We are in for 19 months of relentless, insultingly transparent spin by way of which a patently incompetent man will be purveyed as commander in chief for another four years.
U.S. President Joe Biden addressing Department of Defense personnel, Feb. 10, 2021. (DoD/Lisa Ferdinando)
Special to Consortium News
Joe Biden announces — via a video, not in person so we can see him live — that he will run for reelection in 2024. Immediately we read that Forty-Six is playing his cards close to his chest, letting his record speak for itself — a daring proposition — and has no plans to begin campaigning in earnest, not even in those states we commonly refer to as “swing.”
No, Joe will remain sequestered in the White House, behind those walls and porticos and ridiculous sunglasses, a man of the people taking care of America’s business.
Get ready, readers. We are in for 19 months of relentless, insultingly transparent spin, propaganda, and lies of omission, by way of which a senile, patently incompetent man will be offered to us as the president for another four years.
Never mind that Biden is the crafty strategist who chooses to limit his public appearances to a minimum out of polished political nous. Biden’s minders, and without them I wonder if he would have lasted this long in office, will keep this guy as tightly under wraps as they can get away with.
You won’t see much of Biden during the coming campaign season. He will make the minimum of public appearances, and they will be brief. He will not answer many questions — mine, yours, or any journalist’s. And those he does answer will be carefully vetted replies written on index cards, as is already the practice. Already we are advised the Democratic National Committee will hold no primary debates.
A Preview
Last week The New York Post gave us a preview of things to come. The Post, you will recall, broke the Hunter Biden laptop story shortly before the 2020 elections. Those exclusives were discredited as Russian disinformation until Biden won, whereupon the Post was vindicated. Put it out of your mind that the chicanery of three years ago was any kind of one-off.
A week ago Monday the White House barred Post reporters from one of Biden’s rare press conferences, saying in the cotton-wool language Joe’s press people prefer that there wasn’t enough room. In its evening editions the New York tabloid published photographs purporting to show 20 empty seats in the press gallery.
Today's cover: White House bans The Post from Biden event as Hunter indictment looms https://t.co/qspXoDAoI7 pic.twitter.com/8ZFDVjufal
— New York Post (@nypost) May 9, 2023
In 2020, Democrats, the press, and social media falsely smeared and censored America’s oldest newspaper. Now the nation’s fifth-largest daily is simply shut out at the door.
Will we have to depend on the Post, a Murdoch property, for an undue proportion of genuine news about Biden, his corrupt family, and his past doings as the campaign season gets going? I will not be surprised if this turns out to be the case, given our liberal media are absolutely bent on keeping all of the above from public view so as to keep this log-roller in office.
Again to the Post. Two days after its journalists were excluded from a Biden presser, they reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation refused to give the House Oversight Committee a file containing evidence that Biden was allegedly accepting bribes during his years as Barack Obama’s veep. It was during those years, of course, that Hunter was on the board of a Ukrainian gas company and Joe carried the Obama regime’s Ukraine portfolio. You can read all about the Ukraine-related corruption of Biden père et fils on the latter’s laptop. You just can’t read about it in the liberal press.
FBI refuses to give Congress informant file alleging Biden took bribes as vice president https://t.co/MfirSjpSyS pic.twitter.com/xqpF6GuQHi
— New York Post (@nypost) May 10, 2023
The FBI’s stonewalling is a hangover consequence of the Russiagate years, I will remind you. It was during that scoundrel time that the Democratic Party, the national security apparatus, law enforcement and the press made common cause in the service of Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the presidency. Brazen refusals to abide by the law have been common as dirt ever since.
You have to read the agency’s response to the House request to get the full, appalling picture. Here’s the good part:
“… keeping this kind of source information free from the perception or reality of improper influence — and preventing the redirection of this information for non-law enforcement or non-intelligence uses — is necessary for the FBI’s effective execution of our law enforcement and national security responsibilities.”
Take your time, I had to read it three times, too. This is what the cotton-wool language of lawless bureaucrats is for: Those who traffic in it must say something that will be made public but do not want to be understood as they do.
FBI’s Message About Congressional Oversight
Pulling this wad of execrable verbiage apart, the agency charged with enforcing federal law just told the House two things. One, we can’t give out information related to “improper influence” involving a figure holding high office even if the evidence we have proves it. “Free from the perception or reality…” Think about that.
Two, and this is even wilder, the F.B.I. just told elected lawmakers that information it possesses about Biden’s corruption has no pertinence or application outside of the national security apparatus. In other words, evidence of bribes Biden accepted is none of the Congress’s or the public’s business.
So far as I understand the matter, the No. 1 “non-law enforcement or non-intelligence use” of the F.B.I.’s file is political. It is to tell the public just what Biden got up to during his vice-presidency so that we can all decide if we like him or detest him and — among those who vote — if they will support him next year. No, the F.B.I. says: That would be an improper use of this information.
Do you ever get as sick of these bamboozlers, these cretins, as I do? Does your heart send faint signals it is breaking as we watch utterly unqualified people with too much power send our republic straight down the chute?
Biden is not running for president. He is better understood as a creation of the Democratic machine and whose function is to front for the Deep State while it gets a declining empire’s work done. His obvious incapacities are just right for the job.
Remote, unanswerable and unanswering, Biden seems to me the U.S.’s first fully Soviet-style president. During his 2020 campaigns I compared him with Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, the two dottering Soviet general-secretaries who preceded Mikhail Gorbachev. Then a reader pointed out this was unfair to Andropov and Chernenko, given what they got done in the late Soviet Union on the domestic side. I stood corrected. But I still wonder how many steps away Biden may be from the taxidermist.
What gets my goat, sticks on my craw, gets up my nose — how uncomfortable it is to comment on these matters — is the offensive confidence the Democratic machine displays as it presumes it can foist a senile old man on our republic. The corrupt-to-the-core DNC gives every impression of thinking it can do whatever it wants and still get its man into the White House. These are the same bastards who prattle on about voters’ rights, the defense of democracy, and so on.
Biden’s decision to stand for reelection — was it his or the Deep State’s? — is a dangerous business given the late imperium’s desperate conduct in Ukraine, across the Pacific, and elsewhere. And no one much mentions the frightening, spine-chilling reality that there is a more than an even chance Kamala Harris will serve as our 47th president within six years of the date-stamp on this column.
Vice President Kamala Harris addressing Department of Defense personnel on Feb. 10, 2021. (DoD/ Lisa Ferdinando)
Silence, a Soviet silence, must prevail on all such matters.
The opinion polls are all over the place at this point, but one conducted by The Associated Press and NORC just before Biden committed to run indicates that three-quarters of American voters, including a majority of Democrats, don’t want him to. All of these surveys put the point delicately: “Age could be a factor,” says one, speaking for all the rest.
Delicacy is simply inappropriate at this moment and in these circumstances. We should be discussing this question forthrightly in the public sphere given all that is at issue.
Avoiding the ‘Age Factor’
I am amused but not surprised by liberal media’s response to this drift among American voters. In a straight-out case of manufacturing consent, these media’s solution is — keeping in mind their shared intent — simply to stop reporting and writing about Biden’s age and obvious infirmities.
Last week gave us an exquisite specimen in this connection. The head atop Charles Blow’s piece on The New York Times’s May 10 opinion page is “The Manufactured Panic Over Biden’s Age.” I see, I see: No one was worried about Biden’s age until the press started mentioning it. So let’s stop mentioning it. Let’s manufacture indifference to Biden’s age. We must do this because it is election time.
Do you love it or what?
“We as citizens and consumers of media like to think that we come to our opinions and beliefs completely on our own, and we resist the notion that those opinions have been influenced or manipulated by outside forces,” Blow observes. “But there is a growing body of research that demonstrates the opposite. We are, unquestionably, influenced by the media.”
Wow. Where has this fellow been? Not reading his Bernays, his Lippmann, his Chomsky and Herman. Not reading the magical realism his newspaper trades in to “corral the public” — as Zbigniew Brzezinski wonderfully put it — into thinking and believing whatever the government it serves want the public to think and believe.
“The idea that voters are worried about Biden’s age and capacity has been repeated so often that it no longer requires any proof beyond polling that reflects what respondents have consumed: reports that they’re worried about Biden’s age and capacity. … There’s a real chicken-egg conundrum here.”
Actually, Charles, there isn’t.
Charles Blow in April 2018. (kellywritershouse/Flickr, CC BY 2.0)
This is a truly curious pirouette. The New York Times is perfectly pleased to swindle its readers into thinking and believing anything as just noted — the justice of a proxy war, China as the aggressor in the Pacific, America has a terrific health care system, and so on — but if its readers think and believe something the Times does not want them to think and believe, it’s time to stop encouraging them to think for themselves.
I don’t pay great attention to American elections because I don’t vote — or, as I prefer to think of it, I cast my vote by not voting. Certainly, I am not in the business of predicting what will happen at the polls next year.
A survey The Washington Post and ABC News published last week produced results that have a lot of heads spinning. In a Trump–Biden election, Joe loses by a spread of six percentage points, 44 to 38. In a De Santis–Biden contest, it is 42 percent for the Florida governor and 37 percent for Biden.
You would think Democrats would start to get the message. But they seem to be living with these kinds of data by shrugging them off. “It’s probably an outlier,” Jonathan Weisman, a Timesman based in Chicago, remarked Sunday of the Post–ABC poll.
I begin to recall the scene in 2016, the last time mainstream Democrats presumed that what they wanted was what America would get. I do not stand in the corner of any of Biden’s potential rivals for the presidency, but there is the matter of comeuppance. A party so complacent and contemptuous of democracy as to assume it can impose an incompetent geriatric on the nation to suit its purposes deserves some.
Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International Herald Tribune, is a columnist, essayist, lecturer and author, most recently of Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century. His new book Journalists and Their Shadows, is forthcoming from Clarity Press. His Twitter account, @thefloutist, has been permanently censored. His web site is Patrick Lawrence. Support his work via his Patreon site. His web site is Patrick Lawrence. Support his work via his Patreon site.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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No doubt about it, the Democrats’ Selection Election 2020 served-up a political corpse, Biden-Harris, posing as POTUS masquerading as human.
Three (3) years later, “Hocus. Pocus.” The Democrats’ f/focus, “impose an incompetent geriatric on the nation to suit its purposes,” deception, destruction, death! There’s NO assumption, it’s DONE!!! “but, there is the matter of comeuppance,” i.e., “BOOK ‘EM!!!” Indict. Prosecute. Incarcerate. REMOVE by LAW, FOREVER!!! Send in the U.S. Marshals w/Zip-Ties & Frog March ‘Em, off The Hill!
Everybody, knows, “That will take an act of CONGRE$$!”
“WE” ask Marjory Taylor-Green to REVISE her Articles of Impeachment, i.e., “IMPEACH, Comma La Harris, FIRST!” NOT, Joey Robinette Biden.
Joey Robinette Biden deserves being REMOVED per the 25th Amendment. “Just Do It!” “Age could be a factor?!?”
Joey’s age IS the denominator; and, the numerator proves “the light’s on; but, NOBODY’S home!” Only the echo, in the halls:
“So, Dear Joey Robinette Biden,
The next time you kneel for confession, ask the Good Lord, that Rock of Ages, to engrave justice, human rights, decency, and peace, in your hardened mind and calloused heart. And, Jesus wept.” (Jeffrey St. Clair)
Isn’t NOT voting the equivalent of voting for the winner? And, aren’t the winners pleased by your unvoiced support? If no listed candidate is worthy, write-in one. Speak up, you silly rationalists, I’ve yet to hear an argument to support this position.
What kind of president would Kamala Harris be? I know of her mostly for sending a lot of Black pot smokers to jail!
The DNC criminals knew Biden is demented and it can only get worse, instead of picking a competent VP to take over if needed they picked another Zero. Why would any Democrat trust that outfit to do a better job next time? A morally and intellectually bankrupt party elite. But the other party is no better. Then again the same is true of all our 3 branches of government.
So who is controlling Biden? Who is running the “Deep State?”
No one. It’s all chaos, and random cabals fighting over ladyboys and war profits as the planet burns.
Beat me to it. Reminds me a lot of Reagan, who “suddenly” developed Alzheimer’s after he left office. Same question: so who’s running the country? If anyone.
This does look a lot like the Dems trying to throw the election, again.
J.S., who is controlling Biden you ask, the same big money that controls all of congress. The national security apparatus that allowed the murder of JFK, specifically the CIA has a history or making foreign policy ever since JFK died for sure. Before his death the institutions of CIA and NSA had parlayed their control of said foreign policy into a nation destroying / nation building behemoth, using the excuse of fighting communism. These institutions are really all about money, the banking business rules big politics, in my opinion the term Deep State refers to those who have the money to buy inroads into governments world wide.
Whitney Webb has released and 2 volume set, well noted and vetted relating a long history of this behavior before CIA and NSA. It is a fact the a big part of world banking history is that of manipulative banker types.
CIA for one wrote a veritable text book on how to manipulate the banking industry and laundering money. SEE BCCI, one GHW Bush and the Safari Club.
I suspect you might not agree. I suggest you do some serious reading on this. Biden is doing as he is being told to do. This man, Biden, is not capable himself of pulling much of anything of the complexity we see in world events currently, not many presidents are capable of fighting the willful intrusion of the national security apparatus into politics or it’s subjugation of foreign policy. The DOJ has deferred it responsibilities here and secrecy reins in the effort to keep the lid on this situation.
U.S. presidents have become talking heads similar to the lame, so called, “news” industry. Puppets with the hand of the Deep State up their arses. We now have the parties of “No” and the party of “Do nothing”.
Everyone is talking past everyone and nothing is getting done.
Thanks CN
there’s another reason he can’t go out on the campaign trail.
they (the officialdom, and all related bureaucratic/medical complex classes) are trying to pretend “covid is over”. but it’s still around and he is very likely to end up in a room with a person spreading it.
and the shots they give out don’t prevent catching and spreading it.
and arranging for all of the venues to deal with this issue would be too technically complicated and/or too obvious.
it’s not like you can tell the public to go out and do everything “as normal” and then ask them to mask up just to see the prez. people might start to question that, and also question why there’s suddenly huge portable HVAC purifier systems parked outside the joint.
A perfect segue opportunity, so thanks Patrick (2). I’m sure you and Patrick (1) will both see why I had a chuckle when I saw Patrick (1)’s headline;
“As Vladimir Putin has said, sealed inside its bubble, America today is steadfastly walking the unhappy, steady and confident gait of the Soviet Union.”
From an excellent contributor in my home town of Melbourne, Australia, at a site which has published Patrick (1) a number of times;
hxxps://johnmenadue.com/the-crooked-timber-of-an-unhappy-dangerous-american-empire/
And, Patrick (1) – some time since we’ve interacted here, but grand to see you still pumping out high quality ‘product’.
Yeah, and then demolish Citizen United…the legal bribery for billionaires.
Ranked Choice Voting!!! Let’s get rid of the detritus!
I’m still hoping the Republicans will impeach Biden for corruption, but he must feel immune for some reason, or he would not have bragged on camera about how he threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine in 2018 unless they fired the prosecutor investigating Hunter.
hxxps://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=biden+telling+ukraine+to+fire+prosecutor+investigating+hunter&docid=608000647518316084&mid=0BFC649C5EDDD5B4EFB80BFC649C5EDDD5B4EFB8&view=detail&FORM=VIRE
[odd this is still available.]
Reading the Washington Post comments is depressing, because it seems almost all of them express devotion to Biden, and of course hatred of Trump/Putin ( and recently RFK Jr ‘anti-vax demon’).
The truly terrifying aspect of this is the willful blindness of the Democrat cult. They see all of this and still think that he’s the greatest president in history. The idea that America has descended to two cults lead by an incompetent, uber corrupt, serial sexual predators tells you everything about the state of America’s “democracy”.
Usually to have leaders as f’ed up as Bush II, Trump, Biden, you have to have a hereditary in-bred monarchy.
Americans are getting the leader they deserve. Meanwhile those of us who live in other countries are laughing our guts out. Personally, I can’t wait for Kamala Harris to take the reins!
A very typical American attitude…blame everyone else long before accepting blame. The accusing finger always ready to point in any direction…except at itself.
And if you’ve ever known any alcoholics, this is typical alcoholic behavior. They are always entirely innocent and the rest of the world — you know, the spouse who thinks they should go to work and be responsible, the boss who expects them to come to work, the children asking for their attention, the friends who get fed up — is guilty of everything under the sun. And one of the worse things about an alcoholic nation is that we cannot come together and work together to overthrow these cheap gangsters.
And psychopaths.
The USA is determined to follow in the footsteps of the 1980’s USSR.
A perfect segue opportunity, so thanks Patrick (2). I’m sure you and Patrick (1) will both see why I had a chuckle when I saw Patrick (1)’s headline;
“As Vladimir Putin has said, sealed inside its bubble, America today is steadfastly walking the unhappy, steady and confident gait of the Soviet Union.”
From an excellent contributor in my home town of Melbourne, Australia, at a site which has published Patrick (1) a number of times;
hxxps://johnmenadue.com/the-crooked-timber-of-an-unhappy-dangerous-american-empire/
And, Patrick (1) – some time since we’ve interacted here, but grand to see you still pumping out high quality ‘product’.
Dmitry Orlov has some thoughts about what will happen to the US when its collapse happens. Worth checking his writings out.
Why even bother with elections? The illusion of ‘democracy’ is so fragile and so transparent these days that very few people really truly genuinely believe that their vote, or any vote for that matter, will make the blindest bit of difference.
Just like the revolving doors of government and big business, the incumbents in the top government jobs just take them in turns and do the bidding of the deep state. Nothing of any significance ever changes, only minor things designed to maintain the illusion of choice.
You would think that the inner party would remove this disgusting cancer from the ticket. Twenty-fifth amendment his ass if necessary, unless he’s collected incriminating evidence on all insiders and possible challengers during his sixty years in high office in which case the cowards will hide in plain sight. I’d prefer he be impeached and removed from office to illustrate how the system should work when confronted with a truly criminal incumbent. Look, even Nate Silver, who skews way Democratic, has him polling close to only 40% favorable and nearly 55% unfavorable, depending on the weather. He’s a dead president walking, threatening every person on earth with nuclear Armageddon because he hates Vladimir Putin who is doing an exemplary role as a president and world leader.
Thanks, Mr. Lawrence! It’s a very forthright account. I well understand why you don’t vote.
I agree. I myself only vote for the Socialist Equality Party and have for 25 years.
Great article, Patrick. I never thought of Biden as a Soviet-style President (although the comparison is apt) but more of a Roman one. Like in the Empire, when the emperor became too tyrannical and the praetorian guard would dispense with him and acclaim the first old senator they could find. So long as he did whatever they wanted, he could enjoy a long reign. Biden is literally that old senator, acclaimed by our modern praetorians.
It’s not the age. It’s the person.
The dnc is being paid by the rnc to put up someone who can lose to magaman.
It’s all theater.
“Do you ever get as sick of these bamboozlers, these cretins, as I do? Does your heart send faint signals it is breaking as we watch utterly unqualified people with too much power send our republic straight down the chute?”
Oh yes, I do. I feel heartsick, despondent, sometimes without hope for the country I was lied to about my entire life. Let the comeuppance begin.
Hi Paula, a small number of Biden voters not voting in 2024 will create a significant impact (loss). Perhaps heartsick, despondent people, without hope for the country, may as they author wrote – cast their vote by not voting. I will be unsurprised by a Biden loss.
Biden has dementia and his handlers are trying desperately to hide that fact from the public. It has been evident for some time. And the idea that the incompetent Kamala Harris might end up as President fills me with horror. I know all about Kamala Harris. I live in San Francisco, where she used to be District Attorney before she got kicked up to Sacramento. She’s a favored protege of former Mayor Willie Brown. She supported the three strikes law, advocated sending parents to prison if their kids skipped school, and refused to prosecute financial criminal Steven Mnuchin. The fact that there will be no debates tells us that we live not in a democracy, but an autocracy controlled by billionaires and corporations. This is why I support socialist revolution.
Right on, Carolyn! And I’m still amused by the fact that Biden and Harris consistently polled LAST in the Democratic primaries.
thank you!
Private Profit Public Loss Capitalism Must Go And Democracy Must Come
We need a radical restructuring of the economic, political and value system that treats all of nature, earth, air, water and human beings as commodities to be bought, sold, rented in pursuit of enormous private profit for an ever shrinking number while increasing the hundreds of millions who sink lower economically while bearing the public loss that is the outcome of all private profit.
The media covered Biden’s dementia before Obama cleared the field for him. They asked the panel who thought that Biden was competent enough to be president and none of them did. Wish I had saved the link to it.
Spot on about Kamala too. I don’t think I’ve seen one of her speeches that she gets through without her gawd awful cackling.
There is no Left in the Democratic Party.
Bernie and the other pro-war-gressives are at best ‘center-right’. They offer at best very weak calls for social reform, suggesting that the USA ought to catch up with the rest of ‘the civilized world’ decades later. They sound like Ted Kennedy’s very mainstream Democrat platform from 1980. Calling for catching up with the rest of the world 50 years later, and echoing a mainstream platform from 1980 are not ‘radical left’ positions. This is barely ‘center-left’. And they are incredibly weak in the way they advance this barely-center-left agenda. They basically ask nicely, then quit and go home.
With their being perhaps just a tick to the left of center on domestic issues, they are solidly on the right on foreign policy. Bernie is a strong supporter of Israel, no matter who they bomb. Bernie would never even suggest cutting military spending for some help for Americans in his campaigns. Bernie and the rest of the progressives are pro-war. They are firmly in favor of America being the world’s police-person, judge, jury and executioner. They are nationalistic in their economic policy, and have no problem giving orders to other nations. This is a solidly right-wing stance.
So, you put a very weak and slightly center-left domestic policy with a solidly right-wing foreign policy and what you get can at best be described as ‘center-right’. There is no Left in the Democratic Party.
You’re quite correct that there is no left in the Democratic party. They are just another right-wing, warmongering party of the billionaires and corporations. It is necessary to support real socialists, not capitalists.
This is what I say every time I have to hear some knucklehead calling the Democrats leftists. Utterly ridiculous! I like Victor Navasky’s description of post-WWII liberals cutting their ties to actual leftists and falling into line on the U.S.’s fascistic foreign policy.
The US is a turkey with two right wings.
“Free from the perception or reality…” I must ask, what is left, then if information is free from both?
Are we as a nation as stupid as the political leadership thinks we are? Trump was a terrible president, but Biden beats him, he is worse than Trump and even Bush. The whole party is insulting every voter who ever voted for a Democrat. And the Republicans are no better.
How could anyone be worse than someone who lied about weapons of mass destruction and killed hundreds of thousands of people?
Biden is gaining on W. Bush as the worst US President to date. As hard as bad as one must be to be worse than Bush, Biden is worse. Joe Biden (or his handlers) is provoking a nuclear war. Since poking the Russian bear hasn’t worked, Biden and his neocon advisors have pointed his eyes on to China. That is darn close to being the worst president, ever.
And how many people do you think Biden has killed in his decades as a war criminal? He was gung-ho for that same war, remember.
Biden was a big supporter of the Iraq war, now his avoidable war is also based on lies and aimed at Russia, using Ukraine for cannon fodder, annihilating the nation. The consequences of his refusal of diplomatic negotiations could end in a nuclear WW III. He has appointed and promoted the same neocons who worked with Bush. Biden is mentally unfit for office, it is high time to talk about it. Who is in charge of the WH, is it Nuland/Sullivan/Blinken crew? Who is responsible for the Joe Biden administration?
The Biden administration is totally out of control. And MSM is silent and covers the catastrophe up.
Could be. Elected officials aren’t required to know anything, but I get the sense they have a very good idea of the character of their electorate.
Yeah, to be honest, I’d still wager that he eventually does his LBJ.
Its a matter of timing. If he does it too soon, Kamala falls on her face too obviously and un-fixably early. If he does it too late, the the far-right Democrat campaign gets off to a late and sluggish start. The only thing this ridiculous video really said was that ‘now is not the time.’ But, I’d bet a speech writer is already working on his eventually speech for when he does his LBJ.
For those who don’t know their own history, President Johnson (aka ‘LBJ’), facing an electorate in revolt over an unpopular war, announced early in 1968 that he would not be seeking a 2nd term. Before things were done that year, a leading challenger from the primaries had been assassinated, as well as Dr. King who was supposedly thinking about a 3rd party anti-war run, and was certainly calling for a ‘revolution of values’ in America. LBJ’s Veep finally got his turn … to lose to Nixon (aka ‘Tricky Dick’).
If there was a pool to pick the date for Biden’s performance of his LBJ, I’d get a day this fall on the grid. Soon enough for Kamala to get everything printed for the early primaries, but late enough so she doesn’t take too much incoming fire before she even starts to get going.
No way. Kamala got clobbered in the primaries. If it is to happen this way, it’s got to be after the convention when it’s too late to choose anyone else.
Sadly, his LBJ moment is likely to be his decision he can’t be the 1st President to lose a European war, leading him to commit hundreds of thousands of troops to Ukraine, The Republic of.
Exactly what I fear, but hope the generals will refuse.
On losing a war, I’d say he fears ‘losing’ Ukraine as well.
It was interesting listening to Lady Bird being interviewed on Dick Cavett a couple of geologic ages ago. He asked about her supporting LBJ’s run for president in 1964 and her reply was that she told him he should run in ’64 but not to run again in ’68.
Usually it is a major speech when an incumbent President announces his re-election bid. Its a big appearance with a big crowd. Its a major speech where the Pres lays out his accomplishments for his first term and sets his agenda for his second term. This is always a major speech. I haven’t done the research to compare examples, but this has long been the norm for this democracy.
An non-live, edited video, only a few minutes long, and released early in the morning, just simply does not cut it.
The man simply refuses to actually talk to the American people. He can’t explain his policy. He can’t explain his actions. He can’t propose a platform that would help the American people and gain their support. He doesn’t even hold press conferences with that fake, rigged “press corps”. All we get from Biden is a wheezing silence. Which in a supposed Democracy, is simply not acceptable.
Well, maybe if you had dementia you wouldn’t want to talk to the public either!
Maybe others have said this, but Biden reminds me a lot of the string of Soviet Premier’s towards the end, each was some mindless functionary who’s claim to fame was …. its my turn.
I have no problem with a lack of contenders within the Democratic Party. Because it has long been obvious that any real force for any real change has to come from outside this party. Let them have their little celebration of the Soviet style, its-my-turn President … then kick his butt with an independent, pro-democracy campaign in the fall election. The Dem primaries are rigged anyways, so who cares.
Yes, Patrick Lawrence said it in this very article. Hence the headline.
Yeah, yours is a garden variety anti -Soviet habit of USA “progressives” to equate USA rulers to USSR ones.
I suppose you know nothing about USSR but such rubbish.
Is Biden like 70th+ Soviet rulers a prez of state without(!) joblessness, homelessness, hunger and with(!) free healthcare for all and so on? Because it was what USSR was really about.
Yes, it does get a little tedious. I am very fortunate in that I did not grow up fed to the gills with U.S. propaganda because at my age (69) I now question how much people can actually grow beyond whatever pablum — political, religious, etc — they were force-fed as children.
“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. ”
Karl Marx The German Ideology
Anticommunism is a tax that Western “progressives” pay to ruling class (capitalists) in order to be able to criticize some (!) imperfections of capitalist rule.
it seems the only way to prove to American liberals how awful the democratic party has become, is to compare their current president to the propaganda caricature version of the former (current) boogeyman. The fact of the matter is that the United-States absorbed Nazi Germany, and took over as the fascist hegemon with operations Gladio, PaperClip etc.
As a matter of fact Hitler was a pupil of USA in settler colonialism, genocide, race laws(((
And do not forget “Unthinkable”.
Why does the corporatized system continue to come up a limp string of lightweights to play the heavy for the whole world? (starting with Reagan) Give me bold figures from those late ‘40’s early 50’s flicks who mean what they say & say what they mean. Lee J. Cobb, Brando, Steiger, Broderick Crawford. Biden’s just more bad casting.
Wide-smile Bido. Gone goofy betimes. Shoeshine & a handshake kinda guy. Willy Loman with perks. Perks Is How It Works! (his motto) Closes his deals inside the grotto.
Free ride to inside jive, a back-scratch or five. Backroom deal with protection, all expenses paid when you win the election. Small slice will suffice, this can all be yours when we go for the price (on Wilson). Just play nice & stay tuned to the capo di capi, capiche? If not, better call your priest.
Still, a manlier option, no, than the basement gas pipe? Attention must be paid! (& so it was and so still is, even as he falters in the halter, stumbles through a jungle of half-remembered b.s.)
Good ol’ Joe from Malarkey! Get a gander at an original glad-hander. Shades of Willie, though not so Stark-ly.
Grab the Shinola & polish ‘em up like new, fellas, while I percolate this shit-eatin’ grin for the cameras. Who’s going to tell the difference?
So, just follow my lead, boyos, show no deference, stick to your guns & double-down. Then we’ll skate scot-free before they know we’ve blown town.
Thank you Patrick, somehow you make this whole depressing situation less depressing. Misery loves company.
What brings my head to a full boil is the massive insult to voters’ intelligence inflicted by the uniparty candidates. You think the insult delivered by the choice rendered in 2020 couldn’t have been bested but it is surpassed by the same lousy choices for 2024. Here’s hoping that RFK, Jr. puts a stop to this.
I have donated once to RFK Jr because his alternative message needs an airing. And yet, I am re-thinking whether or not to continue my humble support.
Am coming to believe that it is a serious mistake for him to run as a Democrat. He will be marginalized and buried alive by the Dem apparatus for sure. Certainly he mus know that, and that causes concern as well: is he merely the most effective sheepdog (like Bernie) whose deep goal is to regenerate the party? If so, he would have to be written off as either perfidious or naive.
In any event, he will probably lose if he continues as a Dem, but that in no way vitiates the importance of certain of his positions.
However: I am thinking now that unless he leaves the party soon and re-starts his campaign under a new 3rd Party his creation, legacy, his legacy will be non-existent, much like Bernie’s. He must start that party, and win or lose, his creation of that party will be earth shaking ultimately. We need that opportunity to hear candidates who are not beholden or in fear of the duopoly.
This is a marvelous article, and the comments all the way down are valuable, aren’t they?
If you are still supporting the two-party (one party) system in this country, you are far from progressive and will never get any meaningful change. Biden is gaga and Harris is incompetent. I do not support either capitalist party and have not supported them for decades. I am a veteran antiwar and civil rights fighter from the 1960s. The capitalists warmongers are going down. It will be a combination of the collapse of the financial system, a general strike, the crushing of Ukraine, the fall of the petrodollar and a complete rearrangement of a system that has long outlived its reason for existence: NATO.
We can but hope Carolyn.
It’s true, we shouldn’t be too quick to support Kennedy when he’s knowingly going up against his own party establishment.
A good article (except for the gratuitous slagging of the Soviet Union!), but I don’t think that the DNC has any intention of running Biden for president. I don’t know exactly what their game is, but unless they plan to somehow thwart the vote altogether, Joe is just a placeholder until an alternate figurehead, capable of winning, with more than a little help from the Deep State (I assume that it’s now OK to call it that) emerges from the fray.
Kennedy? Pfft! But Usanians do seem partial to pigs wearing lipstick (as do Canucks), so who knows.
People, if you consider yourself to be of the left, and still hope to be able to hold your nose and vote for a Democrat — you are not.
To be on ‘the left’ one has to be nti-capitalist.
Yes. That’s always been and always will be the hallmark of a genuine left.
“Foederatan” + from “Civitates Foederatae,” the official Latin name of the United States – is a good alternative demonym for “American,” a term which implies that America is the US and that no other South or North American country is… American.
Thank you. People “holding their noses” and voting Democrat are complicit in the crimes of capitalism and should be shunned for the quislings they are.
When you vote for the lesser evil, evil still wins. This isn’t rocket science and it’s why both corporate parties run evil candidates. Anyone who still votes for democrats is being willfully blind to the fact that democrats rigged the last 2 primaries and told anyone who complained that their corporate charter says that “they could go into smoke filled back rooms and install the person they want.” On top of that they also have their super delegates who candidates can pay to buy their votes. This ain’t anywhere near democracy.
As usual, an excellent and acerbic posting from Patrick Lawrence. As crazy as it sounds, the Democrats don’t care that Kamala Harris will almost certainly become president if Joe somehow survives his Weekend at Bernie’s imitation of life in this term. With a woman as president, the security state will DARE anyone to question her obvious incompetence, the media will VILLIFY anyone doing so, and the right-wing will be FORCED to comply or be rounded up and arrested – or at least cancelled. The DNC is so much smarter than we give them credit for, and a lot more evil than we are allowed to comprehend.
The DNC is not smart. They are insane.
Yes, cunning and predatory behavior DO NOT EQUAL smart.
And so too the Durham Report investigation came to its conclusion(s) on an otherwise inauspicious yesterday.
Once again the Dem party honchos are up in the universal docket and found to have committed various misdemeanors and felonies across the board, specifically and individually. A plenitude for prosecution—if only.
Hillary. “Presenté!” Of course. Then there’s Scowling John—John Brennan–these spook types get away with anything—anything—ever since that bureaucratic specimen of clandestine authority James Clapper was caught on camera bald-faced and bald head lying to Congress about surveillance of citizens. Thanks to Edward Snowden. No prosecution. No penalty. Nuffin’. Nuffin’ whatsoever.
I’ll leave the rest of this to one wittier than me. From Twitter:
Greg Price
@greg_price11
“Brennan goes back on MSNBC like nothing happened,
Biden continues running the country into the ground,
Comey keeps eating glue,
and Obama enjoys Martha’s Vineyard.”
Mr. Lawrence, what does “political nous” mean?
I knew Joe from his past deeds and didn’t vote for him, nor Trump. I write in my choice, for which I am called out: “If you don’t vote for the DNC choice, you’re voting for Trump.” No, I am voting for the best person, say, Jill Stein or Tulsi Gabbard, someone who thinks wars are bad for the inhabitants of the earth.
Joe Biden was never a good person, even with his falculties intact. We’ve had only two decent presidents in my lifetime and no honorable State Department ever. Show diplomacy? Never! They want hegemony over everything, everyone, everywhere, which is the entire world, all the resources, all the labor, all the leaders in every country. Fortunately, their control is waning rapidly. We all know that; it’s just the leadership who live in a bubble of darkness. I would add that the DNC is the stupidest group on the planet.
P.S. Robert Kennedy, Jr. is running for president. First and second on his agenda: Free Julian Assange and the other whistleblowers. Close the 800 US military bases. He won’t be allowed on any MSM.
Jill Stein and Tulsi Gabbard? You can’t be serious. And Robert Kennedy Jr. is an antivaxx conspiracy theorist and general loon. It’s fine for him to use Julian Assange to somehow gather in people who would otherwise reject him, and lots of people will fall for it. But I don’t believe him for one minute.
I have my doubts about Kennedy as well, but is he really “anti-vax” simply for questioning the Covid vaccinations?
Oh, Carolyn, do not descend into that boring trope “conspiracy theorist.” I hope you’ve read The Real Anthony Fauci.
Very good. We should also bear in mind that the ruling party is not ‘losing.’ Their war has been a huge success. Shareholders in both the private and political sectors will continue showering in Big Military and Big Oil windfalls for a very long time.
And imagine the money they will make in the next 19 months!
Joe can sit quietly in a rocking chair while everything else carries on regardless.
If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. And the military money machine is far from broken.
#Kennedy24. He has his warts, but considering the alternatives & like Biden, it’s a no brainer.
Patrick’s optimistic conclusion that Democratic Party leaders just don’t believe or understand the polling data may be optimistically naive. Perhaps, as so many voters who despise the Deep State believe, they feel that given their control of the electoral process through enough local electoral supervisors, the judiciary, agencies responsible for law enforcement at all levels and the corporate press, their candidate will assume the presidency, no matter what the voters do.
Excellent commentary as always Patrick Lawrence. It makes me wonder how close we are at this point to empire’s final stand before the rickety edifice collapses. I shudder to think how much more bizarre things can get.
Old Joe is a figment of our imagination, the nightmare that won’t go away. It would never occur to him that for the sake of his country it is long past the time to move on.
I thought Hillary Clinton had a big ego, but Biden makes her look like sheepish choir girl.
You’ll be closer to the mark if you think “Weekend at Bernie’s,” Robert.
Including his cloying wife, along with PNAC Central who actually run this shitshow at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Great article from Lawrence, as always—definitely one of my favourite authors on CN. It amazes me the NYT is seriously willing to say (presumably, even *think*) that people only believe “age could be a factor” because of the (mainstream) press; they really overstate their own importance and influence these days, so far removed from ordinary people!
It’s clear they never speak to anyone outside of their own élite circles, or if they do, they mustn’t consider bringing up politics in even the most casual, surface-level way with the commoners they hold so much contempt for; I suppose I can see why, since how do you make casual political small talk with ordinary people if even bringing up Biden’s age can lead to disagreement and reveal your snobbish élite colours as a NYT journalist?
I don’t know, maybe it’s different in some places (more likely some are just more or less honest about it), but to me, it’s hard to imagine a less controversial remark you could make. You don’t need to read it to think it when it’s the obvious conclusion from watching or listening to him. A family member of mine works in elder care with dementia patients, and it’s obvious to them the President of the United States is less mentally fit than many people in long term care. It’s honestly undignified to see.
Patrick Lawrence conveys insightful perspectives in a plainspoken, direct and impassioned manner. Bravo! ….. same goes for Caitlin Johnstone.
…… At the end of the day, the Dems are a phony opposition party. The duopoly feeds at the same trough – the Dems are, perhaps, currently more aligned with MIC/Big Tech/Wall Street than the GOP. ……………….. The Dems are more uncomfortable when controlling all three branches of gov’t. , when they might actually be expected to get things done on behalf of the ‘general welfare’ for society. The Dems play-act their virtue-signaling anger toward GOP policies for campaign purposes only. ………. Case in point: The Dems did NOTHING to mobilize any public opposition to the Supreme Court’s impending decision to overturn Roe v Wade. (It DID vilify the one organization – RU4AR – who did try to rally public protest). Internal memos reveal how the SC decision would create a terrific campaign issue for Dems. This kind of cynicism is not lost on the public. . …….nor is the naked anti-worker expression of Biden/Dems prohibiting a strike by RR workers. ………..nor is Biden and Pelosi’s scolding of the handful of Dems who wrote a mild letter advocating for negotiations to settle the Ukraine war. Those 30 lawmakers, shamefully, withdrew their letter within 24 hours.
The duopoly is legendary for managing to keep out any third party insurrection. (Ross Perot’s strong run at the presidency saw to that) However, the public’s disgust with the entire political landscape is so high I think the time is ripe for someone to garner enough a critical mass of support to break through whatever obstacles thrown up by the duopoly.
“I do not stand in the corner of any of Biden’s potential rivals for the presidency, but there is the matter of comeuppance. A party so complacent and contemptuous of democracy as to assume it can impose an incompetent geriatric on the nation to suit its purposes deserves some.”
Mr. Lawrence, you are too kind.
“is necessary for the FBI’s effective execution of our law enforcement and national security responsibilities.”
This excuse is used time and time again. It wears thin now.
“But I still wonder how many steps away Biden may be from the taxidermist.”
I had a macarbre thought when i read that – Norman Bates. LOL.
TRUMP’S ADVICE TO VOTERS IN ‘’24
I tell you, I should be Pres’dent.
To Hell is where Biden’s best sent.
Only a flake would vote for him.
Staying awake would just bore him!
Thank you, Patrick Lawrence for speaking the absolute truth about the Democratic Party and the “deep state”, i.e., the real power behind both American main two (one) parties.
The obviously demented Biden, with his completely unqualified shadow, Kamala Harris, will be allowed to run for President of the United States, with his backup a foreign policy moron. Harris ticks all the boxes the liberals demand. Do the neocons actually believe that nobody has noticed that the gaga President is being controlled by the likes of Anthony Blinken and Victoria Nuland and other assorted maniac warmongers? People should be much more deeply concerned that their government has been taken over by science fiction characters. Biden, Harris and, yes, Trump are like something out of Philip K. Dick or Thomas Pynchon. It is clear that far too many citizens still think they live in a Democracy and I believe that they think it because the truth is too frightening.
And of course it is the “mainstream media” aka the state propaganda agency, that is filling gullible people’s heads with what the great Caitlin Johnstone calls foam. Celebrity worship, reverence for wealth, crap art, and endless, ENDLESS advertising pumped directly into the public’s softening cerebral cortexes.
QUALIFIED v. populist
K. Harris IS qualified! She’s the face by which the Ds can pretend to care about minority people like me. People whose very real problems as BIPOC, LGBTQI, and of course the actual majority F, are given a little sympathy maybe, but nothing substantial. She’s also the face which shows the Ds for what they are–the admin and professional elite benefitting by the econopathic status quo. Who are comfortably aligned with the neolib-neocon cabal.
Neatly helped along by their certainty that they are ever so superior to us who work with our hands for a living. We working class lessers by definition incapable of governing ourselves. So the Ds and their media allies cast populism as an evil beloved only by extremist right wingers and the occasional irrelevant fool who claims the New Deal was a good idea. Hillary C. let the fat cat out of its gilded bag when calling us “a basket of deplorables.” The Ds don’t even bother anymore telling us “I feel your pain.”
I live in San Francisco. We all know Kamala Harris here. She’s an idiot, albeit a useful one for the capitalists and identity politics crowd.
Yes, it is indeed outrageous and dispiriting that old Cracker Joe is actually the President, let alone running again! And the hectoring by assorted Dem Party types and other cynical fools is starting already. I read an article a couple of weeks ago ( in Counterpunch) from an agitated leftish sort who is already running with the “its the most important election in our lifetimes” bullshit line. It’s going to be a lot harder, I hope, this time around for these irrational pleas and nincompoop lies. I’m thinking of at least two bona fide leftists and Marxists (!) over at CP (again) who just 3 short years ago demanded that I vote for Biden. One even gave us the old line about it taking just 5 minutes of my time to vote (in what precinct does it take 5 minutes?) for Cracker Joe. What was my problem anyway? Didn’t I understand, like he did, the danger of Trump? How dare I not do as he told me to! I still get pissed about that now, and am waiting til he comes around again. Some people, including history professors, never learn.
Unless they have their heads up their asses, Biden has had more than 2 solid years to prove himself to his voters and has failed miserably, making him among one among the worst presidents in our lifetime, if not ever considering our predicament. I also begrudgingly voted for Biden due to Trump-derangement, the thought of DT ever becoming president again is nauseating (though it looks like it may happen anyway), but it’s clear now more than ever where Biden and his administration stands, and I will never vote (D) or (R) in the national elections again. And I apologize profusely for not voting my conscience, as we all should, rather than falling for the same lesser-of-two-evils trap so many do every 4 years.
I know Noam — aka The Gnome — has always stumped for these abysmal candidates, but what else would one expect from someone who hung with Jeffrey Epstein? And CounterPunch is just another Democratic Party organ.