WEDNESDAY MAY 14, 2025
Great Awakenings, don't fail us now: One day short of four weeks later, an inquiring mind apparently wanted to know.
On April 18, President Trump had seemed to say that Kilmar Abrego Garcia had the letters and numbers "M, S, 1, 3" tattooed right on his knuckles!
The implausible claim was happily bruited all through Red America. Three weeks passed before the New York Times offered a half-hearted attempt to fact-check what the president had said.
The normalization is everywhere now. To appearances, so is the cowardice, or perhaps the mammoth indifference.
Today, Secretary Noem testified before the Homeland Security Committee in the House. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) wanted to nail down the facts about the president's claim.
He asked and asked and asked and asked. According to a reasonable transcription by Mediaite, the colloquy which wasn't a colloquy started off like this:
SWALWELL (5/14/25): Madam Secretary, you agree that the letters “M-S” and the number 13, in Times Roman Numeral font, that they are doctored on this photo, right?
NOEM: Congressman, Abrego Garcia is–
SWALWELL: No, no. I’m just asking about this photo.
NOEM: –a known member of MS-13. It wasn’t based off of tattoos. It was based off an entire case.
SWALWELL: OK, and I’ll accept that for the purpose of this question. You agree, though, that this is doctored? Is that right?
NOEM: The same protocols that are applied to every–
SWALWELL: Madam Secretary, I want you to have credibility and I want you to be taken seriously. Is this doctored or is it not doctored?
NOEM: Sir, I am taken quite seriously because–
SWALWELL: Is it doctored or not doctored?
NOEM: –I approach my job with the importance that the president has given me to do my job.
SWALWELL: I understand. Is it doctored or not doctored?
NOEM: One thing that’s important to remember is that every single time a case is built–
SWALWELL: Madam Secretary, I have a 7-year-old, a 6-year-old, and a 3-year-old. I have a bullshit detector. I’m just asking you: is this doctored or not doctored?
In our view, he could have gone with "photoshopped" instead of "doctored." In our view, he could have skipped the part about the "bullshit detector."
That said, the question went on and on, as did the lack of an answer. Eventually, believe it or not, the lady actually said this:
NOEM: So what is your point?
SWALWELL: My question is, the numbers, and the letter MS-13—could you look at the photo, please? It's right in front of you—
NOEM: Are you saying Abrego Garcia is not a wife beater? That he's not a criminal? That he's not a human trafficker? That he's not a member of MS-13?
To our eye and ear, that didn't seem to be what the fellow was "saying." Indeed, was he "saying" anything at all? It seemed to us that he was actually asking a question!
Secretary Noem wasn't in her mega-prison attire today. She was also refusing to answer.
Last night, she appeared on Jesse Watters Primetime. While there, she went with this account of what happened last Friday at that detention center in Newark:
NOEM (5/13/25): I tell you what, Jesse, what happened last Friday was we had members of Congress assaulting law enforcement officers. They were cooperating with criminals to create criminal acts.
And then they’re saying that they were providing oversight. This wasn’t oversight. This was committing felonies. This was going out and attacking people who stand up for the rule of law.
And it was absolutely horrible. I can’t believe they act like this and then they defend it and then they are doing these acts of violence to get people out of detention centers that are rapists, that are murderers, that are people that are foreign terrorist organizations, that have been out there victimizing our communities in the United States of America.
What are they trying to do? Release these people back into the country so that there can be more Laken Rileys? So there can be more Jocelyn Nungarays? I don’t understand what their point is. They have completely lost their minds. They have completely lost their minds.
According to Noem, three members of Congress had assaulted law enforcement officers. In some way which went unexplained, they'd been "cooperating with criminals to create criminal acts."
According to Noem, they may have been trying to release [rapists and murderers] back into the country so that they could commit more murders! Eventually, she even played this card, speaking of the alleged violent attacks on ICE officers:
NOEM: The fact that a member of Congress punched them, hit them, body-slammed them, and then claimed that they were the victims, it's astounding to me.
As we noted yesterday, Tricia McLaughlin seemed to have abandoned the claim that someone got body-slammed that day. Just like that, the slam was back, though the videotape of the body slam was still strangely absent.
Needless to say, Jesse just sat there and took it as Secretary Noem declaimed.
Conduct of this kind represents a type of silent secession. Red America's tribal leaders are claiming the right to tell Red America's voters whatever they want them to hear.
As this conduct heightens, Blue America's major news orgs keep acting like there's nothing to look at. Meanwhile, and for the record, the Washington Post's review of the forthcoming Tapper / Thompson book starts off today like this:
‘Original Sin’ indicts the ‘cover-up’ of a steeply declining Joe Biden
In December 2022, Jon Favreau, a co-host of the massively popular liberal podcast “Pod Save America,” took his family to visit the White House. Favreau, a former speechwriter for Barack Obama, had extensive connections within the Biden administration and brought his family along to visit his old stomping grounds. After a brief detour to say hello to a friend, Favreau went to his old office and was surprised to find President Joe Biden sitting there, charming his family. Not only that, the president had recognized Favreau’s mother-in-law from a fundraiser she had attended years earlier; he soon invited the whole group to the Oval Office, where he regaled them with a blow-by-blow account of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork’s failed confirmation hearings in 1987. The president’s staff seemed either blithely unaware that he was devoting a huge chunk of a weekday afternoon to story time or unwilling to intervene, but then again, Biden had always been a yapper.
In April 2024, Favreau visited the White House with his podcast co-hosts and several other “influencers” at a meet-and-greet the night before the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. Biden was incoherent and frail; he kept telling stories that no one could understand. Sixteen months had passed, but he seemed to have aged a half-century. An alarmed Favreau approached a White House aide, but his concerns were brushed off. The president was just tired, he was told. It was the end of a long week. There was no reason for concern. Two months later, Biden delivered the single worst performance in the 60-year history of televised presidential debates, dooming his reelection campaign, destroying his presidency and essentially delivering the country to Donald Trump.
Favreau’s experience was hardly unique. Far from it. “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson’s account of Biden’s marked deterioration throughout his presidency, is littered with similar anecdotes. The result of more than 200 interviews, the book is a damning account of an elderly, egotistical president shielded from reality by a slavish coterie of loyalists and family members united by a shared, seemingly ironclad sense of denial and a determination to smear anyone who dared to question the president’s fitness for office...
That's what the Post's review says. There will surely be more where that comes from, and not just concerning President Biden's apparent mental decline.
Over the course of American history, this flailing nation has experienced three or four (religious) "Great Awakenings." For an account of those Great Awakenings, you can just click here.
Our view? We could possibly use a widespread (civic and secular) Great Awakening pretty much right about now.
Apparently, having the lowest unemployment rate in over half a century is a sign of mental decline.
ReplyDeleteWho knew?
Joe Biden is in his 80s. What on earth is Kristi Noem's excuse?
ReplyDeleteI would respond to this post but I am in northern California looking for that giant ass water valve the Felon has been yammering about the past year. Think it is surrounded by sharks, batteries, and Hannibal Lecter. And the trans boys who were girls before lunch. This country is such a mess. The Affri-conman-ners to the rescue.
ReplyDeleteHow do you find the will, what with all the post-birth abortions?
DeleteI do it for the smelly rich people in Beverly Hills, forced to take the drip, drip, drip showers. I really care about the rich, as long as they are white.
DeleteYep. This Simpson episode writes itself -- except that it's more tragic than funny.
DeleteYes, Swallwell embarrassed Noem by asking about the pathetic lie about the supposed tattoos. That's a point to Swallwell. Noem was in a position where she didn't want to contradict her boss, even though Trump's comment was blatantly false.
ReplyDeleteOTOH Noem gained a point, at least with Republicans, by making the arguments that Garcia is (supposedly) clearly an MS-13 member.
Umm...saying that someone "is clearly an MS-14 member" is not the same thing as the person actually being a gang member, which, in and of itself, is not a clearly defined concept.
DeleteWhen you photoshop a tattoo to bolster your case, it does not bode well for the veracity of your case. The things that are clear about Garcia:
- He's been in the US for ten years without any criminal record.
- He's married and a father with a special needs child.
- He's employed as an iron worker and his union demanded his release.
- He was kidnapped and sent to a brutal gulag in El Salvador.
Those are the things that we do know. The rest is bull shit spun by a dishonest administration, which is trying to gin up a case against Garcia, after admittedly kidnapping him due to an administrative error. Enough gaslighting.
"(supposedly) clearly"? Sort of sums it all up, doesn't it?
DeleteGeorge: Indeed! Because something is either "clear" or "supposed". Can't be both!
DeleteSpeaking of factual mistakes -- and this one is mine: Garcia has been in the US for 14 years.
DeleteIlya - "Clearly" is Noem's point. "Supposedly" is my point. You omitted some other things that we know about Garcia
Delete-- It is indeed clear that Garcia is an illegal immigrant.
-- It is clear that his wife filed a complaint alleging spousal abuse. (This point is just as significant as his status as an employee, husband and father.)
-- It is clear that he was once stopped by police when driving without license in a car owned by an MS-13 member. Officers discussed among themselves their suspicions of human trafficking because nine people were traveling without luggage. One of the officers said: “He’s hauling these people for money.” Another said he had $1,400 in an envelope.
-- It's not definite, because no investigation was made, but it sure looked like he was transporting illegal immigrants. The lack of investigation is not easy to explain.
David,
DeleteIt is clear:
- Garcia was granted permission to remain in the US.
- It was a civil restraining order. Seems like it was cleared up. It was not a criminal complaint. No charges were ever filed. Let's just make sure that we state the facts clearly.
- Your third point is a bit murky, as far as the provenance of the car, etc.
- Fourth point: nothing is known.
Again, Garcia has never been charged with any crime whatsoever. Cops said some damning stuff...and then let him go. Yeah, whatever.
Here's a hypothetical: are there gang members that commit no crimes, not even a misdemeanor?
Lastly, if a judge were to look at these findings and decide that Garcia should not remain in the US, then so be it. Perhaps, it would be unfair in some sense, but it would certainly be proper. It's not what happened.
"if a judge were to look at these findings and decide that Garcia should not remain in the US, then so be it."
DeleteI agree that this is the proper legal policy. But is it workable? Are any other alternatives better?
Two questions
1. Suppose an ICE employee looks at these findings and decides that Garcia should not remain in the US? Why isn't that enough? What's so magic about a judge?
2. We don't remotely have the resources to give every illegal immigrant a court hearing before a judge. Requiring that means what? Most illegal immigrants will never get a hearing. If they have been turned loose in the US, it means that as a practical matter they will just remain in the US.
David, Republicans keep saying that due process is not workable, but that is largely because they have hugely inflated the estimated number of illegal immigrants in the USA, way beyond any actual statistics about border encounters or number of deportees, even under Trump's aggressive crusade.
DeleteIf Trump were serious about deporting illegals, he would appoint the judges and staff necessary to lawfully deport people. It is clearly not a priority with him to follow the law, perhaps because he knows there are not the number of illegal immigrants he keeps quoting. Not anywhere close. Instead, he has been cutting corners and deporting people who belong in the USA, who by rights should remain here, including even some citizens and quite a few legal permanent residents who have broken no rules.
The problem with your suggestion, David, is that ICE employees (agents) do not have the training or the inclination to look at documents and listen to the stories of the people they are detaining. Garcia tried to show his documents to the agents who took him. They were not interested in looking at them. Reports in every case of wrongful detention are the same, that ICE doesn't consider any documents, passports, court judgments, anything at all when abducting people. Sometimes the cases are so complex that a hearing is necessary to sort out all the details. That is what happened when Garcia was granted the right to stay in the USA by an immigration hearing judge.
We do have the resources to hear these cases, but we do not have the will. The attitude on the right is that these people are all guilty of heinous crimes until proven otherwise. That is not the American way, but it is the way the right thinks about immigrants.
Those with the right to stay in the US pending an asylum hearing are free because that is what our asylum laws dictate. If you don't like that practice, then get Congress to change the law. People have the right to seek asylum here under our Constitution. Our Constitution can be changed, but that is a more laborious process than hiring more immigration judges and giving people their rights under our country's laws.
As a practical matter, the people who are living here are not damaging our country. Most are strengthening our economy and our culture. The animosity of those who hate immigrants is inconsistent with our nation's long history of accepting migrants "yearning to breathe free". I am ashamed of the attitudes expressed by Trump and others who are racist and bigoted.
I once was given a ticket while driving a car full of my daughter's Girl Scout troop. What if a bigoted officer had decided I was trafficking in young girls? The issue didn't come up, but I didn't have brown skin either. Maybe the cops discussed it and let me go, just as they did Garcia. His explanation that he was driving coworkers to a worksite made as much sense as mine, and why couldn't he have been supervising a work gang? Because he was brown skinned?
The courts do not allow prisons to mistreat people by saying "we don't have the resources for all these criminals." The same goes for any aspect of our justice system. People get their rights or they go free. I would not want to live in a country where the equal treatment of people is dictated by the resources someone is willing to spend on them. Either our Constitution matters or it doesn't. When it doesn't we will all be in trouble.
"We don't remotely have the resources to give every illegal immigrant a court hearing before a judge."
DeleteIf you can't find enough good workers, bring in some immigrants to fill the void. It's how we built the country, before Reagan tore it down.
@8:34 We let in a million legal, vetted immigrants every year.
DeleteThe highest legal immigration was in 1991, at 1.8 million. In that year the following happened: "In 1991, the Soviet Union dissolved, the Persian Gulf War ended, and the Haitian government was overthrown by a coup." As a consequence more legal immigrants fleeing those situations were admitted and given the right to live in the US. George H.W. Bush was president. Since then, the number of legal immigrants has been about the same for every president, except during covid in 2020 and during the invasion of Iraq by George Bush. Legal immigration was historically lowest during WWII.
DeleteThe total number of unauthorized immigrants is about 13 million nationwide, living in the US (not entering in a single year). DHS carried out 645K deportations in 2024 (Biden's term). About 117K were sent back attempting to cross the Southern border in 2024.
Your figure and the historical numbers we have been admitting legally suggest that we should be able to vet anyone ICE decides to detain.
Trump's lack of attention to the specifics of people's cases suggests he doesn't care what anyone's status may be, but simply wants to remove all immigrants. If he cannot do it legally, he appears to be trying to scare people into leaving. That is terrorism.
Thanks for your comment, @9:34. I don't agree with you, but I appreciate a clear, well-argued description of your position.
DeleteNobody know how many illegal immigrants there are in the US. Being in danger of deportations, they obviously don't advertise their situation. Seven years ago, a study conducted by Yale and MIT said there were 22 million -- twice the official estimate. There are surely more today. So, the real number could be as much as 30 million. But, there's no way to know for sure. https://thehill.com/latino/407848-yale-mit-study-22-million-not-11-million-undocumented-immigrants-in-us/
If there’s no way to know, what harm are they doing?
DeleteBut is it workable? Huh? You're kidding, David? I'll repeat it yet again, for the Nth time: it's not workable to kidnap people for no reason and sending them to a gulag.
DeletePS: Photoshopping MS-13 is not the same as due process.
The act of photo shopping a tattoo on someone's knuckles to lie to the public about him is unfortunate because it begs the question: is there anything that this administration wouldn't blatantly lie about? It's one thing, and bad enough, that Trump is a habitual liar. No one is looking for gas under $2 / gallon or cheap eggs in response to his blathering. It is another to have a systemic coordinated effort to mislead the public that goes well beyond his limited grasp. What can we have faith in? Nothing with certainty that is the work of a Trump appointee.
Delete12:41. It most certainly is workable and is happening on a regular basis at this point. The MAGAs love it and the others can be portrayed as having their liberal bleeding hearts in the wrong place. It is a win/win for the fascists running roughshod over our country at this point, and a concern for human rights will not win the day in a country in which Donald Trump continues to have a favorability rating above 40%. The only thing that will interfere with their plans at this point is the impending economic consequences of the Trump tariff policy. Wall Street had a nice bump this week when a mere 30% tax on all Chinese imports was agreed upon. The effect of this policy towards all our trade partners, on small businesses and the American consumer, is upcoming and will not be disregarded for long. Medicaid cuts aren't going to win votes either, for that matter.
DeleteTelling the MAGAts that black people have it worse will keep them inline.
Delete"...an elderly, egotistical president shielded from reality by a slavish coterie of loyalists..."
ReplyDeleteI'm skeptical that this is the only possible interpretation of the events leading up to President Biden's failed bid for re-election.
It would make more sense if this book were suggesting that Biden shielded his Democratic base from the reality of his condition, but suggesting that Biden was being shielded from knowing he was old and couldn't remember stuff, makes no sense at all. The idea that a coterie of loyalists shielded Biden from knowing when he forgot things or felt exhausted is ridiculous, but it makes sense as an attack on the people who were opposed to kicking Biden off the ticket, the guys writing the book and their ilk, including Favreau, Clooney, Pelosi, and others quoted. The bad guys are apparently not supposed to be Biden (with his egotism) but those who supported and defended Biden. That makes this even more obviously a political hit piece, aimed at a faction within the Democratic Party. That they would stoop to maligning Biden in order to hold sway politically among other Democrats makes this book even more despicable. Biden deserves to be lauded for his service not smeared out of political opportunism by two journalists fighting their own war.
DeleteThank you for being skeptical, Quaker.
What's the value to Dems of post morteming the 2020 election? It doesn't matter now whether Biden or Harris was a good or bad candidate. They're not going to run for President again.
DeleteOne thing that might matter is the popularity of Dem positions on issues. If Dems decide that they lost because they were seen as being on the wrong side of key issues, then they might consider revising some of their positions. My Governor is doing such revisions right now.
This is a complex topic with several contributions to the election outcome. Harris might run again -- she came very close to winning and the outcome is widely seen as not her fault but the result of other factors, including vote suppression in swing states, and bigotry.
DeleteIn the next election, buyer's remorse in the face of Trump's incompetence and corruption may be all that is needed to put Dems back in the majority during the midterms and back in the White House in 2028.
In my opinion (as a former admirer of Newsom), he is making serious mistakes by moving toward the middle and trying to disavow core Democratic values. I cannot support someone who fawns over right wingers and agrees with Bill Maher. That he can abandon liberal values while wooing people who should be shunned tells me he is not committed to core principles but opportunistic. We don't need a Democratic version of what fuels Republicans in their submission to Trump.
2024 David, not 2020. Good thing you're not a candidate for public office. Someone might conclude that you're declining.
DeleteThe national version of the Democratic party is looking more and more like the incompetent cabal that runs the party in my state of Florida, where a Medicare fraud won governorship twice and is a sitting senator. If you can't beat that version of a politician, what expectations should we have of you? The party could start by announcing that there will be no more presidential candidates over the age of 70. Start looking like something was learned in 2024.
DeleteBiden did an excellent job as president, over the age of 70. It seems unlikely any other Democratic candidate could have beaten Trump in 2020. What exactly do you think should have been learned from this? Maybe we should stop disclosing the ages of presidential candidates so that voters can focus on what matters?
DeleteWith RFK Jr. in charge of HHS, this may become a moot point. He will do everything he can to ensure that we all die at younger ages, so the ability to remain competent into one's old age may become a thing of the past.
I find it very odd that a truly incompetent elderly man with obvious dementia is being allowed to destroy our nation while Dems worry about whether Biden was competent after he demonstrated his ability to lead the nation effectively during his own presidency. We are worrying about the wrong things. We need a mechanism for removing someone like Trump, that people will be able and willing to use as needed, not some way to punish the elderly for their wisdom and expertise.
Notice how hard Somerby and the Republicans had to work to undermine and destroy the concepts of knowledge and skill to make it safe to run Trump on a know-nothing ticket! And now a bunch of Democrats cannot even tell when they had a good thing going and are insisting that Biden did something wrong in office.
I think the problem is that some people will say anything to get a book deal, no matter who it insults or damages.
9:43. Not disagreeing with you. Biden announced in 2020 that he would be a 1 term president and reneged on that. By 2024 he was physically frail, looked like he had a neuromuscular disorder, and spent far less time in the public eye than was reassuring. An age cutoff for presidency nominations is perfectly reasonable. Trump is very cognitively impaired, Reagan was demented.
DeleteWhat did Jimmy Carter look like in his 80s, when he was being sent to conduct diplomatic negotiations and broker peace all over the world? The cutoff should be based on individual capacity, not an arbitrary number of years. There are people in their 40s who are physically and/or mentally unfit and should be excluded. Why not suggest a physical and mental exam as a qualification to run? It would have kept Trump from running, given that he would never submit to releasing the results given his vanity.
DeleteThe idea that starting out with a younger person will guarantee that they don't have a stroke or heart attack that will debilitate them two years later, isn't consistent with real life. Dick Cheney had massive heart problems but kept his job because of medical care. Should he have been fired due to age (he was 60-68 during his two terms as VP)?
It isn't age by itself that incapacitates someone. It is their general and specific health conditions. Trump has never revealed his. That should be prevent someone from running for high office, in my opinion, before asking Biden to step down without any obvious failure or debilitating conditions.
"This was committing felonies. This was going out and attacking people who stand up for the rule of law."
ReplyDeleteGolly. Wait 'til Noem hears what happened at the Capitol a while back.
Favreau is the most important guy in his own life. Biden’s fatigue caused him to invest less energy in schmoozing Favreau in 2024 at a press meet & greet than in 2022. It sounds to me like Favreau’s ego was wounded, not Biden’s. Favreau’s description of Biden as egotistical also sounds wrong given Biden’s personality.
ReplyDeleteAnecdotes like this are not how you assess cognitive function. Meeting Favreau would be trivial to Biden. Lack of sleep can produce cognitive symptoms but Biden seems to have done his serious work at the times when he was feeling best. Trump did that too, even in 2017. I don’t understand how that shows unfitness for office. Nor does it show him out of touch with reality to do the important work when at his best. Old people know they are old.
Biden knows the demands of the job better than Favreau.
Biden had a strong propaganda infrastructure in place to try to spin the obvious and to gaslight people that would point out the obvious about his diminished state. It was very desperate and very cynical but also really well organized between mainstream media and the DNC or whoever Biden's people were. They tried really hard but they could not pull it off. It was a very interesting episode for bipartisan observers of propaganda and media manipulation. There are lessons there to be learned for anyone open enough to learn them.
ReplyDeleteYes, that's exactly how Biden always operated. Lots of propaganda and spin and an infrastructure to support his own personal interests. /sarcasm off
DeleteThis is so unlike Biden that it seems ludicrous that anyone would suggest it, even given that right wingers will say anything and have no concern for truth or plausibility when they say things.
"It was a very interesting episode for bipartisan observers of propaganda and media manipulation. There are lessons there to be learned for anyone open enough to learn them."
DeleteNow do Biden's economy.
I know it may sound strange. I'm just a bipartisan, objective observer. I actually voted for Biden.
DeleteThe mechanisms are propaganda are very powerful but they were not powerful enough to conceal Biden's reduced state. Musk buying Twitter had something to do with it. That had become a very successful propaganda tool for Democrats and he took that out of the picture for them. They still haven't fully recovered from it.
It's only interesting to people with open minds who can look at it objectively.
"I actually voted for Biden."
DeleteAlways good to hear from someone who isn't a fascist.
"Now do Biden's economy."
DeleteThe propaganda efforts on the part of Democrats to play up Biden's economy? I mostly am interested in propaganda and media manipulation but don't know that much about their propaganda efforts to make people think the economy was good or to help publicize how well they were doing. I don't know that much about it.
I was reading a criticism of right-wing spin regarding Biden's economy and inflation the other night. I'll find the article and share it with you.
https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/how-the-wall-street-journal-blew-the-story-of-the-democrats-and-inflation
"I actually voted for Biden."
DeleteHow do you feel about being blamed for the Trump Presidency?
No, the propaganda efforts by the Republican Party and the corporate media to make Biden's economy look bad, so people had an excuse to vote for a rapist to be their President.
DeleteCertainly someone with an open mind, who can look at things objectively, didn't sleep through that.
"How do you feel about being blamed for the Trump Presidency?"
DeleteI don't even know what that means.
Delete"the propaganda efforts by the Republican Party and the corporate media to make Biden's economy look bad"
DeleteYes I would love to read all the sources you can provide on the issue.
Dems need to call the Right's bluff.
DeleteWhen government spending drives inflation, you reduce inflation by raising taxes (specifically on the highest earners).
I have to say, as a liberal, I'm mostly interested in propaganda efforts coming from the Democratic Party though.
DeleteAsk Somerby what it means.
DeleteIt's his theory.
DeleteSomerby has a theory that people who voted for Biden should be blamed for the Trump Presidency? I don't think that's true.
DeleteSorry but you're boring and don't seem very smart. I'm going to leave now.
DeleteVoting for Biden doesn't make you responsible for the Trump Presidency. Not voting for Trump does.
Delete"I'm going to leave now."
DeleteThe country?
Somerby says we need another religious great awakening? I doubt that would help anything, unless he is expressing support for Christian Nationalism, which I wouldn't put past him.
ReplyDeleteWell, no, that’s not what he said. At all. Read again.
DeleteFollow his Great Awakening link. Somerby then says:
Delete"Our view? We could possibly use a widespread (civic and secular) Great Awakening pretty much right about now."
This is like saying "We could possibly use a new pope (civic and secular) right about now." Or "We could possibly use a messiah (civic and secular) right about now.
What do you think he said?
It’s not what I think he said, it’s what he said: We might need a NON-religious Great Awakening.
DeleteSo, what is a Great Awakening if it is non-religious? Does anyone really think MAGAs lack fervor? Was Kamala Harris insufficiently enthusiastic during her campaign (we already know Somerby was)? The point of those Great Awakenings that Somerby links to was the religion. It is like saying "Let's have some non-religious prayers." Who would you be praying to?
DeletePersonally, I favor rationality in politics, not non-religious, secular true belief, faith, commitment to a new messiah. More thought, less feeling and spiritual certainty on any topic. Have you met New Agers? They are worse than RFK Jr.
Why does Somerby keep watching Fox when he clearly knows how bad it is? He is not telling anyone here anything new about that viewing experience. We all knew what Noem was when she shot her dog. Why expect anything better of her now? Was all of this Fox stuff presented just so that Somerby could repeat the smears of Joe Biden?
ReplyDeleteEither that or because the mission of his blog is to critique the national discourse, and Fox is a dominant part of that discourse.
Delete"because the mission of his blog is to critique the national discourse..."
Delete**GONG**
I love those who criticize Somerby for not writing about what they want to talk about, and then imagine that he must have some ulterior, secret, treasonous mission instead.
DeleteI love Bob's sock puppets for their mind-reading expertise.
DeleteExcuse me. I take him at face value. You're the one who engages in mind-reading, imagining that he has a secret agenda.
DeleteSomerby did talk about that new book, the one that justifies his own support for pushing Biden off the ticket because he is old. That has nothing to do with Noem or Gutfeld. It is all about a faction of Democrats who didn't like it that Biden was doing such a good job. Who thinks like that?
Delete"It is all about a faction of Democrats who didn't like it that Biden was doing such a good job. Who thinks like that?"
DeleteNobody. You just made that up. But there was a faction -- actually a large majority -- of Dems who were appalled that Biden lacked the ability to make the case for his own reelection.
Biden won the nomination. They should have supported him, helped him make that case, instead of creating chaos and weakening Harris during the general election. Dems didn't turn out. This is one reason. Somerby supported pushing Biden aside and then he failed to support Harris who ran in his place. Other Dems did the same thing (assuming Somerby is Dem). It would have been better if they hadn't meddled. What happened was an abuse of our system.
DeleteA large majority of Dems disagree with you. Perhaps there is a reason. You may want to watch Biden's debate again.
DeleteWatch Obama’s bad first debate and tell me he shouldn’t have been president.
DeleteBiden gave several speeches & interviews right after the debate that were fine.
DeleteYou can't compare Obama's and Biden's debates.
DeleteThe media didn't have a hard-on to get Obama off the ticket, the way they did to get Biden off the ticket.
Every day, another story of ICE disrupting the lives of innocent people who have the right to live in the US:
ReplyDelete"The Texas-based rock band Lord Buffalo has been forced to cancel their tour of Europe after Customs and Border Protection agents snatched their drummer off the plane.
According to NBC News, drummer Yamal Said, a Mexican citizen with lawful permanent residency in the United States, was seized by immigration agents without any clear explanation beyond an unspecified warrant for his arrest.
"We are heartbroken to announce we have to cancel our upcoming European tour," wrote the band on their Facebook page. "Our drummer, who is a Mexican citizen and lawful permanent resident of the United States (green card holder) was forcibly removed from our flight to Europe by Customs and Border Patrol at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on Monday May 12. He has not been released, and we have been unable to contact him. We are currently working with an immigration lawyer to find out more information and to attempt to secure his release."
What justified doing this to someone with a greencard?
White supremacy.
DeleteEvery day consists of an array of incidents. Why choose these three? What links them?
ReplyDeleteAll three incidents involve political actors avoiding responsibility.
DeleteIn Somerby's opinion. Thanks for explaining. I perhaps didn't see it because I don't believe Biden has done that.
DeletePeople seem to be misunderstanding Biden’s speech problems. He would be more difficult to understand when tired and less able to make his speech more intelligible. That doesn’t mean his thoughts were garbled at such times. It takes effort to understand someone who cannot speak clearly and many people don’t have the patience to listen with close attention.
ReplyDeleteI had a longtime friend born with cerebral palsey. It took a great deal of work in childhood for him to speak even badly. He was highly intelligent with interesting ideas and a great sense of humor but you had to work at listening. He was often frustrated that people in daily life would assume he was stupid and avoid speaking to him or trying to hear his speech. Biden is in that situation, with people assuming that deterioration in his ability to control his speech defect means his thoughts were also declining. People who grow deaf with age have similar frustrations. People in that situation may make less effort to interact with people they din’t care about or may not see again.
It takes skill to figure out what someone’s cognition might be like under such circumstances. The rush to judgments of decline by Biden’s attackers don’t reflect well on the guys who wrote this hit piece.
Old people cannot help looking old. It comes with living for a long time. Old people trying to look young just look bizarre and kind of desperate. This is true for Trump with his cotton-candy hair, orange face and saggy body. He has developed a new hunched over posture and saggy skin on his face. He is as old as Biden. Biden chose to let his hair go white and not conceal his age. He looks more natural but also older than elderly people who dye their hair, have work done on their bodies and wear makeup, as Trump does. The expectation is that old people will make an effort to look younger. When someone doesn’t then they do seem older. I respect Biden’s choice to age naturally. But it does him no favor when his enemies call him “frail”. It is more honest Biden’s way than Trump’s, but it works against assumptions of cognitive sharpness. Young people don’t seem to look past superficialities like fake tan and movie star teeth.
ReplyDeleteAnything good that Trump does is portrayed as bad by the media. The NY Times wrote
ReplyDeleteTrump’s Focus on Punishing Drug Dealers May Hurt Drug Users Trying to Quit
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/health/trump-drugs-treatment.html
Yeah, I'd much rather see a piece about Trump's efforts at rewarding drug dealers. I don't think that the media has spent nearly enough time discussing his support of Ross Ulbricht.
DeleteWho said Trump is trying to quit his Adderall addiction?
DeleteDirector of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has fired two top intelligence officials who oversaw a recent intelligence assessment which contradicted President Donald Trump’s assertions that the gang Tren de Aragua is operating under the direction of the Venezuelan regime, two officials said Wednesday.
ReplyDeleteThis is the country we're living in now. Total fascism.
"GOP tax bill on track to add more than $2.5 trillion to U.S. deficit."
ReplyDeleteI voted for Trump, so David in Cal would stop pretending he cares about the deficit.
Yes I am disappointed at the failure of the Republican Congress to cut spending. I am disappointed that the Dems and the media and the executive departments prevented DOGE from cutting a lot more waste.
DeleteYup. It’s all crickets from the MAGAs as long as money is shoveled up to the oligarchs. Republican tax policy. Reagan’s legacy.
Delete"the media and the executive departments prevented DOGE from cutting a lot more waste."
DeleteMethinks it's mostly the achievement of corrupt Democrat judges.
"Yes I am disappointed at the failure of the Republican Congress to cut spending."
DeleteMore evidence for QiB's theory that DiC may be the most credulous man alive.
"Yup. It’s all crickets from the MAGAs as long as black people are suffering."
DeleteFixed for accuracy.
DOGE is a massively unpopular group among the American public for good reason. They were, however, quite successful in attacking agencies scrutinizing Musk’s activities.
ReplyDelete@8:35 gave the reason DOGE was needed. Our huge deficit is unsustainable.
DeleteDOGE wasn’t needed. Al Gore was instrumental in cutting the budget under Clinton without the use of a chainsaw. It has not been done properly, hence Musk’s massive unpopularity. Anyone who looks at the deficit without addressing failed Republican tax policy is not worthy of conversation. Democratic administrations have a huge advantage over that of Republicans in terms of all economic parameters over the last 60 or so years for a good reason.
Delete"Our huge deficit is unsustainable." LOL!
DeleteWait until you see what Trump's "big, beautiful Bill" does to it.
I agree @12:42.
DeleteDickhead agrees, and he will crawl naked over hot coals to kiss Orange Chickenshit's fat ass every day of the week.
DeleteRepublicans talk the talk about deficit reduction until the time comes to address tax policy that has been a main driver and contributed to the widening wealth gap in this country. Feeding the uber wealthy is baked in to every Republican policy agenda since Reagan. There was a time when Reaganomics might have had honest proponents. That experiment failed decades ago. The YouTube economics lesson that has recently gone viral by the Chinese student is spot on.
DeleteDavid in Cal is very upset that Trump's trillion dollar tax breaks are going to raise the deficit. Not as much as he would be if a back person was treated as an equal to him, but upset none the less.
Delete7:53. Everything is a trade off. It's worth at least a couple trillion dollars of added debt to our children so that a circa 80 yr old can sleep without worrying about being raped by a gang member.
DeleteWaPo reports A hotline connecting air traffic controllers at Reagan National Airport and their counterparts at the Pentagon has been “inoperable” since March 2022, a Federal Aviation Administration official confirmed Wednesday, further evidence of poor safety coordination between federal agencies responsible for the airspace where a midair collision in January killed 67 people.
ReplyDeleteThe line is maintained by the Defense Department, and the aviation agency was not aware of the outage during the three years it was down, Franklin McIntosh, the FAA’s deputy head of air traffic control, testified at a Senate hearing Wednesday. Aviation officials discovered the hotline wasn’t working after May 1, when controllers at National ordered two passenger jets to abandon landings because an Army helicopter was circling nearby at the Pentagon.
Are we sure the red telephone that allows the president to talk directly to the Kremlin in an emergency is still working? Has anyone checked?
DeleteThe button only gets him wretched diet coke, but he is surrounded by Russian agents throughout his staff.
DeleteOral argument at SCOTUS on Birthright Citizenship today. IMO there is judicial overreach, but Trump's order is clearly unconstitutional. I am glad to see SCOTUS rule on judicial overreach, but this is poor case to make the point. I'm afraid that the Supreme Court will not be willing to reduce the power of judges.
ReplyDeleteBear in mind that a judge's power is not defined in the Constitution, in the law. or in regs. It's judge-made law. The Supremes are free to do whatever they want.
Donald J Chickenshit was too much of a chickenshit to actually appeal the issue of Birthright citizenship to the corrupt supreme court. They are only arguing hypocritically that a universal injunction ruling by a district court somehow violates Prince Orange Chickenshit's right to violate the Constitution, which Orange Chickenshit wipes his ass with on a daily basis.
DeleteGo fuck yourself, Dickhead in Cal.
DiC is a sad small minded person full of never ending misinformed prattle. Emphasis on neverfucking ending.
Delete"In our view, he could have skipped the part about the "'bullshit detector.'"
ReplyDeleteIn your view, he should have said "Pretty please."
The Democratic Party won't get anywhere until they have new leadership.
ReplyDeleteThe Democratic Party is not about its leadership but about its rank and file voters, who remain steadfast in supporting the values, policies and programs that make us Democrats. The rank and file pick the leaders, not journalists and movie stars with bruised egos or conservative bloggers pretending to be liberal. The DNC is elected, along with the candidates in primaries who are then nominated because they have the support of the people in their party. Biden had that support. Idiots who set aside the judgment of voters because they thought Biden was too old, set aside the votes that are supposed to decide who runs. That was a coup and it shouldn't have happened.
ReplyDeleteWhere did that get us? Nowhere any of us want to be, with Trump as president and the good work Biden did being dismantled, because of an irresponsible faction that thought it knew better than anyone else and interfered.
Democrats are trapped in a media echo chamber, alienating key voter groups like men, Hispanics, and working-class Americans. They must learn lessons from why voters don't like them.
ReplyDelete
DeleteWhy would anyone like them? Unless one is some kind of pervert or retard.
Hispanics are coming back to Democrats due to ICE.
DeleteWhite Christian nationalists hate Democrats for their Christ values. They are a nasty lot, those nationalists, never quoting Jesus. Hateful and unwoke. Sad.
DeleteGod is a figment of dim-witted imaginations.
DeleteI know that's a line used when people write about how they hate political correctness, but it's also the truth.