WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2021
Solon cites Trump and O'Reilly: In our view, Joe Biden made an excellent, very wise statement yesterday afternoon.
As recorded by the White House, the statement in question was this:
BIDEN (12/21/21): Folks, the booster shots are free and widely available. Over 60 million Americans, including 62 percent of eligible seniors, our most vulnerable group, have gotten their booster shots.
I got my booster shot as soon as they were available. And just the other day, former President Trump announced he had gotten his booster shot. It may be one of the few things he and I agree on.
People with booster shots are highly protected. Join them. Join us. It’s been six months or more since my second shot. If it’s been six months or more for your second shot—when I got my booster—you can get yours today if you’ve been six months or more since your second shot.
He even referred to Trump by name! We think it was smart to do that.
Meanwhile, did Donald J. Trump really say that he has gotten his booster? Yes, as a matter of fact, he did—and so did Bill O'Reilly.
The gents staged a public event in Dallas last weekend. At one point, the titans said this:
O'REILLY (12/19/21): Both the president and I are vaxxed. And did you get the booster?
TRUMP: Yes.
O'RELLY: I got it too.
This came at the end of a longer exchange in which Trump seemed to be endorsing vaccination against Covid-19. We think that Biden showed very good judgment by citing this public statement.
Do we want the "scum" to get vaccinated, as we often allege? If so, the fact that Trump made this public statement seems like a potentially useful tool. We're glad that Trump said this.
Tribal loathing will produce the inevitable result, of course. Tribal warriors will snarkily stress the minor pushback against vaccination which came from the crowd in Dallas. In our view, Biden showed much better sense by citing Trump's endorsement of vaccination, including the need for boosters.
Tribal loathing—and our lizard brains—will tell us not to cite this thing that Donald J. Trump has now said. We hope Biden cites Trump's statement day after day—or would we rather "have the issue" than increase vaccination rates?
Tribal loathing has sometimes led our tribe to abandon useful material. Do you remember when Lindsey Graham—choking up in the back seat of a car—said that Joe Biden, then the vice president, was "as good a man as God ever created?"
Graham said that in June 2015, and he said it on videotape. Here's a fuller excerpt:
GRAHAM: The bottom line is, if you can't admire Joe Biden as a person, then it's probably—you've got a problem. You need to do some self-evaluation, because what's not to like?....He's the nicest person I think I've ever met in politics.
INTERVIEWER: Is that right?
GRAHAM: He is as good a man as God ever created.
Years later, Graham flipped on that, as on virtually everything else. In the meantime, we were amazed by how little use the liberal world was inclined to make of that plainly heartfelt piece of videotape.
As of today, Donald J. Trump has endorsed vaccination. He even said that he got his booster—and so did Mr. O!
We think President Biden showed excellent sense by highlighting the fact that Trump said that. Decent people will turn off the loathing, and the peddling of frameworks, at least every once in a while.
Donald J. Trump got all his shots. He even got his booster!
In our view, The Others—the "scum"—should be given the chance to hear that.
CNN offers more detail: CNN has offered more detail about this magic moment:
VAZQUEZ AND CARVAJAL (12/22/21): During Tuesday's speech, Biden also praised the Trump administration for its efforts to develop a Covid-19 vaccine before he took office.
"Let me be clear. Thanks to the prior administration and our scientific community, America was one of the first countries to get the vaccine," Biden said. "Thanks to my administration and the hard work of Americans, we led a roll-out, made America among the world leaders in getting shots in arms."
Trump told Fox News later on Tuesday that he appreciated Biden's comments.
"I was surprised to hear it," Trump said. "I think it was a terrific thing, and I think it makes a lot of people happy."
The 45th President said he hoped Biden's comments will "help a lot" in bridging political divides in the country.
"Hold back, men of Ithaka, from the weariness of fighting..." We believe sacred Homer first said that!
"...Biden has wisely said!"
ReplyDeleteHa-ha. Thanks for the laughs, dear Bob. Shouldn't it be, perhaps, '...wisely read from a teleprompter'?
Anyhow, may we suggest Howie Carr again, for your reading pleasure:
Omicron has killed as many people as … Alec Baldwin’s gun
loathe away Mao
DeleteMao isn't a liberal. Neither is Somerby. So who exactly do you think is doing all this loathing?
DeleteI think it is the guys in the "Fuck Your Feelings" t-shirts who want to lock up Hillary, even though she isn't running for anything. You know the ones I mean, the folks sneezing all over the produce at the market to show their disdain for other people's grandmas.
What are you talking about, dear dembot? Projecting again?
DeleteI say Mao at this point, sitting in his Mom’s basement gouging on creme soda and fried pork snacks, watching Uncle LeRoy’s Ma and Pa Kettle DVDs, must be up to four hundred pounds.
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A theory from Scott Adams is that Biden praised Trump regarding the vaccine as a clever way to make Trump less popular with his anti-vax supporters.
ReplyDeleteBiden actually does have a lot in common with Trump. He's contributing to a border wall in Texas, called Haiti a shithole, pretends to criticize Israel to sound edgy, he's afraid of the gun lobby, and really he's only there gunking up the oval office with Vicks vaporub and trimmed nose hairs because the younger generations are too socialist to be trusted with elections. I mean we may not be getting better as a country but at least we're staying the same.
ReplyDeleteAnd don't forget that he passed a recovery bill, an infrastructure bill, put in place a plan to deal with covid, restored American participation in the Paris accords and other treaties, has created record numbers of jobs, and has restored good government at the federal level. By most economic measures, we are definitely getting better as a country. We would like to see more progress, but it is difficult with the Republicans blocking such efforts.
DeleteAnd Biden has nothing whatsoever in common with Trump. What makes you think younger people don't have nose hairs?
loathe away guys
DeleteUnclear who you are talking to, AC/MA.
DeleteBiden is going out of his way to avoid confrontation with fossil fuels and nobody buys the promises made in climate treaties.
DeleteBut keep watching cable news and reading WaPo where they want to flatter and appease power.
The Right won’t respect Biden because he’s not doing enough about climate change.
DeleteNow pull my other finger.
The Democrats could have explained the power outages in Texas as capitalists failing to react to climate change. Instead they laughed at them.
DeleteIt's always there. Not everyone in Texas is insane, they're just stuck.
Liberals are giving us something to live on, which isn't nothing, but it's also missing key parts like voting rights, college, they can't even get dental insurance into Medicare. These issues rub up against powerful interests.
DeleteIt's instructive that Berto only sees "the left" and "the right" and not classes. Thus there's no need to talk to the hillbilly, because he is as useless as the Republican party robbing him. And then when Democrats lose to someone, yes, you guessed it, the redneck should have known that unionization went up 2.7% since Biden took office or something like that, and it seems we're supposed to be celebrating when someone in poverty's income reaches .7% over the rate we legally stop calling them poor.
Really Biden is lucky he's having good policies thrown at him from below but he's doing his best to hide from every fight.
8:20,
DeleteAny advice for Biden to get Manchineel or one Republican to vote for BBB?
Just as important, what are the hillbilly’s doing to get Manchin or one Republican to vote for BBB?
"when someone in poverty's income reaches .7% over the rate we legally stop calling them poor"
DeleteThis is a misunderstanding of statistics. That 2.7% increase in unionization is an increase in the mean. It represents a substantial change in the actual number of people in unions because it takes a big change among individuals to shift a mean slightly higher, especially when the number of people being counted is very large. The same is true for incomes. That .7% over the poverty rate describes a mean for a group of people, not an individual person's income. We celebrate when there are enough people to cause such an improvement because it takes a substantial increase in many people's incomes in order to shift that mean slightly higher. How many are needed to produce a change depends on the size of the group being counted.
And this is true for covid stats too. We have 800,000 deaths due to covid. That is 800,000 people dying sooner than they otherwise would have. Yet that very large number of people has decreased longevity by 1.7 years. That may seem like a small change, but it was produced by many people dying years sooner, some in childhood and some in young adulthood and some in middle age, not 1.7 years sooner than they would have due to other or natural causes. No one who isn't totally stupid would say that it makes no sense to be concerned when longevity decreases by 1.7 years, because it means a whole lot of people are dying at much younger ages.
You may think you know a lot about class struggle, but you need to learn how to think about numbers if you are going to talk about economics and social change.
Biden doesn't hide from fights. He walks softly and carries a big stick. He builds on friendships of a lifetime, works with people instead of against them, is more concerned with accomplishing change than his own ego (like Bernie, for example) and he wins support through persuasion not bombast. And he is good at being president.
Gadflies like you are not only a nuisance, but you take votes away from the only party working to help people with lower incomes. That's why I suspect that you are some sort of troll or RNC operative (much as Somerby is), and not any kind of class activist. Those who see change in terms of class are smarter than you.
The statistics I gave were rhetorical and are not real and the fact you quoted them proves you are talking out of your ass. You don't even understand the argument you're trying to rebut.
DeleteThe personal attack and conspiracy theory were especially embarrassing. How pathetic.
Here's what it comes down to. Voters don't know the statistics. You have to communicate, or you don't get credit.
DeleteAnd let's see. Biden is Jesus. Why? I don't want to join a religion and neither do most voters. That's a little cute supper of anger against Bernie for the true believers you have to offer. I don't need that meal, but you're hungry for it. You know, I'm calling you a cultist right? I hope that's clear.
"The statistics I gave were rhetorical and are not real and the fact you quoted them proves you are talking out of your ass. You don't even understand the argument you're trying to rebut."
DeleteYou don't get to make up statistics just because you're too lazy to look them up. My point about your misunderstanding of how statistics work remains the same, and you seem to have missed it again.
If you fell for 3:34's bad faith argum4ents, Congratulations. You have everything needed to be a mainstream media political reporter.
DeleteGeorge Lakoff, a nice liberal incidentally, not a flaming communist, has explained in detail the failure of statistics to win over voters. The fact that you yourself understand nuances to them does not negate that premise. You are arguing with a straw man, my argument was not that statistics do not contain nuance, it is that they must be explained to the voters and can't be felt through the air. Your point failed to address this, but only addressed a straw man.
DeleteAnd at 10:07, I'm sorry my internet comment I wrote for free wasn't up to the exacting standards you prefer. I'll work on improving my blogging.
1:39,
DeleteIt's okay. You tried to bullshit TDH readers, and I called you out on it.
These things happen.
I agree with Somerby that Biden said something good. I don't know why Trump finally admitted that he had taken the vaccine, but I doubt it was to help anyone except himself.
ReplyDeleteHere is the part Somerby leaves out of today's essay. He is lauding Biden for mentioning Trump positively, but over at Fox News, they ignored what Biden said and pretended that he had not credited Trump for his efforts. This was all over this morning's news, with photos of the Fox Chyron. Then Trump went on Fox News to say that he appreciated Biden's recognition, and now the story has been scrubbed.
https://www.rawstory.com/biden-trump-vaccines/
"Despite this, as CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy notes on Twitter, Fox News falsely told its viewers hours later that Trump got no credit from Biden or Democrats for his administration's work on the vaccines."
Why is this important? Because Somerby has been telling everyone here that Fox has the best facts and that the mainstream media lies to liberals.
DeleteI didn't take Somerby's pieces on the Rittenhouse reporting to say that fox has the best facts. I think he was saying fox provided more information on this one story. I am not saying he was right or wrong, just that his arguments were a far cry from "fox has the best facts". You are guilty of exactly the type of clowning that fox engages in - and proving Somerby's hypothesis that liberals are clowning as good as the right ever has - and are too blinded by tribal loathing to recognize it.
Deleteanon 3:52 - thanks for the cogent post, a rarity here (except of course when I and a few others post)
Delete@3:52 So, you're saying that Fox actually did report Biden's remarks accurately?
DeleteI believe Somerby did use the phrase "best facts" in one of his essays. And he definitely said that the media wasn't telling "us liberals" the whole story. Well, here is an example of both Fox and Somerby failing to tell the whole story about Biden.
Do you fanboys admit it? Of course not!
How would Somerby know Fox News falsely told its viewers hours later that Trump got no credit from Biden or Democrats for his administration's work on the vaccines?
DeleteCNN reported it.
DeleteThis is supposed to prove that Somerby's assertion that the mainstream media lies to liberals is false????
DeleteDid CNN report that before or after they reported on the scary Havana Syndrome??? (Speaking of the mainstream media lying to liberals.)
DeleteThe mainstream media lies to everyone.
DeleteYou didn’t really think anyone cared about Hillary’s email protocols, despite the mainstream media banging that drum throughout 2016, did you?
Did I? I don't know.
DeleteYes, and the scum booed him for getting vaccinated.
ReplyDeleteAlas, what the Others are more likely to recall is what Biden said Dec. 16: "For the unvaccinated, you're looking at a winter of severe illness and death for yourselves, your families, and the hospitals you'll soon overwhelm". If this isn't Otherization writ large, what is?
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While this blog catches feelings seeing two American presidents get vaccinated, the World Health Organization is calling for wealthy countries to stop overprescribing the booster shot and make some vaccines for the rest of the world.
ReplyDeleteBiden has the power to seize the patents and make enough vaccines for everyone but that's too radical. Profits over people is much more sensible. Everyone getting sick over and over with new variants is the future folks.