Cartoon by Randy Molton
Here’s why Joe Biden deserves four more years. (I’m going to start by comparing and contrasting him with the multiple-indicted, twice-impeached conman because the prose just flows out of the depths of how much I dislike that nattering nabob of nonsense.):
His opponent is — at his core — an asshole. He’s also the archetype of an abusive dad. The belligerent barfly. The creepy uncle. The guy no one can trust. The man who won’t take no for an answer — just ask several dozen women.
Every Texas rancher would describe him as “all hat, no cattle”.
Joe Biden’s opponent has no respect for women, no respect for laws, no respect for heroism, no respect for those who work for him. Joe Biden’s opponent has a history of lying, a history of pretending to be someone else, a history of making threats — empty and otherwise. Joe Biden’s opponent fawns over dictators, oligarchs and vapid celebrities.
Benedict Donald’s coarseness and boorish behavior make Luca Brasi, assassin for the Corleone Family, seem dreamy. Though — there is no doubt — the king of pussy grabbers is less scrupulous, and less likable, than Luca Brasi.
Photo: informone.com
The man Joe Biden is running against claims to be the smartest person in the room, regardless of what room he is seated in — unless the room includes the Russian president-for-life — but won’t produce his college grades. The man Joe Biden is running against claims to know the Bible but can’t recite a single verse or remember a single parable. After all, when greed is your raison d’être, there’s not much to glean from religious tracts. The man Joe Biden is running against has always been loathed by New Yorkers and is now loathed by more than half the planet.
Joe Biden kept his promises.
Mired in a pandemic made categorically worse by the negligent previous administration, Joe Biden muscled through the relief Americans needed.
Joe Biden looked Big Pharma in the eye and called their bluff. Lowering prices on drugs and medicine like insulin.
Joe Biden erased college debt for many who were staggering beneath educational loans.
Joe Biden made infrastructure a priority — and delivered — when his predecessor could only mumble that he’d be starting an infrastructure week sometime in the nebulous future. The same, of course, was true about a non-existent health care plan that the insurrectionist-in-chief was going to create from scratch because…how hard could it be?
Joe Biden is a man of his word, not a man without words like the jackass in this video. Which, trust me, is the best demonstration of a brain-fart I have ever witnessed. (Although Stephen Colbert might have been closer to the mark, calling it a climax due to the mention of authoritarian regimes.)
Here are Colbert’s remarks in case you missed it.
In 1984, Ronald Reagan sealed a second term when his query, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” went about as viral as you could go in the early ‘80s. Joe Biden doesn’t need to echo that sentiment — but do you remember the fall of 2020? A plague had swept over the planet fouling distribution channels, roiling money markets, shuttering businesses, overwhelming medical systems and whittling our personal worlds down to square feet.
The previous administration could not have been more inept in their reaction.
In the event you’ve memory holed the former president’s INITIAL response, I’m here to remind you that in spite of all the intelligence gathered indicating America was in for a gut-punch worse than Pearl Harbor and the destruction of the World Trade Towers, the most powerful politician on earth went on the record as saying it would all be gone by Easter of 2020. I guess the god he doesn’t believe in was expected to cleanse America because we so righteously celebrate collecting hand-painted, hard-boiled eggs and consuming Peeps.
Then you might recall the asshole-of-all-assholes denied he lost the election, worked overtime to sabotage a peaceful, or smooth, transfer of power and incited an insurrection while he still inhabited the office of the President.
There is no doubt we are better off in 2024.
Here’s an excerpt from Robert Reich’s latest column The Case for Nauseous Optimism:
I see the strongest support for unions since the 1960s. Last year, at least 457,000 workers participated in a record 315 strikes in the United States — and won most with contracts providing higher wages and better benefits.
Over the past 18 months, graduate student teachers and research assistants at Berkeley, MIT, and Caltech have voted overwhelmingly to unionize. The United Auto Workers has scored signal victories for autoworkers. As has the Teamsters for UPS workers. Hell, even Dartmouth College’s men’s basketball team has voted to unionize.
Microsoft just agreed not to oppose unionization efforts. Starbucks — which has spent the last two-and-a-half years intimidating baristas, employing union-busting attorneys, and refusing to bargain with any of the roughly 400 outlets that have voted to go union — has just agreed to do the same.
Progressive values are ascendant. Which has given rise to authoritarian tendencies and governments worldwide.
The Biden Administration — like most administrations run by those who lean progressive, whether Republican or Democrat (though you would have to travel back nearly a hundred years to find a compassionate Republican administration) — IS making America great. Not jabbering on and on about it and never following through. Not selling millions and millions of dollars of schlocky swag emblazoned with a phrase custom-made for an authoritarian takeover.
As Biden likes to say, “Don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I'll tell you what you value.”
Joe Biden may not be a progressive, but he most certainly is not an authoritarian.
The choice couldn’t be more clear.
Our media should not be wasting their breath talking about the odds, but the stakes…
Photo: cinemacy.com
Emma Stone earned her second Oscar for her iconic role in Poor Things. She deserved it. I’ll also say the movie met all of my expectations. And then some. Highly recommended.
American Fiction had not been on my radar prior to the Oscar ceremonies but, after giving it a peek, I’m highly recommending it as well. Jeffrey Wright and Sterling K. Brown were magnificent, and the director, Cord Jefferson, was right in suggesting indie films with lower budgets need more love.
With that being typed, 20 Days in Mariupol won an award in the documentary category. Dana and I watched it last night and it brings home the insanity of modern warfare and the nitty gritty intimacies you just don’t want to think about.
What ever happened to Thomas Friedman’s idea that countries with McDonald’s franchises would never war with one another in the disaster capitalism future?
Guess the world doesn’t actually work that way, Tom.
pbs.org
Also, if you’re looking for something COMPLETELY different, for some mild entertainment, that falls under the reality television/gameshow genre, you might want to check out Naked Attraction…
It’s British — which is both crazy AND expected all at the same time.
No punches are pulled in the actual show. Don’t let the suitable-for-America trailer fool you.
Pun intended. - JLM