage to democracy, but it is what it is. It's like pretending to like arseholes if you're a waitress, except you get paid more.
That's because they're both the same person. Biden is as conservative as you get, his hands are soiled with the blood of innocent people that the drug war and police militarization has killed, things both McConnell and Biden have been behind for a long time.
They are not the same person and both sides are not the same. McConnell had a big part in turning the Supreme Court into a right wing tool to oppress women's rights, worker rights, and the rights of minorities like the LGBTQ.
Biden wouldn't have done that. Biden has helped people with his presidency. Is Biden too old. Yes, yea he is. But to say they are the same is just wrong.
Both sides are not the same.
Are we white washing Biden now cause he's a democrat? I thought we agreed not to do that shit.
Read the book "chasing the scream" about the drug war and the police militarization that came with it. Biden used his anecdotal experience about drugs to shove the drug war further down America's throat, no matter who it killed or destroyed. He's a republican in any other free nation, but in the u.s conservatives are Democrats and psychos are Republicans. The lesser of two evils, that's all he is.
There are levels of evil, my dude. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Learn nuance. No one wants Biden but to say he is exactly McConnell is inaccurate. Biden is obviously 3 layers of hell above McConnell. Not everything is a binary and there are gray areas. If we waited around for the perfect candidate before we decided on who should run things, we would wait forever in a hell scape because that person doesn’t exist. Take what you can and strive towards making things better instead of just saying “well, everyone is some form of bad so it doesn’t matter who we have”.
The problem is that you're putting Biden on a pedestal while putting McConnell in the gutter. You have to realize they're on the same level, that's why they're so friendly. If I had a co worker who was an evil piece of shit like McConnell I would avoid him like the plague. The fact that they're buddies is telling, and shows you that the images of themselves they're putting forward to us is just a game for them. When the cameras are off, they're hanging out at the same places with the same people.
Literally no one is putting Biden on a pedestal. We all know they are garbage people. That’s not news. I don’t know what you’re reading, but it’s not what I’m saying at all. Biden is a piece of shit, of course. But McConnell is a boiling pot of diarrhea infested with super Ebola. They are literally not the same level of evil. Saying so is ridiculous to a point where I can’t take anything you say seriously. It’s like saying Zuko and Iroh were the same person in the first season of Avatar: the Last Airbender. I reiterate you are missing the nuance of it all with statements like yours.
Disclaimer: I in no way want to compare those two shitholes to Zuko and Iroh in actuality, just using them as an example of two wildly different people working within the same system.
I looked at that guys post history that you're responding to, and it reads like post stuffing to hide this screed he has all over this thread that democrats put Biden on a pedestal. I think there's something fishy with him.
Because MAGA is a cult and they need to pretend Dems worship Biden like they do that sack of shit Trump.