Biden's Farewell

Update 1/20/25: Thanks again to Steve in Manhattan for including this article on Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! I know today is going to be a dark and stressful one, so my suggestion to survive this day is 1) don't fcking watch and 2) hug your pets/loved ones. Good luck. We're all counting on you.

As most outgoing Presidents are wont to do - since Washington set the tone - President Joe Biden issued a formal Farewell Address to the nation, pointing out his term's successes and making dire warnings about what lays ahead (via Chris Megerian, Zeke Miller, and Colleen Long at AP News):

President Joe Biden used his farewell address to the nation Wednesday to deliver stark warnings about an “oligarchy” of the ultra-wealthy taking root in the country and a “tech-industrial complex” that is infringing on Americans’ rights and the future of democracy.

Speaking from the Oval Office as he prepares to hand over power Monday to President-elect Donald Trump, Biden seized what is likely to be his final opportunity to address the country before he departs the White House to spotlight the accumulation of power and wealth in the U.S. among just a small few.

“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead,” Biden said, drawing attention to “a dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a few ultra-wealthy people and the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked...”

Biden’s speech in the Oval Office is the latest in a series of remarks on domestic policy and foreign relations he has delivered that are intended to cement his legacy and reshape Americans’ grim views on his term. Earlier in the day, he heralded a long awaited ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, which could end more than a year of bloodshed in the Middle East.

“It’ll take time to feel the full impact of what we’ve done together but the seeds are planted and they’ll grow and they’ll bloom for decades to come,” Biden said. It was a tacit acknowledgement that many Americans say they have yet to feel the impact of his trillions of dollars spent on domestic initiatives...

Biden offered his own set of solutions for the problems that he laid out: change the tax code to ensure billionaires “pay their fair share,” eliminate the flow of hidden sources of money into political campaigns, establish 18-year term limits for members of the Supreme Court and ban members of Congress from trading stocks. His policy prescriptions come as his political capital is at its nadir as Biden prepares to exit the national stage, and after he has done little to advance those causes during his four years in power at the White House...

That last sentence aptly defines what could prove to be Biden's legacy: Both the long-term accomplishments he focused on working to rebuild the economy post-COVID and post-trump, and the frustration at letting too many needed reforms go pass. ALL of those things that Biden offered as solutions - especially the needed caps on campaign financing and on judicial overreach and corruption - were things HIS OWN administration could have worked on during the brief window of opportunity 2021 to 2023 when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress.

To this, I would point to Professor James David Barber's cheat sheet of Presidential Character. Where Biden falls on that spectrum - Passive-Positive - explains a lot about the lack of energy or focus when working on extensive and radical reforms. Passives are the type that don't want to "rock the boat" too hard and shake off any support from the more extreme elements of their own coalitions (and are willing to work with opponents thinking everyone's all in one big happy Starfleet); while the Positive trait of seeing the powers of high office as a good thing for the public can blind such Presidents from the need to stop corruption in government. Such Congeniality wouldn't be a problem in times of normalcy: However, we are in the Age of trump, where lies and greed are the coins of the realm, and Biden exposed himself to attacks he couldn't overcome.

This is why Passive-Positives preside over either administrations of high corruption or low energy. The good news is that Biden's personal incorruptibility - in spite of the MAGA accusations that he's corrupt like his son Hunter - drove him to surround himself with good people who did their jobs. This keeps him from getting grouped with the likes of U.S. Grant (who failed to surround himself with good people) and Warren Harding (who happily surrounded himself with corrupt friends) and Ronald Reagan (who may not have been fully aware of his regime's corruption but allowed it to happen). Biden falls in with the likes of William Taft: Who rose to power during a Progressive reformist wave and served a relatively scandal-free term, but failed to capitalize on more economic reforms and corporate regulations that were needed in that era.

As a side note, this is where Barber's Character chart of creating four major traits falls apart in the specific successes and failures of each presidency. Not all Active-Positive Presidents behave the same way, nor do Passive-Positives or Active-Negatives (there have been too few Passive-Negatives to make that observation). Even within each Character there seems to be two types: With Passive-Positives there's the type that presides over corruption because they don't want to lose friends (Appeasers) or the type that doesn't want to push harder on things that need doing (Slackers) because they feared the risks (something Actives never worry about).

Biden ended up as a Slacker President, trying to focus on big-menu items like job growth and infrastructure but unwilling to press harder on major crises such as trump's lawlessness and foreign wars/interventions such as Ukraine (where Biden's fear of Putin's nuclear retaliation paralyzed our support efforts to Zelensky) and Gaza (even as Biden claims success with a ceasefire, it took too many months and too many innocent Palestinian lives to get here).

Because of Biden's inability to see trump as a genuine and ongoing threat to American democracy and political well-being - and because he feared falling into the accusations of dictatorship if they pursued trump's criminality - he didn't push too hard - and hired a like-minded Attorney General in Merrick Garland who also didn't press the need - to see trump held accountable for his actions on January 6th. That delay cost us dearly: It allowed trump to campaign again and use his gaslighting and denials to escape justice, and return to power with a vengeance (literally).

Biden's administration is going to be less remembered for the accomplishments he did achieve - especially a key infrastructure bill that should improve local manufacturing and job growth for the next 20 years - and more remembered for all the missed opportunities to end global threats like Putin and greedhead threats like Elon Musk. He'll be among the ranks of the recently passed Jimmy Carter: A Good man who didn't exactly do a Great job.

Everything Changed Today

So I woke up today to this stuff getting posted in Bluesky Social, but because I haven't figured out how to embed those posts into this blog I went to Twitter (fuck you, Elon, it's not X) to do this:

Aaron Sorkin published an op-ed in NYT this morning that calls on Democrats to nominate a Republican in place of Pres. Biden next month at the convention, specifically Mitt Romney. For real. Don't click on it. Don't read it. I promise you ain't missing anything.

Parody has died. pic.twitter.com/Ricu3sjIJE

— Charlotte Clymer 🇺🇦 (@cmclymer) July 21, 2024

"I FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS" times infinity.

It case the tweet goes bad, I screen-captured:

This? This is what you get when you think
quoting the HMS Pinafore all the time makes you smart.

I did read it just to see if it's as bad as Clymer says, and Gods yes it's terrible. Sorkin's idea of a unity candidate is - get this - going for a Republican candidate... Mitt Romney.

MITT FCKING ROMNEY?!

Not only is it offensive to suggest the Democrats have to roll over and take a REPUBLICAN on their ticket, but to go with Romney whose sole objective running - and losing - in 2012 was to get a massive tax cut for the rich. Never mind the reality that Mitt is opposed to most things - unions, abortion rights, immigration reform - that the Democratic voting base supports. It's like these so-called "liberal elites" - the pundits, the "actively engaged" celebrities, who are pulling in six-figure incomes where the rest of us are struggling around $35k a year to survive - don't give a damn about the millions of primary voters who happily re-nominated their incumbent President for a second go.

So here I was for most of the morning, putting this blog article together to tear Sorkin a new one when by 1:00 PM... everything changed.

pic.twitter.com/RMIRvlSOYw

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 21, 2024

I had to go off to one side and rant for a couple hours after that bombshell. I've calmed a little, but I'm still at the LIVID stage.

Livid and angry towards the goddamned Beltway media - especially that godforsaken rag the New York Times - that were beating the drums to get Biden to drop out. Angry at the Right-of-Center Democrats like Joe Manchin kneecapping any party unity that was needed for the upcoming convention this August. Well, congratulations you sons of bitches, you got your scalp.

If there is any good news from this announcement, it's that Biden openly supports his Vice President Kamala Harris to take over the campaign for him. Running now on their administration's legacy of job growth, infrastructure investment, debt forgiveness for tens of thousands of Americans, and financial reforms. Harris in particular has been touring the nation campaigning against the Dobbs ruling and the Republicans who are working to deny women their basic rights (not just abortion but their right to divorce, their right to work, their right to get education, their right to live).

But those buzzards are still circling. The likes of David Axelrod are complaining that Harris didn't get "vetted" by the primaries - ignoring that she was part of Biden's ticket at the time, and that she's got years of experience in the Executive branch already - and are demanding "an open convention" where the goddamned special interest factions - backed by billionaires that had been funding this anti-Biden effort - will try their best to return to the "smoke-filled backrooms" of power brokering to force an unpalatable pro-business / anti-tax candidate on the Democratic base.

At a moment when the Democratic Party needs to unite behind a standard bearer - be it Biden or be it Harris - we still have these corrupted factions still looking to sabotage it all and let the likes of trump and his Republican hacks steal their way back into the White House.

Goddamn them.

This is an open call to every Democratic and Independent voter I know. Ignore the haters. Focus on what matters. The Democratic Party is the one thing standing for our American democrat-republic institutions and way of life. We got 81 million people to vote for Biden and Harris in 2020 and we can do that again for Harris and whomever she picks to stand as her Vice President. 

We need to stand for women's rights, we need to stand for the good jobs at good wages Biden and the Democrats have brought to us, we need to stand for a future where the uber-rich oligarchs don't decide our fates, we do.

For the LOVE OF GOD AND COUNTRY, do NOT vote for that convicted felon and sex offender donald trump. Do NOT vote for the Republican Party that has surrendered to his greed and his Id.

Elections always matter. Get the vote out for Harris and the Democratic Party across every seat across every county across every state. 

Do not let Joe Biden down, people. He's counting on US to secure his administration's legacy.

Update: What, NOW Sorkin regrets his bullshit?!?! /rage

I've Taken The Crazy Pills, Haven't I: July 2024 Edition

WHAT DID I JUST SAY?

Jesus. Even in the moment of donald trump's self-crowning - with an oversized bandage on his ear and every lapdog at his feet - at an overtly racist and sexist RNC, the Democratic Party cannot get out of their own way.

WaterGirl over at Balloon Juice is feeling the same frustration I am about the Dem party leadership buying into the mainstream media freakout and getting caught in more rumor-mongering to force Joe Biden to step down from the 2024 re-election bid:

I am heartsick at the spiraling anxiety, and angry at the own-goals.  This madness needs to stop – if not in the media, then at least in Balloon Juice threads that I put up.

So until something changes, this will be my last post related to “Biden, will he or won’t he, should he or shouldn’t he”.

We are wasting so much time and energy on this, at a time when there is so much work to be done. There is so much work to be done.  So much work, and so little time.

I’m sure there will still be plenty of Balloon Juice threads where anyone who wants to can continue to endlessly hash this out, with both sides endlessly repeating the same things, over and over, sincere people and trolls, alike.  But I’m done.  And I’m pretty sure the other side is laughing...

This panic - which echoes a lot of the Dem panic from 2004 when they worried Howard Dean was more vulnerable than John Kerry all because Karl Rove made them second-guess themselves - isn't doing them any favors. It's feeding into the Beltway narrative of "Dems In Disarray" and is going to upset / discourage millions of primary voters who already sided with Biden as their choice.

If anybody is thrilled to the idea of an "open convention" this August, please punch yourself in the face. This 2024 primary season didn't present the party with any strong alternatives to Biden, and such a convention between up-and-comers like Governors Newsom or Whitmer or some third person suddenly flush with questionable dark money will turn bloody and divisive, which once again favors the goddamn trumpsters.

Anybody thinking that things will get easier if Biden steps aside for his Vice President Kamala Harris need to remember just how racist the mainstream media let the Republicans play it when it was Obama as the candidate in 2008 and 2012, and will just as easily allow trump and his cohort to attack Harris over the same goddamn racist dog-whistles bullhorns. And Harris is going to face the same kind of sexism that Hillary faced in 2016, by the same mainstream media that cannot overcome their own misogyny when dealing with "ambitious women" as candidates. You know how many reporters are itching to jump on the stories that came out during 2020 about the bad blood within Harris' primary campaign back then, eager to pull that same shit if she becomes the ticket headliner?

We've gotten 81 million voters to side with Biden in 2020 and a supermajority (90 percent or more) of primary voters to stick with Biden against the likes of Dean Phillips (a conservative congresscritter who got talked into undermining party incumbancy), and yet the Democratic party leadership is getting brow-beaten by a hostile Beltway media desperate to keep their horserace and "Dems in Disarray" narratives going until November.

There's a reason why I've got "Democrats Are Cowards" as a blog label, and you're watching it as it happens. Goddamn them.

Man up. Support Biden, here and NOW. Get the vote out. Get those 81 million voters back. Get every man and woman who supports abortion rights. Get every man and woman who opposes even one tidbit of that hideous Project 2025 agenda. Get every American voting for a unified Democratic Party.

For the LOVE OF GOD. Turning on each other now does not help.

The Beltway Freakout

Talent is a wonderful thing, but it won't carry a quitter.
-- Duma Key, Stephen King

I had to block Stephen King today.

Biden won the primaries in convincing fashion. An overwhelming majority of Democratic voters support him then AND now. But here you are, listening to a panicked biased media having a meltdown over one bad debate. You're not paying attention. And I'm blocking you for this.

— Witty Librarian 2024 (@PaulWartenberg) July 8, 2024

What the hell happened?

Well, that CNN debate I didn't want to watch ended up being a down performance for Biden, which unfortunately flared up all the damn "he's too old" takes between the New York Times and every other media outlet.

It's gotten to where the mainstream media - and then slowly a number of backbencher Democratic congresscritters, and then the avalanche of social media names like King and Rob Reiner - kept calling for Biden - who has already secured the 2024 Democratic nomination - to drop out of the Presidential race "for the good of the country."

Which is, of course, a total bullshit move.

This is after Joe Biden's campaign fund-raised far more than what trump's did. This is while Biden's polling regained their numbers - and upticked in several battleground states - after the immediate aftermath of the debate.

I've complained about this rump media - sitting in judgment of the Democratic Party and never focusing on the public sins of the Republicans - before. They get a narrative going in their own circles - such as this "Biden is now too old and will lose to trump" and there's no shaking it. Worse, they start digging for "sources" to reinforce that narrative using anybody they could claim is "inside the room when it happens" such as a "former senior official" who probably was a six-month intern in the West Wing washroom two years ago. And when they get any facts wrong, these pundits refuse to re-evaluate their mistakes and double-down on the scalp hunting.

Remember in the modern journalism era among the Beltway elites, there is no punishment for being wrong. There may be punishments for the low-level elected figures in the Democratic ranks buying into the media-inflicted panic, but that may have to wait until this election cycle is over.

Everything Biden has been doing the last two weeks post-debate has been to stay on-message and campaigning, even as a group of self-appointed "saviors" in the papers, cable shows, and congressional back rooms dreaming of their own fantasies are trying to kneecap him. They're going so far as to convince the upcoming convention delegates to toss aside Biden's primary victories - where Biden won with full support of the Dem voting base - and force an open convention.

Never mind the chaos and destruction that move would inflict on the entire Democratic Party, weakening themselves by alienating an electoral base fully backing Biden. And all of this much to the delight of both the Republican Party as well as the media elites who push the decades-old "Dems In Disarray" narrative.

While the media and the party leadership distract themselves over this noise, the same Beltway talking heads can avoid discussing more relevant and vital matters, such as the fact that the Republican Party's presidential candidate is a convicted felon and confirmed sex offender. Even as the GOP's platform is coming up before their convention next week, with a horrifying "Project 2025" agenda just barely getting on the radar for the voting public to recoil from it.

This shouldn't be a distraction. This shouldn't even be an issue.

Most Democratic voters may have these concerns, but they've overlooked them to focus on the reality that Joe Biden's administration has been mostly a success for the nation. The Dem voters may worry about Biden's age, but they understand there's an existing system in place - the 25th Amendment, and VP Kamala Harris - that will take care of it.

What worries most Democratic voters I know is the fact of donald trump's entire existence, and the real threat he poses should he get anywhere near the White House again. In spite of the polls which we've learned are skewing too rural (and too Republican) - in spite of all the fearmongering that the mainstream media is spewing for their own enjoyment - there is still a fighting mood with the party base to stick with a candidate in Biden they know beat trump in 2020. They're not about to abandon a good incumbent now.

This is - for anyone who lived through 2016 - the same kind of concern-trolling bullshit we got out of the New York Times and the rest of the Beltway when they freaked out over Hillary's private server and fretted over "but her emails." Back then, they begged for her to step aside for - get this - Biden. This is also the same freakout we got out of the mainstream media when Obama suffered a bad debate night against Romney in 2012, and they begged Obama to step aside for someone better like - get this - Hillary.

The Democratic voters - and the indy voters who sided with Biden in 2020 - need to get past this noise and get the damn vote out. The election still matters: OUR VOTES STILL MATTER. We had 81 million people turn out for Biden and Harris in 2020 and we can do that again this 2024.

Why Bother Your Evening?

There is a Presidential debate tonight on CNN and none of us are obligated to watch. 

Considering what happened during the previous election cycle - involving the same two candidates - when donald trump attempted to violate every norm and civility in the most crass manner, I'm not about to expect him to improve his behavior. Even with the supposed safeguards in place for this televised spectacle - the moderator can cut off microphones this time - we're going to get trump gaslighting - there are no fact-checkers at this debate - and bullying his way through another night of pandering towards his own base.

It's not helping any that trump's Republican allies and spokespeople have been running around the last week or so accusing President Biden of being drugged up on "smart" or "debate enhancement drugs" and demanding drug tests on Biden as a means to embarrass him (and provide cover for trump if he underwhelms/collapses during the event).

After all, if there were such a "performance enhancing drug" to improve your mental acuity, trump's own people would be injecting it into trump the last six months or so to hide the growing public signs that he's suffering dementia and cognitive failure.

This is all performative circus, designed to stir up fervor for the mainstream media outlets to cover the horserace nature of campaigns and fill their own narratives. The partisan landscape dividing the Republican and Democratic voting bases are already decided (since 2020!): the Undecided voters at this point tend to be tuned out anyway, and won't pay attention until the last month or so (hence the constant attempts at October Surprises to undermine each other).

At best, we're going to see Biden pitch to the media that he's built back a strong economy generating more jobs at better wages, and punching at trump for being a convicted felon. trump's narrative is going to be that things were better under him, that the border security is in shambles, and making none-too-subtle threats for his Proud Boy supporters to "prep for another uprising".

The only thing worth watching for is if trump physically collapses from his own inability to stand upright as his neurology short circuits.

Me? I'm trying to get into this Martha Wells' Murderbot book series. Wish me luck.

One Sentence Summary on the Significance of Hunter Biden's Guilty Verdict As It Relates to the 2024 Presidential Election

Hunter Biden is not on the national ballot for the Presidency of the United States, unlike donald trump; to where the entire Republican Party still has to justify why they are supporting a convicted felon and confirmed sex offender for the highest office in the land. 

Better Off Now

It's a question that comes up every Presidential election cycle whenever there's an incumbent running for a second term: "Are you better off now than four years ago?"

The party in opposition tends to ask that question to highlight how "terrible" the current President is, while the incumbent party asks it while pointing to any signs of economic, social, or international standing improvements.

It's a question we're getting now, as it becomes official that Joe Biden is the Democratic candidate and donald trump - who was President Loser of the Popular Vote four years ago - is the challenger looking to unseat Biden by claiming we are worse off today.

It's not a smart move by trump or his Republican allies to ask, however: Exactly four years ago the entire planet was in a terrible crisis with a global COVID-19 pandemic crashing into everything - the economy, our society, our health care system, our schools, our families - and leaving us scrambling for basic necessities like toilet paper.

And it was exactly four years ago this March 13th when donald trump went before the national media and declared he "wasn't responsible for anything at all."

#FourYearsAgoToday https://t.co/zyP3iW6bNv

— Emily L. Hauser @emilylhauser.bsky.social 🟣 (@emilylhauser) March 14, 2024

What I wrote back in March 2020 right after that press conference:

So for this Friday, in order to present himself as in charge and in control, trump scheduled a big televised press conference, timed exactly just as the stock markets were closing... just so he could end up showing how little control he had and even worse openly admit he was in charge of nothing...

"I'm not taking any responsibility at all." Doesn't matter what he's avoiding responsibility for, the fact that he's AVOIDING responsibility ought to anger every American living and past...

So here comes trump, facing a global pandemic health care crisis that requires bold thinking, getting out ahead of the problem, staying in touch with all players to make sure things get done properly and to the good of all.

Unfortunately, trump's spent the last three years dismantling the government systems, understaffing agencies if not outright sabotaging them. Redirecting efforts towards projects that won't help in this crisis or any other. He oversaw the dismantling of a National Security panel tasked with coordinating pandemic responses, which left much of the federal and state agencies in the dark on who was in charge during the first months of this crisis (starting back in December 2019).

trump's response to all of this? Shifting blame on Obama instead of admitting his own involvement. Arguing that it's Obama's fault there's not enough test kits for this crisis when it should have been something trump's administration ordered done the minute it became clear - mid-January - that the coronavirus was going global. Like Obama would have known back in 2016 this particular virus was going to erupt three years after he left office.

"I'm not taking any responsibility at all."

THIS was where our nation was at four years ago. Four long stressful years ago, when the months of March and April felt like years themselves.

A President takes an oath of office "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States;" and yet four years ago there was trump refusing to faithfully execute his duties, refusing to take charge of a national emergency requiring leadership. Not doing his best at all except shift the blame on everybody else.

And now here's trump back again, running again for a job he didn't do right the first time around, trying to gaslight and bully and steal his way back into the White House. Not because he wants the responsibility - he never wants that - but because he needs that office's legal immunity to keep his ass out of prison.

So are we better off now, four years later?

Four years later, we have a President in Joe Biden who's doing his best to oversee an ongoing struggle with COVID's continued presence, to where the pandemic shifted into a shamefully tolerable endemic to where most Americans try to keep up with vaccines and ignore the relatively high annual death count we've come to accept as normal.

Four years later, we have a President Joe Biden who undid most of the damage of trump's tariff wars with our global trading partners: A tariff fight that negatively affected our own economy and one that trump will insist on restarting should he regain the Presidency.

Four years later, we have a President Joe Biden who restored America's international standing with our allies, who is trying to support Ukraine's fight against an invading Russian force - something a majority of Americans support - while trying to manage the bloodshed of the Israeli/Hamas war that's disrupting the Middle East. All of which trump would undo in a reckless raging heartbeat.

Four years later, we have a President Joe Biden who's presiding over one of our nation's greatest financial recoveries; with a thriving economy where employment rates are at their best, wages for lower- and middle-income workers are going up, where inflation is currently at an ebb, and a lot of it tied into Biden's signature infrastructure bill.

Four years later, we have a President Joe Biden who will not avoid or ignore the responsibilities of the office the way donald trump did.

How's that answer, Republicans?

Vote four more years of Joe Biden, thank you.

Brief Thoughts About Daylight Savings in America

Seriously: If Joe Biden pledges on the 2024 campaign trail that he will force Congress to hold an emergency session to pass legislation ending this travesty of time-wasting called Daylight Savings, and then uses the National Guard to block access to the bathrooms and soda vending machines to ensure both Republicans and recalcitrant Democrats vote passage of this reform, Biden will garner 65 percent of the national vote.

The whole stress-out over Daylight Savings Time - springing forward an hour in Spring, falling back that hour in Fall - has been a well-documented source of frustration for Americans for decades now, and we keep getting more evidence how it's not really doing us any good (via Danielle Pacheco and Dr. Dustin Coltiar at the Sleep Foundation website):

Adjusting the time by one hour may not seem like too drastic a change, but sleep experts have noted troubling trends that occur during the transition between Standard Time and DST, particularly in March. These issues include upticks in heart problems, mood disorders, and motor vehicle collisions. Furthermore, DST can cause sleep problems if circadian rhythms are not aligned with natural cycles of light and darkness. Some people also experience insomnia symptoms due to spring time changes...

Humans and other mammals are guided by circadian rhythms, which are 24-hour cycles that regulate sleep and other key bodily functions such as appetite and mood. These rhythms are largely dependent on light exposure. In order to reset each day, they must be synchronized with natural light-darkness cycles in order to ensure healthy, high-quality sleep.

The transition between DST and Standard Time has darker mornings and more evening light. This can essentially “delay” your sleep-wake cycle, making you feel tired in the morning and alert in the evening. Circadian misalignment can contribute to sleep loss, as well as “sleep debt,” which refers to the cumulative effect of not getting enough sleep on a regular basis...

While many people adapt to time changes, some studies have suggested the human body never fully acclimates to DST. Rather, their circadian misalignment may become a chronic or permanent condition. This can lead to more serious health problems, especially for those who experience “social jet lag” because their demands at work or school take precedence over a full night’s sleep. Social jet lag has been linked to a higher risk of obesity, depression, and cardiovascular disease. The effects of DST subside gradually after a few weeks...

There are a number of other things that disrupts a person's normal sleep cycle - travel, uneven work hours (morning / evening shifts), neighbors practicing with their garage band at midnight, similar hazards - but this is one directly caused by government policy. And it's a policy that continues to annoy if not enrage most Americans suffering from it. Nearly every poll out there - like this one in Business Insider - has a majority of people wanting an end to the damn thing.

The problem is nobody can agree to make Standard time - based on the actual solar cycle - or Daylight Savings - which moves ahead an hour and gives businesses more sunlight in afternoon/evenings for work - the national default.

Considering how the medical experts point to that circadian rhythm as key to our health, I'd argue to keep our hours to the Standard setting. It's how our planet works, how our bodies work, and goddammit we've lived for centuries without springing forward for anything.

The big reason we went to Daylight Savings was energy conservation during wartimes - First One and Second One - and then even more in the 1970s when the energy crisis hit our nation hard. Thing is ever since the 1980s when technology innovations with energy-saving methods improved our usage - even as we've expanded more use with computers, smartphones, and other electronics - the need to enforce energy conservation with summer daylight actually diminished.

There's a number of other issues with sleep depravation that need resolving, especially the early schooling hours that affect teens when they're forced to attend junior and high schools before dawn. They are at that age - still developing - where disruption of the sleep cycle affects them the most, and there's been a huge push to get states to move school hours to later in the day. All this Daylight Saving stuff is making this harder on the kids and their families.

Standard Time is the way to go.

If you do this, Joe Biden, you will go down in the history books as our greatest President ever.

Do it.

Save our Sleep Modes!

 

The REAL Scandal: Republicans Are Kompromized by the Kremlin

If the Republicans' efforts to dig up scandals on Joe Biden and his son Hunter - in an effort to weaken Biden's standing and cause embarrassment to cover for donald trump's real weaknesses and scandals (and upcoming criminal trials) - looked weak and ridiculous on their own, that's because the GOP's efforts to stir up scandal were weak and ridiculous.

And now, those Republican efforts have turned into a goddamned John Le Carre spy novel with the revelation that one of their key "witnesses" to Hunter Biden's business shenanigans was not only lying about his testimony but that he was passing along "evidence" fabricated by Russian Intelligence.

It's unsettling enough that the Special Counsel overseeing the investigation in Hunter Biden's potential criminal behavior had to pull a 180 on relying on this "witness" Alexander Smirnov and issue felony charges against him instead. And then, worrying that the Nevada magistrate who handled the bail release on Smirnov was giving Smirnov a chance to flee the country, they recharged Smirnov in a California court with more specific evidence - and that he was a flight risk - to ensure the guy stayed in custody.

How important was this "witness" to Republicans digging for Biden dirt? According to that AP News report from Lindsay Whitehurst, this important:

Smirnov’s claims have been central to the Republican effort in Congress to investigate the president and his family and helped spark what is now a House impeachment inquiry into Biden.

They became a flashpoint in Congress in July as Republicans demanded the FBI release the unredacted form, a so-called FD-1023, documenting the unverified allegations. Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky had subpoenaed the form as Republicans deepened their probe ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Republicans acknowledged they couldn’t confirm if the allegations were true but said they were significant in their investigation of Hunter Biden.

The allegations of Russian contact with the source of those allegations should be a death knell for the impeachment inquiry, said Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland. “It appears like the whole thing is not only obviously false and fraudulent but a product of Russian disinformation and propaganda,” he said.

Of course, the Republican leaders on this - Comer, Jim Jordan, the other clowns in that car - are running away from having Smirnov as their keystone to their entire impeachment effort, except for the fact they've been running away from every other tainted source they tried to rely on over the past year of sham hearings and "rumored" revelations.

What this twist exposes is not only their failure to find legitimate scandal against their true target Joe Biden (they honestly don't care if Hunter goes to jail or not), but exposes how corrupted and compromised the modern Republican Party leadership is towards a foreign power like Putin's Russia. The nominally conservative pundit at Washington Post Jennifer Rubin spells out the problem (this was via a gift link, don't know if it will paywall):

Are Republicans easy marks or willing participants in Russian anti-Biden operations? That’s a troubling question raised by the Feb. 14 grand jury indictment of a former FBI informant, Alexander Smirnov, on charges of concocting a tale about President Biden’s supposed involvement in his family members’ business dealings.

Allegations by Smirnov — who appears to have ties to Russian intelligence, according to the federal indictment — have formed the backbone of the House Republicans’ laughable attempt to build an impeachment case against the president. They championed him as their star witness. Now the Republicans’ fact-deficient storyline has been shredded...

Now Republicans are pretending that Smirnov wasn’t so important after all. They’re vowing to plow ahead on this cock-and-bull mission that never got off the ground. Not only did multiple witnesses testify that Biden had no involvement with his son’s business dealings, but previous allegations that Biden acted on his son’s behalf had also already been thoroughly repudiated...

The current House debacle overlaps with a Russian disinformation project described by the national security specialists Ryan Goodman and Asha Rangappa on the website Just Security in 2020. That scheme enticed Republican Sens. Ron Johnson (Wis.) and Chuck Grassley (Iowa) to buy into the now-discredited scenario that as vice president Biden sought on behalf of his son to stop an investigation of Burisma. (It also added in another phony Ukraine election interference claim.)

And let’s not forget that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III found “sweeping and systematic” Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election on Donald Trump’s behalf.

The current revelations concerning Smirnov should not merely spell the end of the comically inept impeachment proceedings; they should provoke questions about Republicans’ recklessness in peddling claims they apparently knew were unreliable.

At the very least, it is clear that House Republicans had reason to be skeptical of Smirnov’s allegations instead of embracing them. FBI briefers “warned lawmakers that the document, known as a 1023, containing Smirnov’s allegations against the Bidens also included raw, uncorroborated intelligence that should not be made public,” CNN reported on Wednesday. Even if the Republicans did not know Smirnov might have ties to Russian intelligence, they certainly knew the basis for making wild allegations about Biden was extremely shaky...

Republicans’ affinity over multiple elections for Russian-backed plots should warrant wall-to-wall coverage. (Let us not forget Russian efforts detailed in the Mueller report to enlist the Trump campaign and sabotage Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016.) Responsible news outlets should press House Republicans to justify their refusal to vote for aid for Ukraine and habit of spreading Russian conspiracy theories.

In short, Trump (enabled by House Republicans) wants Ukraine aid blocked and invites Vladimir Putin to invade NATO countries with military budgets Trump deems insufficient. He already has served as an indispensable helpmate in Putin’s assault on democracy and the international order. No wonder Russia appears yet again ready to pull out all the stops to boost Trump.

Rubin refers back to a particular matter that obsessed me during the trump years: The Mueller Report. It annoys me to no end that when then-Attorney General Barr - appointed by trump to shut down the Mueller investigation before it closed in on trump himself - ended that grand jury probe, he promoted - and the mainstream media bought into - the lie that the Report "exonerated trump" and that was the end of that. What everyone seemed to ignore were the factual elements Mueller's team found - the first half of his legal objectives - rampant and provable evidence that Russian Intelligence and their oligarch allies actively engaged in election interference in 2016. What Mueller couldn't prove was trump's direct involvement with those efforts (instead Mueller found at least five instances of Obstruction, which he couldn't criminally charge due to Presidential Immunity but tried to get House Democrats to attempt impeachment, which they failed to pursue).

I remain shocked and angered to this day that Congress both Democrats and Republicans failed to heed Mueller's - and the rest of the U.S. Intelligence agencies - warnings that Russia - above all the other foreign powers looking to interfere like China and Iran - will continue to attack America's electoral systems to force the results - like stealing the presidency AGAIN for trump - that benefits Russia instead of the U.S. and our long-standing European / Middle Eastern / Asian allies. There's been almost no legislation - no priority put to making our elections more secure nor passing legal sanctions and punishments on Russia for their crimes. We're talking about acts of war getting committed on us - our rights as Americans - and nothing, no response.

Worse: We have had solid evidence for almost a decade that Russia was, is, and will do anything they can to disrupt and divide the United States. And it's getting clearer that the Republican Party as a group are happy to help them.

I mentioned before how the Republican mindset - drawing from their deep conservative ideology - their One Truth is that they view only themselves as True Americans. To do so, everyone else - aka Democrats and those who do not fit in the Republican Culture War like women, Blacks, Latinos, gays and trans, and more - dare not and cannot be considered "American" even though geographically, demographically, philosophically, we are as American as they.

Their problem is that those conservative Republicans are not in the actual majority of Americans... and they know it. They've been sliding out of contention with the majority of voters since 2008, they'd been warned after the 2012 election cycle, and yet instead of moderating themselves to retain broad appeal the conservatives doubled down on Culture War extremism and RINO purging to keep party unity, tied into aggressive state-level and federal-level gerrymandering and voter suppression to skew elections to their favor.

Thing is, that Game of Demographics can only work for so long, as the Republican extremism on issues like abortion (and related issues like birth control and IVF) and tax cuts for the rich peel away the edges of their GOP voting base to where they can't "win" even with all the gerrymandering and suppression.

So the Republicans are desperate to get any help from anywhere they can. Even if that help is coming from a foreign power like Russia where their leader Putin and his cronies are openly threatening our allies and our own nation's safety/stability. Even when that help falls under open acts of sedition that rely on corrupted persons like Smirnov. 

Similar to how trump's 2016 campaign met with and tried to coordinate with Russian nationals over getting dirt on Hillary Clinton - in possible violation of 52 US Code sect. 30121 - the current House Republican leadership and their allies from trump's Justice Department (looking at you Bill Barr) have come dangerously close to breaking that law getting tampered/manufactured Russian intel just to pursue false claims against Biden. Not to mention more obviously legal problems like suborning perjury and presenting false evidence.

The GOP leaders did all this because they truly believe 1) they're above the law, 2) they're the Real Americans fighting against un-American Democratic "criminals," 3) the Russians are not the bad guys. That last part is important because the modern Republicans driven by their Culture War bullshit truly see Putin - with his open homophobia, his disdain for "librul" Western norms, and "traditionalist" worldview (not to mention his sadism towards his lessers) - as a serious ally in that Culture War.

I wasn't there to see it, but I read the history books about the Red Scare, the McCarthyism of the 1950s where conservative Republicans openly hunted liberals and left-leaning Americans as Communist threats buddying up to Stalinist Soviet Russia. "Pinko down to their underwear" was the accusations, and anybody who ever expressed solidarity with Soviet Russia were hounded until they were broken or dead. Today, we now see those inheritors of the conservative Republicans happily and publicly embracing a Russian regime that may no longer be Communist but is just as corrupt and tyrannical as anything Stalin ever led.

The irony of such betrayal is lost on these modern Republicans, too greedy and too desperate to stay in power to see how they've sold their own ideals and their own nation out to a Russian dictator.

This scandal ought to convince every American voter who truly wants what is best for our nation - for our families, for our communities, for our future - to stop voting for a Republican Party corrupted and compromised beyond redemption. 

Elections matter, people. There's a reason why Putin wants to corrupt ours this 2024 just like he tried in 2020 and succeeded in back in 2016. Get the vote out, America. For the LOVE OF COUNTRY  everybody, do NOT vote (R)epublican (R)ussia.

The 2024 U.S. Presidential Primary Checklist

Okay, just to help voters keep track of which Presidential candidate has certain issues and concerns as we head into the thick of the 2024 Primary Season:

	Joe Biden	Donald Trump
Is Old	a	a
Is Showing Signs of Memory Issues	a	a
Is Still Screaming about "Stolen Votes" from 2020		a
Is Threatening to quit NATO		a
Is Demanding Republicans in Congress Block Any Aid to Ukraine In Its War Against Russia		a
Is Gloating about ending Roe V Wade		a
Found Liable of Sexual Assault in a Court of Law To the Tune of $88 Million and Counting		a
Found Liable of Acts of Business Fraud To the Tune of $450 Million Plus Interest		a
Refuses to Let Congress Pass a Border Reform Bill to Keep His Opponent From Benefiting Politically		a
Promoting an Ugly-Ass Sneaker for $499.00 (when it probably costs $49.00 in real life)		a
Is Facing Criminal Trial in New York on 34 Counts for "Election Interference" and Filing False Documents this March 2024		a
Is Facing Criminal Trial in DC on Four Felony Counts Concerning January 6th 2021 Riots as Soon as The Supreme Court Considers an Appeal Over Absolute Presidential Immunity		a
Is Facing Criminal Trial in South Florida on Multiple Counts of Classified Documents Mishandling, Probably by May 2024		a
Is Facing Criminal Trial in Georgia on Multiple Counts of Election Interference and Racketeering Related to a Fake Electors Scheme, TBD		a
Is Winning the 2024 Party Primaries with 90 Percent of the Vote	a
Is Getting Told By National Media Pundits to "Step Aside" or Quit Campaigning to Make Room for the Pundit's Preferred Candidate (TBD) for the "Good of the Party" and the United States	a

 I'm not WRONG, am I?

Painful Way to Kill Your Political Career, Dean

Oh, while I was surviving MegaCon yesterday, apparently the Democratic Party officially started their Presidential primarying in South Carolina, with incumbent Joe Biden stomping hard on his primary opponents with 95 percent of the vote across the entire state (via Asma Khalid at NPR):

President Biden won the South Carolina Democratic primary on Saturday, according to The Associated Press. It is the first official nominating contest for the party, and one that Democrats hope sends a message to Black voters.

As the incumbent president, Biden had been widely expected to carry the primary. Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., and author Marianne Williamson were also on the ballot...

The Democrats are changing up the order of primaries this cycle, trying to shift away from the small populated states like Iowa and New Hampshire that also don't display the demographic diversity of the party itself. South Carolina isn't a major population state like California, New York, or Illinois - Democratic-leaning states - but it's big enough to matter.

Unwilling to play by the new rules, New Hampshire still held an unsanctioned primary last month allowing write-ins to happen for the Democrats while the Republicans held theirs officially. Biden STILL cleaned up there without campaigning a single day there while his opponents Williamson - you might remember her from last time - and Phillips showed up and begged for votes. 

You might notice I haven't run a Character profile - based on Professor Barber's work - on Dean Phillips even though he threw his hat into the Democratic primaries months ago: Mostly because I viewed Phillips attempts to kneecap the incumbent candidate Biden was doomed to failure. In the modern era of presidential elections - I would say turn of the 20th Century with McKinely (not Teddy!) - there hasn't been a successful challenge against a first-term President within the party. Teddy Roosevelt tried to against his successor Taft but failed (running third-party instead). Truman and LBJ technically quit their campaigns for re-election when they saw the writing on the wall, so we can't be certain how those would have turned out. Thing is, Phillips was in no position - he was a literal unknown backbencher congresscritter with no national profile; he lacks the natural charisma any challenger needs to prevail; and Gods know what he was actually campaigning for - to challenge a well-known relatively popular figure like Biden who isn't quitting any time soon. 

If I can quote from Tori Otten at New Republic:

Phillips is running a long-shot campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination against President Biden. If you’re wondering how that’s going for him, Phillips won just 19.6 percent of votes during New Hampshire’s unofficial Democratic primary on Tuesday. Biden won 55.8 percent—as a write-in candidate.

Following his New Hampshire loss, Phillips revealed Wednesday morning on Fox & Friends that he had attended one of Donald Trump’s rallies to try to connect with far-right voters. When his actions prompted backlash, Phillips spoke out against political divisions...

Phillips then tried to point to the 2016 Electoral College map which shows a lot of Republican Red. But he erred by thinking geography matters instead of actual population density: Online critics hit Phillips by pointing out the Democratic Blue places on the map have more people who actually matter ("Land doesn't vote, people do!")

“There was probably a lane for someone to do reasonably well against Biden,” tweeted Osita Nwanevu, a columnist for The Guardian and contributing editor for The New Republic, “but being maximally annoying to every constituency in the Democratic Party at once wasn’t it, obviously.”

I exaggerated a bit earlier when I said nobody know what Phillips is campaigning for: He's actually campaigning on the belief that Biden is old, and that Biden's too unpopular to both the Democratic voting base and the independent voters overall.

Depending on which poll you're looking at, Biden's popularity isn't as healthy as it ought to be - considering the positive economic news Biden keeps generating over the past year thanks to his Infrastructure Bill efforts - but then again polls this far out from November are unpredictable as hell.

And regarding Biden's popularity with the Democratic voting base, those massive wins in New Hampshire (unofficially) and South Carolina - where Williamson beat out Phillips by a percent - ought to bury that particular narrative right quick.

Democratic voters will support their incumbent candidate, especially considering how Biden seems to be the only candidate who can keep donald trump at bay. It's likely - again, no guarantees - that the Indy voters who turned out against trump in 2020 will do so again in 2024 and vote for Joe. Phillips is essentially committing political suicide doing all this.

How Phillips got talked into thinking he could be a savior candidate to outduel Biden and then defeat trump remains a scandal of its own. Approached by a "political strategist" in Steve Schmidt, a campaign advisor most famous for talking John McCain into taking Sarah Palin as his Veep running mate, who claims he's "worried" about Dems relying on an aging President Biden (as though trump is any healthier three years younger and clearly more physically and mentally unfit). You have to look at who's paying Schmidt - deep-pocket "technocrat" billionaires worried about their tax cuts and Biden's pro-union stances - to get an idea of who's really worried about 2024 (and who they really want to win, which is trump). Schmidt basically went fishing for an egocentric millionaire among the Democratic ranks to be the stalking horse to weaken Biden's standing within the party itself.

Good news is, that's not working.

Bad news is, we're getting a clearer picture of how the real Political Establishment - not just the deep-pocket billionaires paying for everything, but also the "expert consultant" class and the upper-income media punditry - don't view trump as the dictatorial, openly destructive force that he is.

Gods help us. This 2024 election is going to be a war, with disinformation coming from every media outlet "convinced" that Biden can't win... even though Biden is winning the primaries and proving his popularity with actual voters with barely a finger lifted.

Get out the vote, America. Support Biden. Stop trump (and his billionaire buddies).

And let Dean Phillips crawl back to some state college on a guest lecturer gig for the rest of his life. His political career is toast. If he thinks he can make a comeback in 2028 based on his dismal performance this year, he's more delusional that trump.

The Drumbeats To Another Unhelpful War

The Middle East is back to being a full-blown military crisis, with Israel and Hamas happily drowning each other in a bloody Gaza battlefield, and with Yemeni rebels staging drone and missile attacks on shipping lanes, and now with extremist forces in Syria staging deadly attacks on a U.S. outpost along the Jordanian border (via Zeke Miller and Lolita C Baldor at AP News):

President Joe Biden said Sunday that the U.S. “shall respond” after three American troops were killed and dozens more were injured in an overnight drone strike in northeast Jordan near the Syrian border. Biden blamed Iran-backed militias for the first U.S. fatalities after months of strikes by such groups against American forces across the Middle East since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

Biden, who was traveling in South Carolina, asked for a moment of silence during an appearance at a Baptist church’s banquet hall.

“We had a tough day last night in the Middle East. We lost three brave souls in an attack on one of our bases,” he said. After the moment of silence, Biden added, “and we shall respond...”

The large drone struck a logistics support base in Jordan known as Tower 22. It is along the Syrian border and is used largely by troops involved in the advise-and-assist mission for Jordanian forces.

Central Command said approximately 350 U.S. Army and Air Force personnel were deployed to the base. The three who were killed and most of the wounded were Army soldiers, according to several U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to give details not yet made public.

The small installation, which Jordan does not publicly disclose, includes U.S. engineering, aviation, logistics and security troops. Austin said the troops were deployed there “to work for the lasting defeat of ISIS.” Three officials said the drone struck near the troops’ sleeping quarters, which they said explained the high casualty count...

We are facing here in the states calls by the usual suspects of neoconservative foreign policy rabblerousers still eager for major military strikes - if not straight-up invasion - of Iran. Never mind how most of these "bomb Tehran" advocates are refusing to provide any military aid to Ukraine against a major global threat to democracy in Russia.

Whatever threat Iran poses to American interests abroad - and it is serious - we have to recognize how Iran and Russia are linked at the hips in their efforts to disrupt the Middle East. They've teamed up to provide military support to Syria - the source of that deadly attack - as well as providing aid through Syria to anti-Israeli forces like Hamas and Hezbollah.

As much as Iran hates the U.S. on their own terms, they're just the front, the public face of the bigger threat of Putin backing the Ayatollahs in order to give Putin what he needs: A major distraction for the United States to abandon NATO and Ukraine to Russian conquest. (Think Sollozzo and Tattaglia fronting for Barzini all along).

Going into a direct war with Iran is still a bad idea, same as I said years ago when trump was threatening to invade. If the U.S. goes barging in, we'll be doing it mostly on our own as our regional allies are either too busy committing war crimes (Israel) or unable to engage without disruptions in their own nations (Saudi Arabia and Iraq and Jordan). NATO won't engage because they'll be too wary of Putin's ambitions to send their military forces elsewhere.

If there's any good news, it's that Iran won't be in any decent shape to engage in war themselves, having shipped off a lot of their own weaponry to Russia's war effort and dealing with internal unrest that the U.S. could exploit instead of sending in troops.

Biden has difficult choices ahead. "Proportional responses" by bombing specific Iranian - or Syrian, considering how they are the proxies to Iran's involvement - military hubs hasn't worked well as deterrents before. More aggressive attacks would escalate in ways our regional allies would regret.

It's not helping that the Republicans in Congress - especially the House - are refusing to provide any kind of military funding to allow Biden a free hand in whatever foreign policy decision he makes here. Especially considering how obvious it is that Putin benefits from Middle East turmoil - to where providing more military and financial aid to Ukraine would actually help our efforts to calm the region - and so trump's political allies do not want to upset that apple cart.

I would not argue for war with Iran. I would look to doing something to cut into Syria's military capabilities, and something to support the Iranian citizenry's efforts to end the theocratic despotism hurting them. Anything to avoid another quagmire as our nation tries to bring the bloodshed in Gaza to a peaceful end.

Punching Themselves Just a Little Bit More

Update: Thanks again to Driftglass over at Crooks & Liars to include this article at Mike's Blog Round-Up. Please give a chance to read the blog and leave suggestions for good book titles for the non-fiction novel project I'm working to complete ASAFP, thank ye.

Update 12/26/23: Many thanks to Batocchio at his blog Vagabond Scholar for hosting the annual Jon Swift Memorial roundup of political blogging! I want to thank the support of fellow bloggers like Batocchio and Driftglass and Tengrain who routinely share my articles at Crooks & Liars, and thanks to them I've been able to submit those articles for awards at the FWA Royal Palm. Good luck this coming year, everybody, 2024 is going to be a crazy-ass year.

When the Republicans gained a (slim) majority in the House of Representatives this 2022, a good number of pundits and bloggers saw this coming. Here's me, seeing it coming: 

The Republicans ought to be rejoicing in that they control the House, which they can use to investigate Biden's administration family for scandals every day they meet on the Hill, and file every impeachment complaint until all they do is vote on embarrassing Biden and Harris for the 2024 campaign (lacking control of the Senate, no impeachment will go their way: For the Republicans it's all about making the Democrats look corrupt and weak to their own voting base). They are openly planning repeated hearings over Russia's planted evidence Hunter Biden's laptop, as it's the only thing they can do other than force federal shutdowns to break the entire government...

And after eight months or so of staging congressional investigations that went nowhere, the Far Right factions of the House have gotten their lapdog Speaker to roll over and beg for his career (via Mary Yang at the Guardian):

Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the US House, announced on Tuesday he is launching a formal impeachment inquiry into president Joe Biden – despite resistance from Republicans in the House and Senate, where an impeachment vote would almost certainly fail.

The order comes as McCarthy faces mounting pressure from some far-right members of his chamber, who have threatened to tank his deal to avert a government shutdown by the end of the month if he does not meet their list of demands...

According to McCarthy, findings from Republican-led investigations over the summer recess revealed “a culture of corruption”, and that Biden lied about his lack of involvement and knowledge of his family’s overseas business dealings...

Here's the sticking point: The House Republicans could not find any credible witness or piece of evidence that tied Joe Biden to his son Hunter's questionable business activities.

Many of the allegations center on the president’s son, Hunter Biden, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, during his father’s term as vice-president. Republicans allege that Joe Biden improperly benefited from his son’s foreign connections but, after several months, have produced no evidence. Watchdog groups say Republicans do not actually have evidence to back up their claims.

One such watchdog group the Congressional Integrity Project issued a review of the Oversight Committee's - led by James Comer - failures to present witnesses or documentation that could have backed the House GOP claims. They provide examples such as their own witnesses from the IRS arguing that Biden never interfered in their investigations into Hunter Biden's taxes, and Comer claiming to have audiotape proof of Biden taking bribes before admitting he wasn't sure the tapes (and the source of those tapes) even existed. The nine regular followers of this blog might remember I wrote about some of this - especially Comer's screwups - a while back:

But if we're taking Comer's work seriously, then what Comer's admitting to is a terrible breach of investigatory procedures. One of the first things you gotta do when you're pulling witnesses together is that you gotta talk to them face-to-face as soon as possible, get their statements on record, verify the source(s), confirm they're in a position to know, etc. What Comer's admitting during that interview is that they didn't even have a handle on the informant to confirm the whistleblower was even real.

The House Republicans were charging ahead without having any evidence or witness to guide them. It's that whole "cart before the horse" and/or "get your damn ducks in a row" idiom (or metaphor, I'm not sure which) in real life.

As I concluded in the same article: At worst, the House Republicans honestly didn't care if they had a witness/whistleblower at all. All they really wanted was the illusion that they had dirt on Biden.

The House Republicans are screaming "Witch" in their witch hunt against President Joe, but that's not a real nose it's a false one. It doesn't matter to them. All they want is the appearance of Biden (and his administration) being corrupt so that they can bully and bluff the refs national media into perpetuating the Both Sides lazy narrative that would protect their banner carrier (trump) from the very real criminal indictments trump faces before the 2024 election. As Li Zhou notes over at Vox:

Republicans also hope to see their nominee, likely to be former President Donald Trump, retake the White House next year. But Trump is beset by many legal problems. The inquiry, and a possible impeachment, will allow the GOP to go on the offensive against Biden ahead of the presidential election in 2024 and defuse some of the attention on Trump’s legal baggage.

Zhou also notes how McCarthy's weakness has been exposed here: Pandering to an extremist Freedom Caucus that doesn't care how this impeachment will play in battleground districts against their narrow House majority:

As such, the inquiry appears driven more by the House GOP’s internal dynamics and political goals than the substance of the allegations. Earlier this year, McCarthy gave any member of his caucus the ability to call for a vote on his ouster in exchange for the speaker’s gavel. In recent weeks, some on his party’s right flank have threatened to oust him if he didn’t pursue an impeachment inquiry, putting pressure on him to take that step.

That’s not to say all Republicans are behind the move, a reflection of just how wide an ideological spectrum McCarthy needs to keep happy. Although more conservative Republicans like Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) have been urging an impeachment push for months, others including Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) have previously spoken out against it.

Even the way McCarthy decided to launch the inquiry — unilaterally instead of by a full vote, as he’d said ought to be the only way impeachment inquiries are authorized — is reflective of how big a tent the speaker needs to cater to. McCarthy’s majority depends on lawmakers who won in districts Biden carried; forcing them to vote yes on an inquiry would have been damaging to their reelection prospects next year, and could have put the GOP majority in jeopardy.

For all the damage Far Right Republicans hope to inflict on Biden here - both personally by attacking his family, and politically - they are not looking at the reality of how most voters won't be affected by the implications of impeachment.

Anyone who's been politically aware since the Clinton administration can tell you this. Back then, the Republicans who took Congress in 1994 promised the nation a thorough investigation into Bill Clinton's scandalous behavior involving Whitewater... and ended up impeaching him for lying under oath about an improper (but not criminal) affair with an intern. A sizable portion of the American population watched this political theater... and yawned a bit before going to the 1998 midterms and reduced Republican seats, a staggering loss that ended Newt Gingrich's Speakership and led to a nervous Republican Senate into refusing to reach even a simple majority vote to remove Clinton. It was as though most Americans knew the charges were a sham and punished the Republicans for wasting everyone's time.

It didn't affect American voters either when Republicans during Obama's presidency promised to impeach him for any number of alleged crimes (including his birth certificate) but noticeably never presented any factual evidence to justify those claims. As Jonathan Chait noted back in 2010 for the New Republic, it was all Scandal TBD (To Be Determined) and to hell with comity or bipartisanship, it was the GOP trying to drown Obama in mudslinging to discourage his supporters. Americans again yawned and voted Obama to a second term in 2012.

Impeach as a campaign weapon didn't even matter much when Democrats imposed it on donald trump and with actual evidence of misconduct in office to back it up. The impeachment over trump's extorting Ukraine into even faking a criminal investigation into Hunter Biden in 2019 may have had legitimate cause, but much like the Clinton impeachment years earlier it was going to end as a whimper in a Republican-controlled Senate that was never going to vote against their own criminal boss President. The second impeachment regarding trump's violent insurrection effort on January 6th to disrupt Congress's electoral certification was an attempt to have it on record of what trump did, but again a divided Senate did nothing to remove trump (even with good cause). And those impeachments did nothing to discourage 74 million Americans from voting for trump in 2020.

I've noticed this about impeachment before. It's a toothless mechanism in the Constitution designed before partisanship rewrote how our government works:

Looking back at the history of impeaching those who served as President, we can recognize the moments where the need for impeaching a corrupt President did not occur because that President's party also controlled enough of Congress to make the point moot. We can see the moments when impeachment was used as a partisan weapon instead of upholding the Constitution. We can remember how only once in our nation's history did impeachment seem likely - Nixon was facing that fate before he resigned - only because our political landscape was genuinely bipartisan enough to see the reality of how Nixon's acts threatened the public trust.

Impeachment is broken. Either it is too partisan a tool that threatens the independence of the Executive Branch, or the Legislative Branch is too partisan and corrupt to properly employ the impeachment process in any legal and just manner...

The Founding Fathers may have created the Impeachment process but did so in an era when partisanship had yet to form during our nation's infancy. They did it under assumptions that civic duty and personal honor would drive the individuals in Congress to value integrity over impulsive selfishness. They never considered the reality that Congresspersons - especially when one of their parties turned corrupt the way the modern Republicans have - would avoid their own accountability, that the entire elective process - bent and battered by decades of gerrymandering and false narratives - would fail to hold them accountable when they failed the people and themselves.

The kabuki dance we're about to see from the House Republicans isn't about accountability, as they themselves do not believe themselves accountable thanks to safe gerrymandered districts back home. This isn't about corruption because despite all their wailing and gnashing of teeth they haven't proven it. 

This is about embarrassing Biden and weakening him on the political stage in order to depress voter turnout in 2024. This is about making it easier to deflect or avoid the real corruption trump is confronting in multiple courtrooms over the next six months.

But it's not going to work. The Republicans keep tripping over themselves failing to find any "evidence" of Biden's alleged sins. Attempts to make Democratic or Center-Left voters worry about supporting an "impeached" President in Biden overlooks how the very partisanship that the Far Right uses to divide the nation will compel hardened liberal and progressive voters to support Biden even more. 

And it's not going to distract Americans from the reality that trump faces in each of the courtrooms where his criminal charges continue apace. Whether it's this November in Georgia or March 2024 in DC or Manhattan or May 2024 in South Florida, by the next Republican national convention we are dealing with the reality that trump is convicted on even one felony criminal charge. The courtrooms are not meant to be partisan, with cases determined by an American jury of our peers, and no amount of mudslinging thrown by Far Right Republicans will change those facts.

The Republicans are desperate. They can't run on issues, and yet they're driven to attack attack attack as the only way they can win elections.

Only now, the blows are hitting their own as they punch themselves in the collective face trying to defend the indefensible.

This would all be enjoyable to watch if it didn't threaten the fate of American democracy and upholding the rule of law.

What If: How 2024 Could Play Out

(Update: Many thanks to Tengrain for including this article on Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! Please leave a comment below, or Bluesky me at @paulwartenberg or Spoutify me at @paulwartenberg and Tweet me at... at... DAMN YOU MUSK THE X IS TERRIBLE)

So... All things being equal (although they're not) we are looking at a 2024 Presidential decision between the incumbent Joe Biden and the indicted donald trump.

In this day and age, a first-termer like Biden is always going to run for a second term. And with this corrupt Republican Party, a past-termer like trump is going to run again in order to use the legal protections of the Presidency to negate any criminal convictions that might occur from any three four okay it could get as high as five trials facing him between now and November 2024.

The question we face is not "Will an indicted trump survive a competitive primary against a dozen opponents?" -  because that GOP primary won't be competitive: trump is polling above 50 percent among likely primary voters and so the Republicans are stuck with a potential felon as front-runner - the question will be "How will this be any different from 2020?"

We're facing one of the rare repeats in Presidential campaigning, where the same major party candidates face off in back-to-back election years (anything before 1800 will not fit as party tickets did not exist before then). To my knowledge, there's only been John Q. Adams vs. Andrew Jackson (1824 and 1828),  Martin Van Buren vs. William Henry Harrison (1836 and 1840), Benjamin Harrison vs. Grover Cleveland (1888 and 1892), William McKinley vs. William Jennings Bryan (1896 and 1900), and last with Dwight D Eisenhower vs Adali Stevenson (1952 and 1956).

Half of those repeats happened due to unusual circumstances: with shifts in how candidates got on ballot,  to formations of new parties, to extreme failures of Electoral College results that justified a losing candidate (Jackson in 1828, Cleveland in 1892) running again out of a sense of revenge/defending the popular will over the electoral will.

Losing candidates throughout Presidential campaign histories tended to have the good sense to walk away if they lost the popular vote. Occasionally you'll get the Ambitious types - the Clays - or the Ideological obsessives - the Bryans - who can dominate their party well past their expiration dates and keep running until the party had enough (third time losing) and moved on to fresher talent. By the 20th Century as the Democrats and Republicans stabilized and created deep talent pools, most losing candidates were one-and-done, so rematches stopped happening. Until now, with trump unable to admit he ever loses and able to dominate the modern Republican Party to pretty much bully his way back into a remake of the 2020 elections.

By common logic, we ought to project the results for 2024 to reflect the results of 2020 since it's the same candidates - Biden vs. trump - running pretty much the same platforms - Biden's economic policies of job growth, women's rights, and rebuilding manufacturing/infrastructure vs. trump's anti-immigrant, anti-trade, tax-cuts for the rich, "drain the swamp" destruction of a functioning federal government - all over again.

The actual Electoral Map of 2020, despite
what trump claims, via 270towin.com

However, there are noticeable differences this time.

When 2020 happened, we were in the midst of a global COVID pandemic, which required most states to switch - or heavily promote - a mail-in ballot voting process that expanded regular voter turnout. As a result, there were massive gains compared to previous elections - 158 million total voters compared to 136 million in 2016 and 129 million in 2012 - to where we can't be certain if voter turnout will keep going up or drop back to 2016 levels now that the pandemic has shifted (to a tolerable endemic). It all depends on if the 81 million who voted for Biden (which broke the record for most popular votes for a candidate) and the 74 million who voted for trump (which also broke the previous record) decide to vote again if the mail ballot option isn't there.

Another difference has been the ongoing Republican objective of voter suppression to restrict turnout to their favor. Several battleground states that Republicans control - like Georgia and Arizona - are facing efforts to either make it harder to vote or forcing in new and partisan elections officials who will happily override results in 2024 to favor their own. States like Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania were close electoral wins for 2020 Biden: If the Republicans in those states stir up chaos to undo any popular vote wins Biden could reclaim in 2024, there could well be actual 'stolen' electoral votes.

(Other close electoral win states like Michigan and Wisconsin may not be in play this time, as 2022 midterm gains by Dems will reduce the risks of electoral scamming by trump and his ilk)

These are the states at play as things stand in mid-2023.
Those three states mean the difference between
a Biden win or trump chaos.

One thing that happened post-2020 was trump's direct meddling into the election results using - abusing really - the office of the Presidency to try and force several close states to flip Biden's results and just give trump their Electoral wins. trump also staged "Fake Electors" schemes to give those state legislatures an "alternative" to the official Electors going with Biden. It's questionable - possibly unlikely - trump will be in a position to pull those same stunts again, especially as Michigan already issued criminal charges to their fake electors and Georgia (and the other states) are close to charging their fakes (nobody's gonna volunteer for possible jail time should they fail). However, it may not be trump attempting any Fake Elector stunts in 2024, it will be the Republican state legislators who saw where trump screwed up and where they could make it legal.

If there's any good news, it's that most GOP Red states expected to vote Republican (trump) in 2024 won't need to cheat (much) for the Electoral votes: Any voter suppression will only reflect in the Popular vote numbers, but it's unlikely they can suppress enough to overcome the larger voter turnout of Blue states like California, New York, and Illinois. It's only the battleground states - the Red states Biden won - that will be in play for these schemes to defraud the voters.

It then becomes a question of how Biden's administration will handle the potential cheating in those states. Any intervention by the Justice Department will get attacked by Republicans as "Biden meddling just like trump did," even if Biden doesn't call state election officials directly or threaten others with arrest the way trump and his allies really did. If Fake Electors again show up in 2024, the DOJ could find it hard to fight back, especially if a Republican-controlled House of Representatives overstep and accept Fake Electors to favor trump. It may depend on third-party voting rights groups like League of Women Voters or the Brennan Center to step up and defend the popular vote if that vote went Biden.

That is the one thing we should expect in the 2024 election results: A Popular vote win favoring Biden. In trump's previous two campaigns he never won the Popular vote, and in most respects he has done nothing to improve his position with voters who are not already part of his MAGA cult. The only way trump and the Republicans can cut into Biden's popularity - ignore the constant polling showing Biden in the low 40s pre-election: By election time those numbers tend to improve for incumbents who remain relatively popular over their opponent - is to drag Biden into the mud with scandalmongering and bad economic trends - which is why "Hunter Biden's Laptop" remains the hot topic on Fox Not-News and why House Republicans still want to nuke the federal budget so that Biden takes the blame. 

Another thing to consider is the consequences of trump's criminal misdeeds finally setting an accountability moment for the voters at large. If trump is found guilty in any of the trials he's facing in the next six-eight months, all the voters - even Republican ones - are going to have to decide if they can truly support a jury-convicted felon.

I know I've said before - a lot of others have observed it too - that Republicans WILL vote for a convicted trump, the issue becomes "how many actually will?" 

I've noted before there are factions within the ranks of the party: The die-hard MAGA true-believers who are actually reveling in trump's criminality, the cynical Republican elitists who will mock trump behind closed doors but openly support every trumpian Big Lie in order to beat back Democratic chances, and the Traditional voters who are hard-wired to vote Republican even when it's against their personal interests. Of those factions, only the MAGA voter base will obviously vote trump: There could well be a possibility that the Traditional GOP voters - the ones who grew up to Ike and Reagan and the lofty ideals of a benign conservative utopia - may recoil from a trump convicted on serious matters of espionage, obstruction, tax fraud, and/or subversion of a lawful election.

There's a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll that suggests this possibility of some Republicans refusing to vote for a convicted trump (article by Jason Lange):

About half of Republicans would not vote for Donald Trump if he were convicted of a felony, a sign of the severe risks his legal problems pose for his 2024 U.S. presidential bid, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Thursday...

The two-day Reuters/Ipsos poll, which closed before Trump's late-afternoon court appearance, asked respondents if they would vote for Trump for president next year if he were "convicted of a felony crime by a jury." Among Republicans, 45% said they would not vote for him, more than the 35% who said they would. The rest said they didn't know.

Asked if they would vote for Trump if he were "currently serving time in prison," 52% of Republicans said they would not, compared to 28% who said they would...

This is just one poll, and such things are inaccurate projection until real events prove otherwise (polling science has kinda gotten worse since 2012). The poll at least suggests in this moment enough GOP voters still respect the legal process of trial-by-jury, and understand the implications that supporting a jailed candidate reflects badly on their party and on the nation. More polls will likely follow, and differing results may occur. But it's looking like trump's boast of "shooting somebody on 5th Avenue and not lose any voters" isn't holding up to reality.

Elections always matter, and elections rely on voter turnout. If trump is found guilty, if trump becomes the second man in American history to campaign for President from a jail cell (hi, Eugene Debs!), there is a strong chance trump's voter turnout will suffer far greater than anything that could happen to an unconvicted Joe Biden.

...which may explain, again, why House Republicans are desperate to impeach Biden five different times before 2024 rolls around.

All of this could also be moot by 2024 if trump gets convicted on some of the more serious charges, especially if those convictions trigger the 14th Amendment clause disqualifying insurrectionists from public office. That would kick trump off the general election ballots at the least - depending on the timing, it would negate any primary results - and would be great news for the Republican Also-Rans (up yours, DeSantis) vying for the Replacement gig should trump be banned. Personally, it's a result I keenly desire, because in my view trump has been and will be the worst possible human to ever run for the Presidency.

There are some who disagree with that hope, and Steve M. over at No More Mister Nice Blog does bring up a valid point:

I understand why people want to do this, but what's the likely result? It's hard to imagine Trump being pulled off the ballot in any state he could win in the general election. It's hard to imagine him being pulled off primary ballots in enough states to deny him the nomination. Meanwhile, the effort to remove him from the ballot confirms right-wingers' sense that anti-Trump forces are the real threat to democracy. That's a base motivator for the GOP.

Republicans already believe that the Trump indictments are an attempt to prevent them from voting for the candidate of their choice. Since Trump is actually a criminal, I think what's being done right now is the appropriate compromise: We're charging Trump with crimes while also allowing citizens to vote for him. They know he's facing multiple felony counts. They're making an informed choice. Let the democratic process play out...

Steve quotes that Reuters/Ipsos poll and holds out some hope:

Will nearly half of the GOP electorate really abandon Trump if he's found guilty of felonies? I'm skeptical. But this suggests that some Republican voters will.

And that could be an opportunity for the Republican Party. Even if Trump sweeps the primaries, he might seem like damaged goods to a significant segment of the GOP electorate if he's subsequently convicted of crimes. Maybe there'll be an effort to deny him the nomination, or replace him on the ballot between the convention and the general election. Who knows? A significant portion of the party's voters might approve.

Or maybe not. We'll see how GOP voters really feel once Trump has his day(s) in court and the right-wing media is portraying the proceedings as Stalinist show trials. I think most of the party will rally around him. But this poll suggests that he could lose just enough Republicans to be unelectable in November. It's probably best if the angry base isn't deprived of the opportunity to vote for him, and he loses anyway.

It's a nice sentiment, and like him I do hope enough Traditional Republican voters make the sensible move and NOT vote trump (they don't even have to vote Biden, they could even leave the Presidential choice blank while voting straight Republican down the rest of the 2024 ballot). But we've already seen trump never accepts losing - hence the 2020 schemes that has him facing criminal charges - and it's going to be a question of how far into the trumpian Big Lie madness the GOP state officials have fallen.

One other hope is if trump is convicted, and trump is still on the ballot, there's every motivation by Democratic voters (and No-Party voters leaning Center-Left) to show up in droves to ensure a goddamned felon - likely convicted for acts against the United States - gets nowhere near the White House again.

Again. Elections matter, and voter turnout win elections.

Get the vote out, Democrats. Get the vote out, Indy voters, for the Democratic Party. And for the love of GOD and COUNTRY, Republicans, stop supporting a crooked trump.

Update 7/21/24: Welp. This did not age well...