WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 8, 2025
Was the public lied to? Did we lose some votes this way? Also, was the public lied to?
We'll guess that the answer to the first question is yes. For now, let's return to Clarence Page's column, the one in which he wrote about 2024's "Lie of the Year."
We linked to Page's column in last Friday's report. As you may already know, Clarence Page is a good, decent person who's also smart and experienced.
His emotional IQ is quite high. He started his column like this:
Behind the “Lie of the Year,” some bitter truths
As it has been doing yearly since 2009, the fact-checking organization PolitiFact has chosen the Lie of the Year. There was an abundance of nominees.
And, it turns out, they chose the same whopper I identified as a top contender months ago: President-elect Donald Trump’s unfounded claim that Haitian migrants were eating the household pets of Springfield, Ohio.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” said the former and now future Republican president during his Sept. 10 debate with his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
“The people that came in,” he continued to a TV audience of an estimated 67 million viewers. “They’re eating the cats. They’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame.”
Oh, really? An astonished-looking Harris gave an incredulous laugh, but the line was not a new one for Trump and his MAGA movement supporters, including his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, whom Politifact co-credited for the Lie of the Year.
In our view, a fact-checking site should be careful about using a problematic term like "lie."
That said, there's no doubt about it at all—that repulsive claim by Trump and Vance was one of the most repulsive, repeated misstatements of this or any year. Their repulsive and repeated misstatements about Springfield, Ohio's Haitian residents dragged the American discourse down about as far as a nation's discourse can go.
That said, there were many other misstatements in the course of the year now past. In our view, serious fact-checking sites should perhaps avoid the carnival game of picking the one most egregious misstatement.
At any rate, so it went, with PolitiFact voting for the eating of the cats and dogs of Springfield, Ohio. When Candidate Trump and Candidate Vance spread that pile of garbage around, they showed us something unmistakable about their bodies, their selves:
At best, these men are serious nut-balls. At worst, it's worse than that.
Trump and Vance showed us what they currently are when they spread that garbage around. But Clarence Page, a Grade A person all the way down, continued directly as shown:
Yet, before I happily rip into that bone-headed attempt to slander innocent refugees living and working peacefully in Springfield...allow me to note a leading alternative nominee in the eyes of some prominent conservative commentators: Democratic President Joe Biden.
“It’s hard to imagine a more perfect encapsulation of the total rot of American media than this,” huffed Dylan Housman, editor-in-chief of the conservative Daily Caller, in a column decrying Politifact's choice for the dubious award.
Trump's and Vance's lie, Housman offered, “is the equivalent of a speck of dirt sitting at the base of a mountain that is one of the biggest scandals in American political history: the lie that Joe Biden was acting as president in 2024 and was mentally capable of serving another four years.”
Biden’s whopper deserves more attention, wrote Housman, “because it tells us the media has learned nothing. Through all the navel-gazing, post-mortems and autopsies, the corporate media has learned nothing about why Donald Trump is president and nobody trusts them.”
And on and on come the protests from the right. As I often point out when political arguments break out at my own home, everyone is entitled to have their own wrong opinion.
As we noted last Friday, we ate dinner with Page one night at a charity event. As happenstance luckily had it, we did a comedy show with him a few years later.
(Page's set that night was good; ours was perhaps somewhat better. We ruminated on that occasion about our semester, freshman year, in Phil 3: Problems in Philosophy, as taught by the extremely young Robert Nozick, 27 years old at the time.
(How can we know that 7 plus 5 equals 12? That was one of the problems we were asked to untangle in that introductory class. Who is this "problem" a problem for? we asked on the stage that night with a thoughtful Page looking on.)
We're proud to say that we know Clarence Page if just a small, tiny tad. We've never met Dylan Housman—but are you sure that he's totally wrong in what he said, in his own column, about 2024's "Lie of the Year?"
For the record, Page has summarized Housman's column in a perfectly reasonable way. As you can see by clicking here, this is part of what Housman said in his column for the Caller:
HOUSMAN: The Real ‘Lie Of The Year’
[...]
The point is that this [PolitiFact] “Lie of the Year” is the equivalent of a speck of dirt sitting at the base of a mountain that is one of the biggest scandals in American political history: the lie that Joe Biden was acting as president in 2024 and was mentally capable of serving another 4 years.
There is no lie that could have been conjured up by any other person in American politics that could compete with this. The scope of the lie was enormous; the entire corporate media, Democratic Party and executive branch of the federal government conspired to hide the condition of the president. The consequence was historic; Biden cost the Democratic Party any prayer of winning the 2024 election by staying in the race and dropping a live grenade in the lap of Kamala Harris, who was utterly unequipped to handle it. And the stakes were life-or-death; with multiple major wars happening in the world, domestic unrest on college campuses, devastating inflation and declining social trust in the country, we had no president at the wheel.
The glaring obviousness that this is not only the lie of the year, but the lie of the decade and perhaps the lie of the 21st century so far, is why I love this story. The utter delusion it requires any media outlet that pretends to be serious to pick the cat-eating “lie” as the biggest of the year is almost too rich to fully appreciate. It’s the news equivalent of an absurdist Monty Python skit, or trying to stop a nuclear bomb by shooting a spitball at it.
Our view? Typing hard in Red America, Housman is being pretty silly when he downplays the repulsive nature of what Candidates Trump and Vance did.
On the other hand, there it sits, to this very say—the repeated claim, by various people, that President Biden was still sharp as a tack as he ran for re-election.
The claim that he was running circles around his staff, so deep were his wellsprings of energy. The claim that he would be perfectly able to serve for another four years.
For ourselves, we had largely stopped believing such claims as of August 2023. We have one friend—a very good and decent person—who told us that he still believed those claims as of maybe one month ago.
Was President Biden still sharp as a tack? Was he prepared to serve for another four years? As we noted on Monday, this is what happened, on last Sunday's Meet the Press, when Senator Schunmer was asked:
WELKER (1/5/25): Do you feel, as we have this conversation today, that President Biden could serve another four years, had he stayed in the race and potentially won?
SCHUMER: Well, I'm not going to speculate. As I said, I think his record is a stellar one. And he'll go down in history as a really outstanding president.
The fact that Welker asked was striking enough. It seemed to us that Senator Schumer's refusal to answer was in fact a fairly clear reply.
Don't get us wrong! Despite our concerns about his acuity, we were going to vote for Candidate Biden had he stayed in the race. We were going to vote for Candidate Biden because of the massive intellectual and moral disorder put on display by the other candidate (and by his running mate), again and again and again and again, all through the past many years.
We were going to vote for Candidate Biden, but that's not the question we're asking. The question(s) we're asking are substantially different, and they boil down to this:
Is this one of the ways we lost some votes in this year's election? Is that one of the ways we Blues may have earned our way out?
We'd assume that the answer to those questions is yes. We'll continue this rumination tomorrow.
Tomorrow: Housman says that we were lied to. Is there any chance he's right?
Housman says this may be why Candidate Harris lost. Is there any chance that's right?
Who wants to tell Somerby the difference between an opinion and a lie?
ReplyDelete"Republican voters care about nothing but bigotry and white supremacy" has been named "The Biggest truth of 2024".
ReplyDelete
ReplyDelete"Despite our concerns about his acuity, we were going to vote for Candidate Biden had he stayed in the race."
Perhaps that's why normal people despise y'all, Bob. You have no reflective awareness, no self-respect whatsoever. The DNC owns you lock, stock, and barrel.
I voted for Trump because he hates the United States of America just as much as Vladamir Putin and Newt Gingrich.
DeleteTrump hates the same people I do: Republican voters.
DeleteThis is not a misstatement, nor an opinion, nor a lie.
9:26,
DeleteIn Bob's defense, Biden would have been running for President against a rapist, who stole money from a children's cancer charity, tried to overthrow the United States of America, and who is being blackmailed by the President of the USA's biggest global enemy.
I just woke up. Have we bought Greenland yet, or are we going to have to invade it? The mental gibberish that has been flowing nonstop from an demented and angry old man who is about to take office should have been a greater concern throughout the last year.
DeleteThe Lie of the Year:
Delete"The media is concerned about the mental acuity of Presidential candidates."
There is absolutely nothing n the public record to make one think this is true for even one second.
"Haitian immigrants may have eaten pet cats and dog, if Republican Congresspeople hadn't beaten them to it."
ReplyDeleteNot in the running for lie of the year: "J.D. Vance has sexual relations with his furniture".
ReplyDeleteIt got zero Pinocchios.
I think it was that Harris ran a miraculous campaign and Biden created a perfect economy. Or something like that.
ReplyDeleteLiberal media.
DeleteI'm still in a giving mood from the holidays:
ReplyDeleteQuick reminder that Republican voters tried to overthrow the United States of America just because black people's votes were counted in the 2020 Presidential.
If you think Trump is going to give you any credit for helping him politically, you have another thing coming.
DeleteHe's a narcissistic piece of shit, who will take total credit for amping-up his Republican base with lies about immigrants.
Here's a montage of dozens of people lying abut Biden's mental acuity. It was a coordinated disinformation campaign.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kKUye23KBQ
In your opinion, are these lies?
DeleteOr are you misstating them?
Make Lies Not Great Again
DeleteMaybe, probably.
DeleteDon't bother watching the video.
DeleteIt's just people people using brilliant negotiation tactics.
They had to create a organized disinformation campaign to try to deceive the public about Biden's cognitive decline because the only alternative after him would be Harris, who was the most unpopular vice president of all time and a terrible campaigner.
DeleteCool opinion, bro.
DeleteWhen you watch the video, you will see that it is a short piece of film (while Trump is blathering on) that is being repeated over and over. Similarly, the voiceovers just repeat that he is sharp, over and over, without giving examples or placed in any context. Anyone can find a picture of someone thinking about something (which Biden is clearly doing), put it on a loop, and then repeat a single phrase over and over, pretending it is numerous instances of a single facial expression and numerous people saying Biden is sharp culled from many different situations. It obvious is not that. It is just another hit piece against Biden cobbled together from snippets of video.
DeleteIf they had let you hear what Trump was saying while Biden was listening, it would be clear how short the video was and what he was thinking about. For example, isn't it normal to look confused when Trump says that rain comes from heaven and nothing comes out when you turn on the shower? Would Biden be sharp or dull if he reacted by looking a bit dazed while Trump said something like that (as Trump did yesterday at his press conference)?
The clip shows Biden claiming there were a thousand trillionaires in the country, and it also shows him instantly correcting that to billionaires, in the same breath. A non-sharp person would make no correction. The gaffe itself is not only normal, but something any speaker does and that Biden himself has done since his earliest days as a politician (in his 30s).
So, yes, this is deceptive and it constitutes another example of the way the right wing lied to portray Biden as feeble, when he is not.
Liberal media commentator and former MSNBC host Medhi Hasan scoffed at Republicans for calling out Biden’s mental decline ahead of Biden’s infamous presidential debate but later said "2024 was the year I posted my wrongest ever tweet”.
ReplyDeleteThe liberal media’s political lineup until that debate was “Biden is sharp as a tack”, but did they really believe that? What did they know about Biden’s mental fitness for office and when did they know it?
This would be an obvious question as reports of Biden’s mental decline were all over the conservative news media well before the debate. Rank-and-file Democrats usually don’t read conservative news sources but reporters at MSNBC must have seen such stories but chose not to report them, probably so as not to hurt Biden’s re-election chances.
Reporters sometimes have factual errors in their stories but retract them in their corrections column. However, when reporters know a story is false and keep on pushing it anyway that puts them in the partisan propaganda category and explains why most Americans no longer trust the traditional media.
All things are relative.
DeleteAt the time, Biden was running agains an Adderall addict with Tourette Syndrome, who ranted about an "epidemic of post-birth abortions", he dreamed-up in his drug-addled mind.
Biden looked perfectly cognitive in comparison.
It's common to resort to whataboutism when you can't directly address the issue at hand. It's good for shifting the focus away from the critique so I can see why it's your go-to.
Delete10:18,
DeleteWhich is why I stuck to the topic at hand, and didn't bring up the lowest Unemployment rate in over half a century.
10:18,
DeleteIn your opinion, was Biden's performance in the debate more, less, or the same, cognitively, as Trump's?
Leave it to the Medhi Hasan's of the world to watch the debate, and mistake Biden's brilliant negotiation tactics for cognitive decline.
DeleteWhat a mope!
Hi 10:30, less.
DeleteWhat did the public know about Biden's mental acuity? He was examined by a neural specialist and certified as fit to perform the duties of the presidency. That report was released to the public. Meanwhile, Trump released no info about his health, despite being nearly the same age as Biden and demonstrably demented (as he still is).
DeleteThere was no evidence showing Biden unfit to be president, other than a bad debate that occurred when he was sick (with a cold) and fatigued after foreign travel. Even then, the transcript of his answers was far less worrying than Trump's responses. In the absence of a press-led campaign to portray Biden as cognitively impaired, he would not have been removed (and should not have been).
Why did he drop out of the race then?
DeleteIf he had a cold why did he go to Waffle House after the debate and shake everyone's hand?
DeleteDo you think any public official gets to take time off when they have a cold? But cold pills combined with fatigue can make you less able to think on your feet during a debate. How hard is it to cancel a public appearance once it has been arranged?
DeleteTrump canceled his rallies and appearances all the time, but I doubt the president can do that. Although, when Trump is president, I doubt he will have a taxing schedule or honor commitments or deal with crises himself. That is perhaps why the right is so quick to accuse Biden of not doing his job -- they have seen the way Trump is able to avoid working.
Biden may have had a cold, but he doesn’t have cold sores like Trump and Musk do, which is pretty gross.
DeleteThere was a special council who created a report for the Attorney General because Biden was facing legal challenges related to the retention of classified documents. He called Biden “an elderly man with a poor memory” in the report. That was early last year and we all know now the description was 100% accurate. It was after this that Biden's aides and surrogates began their coordinated disinformation campaign to deceive the public about Biden - all using the same "sharp as a tack" language. The Caller writer is correct that it was an enormous "lie" or deception.
ReplyDeleteYes, they are all caught. There's no denying it and no way to excuse it.
DeleteThat's why the only response you get is whataboutism.
DeleteRepublican voters tried to overthrow the United States of America just because black people's votes were counted in the 2020 Presidential election.
DeleteOne man's whataboutism, is another man's gift to Trump
Lie: A false statement made with the intention to deceive.
ReplyDeleteMisinformation: The unintentional spreading of false information that the sender believes to be true.
Disinformation: False or misleading information deliberately spread to deceive or mislead people.
Manipulation: The act of influencing or controlling someone or something, often in a deceptive or unfair way, to achieve a desired outcome.
Conspiracy theory: A belief or explanation that suggests events are the result of a secret, often sinister, plot by a group or organization, typically lacking substantial evidence.
A poll in August of 2023 found 77 percent of Americans, including 69 percent of Democrats thought President Biden was too old to run against Donald Trump again.
ReplyDeleteHow many thought Trump was too old to run against Biden again? They are nearly the same age as each other. Trump is in far worse health than Biden.
DeletePerhaps that poll came from the NY Times, so they "forgot" to ask that question.
Delete"How many thought Trump was too old to run against Biden again?"
Delete50%
https://apnorc.org/projects/bidens-age-is-a-significant-concern-for-voters/
Biden is sharp as a tack in meetings.
ReplyDeleteOld enough to remember when they lied for years about Biden's condition and then unleashed an unprecedented level of toxic cringe on the American people with "Kamala is BRAT and buys Doritos in the bodega, also playing catch with them with her husband who beats women."
ReplyDeleteThe only cure for the mass unrelenting nausea they produced was voting for Trump. Democrats are embarrassing.
More lies. In case you didn't believe the right was telling them, we get an example right here in our own supposedly liberal Somerby's comment section.
DeletePeople see videos like the 'sharp as a tack' video, which exposes a coordinated disinformation campaign on the part of the media and the Democratic Party, and it reinforces Trump's claims about "Fake News". So yes, that was one of the ways we lost some votes in this year's election. No question.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kKUye23KBQ
If you were a Democratic consultant is getting paid $400 grand a year, would you go on TV and deliberately lie to the American people about Biden being sharp as a tack? I probably would. That's what those people are doing.
DeleteWhat has Biden done that suggests he is not sharp? Stick to substance and not appearance.
DeleteOur country thinks women are too old for TV when they reach 40. It discards athletes even younger than that.
Somerby spends all of his time here denying the importance of competence, expertise, knowledge, qualifications for any position, but then thinks Biden (who remains qualified according to everyone around him, including Congress members of the other party and world leaders who owe him nothing) is too old to do the job that a moron like Trump did without reading a briefing or working past nap time. This is a farce of major proportions that Somerby is promoting. No one lied to keep Biden in office and no one is doing Biden's job for him.
It may be that someone is doing Somerby's job for him, except that if that were true, they wouldn't do it so poorly. And Trump is obviously incompetent, that incompetence is on display to the public, and yet no one is calling for his removal, even when he is being manipulated by Musk and Bannon. That makes this supposed lie just another pile of distracting horseshit to keep eyes off Trump after his major screwup at yesterday's press conference.
Why did he drop out then?
DeleteHe was convinced by other Democrats that remaining on the ticket would prevent his party from winning the election. The people who told him that are the misleading ones. They couldn't deliver the presidency with another candidate, vindicating Biden's original belief that he was the best one to defeat Trump. He has been proven right about that, which should support his cognitive clarity and political acumen. Biden was pressured off the ticket by political maneuvering and the collusion of the mainstream press (including the Washington Post which published fake videos of Biden looking feeble, and the New York Times, which continued to support Trump over Harris after Biden left the ticket).
DeleteThis will go down in history as a shameful act on the part of Pelosi and other Dems who lost their nerve when the media started calling Biden too old to run again.
Given the way Trump & Russia manipulated the 2016 election, there may be a lot that we don’t know about why Biden had a bad debate (did someone drug him or sabotage him) and why the NYTimes pursued their vendetta and why Nancy Pelosi demanded he step aside. We already know Russia made those deep fake videos, but who was bribed or threatened, maybe even Biden. We know Trump never plays it straight so he did something. If we don’t know what, we don’t have the full story.
Delete"BLUE RUIN: Did we lose some votes this way?
ReplyDeleteWEDNESDAY, JANUARY 8, 2025
Was the public lied to? Did we lose some votes this way? Also, was the public lied to?"
But, inquiring minds want to know...was the public lied to?
Why does Somerby need to repeat this over and over like this? It is a propaganda technique. After reading so many times that the public was lied to, readers are more likely to agree that the public was lied to. Somerby does this to manipulate his audience, not because he is a doddering old fool himself, who cannot remember that he just wrote the same sentence he is repeating yet again.
But why is it so important for Somerby to convince the public that they were lied to, when Trump is president and nothing can be done about that? If Somerby had not joined the other side during the past election, a few more votes might have gone to the Democrats. But that is water under the bridge.
A larger question is whether a physician would lie on behalf of Biden to proclaim him fit to be president, had he not been mentally competent. Accusing an eminent professional who has taken an oath along with his licensing of lying is a serious charge, almost as serious as accusing Biden himself of not revealing his mental status. In fact, Biden did reveal his mental status (which was thoroughly tested during his annual physical) and his health status every year he was in office. Trump has never done so, not even after he was shot at a rally.
I will take the word of Biden's doctor and the various people who have worked closely with him over the word of political operatives with vested interests (regardless of their party affiliation).
Somerby saw that there were videos being circulated that had been edited to make Biden look feeble. The original, unedited versions were freely available too. Somerby chose to believe the fake videos and claimed they were evidence of Biden's declining cognitive ability. That is a lie told by Somerby. How is it a lie? He had the proof available to him and chose to represent the fake as true to his readers here -- for political purposes.
If Harris lost because Biden was perceived as too old, perhaps she also lost because Biden was not considered too old by more voters and those voters resented the way the DNC allowed the incumbent (who is STILL doing a good job as president) to be shoved off a ticket after winning the primaries and the right to run again. Voters who were upset at how Biden has been treated may have out-numbered those thinking he was too old (but who didn't like Harris, his replacement).
That tortured thinking allows Somerby to avoid the main reason why Harris lost -- America is not ready to vote for a black woman to be president. Somerby still avoids that issue, but he is willing to advance this crap without evidence. To date, I do not recall a single instance where Somerby has pointed out that Trump is only two years younger than Biden and yet was not pushed off his ticket, even when showing serious symptoms of dementia (as he is still doing).
Somerby's anti-Biden, anti-Democrat motives are obvious. And he once again reserves the word "lie" for his political targets and never for Trump and the right wing.
Why don't you focus on dismantling Somerby’s argument rather than questioning his motives with a gish gallop?
DeleteThey may be avoiding Somerby's core argument because they don't have a good answer for it.
DeleteIt's a typical tactic to switch attention away from what someone is arguing when they don't have a strong answer to the critique.
Somerby's core argument depends on the idea that no one tested Biden's cognitive abilities while he was in office. I pointed out that was untrue. There are detailed reports on Biden's mental abilities released every year he has been in office, performed by a neural expert (not his regular white house doctor) and encompassing relevant tests (not the quickie mental status exam Trump keeps saying he aced). Biden said he takes that quickie exam every morning that he is in the white house because his staff wants to make sure he is fit for duty. That shows not only that Biden is fit and has been fit all along, but that those around him are concerned about making sure he is fit. That demolishes the argument that Biden is unfit and has been hiding his mental status. And it demolishes Somerby's argument (and yours).
DeleteSomerby's core argument is about whether public claims about his capacity to serve were accurate or misleading. And that matter has been settled. They were misleading.
DeleteIt doesn't hinge on formal cognitive testing during his presidency, idiot.
Where is your proof that Biden's cognitive capacity has been "misleading"? What mistake has he made that suggests he is not capable of being president up to 1/20/25? Republicans don't like what he is currently doing, but Democrats do. The fact that he is using this remaining time effectively is a sign he is cognitively capable, not feeble.
DeleteIn order to maintain the lie that Biden was cognitively not sharp (after the debate), they had to ignore every press interview, speech and public appearance after the debate. Biden appeared fine and was competent in numerous appearances, talking spontaneously and giving coherent answers, and yet the press and Somerby all were insisting he was too old to do what he was obviously doing well.
DeleteThat is hugely dishonest and Somerby was part of it.
Trolls like 11:20 post here every day. Studies indicate that ignoring trolls can be an effective way to silence them. There’s no point in engaging with someone disingenuous like the trolls here, since they aren’t fooling anyone.
DeleteActually, studies indicate that trolls are reinforced by seeing their own words appear on the screen (or whoever pays them to type what they do), so ignoring them does little to reduce their noise. But ignoring them can help readers who are not trolls reduce their blood pressure.
DeleteSomerby is lying when he says he would have voted for Biden had he remained on the ticket. Somerby jumped on the "kick Biden out" bandwagon way too quickly for that to have been true.
ReplyDeleteQuaker -- Here's an example of how GEB teaches readers to think better. It discusses Magritte's paining of a pipe along with the words, "This is not a pipe." The point is it's not a pipe. It's a picture of a pipe.
ReplyDeleteNow consider Trump's implicit threats to use military force in Panama and Greenland. Actually doing these things would be horrific IMO. But, talking about doing them is not doing them. The threats may or may not be a good idea, but the words should be evaluated on their own, separately from the action they describe. As Magritte might say, "This is not a military attack."'
A threat is not an attack, but it is the promise of one as a quid pro quo, should a demanded action not be taken. Both the attack and the threat are part of a single action that is intended to force someone to behave in a desired way. As such, threats are a recognized part of diplomacy, part of the behavioral repertoire of world leaders. A threat is the forerunner to a military attack. Note also that "economic influence" is just as much of a threat as a military threat would be. Trump's threats to impose huge tariffs on other countries is just as much a threat (preceding extreme and harmful economic treatment) as an implied invasion of sovereign territory.
DeleteThat something is represented symbolically (using words or pictures) instead of in the act itself doesn't absolve Trump from his attempt to coerce other nations into self-defeating acts.
There is no value to pretending that Trump has not attacked China, Mexico, Canada, and Denmark/Greenland via his threats against them. Just as Zuckerberg is apparently taking seriously the threat to put him in jail for life, made by Trump before winning the election. Does anyone think he would be doing what he is now doing without such a threat and the demonstrated power (as a bonkers president) to do what he has threatened.
The most important example that a threat is a meaningful aggressive act is the behavioral response of the threatened, who have changed their actions toward Trump.
David, do you understand that threatening another person is a crime?
DeleteThanks for your thoughtful comment, @11:23. I agree that Trump's threats changed actions toward Trump and the US. Indeed, I think that's Trump's purpose in making the threats.
DeleteIn evaluating an action, it's useful to compare it to realistic alternatives. When I was in the Panama Canal a few years ago, I learned that the Chinese are more or less running the Canal. There are communities of Chinese people, including families and Chinese schools. China now has the power to close this vital waterway or to restrict its use. In retrospect, giving the Canal to Panama turned out badly. We seem to have given it more or less to China.
What should we do about the situation? The easiest course is to do nothing and accept China's control of the Canal. That leaves the risk that China will use their control in ways adverse to US interests. IMO it's hard to think of a good alternative. Making implicit threats as a prelude to negotiation doesn't seem unreasonable to me, although I am not confident that this work. In fact, I'm not sure anything will work to remove control of the Canal from China.
Have you heard that China is pretty much running China too? Where is it written that China cannot exist in this world, promote its own interests on behalf of its people and engage in commerce to benefit its own country? Denying other countries the right to do what we ourselves do freely is ridiculous and won't be tolerated by the world community. Denmark has been minding its own business and participating in NATO. It does not deserve to have Greenland taken away by another country. Deciding that China is some bogeyman who cannot be allowed to manage the Panama Canal (for Panama, which owns it, not China) is interference by the US, which terminated our interests almost half a century ago.
DeleteAwhile back there was a furor because other countries were being allowed to run US ports for us. Haven't heard anything more about that in the last 10 years, but it seems comparable to me. Are you also concerned about that, David? Do you even know who is doing it?
Delete"Critics of the Dubai Ports World deal have suggested that U.S. ports should be run by U.S. companies. But the vast majority of port terminals are leased and run by foreign companies and that's unlikely to change."
https://www.npr.org/2006/02/26/5234177/most-u-s-port-terminals-are-foreign-run
While a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Holdings manages two ports at the canal's entrances, with Chinese firms funding construction of a new bridge over the canal to the tune of over $1 billion, this does not equate to control of the canal's operations. The Panama Canal Authority, an autonomous government agency, oversees the canal's administration.
DeleteGo fuck yourself, Dickhead in Cal. We are not a gangster nation, you fucking fascist prick.
We are a gangster nation. For example, we support Israel’s destruction of Gaza.
Delete"Thanks for your thoughtful comment, @11:23."
DeleteFirst lie.
No, we don't support Israel's destruction of Gaza.
DeleteWe keep sending Israel weapons, and we keep protecting Israel at the UN.
DeleteDavid is not an actuary (he completely embarrassed himself the other day when he tried to pretend he knew something about math) he never went to the Panama Canal etc. Best to just ignore David and his nonsense, he’s only here because he’s lonely and looking for attention.
DeleteThe actuarial exams don’t cover decidability theory.
DeleteTrump's threats are benefiting the United States.
DeleteTrump’s Tariff Threats Are Working Already to Curb Illegal Immigration
His hardline rhetoric on illegal immigration and tariff threats changes are pressuring Mexico to crack down on migrant caravans heading to the U.S. with officials there scrambling to avoid economic retaliation from the president-elect...
Thousands of migrants recently departed Tapachula, a city near Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, in a last-ditch attempt to reach the U.S. before Trump’s policies take effect. But with Mexico ramping up enforcement, many face slim chances of completing their journey.
Trump’s hardline stance is already reshaping the migration landscape. By using economic leverage, he’s forcing Mexico to act even before he sets foot in the Oval Office.
https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/01/08/mexico-responds-to-trumps-tariff-threats-by-curbing-illegal-immigration-n4935777
This is a misunderstanding of the efforts currently in place in Mexico to reduce the flow of migrants to the US border. Trump didn't cause anything with his threats, except ridicule. Mexico's president today posed against a historical map of the portions of the US that were originally owned by Mexico, suggesting that the US southwest be renamed Mexican America.
DeleteThose lands were not originally owned by Mexico. The Spanish imperialists assigned them to Mexico.
DeleteI voted for Trump. He knows he needs my support, so he’ll never cut my benefits.
ReplyDeleteThis is who Biden's mental acuity was being compared with (from yesterday's press conference):
ReplyDelete"“these people are crazy. there’s something wrong with them. there’s something wrong with them. they also want to go back, and they have already started that, too, when you buy a faucet, no water comes out. because they want to preserve— even in areas that have so much water you don’t know what to do with it. it’s called rain. it comes down from, it comes down from heaven. and uh, they want to do no water comes out of the shower. it goes drip, drip, drip. so what happens, you’re in the shower ten times as long, you know. no water comes out of the faucet, you want to wash your hands, they want to go back to even stronger than what they have right now. I, as you know, I ended that policy. you can have all the water you want. makes no difference. comes— we’ve— especially in certain areas we have so much water we don’t know what to do with it.”
thank your lucky stars that Donny is here to thwart that goddamned Sleepy Joe Brandon’s commie plan to Make America Unwashed Again. no longer will Marxists hell-bent on destroying our precious freedoms be able to saunter into Home Depot and say ‘give me one of those faucets that nothing comes out of.’"
You don't have to lie or pretend that Biden is more mentally sharp than Trump. It is obvious to anyone who tries to follow anything Trump says. The problem is that the wrong guy won the election. Why doesn't Somerby discuss that? Biden knows how a faucet works.
"
ReplyDeleteForwarded this email? Subscribe here for more
When Donald Trump says he wants to do something on immigration, believe him. No issue has animated him more or played such a central role in his political rise. And yet, as he assumes office for the second time—pledging to use a vast deportation force and overhaul the country’s immigration system—there is great uncertainty about how his plans will take shape. After all, his promises ran into the reality of governance before. Will this time prove different? If so, how? What will the fault lines be? In what ways will America, and Americans, change?
Huddled Masses is devoted to answering these critical questions. This newsletter, new to The Bulwark, will be delivered into your inbox twice a week. With each issue, my goal will be to provide sober but unflinching analysis of what Trump’s plans actually look like—both in Washington D.C. and outside of it.
I started covering immigration during the Obama administration. Over time, I learned that while policy is dense, the people affected are real. That will be particularly true in the months ahead. The nation that once welcomed immigrants with a clarion call emblazoned on the Statue of Liberty to “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” will now see a remarkable stress test of those values it told the world were sacrosanct.
Welcome to Huddled Masses. Join me for the ride. Don’t hesitate to send me tips and scoops and please share this newsletter.
—Adrian
The Media Isn’t Ready for Trump’s Mass Deportation Moment
"This is not a border story — it's a national story.”
Adrian Carrasquillo
Jan 8
READ IN APP
(Photo by Stephen Zenner/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
IMAGINE THIS SCENARIO: Department of Homeland Security agents storm a meatpacking plant in the south, a show of force in the largest workplace raid in a decade. Rounding up workers, they target those who appear to be Latinos, without regard for citizenship. They don’t ask for documentation until hours later.
A worker, overcome by fear, makes a run for it and is tackled by immigration agents, with one putting their boot on the worker’s neck for over 20 seconds, as a video of the encounter shows.
You don’t have to imagine this as some far-flung dystopian scenario that could happen in Trump’s second term because it happened during his first, in Tennessee in 2018. But that raid was not the end of the story. After it took place, the National Immigration Law Center joined forces with the Southern Poverty Law Center and an outside law firm on behalf of seven workers who were racially profiled and experienced excessive force. They were certified as a class of around 100 workers in the lawsuit, eventually winning a $1.175 million settlement in 2022 that required the U.S. to pay the plaintiffs $475,000.
As Trump prepares to take power once more, a constellation of immigrant rights advocates are preparing for moments like the one that took place in Tennessee. They’re also prepping a game plan to fight back, one that will elevate and amplify those instances in which the administration crosses the line into unconstitutional and unlawful actions."
The Media Isn’t Ready for Trump’s Mass Deportation Moment
“This is not a border story—it’s a national story.”
Adrian Carrasquillo
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-media-isnt-ready-for-trumps-mass
Apologize for not editing out the chaff, but begin where it says "Imagine..."
DeleteIt's the federal government's job to identify and deport illegal immigrants. That's the law that Congress, elected by you and me, enacted. It's silly to criticize Trump for doing his job and enforcing the law. If you don't like the law, you should ask Congress to change it. Don't ask the President to ignore it.
DeleteAliyah, Dave. Make Aliyah before it’s too late.
DeleteTreating people humanely is also the law. Trump won’t respect that.
DeleteHartmann Report today compares Republican and Democratic lies and disagrees strongly with Somerby:
ReplyDeletehttps://hartmannreport.com/p/what-will-be-the-impact-of-social-4b2
"Here’s the problem: Republican politicians rely on lies, distortions, and falsehoods to sell most of their policies and candidates.
They must do this because the reality of their actual goals (cut billionaire taxes, increase pollution, gut worker and consumer protections, defund schools and medical care, privatize and cut Social Security and Medicare, subsidize oil companies, outlaw abortion, etc.) are so repellent to most Americans.
The Democratic Party, on the other hand, has been shockingly scrupulous for decades about telling the truth, at least with regard to policy. The last “big lie” I can remember coming from the Dems was LBJ’s claiming that North Vietnam had attacked us at the Gulf of Tonkin. And that was 60 years ago!
Seriously, can you think of any major Democratic Party lies in the past few decades that Democratic politicians repeated regularly on cable TV shows, op-eds, and in campaign commercials? Particularly, lies about important public policy debates and the structure of our government and its programs?"
"If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor."
DeleteNo, that was true for the majority of the population.
DeleteBut orange chickenshit is going to repeal and replace the ACA with something so so so much better, so much better the world has never seen a plan so good. The best plan in world history, only a genius gangster could come up with the concept.
I liked my doctor, and I kept my doctor.
Delete12:25 oof! Nice faceplant.
DeleteThe ACA grandfathered in all existing healthcare plans at the time of it passing, so yes you could keep your doctor.
Wake me when we find a Republican that isn’t dumb as shit.
Dick @ 4:09 -
DeleteReally? The grandfathered in all existing healthcare plans at the time of it passing it? With no restrictions? That is totally false, dumb fuck.
Tell Politifact - "If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan"
it was their Lie of the Year in 2009. Fucking moron.
Hey fucking dick @4:09 PM
DeleteDid you research how wrong you were, dumb shit?
"The ACA grandfathered in all existing healthcare plans at the time of it passing, so yes you could keep your doctor!!!!"
Fucking idiotic. Then you figure, like a dumb shit, that everyone who is not as dumb as you are is a Republican - that is dumb as shit.
Do you see now that it is you who is dumb as shit? Your accusation was confession. But not only are you dumb, you're an overbearing dick and an asshole. So FUCK YOU!!
4:52,
DeleteYou triggered, bro?
Nope. Just responding to a dick who is also a dumb fuck. So stay out of this, fucking idiot.
DeleteOkay, snowflake.
DeleteThreats of invasion are despicable.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.eschatonblog.com/2025/01/imperial-thirst.html?m=1
Joyce Vance points out another reason for not threatening our neighbors:
ReplyDeletehttps://joycevance.substack.com/
"It’s not just theoretical. We have an abject lesson in front of us today that illuminates what Trump’s behavior toward our allies could cost us.
As fires burned across Los Angeles last night, “tornado fires” my husband called them because of the winds that whipped the flames, our neighbor, Canada, showed up to help. This is video of a Canadian firefighting plane trying to help bring the Palisades fire under control.
[A Canadian firefighting plane helps Los Angeles battle raging fires.]
In the TV show “The West Wing,” there’s a moment where Josh Lyman, Deputy Chief of Staff in the White House, is discussing an opportunity to do good. He says, “If your neighbor’s house is on fire, you don’t haggle over your garden hose.” Good leaders don’t. And when you need your neighbors to help you out, hopefully they’re there for you too, with their hose, or their plane, as the case may be. That’s probably not going to happen if you keep talking about forcefully annexing them.
Trump seems intent on fracturing our relationships with our friends and our neighbors. It’s more than just the bright shiny thing of the moment. We are not impervious. We, too, can need help. Who will be there for us after Donald Trump runs them off?
My thoughts and prayers are with everyone in the Los Angeles area today, hoping they are safe. Climate-change-fueled events like this are just one of the reasons we need strong leadership in our country at this moment. We need our friends and neighbors too."
"In our view, a fact-checking site should be careful about using a problematic term like 'lie.'"
ReplyDeleteOh, all right. How about "murdering the truth"? Is that an OK way to say it?
Housman says that we were lied to. Is there any chance he's right?
ReplyDeleteFirst, let's scold Housman for using the naughty, naughty "L" word!
What? We don't do that to Republicans any more? Whatever. Onward.
Housman asserts that someone other than Biden has been acting as president for part or all of the past term. He states this as fact, not opinion.
He doesn't know. He has no way to know. He offers no evidence that it is true. If he's right, it's only by dumb luck.
I'll return to a theme I brought up a few days ago: In today's discourse, we can't discuss whether the effects of old age have diminished a candidate's capacities by a little. We can't ponder how to solve this riddle. We can only insist that a) "He's sharp as a tack" or b) "He's a drooling husk of a human and someone else is actually doing his job!"
Age has real, observable, forseeable effects on the human brain. Should we have a conversation about those effects? Sure, why not? Is it helpful to speculate, often in ways that fly in the face of observable reality?
Not helpful. And Housman is propagandizing, not trying to get at the truth.
I think the people around Biden that initiated the disinformation campaign to deceive people into thinking Biden was sharp as a tack couldn't say he had "diminished capacities by a little". It may have shown weakness to admit even this small lapse. They went into full gaslight mode. "Believe what we say, not what you are seeing with your own eyes." The special council who created the report for the Attorney General about Biden did have this nuance of which you speak. But you are right about the issues being portrayed in a binary way for the most part, broken down by party lines.
DeleteWhat will happen in the end is that they will admit to us that he has Parkinson's disease and these observable episodes, like in the debate, would be one of the symptoms. Which is referred to as "zoning out". It remains to be seen if they keep the real diagnosis buried. But he has Parkinson's disease and the people controlling him have kept that from the public.
The effects of aging start around 25 years old. People start to worry about their own decline at around 40. The effects of aging on the brain cause what are termed "mental lapses" which include forgetting where you put your keys, mispeaking about matters of fact, needing to search mentally for a word or name, and so on. College students make such lapses too and report doing them more frequently than those age 60+ because they are using their brains more.
DeleteObjectively, not every aspect of mental activity declines in old age. When you control for health, the biggest impact is on short term and episodic memory (memory for events of one's life, what you had for breakfast for example). Long term memory (such as for facts) is intact and old people can and do reason, solve problems and learn new things as easily as younger people. This has been shown objectively in lab experiments comparing old people (65+) with college students. Old people have less confidence in their own ability to learn and trust their memories less because they too buy into stereotypes about old age.
The main age-related factor affecting mental acuity is health. About 35% of old people are unhealthy around age 65+. Those who make it past 65 show little change until 80+. Some of the drugs given to the elderly as preventative measures or to treat chronic illness have side effects that affect memory, including statins and diabetes drugs. Poor sleep affects mental acuity independent of aging. Stress, depression (more common in older people) affect mental acuity. Attributing such factors to age simply because an older person is having such symptoms, neglects that these things affect those in middle age too. Biden is exceptionally healthy for his age. Trump is relatively unhealthy for his age, plus his father has a history of Alzheimer's.
Physicians differentiate between normal aging (with a few of the usual kinds of mental lapses, such as forgetting someone unfamiliar's name or where you parked the car). Beyond that comes minor cognitive dysfunction, in which a person has some trouble with small things but generally takes care of themself and functions well. Biden doesn't have that. He is still in the normal aging phase, according to his medical reports (made public). Aging does not prevent learning in this stage of life. It does in the conditions labeled dementia. A person aging normally will remember something they have momentarily forgotten a little while later. This does not happen with dementia -- the info doesn't pop back into mind. People with dementia cannot do multi-tasking or problem-solving tasks. People who are aging can.
So, "age-related memory impairment" is not "mild cognitive impairment" and these are not the same as dementia, which is classified into stages based on degree of disability. Experts have said that Biden does not have any signs of dementia but Trump does. Biden has age-related memory impairment but not impairment of cognitive functioning. Trump has both.
When Biden appeared at the debate, it was after foreign travel and lengthy debate practice. He was stressed, anxious, fatigued, jet-lagged (not sleeping properly) and had been given cold medicine during the preceding day, so he was also sick. These were all transitory and temporary conditions that apparently impaired his performance, especially compared to subsequent interviews and speeches and interactions with staff and visitors. All of those influence can and do account for his poor performance without implying permanent age-related cognitive decline.
You cannot cancel a debate just because the demands of the presidency have made it difficult to perform well, because cancelling would raise the same questions about ability. But the video of Biden was very damaging, as well as misinterpreted universally because no experts were listened to.
Biden's latest medical report explicitly denies any symptoms of Parkinson's (by name) or any other condition that would impair his cognition. The neurological portion of his yearly medical exam was done by a specialist and relevant included tests, not just the assessment of a physician based on interview. It was a thorough screening, not just the quickie mental status screening (Montreal Cognitive Assessment) designed to detect cognitive impairment. His report was clean.
DeleteSpeculating about what might be wrong with Biden based solely on his debate performance would make more sense if he had not had a thorough medical evaluation that was released to the public. There is nothing more Biden could do to reassure people, but his political opponents wouldn't have believed anything anyone said, even if his debate performance were as good as Harris's was (and she lost despite winning the debate, without any cognitive impairment implies).
Without a real discussion of what aging means functionally, just calling Biden old would be enough to give many people doubts. But Trump is just as old and way worse cognitively but the press and Democrats let him skate. No one who understands what dementia is would ever have voted for Trump. So, the results of the election depended on ignorance among voters, not Democratic lies about Biden's lack of impairment.
Old people with adult children in their 50s have an ongoing concern about being denied their own autonomy and being forced to live with their kids or in a retirement facility, when they are still capable of being on their own. At some point, it will be important for our society to understand what normal aging is like, especially compared to impairment. Our ageism is harming many active elderly people, not just Biden (who would have continued to do an excellent job unless derailed by his own health, at which point the VP is there to step in). Who will protect us from Trump and the political ambitions of those manipulating him (in a clearly demented state)? This is bad for our country and I don't know how or whether our country will survive Trump's incapacity.
I’ve been declining since I was seven years old.
DeleteBiden may have ‘vascular dementia’ - which happens to people who have had multiple brain operations that involve sawing open the skull as Biden has.The symptoms of vascular dementia are consistent with Biden's behavior like memory loss, difficulty with attention and concentration, difficulty finding the right words, slowed thinking, confusion, disorientation, etc.
DeleteOr maybe it's all just a cold. That's what Heather Cox Richardson thinks. And she's a Civil War historian so we shouldn't doubt her.
Abraham Lincoln died of brain trauma.
Delete5:06,
DeleteTrump thinks it's dementia. And he's a rapist and longtime failed businessman, so we shouldn't doubt him.
DeleteTotally. Fuck Trump. I hate him.
If Biden had vascular dementia, it would have been mentioned in his very thorough medical exam. It was ruled out by the neurologist who examined him, tested him and reviewed his prior medical history. Then signed his name to the report. But go ahead and make up more crap.
DeleteTrump meanwhile has not released any detailed medical info. We do not know what medicines he is taking, what medical procedures he might have had, what condition is heart is in. We don't even know his score on that Montreal test he keeps bragging about acing (clearly unaware of what it was screening for -- hint: not IQ). Having an aneuryism that is repaired via surgery makes someone normal, not demented. The neurologist who wrote the article speculating about Biden's vascular dementia called for Biden to have an examination that he has already had and released to the public. No sign of vascular dementia was found. Continuing to speculate about something that has been ruled out is dishonest. But I suppose neurologists can be Republicans too.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Health-Summary-2.28.pdf
"An extremely detailed neuologic exam was again reassuring in that there were no findings which would be consistent with any cerebellar or central neurologic disorder, such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's, or ascending lateral sclerosis, nor are there any signs of cervical myelopathy."
The report goes on to state that he has no heart or vascular issues. No symptoms of dementia of any kind are described by his physicians (different ones with different specialities). Biden additionally stated that he receives a cognitive function test every morning as a screening measure, administered by his white house physician. That is most likely the same test that Trump brags about.
The report certifies that he is healthy and active and fit to perform the duties of the presidency.
That report may be wrong. It may be a lie. It's not a cold!
DeleteI posted the link so you could go read it yourself. It comes from the White House. You could be wrong. You could be a liar. You could have a cold.
DeleteWhen I have a cold, I’m no less cognitive than when I don’t have a cold.
DeleteBiden's problems leading up to his dropping out did not come from a cold. That's simply a lie for the Heather Cox Richardson's of the world used to spin the disastrous performance. It's not surprising this fucking idiot still believes it.
Deletecold+jet lag+fatigue+cold meds+stress
DeleteYou reduce that to a cold and insist you have no effects yourself when sick. You are a dishonest fuck.
You can believe what you want, but that doesn’t make it true.
I am an honest fuck.
Delete
ReplyDeleteDementia Joe is my favorite American president. I love comedy.
Not the guy who raped a 13-year old, because she reminded him of his daughter?
DeleteHave fun being a RINO.