“President Biden’s piece in the Prospect provides a fair, accurate, and impressive summary of all that he accomplished. A question that will perplex historians for some time to come is why Biden did not get more political credit, and why Vice President Harris was not able to turn the real achievements of the Biden-Harris presidency into a winning campaign. A related question is how the policy success and political failure of the Biden presidency should inform the future positioning of the Democratic Party. In early 2022, I published a book on the first two years of Biden’s presidency titled Going Big: FDR’s Legacy, Biden’s New Deal, and the Struggle to Save Democracy. In that book, I credited Biden with governing as far more of a progressive than most Americans expected.” (12/16/24)
“ABC News has agreed to pay $15 million toward Donald Trump’s presidential library to settle a defamation lawsuit over anchor George Stephanopoulos’[s] inaccurate on-air assertion that the president-elect had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll. As part of the settlement made public Saturday, ABC News posted an editor’s note to its website expressing regret over Stephanopoulos’[s] statements during a March 10 segment on his ‘This Week’ program. The network will also pay $1 million in legal fees to the law firm of Trump’s attorney, Alejandro Brito. … Stephanopoulos wrongly claimed that Trump had been ‘found liable for rape’ and ‘defaming the victim of that rape.’ Neither verdict involved a finding of rape as defined under New York law. … Trump was found liable last year of sexually abusing and defaming Carroll.” (12/14/24)
“In the semipermanent aftermath of another electoral defeat at the hands of Donald Trump, Democratic pundits and elected officials have appropriated Harris’s loss as a justification for rejecting ‘positions opposed by the electoral majority essential to win, whether that’s big corporations, rich donors, nonprofits, whoever.’ Or so they occasionally say! That specific wording came from Pod Save America’s Jon Favreau, who has since somewhat walked back the statement after lots of pushback from leftists. (His call for nuance is a reasonable one!) Still, his formulation is a concise version of the common refrain: Democrats need to be more like Republicans, at least in terms of policy: ‘It’s about what’s required to win.’ The idea of two vaguely Trumpy political parties racing one another to the bottom of a gutter forever doesn’t appeal to me.” (12/14/24)
“Here is a self-test: Question #1: The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have bombed apartment buildings, hospitals, and schools in Gaza almost daily for more than a year. Hypothetically, if sounds could travel worldwide, how long would it take for victims’ cries to reach Washington. The speed of sound is 770 miles per hour. The distance between Gaza and Washington D.C is 5,878 miles. Question #2: Would your answer be the same if Joe Biden, Donald Trump or Kamala Harris were president? Question #3: In the year following October 7, 2023, the U.S. has sent more than $20 billion worth of military aid to Israel. In this period the IDF killed more than 44,000 Gazans. In other words, it roughly costs U.S. taxpayers $454,545 for each Gazan killed by the IDF in a year. How was this number calculated?” (12/14/24)
“Alexis de Tocqueville was a French political philosopher who visited the United States in the 1830s with a view to discovering why the American experiment in republican democracy was becoming so successful. When the United States became independent (in effect, in 1783 after the Revolutionary War), and set up a republic, there was a lot of mocking, scoffing, and laughing in Europe. ‘What do those dumb Americans think they are doing? They’ll never be successful.’ You see, the British had tried republicanism in the 1650s after they executed their king, and it had been a miserable failure in less than 10 years. Then, the French dismembered their king in the 1790s and established a ‘republic’ with the same catastrophic results. What made the Americans think they could succeed where the more (politically) advanced English and French had failed?” (12/14/24)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Okay I need to jot down some thoughts on the ‘mystery drone’ thing because it’s way too interesting a story to ignore. For those who aren’t aware, since mid-November people have been sighting large drones all over the east coast of the United States, and what makes this so interesting is that the US government is claiming they don’t know anything about them. Don’t know who owns them, where they’re taking off from or where they’re landing. They’re either lying or telling the truth about this, and either way it’s a major story. Either the US government is keeping secrets from the public about huge numbers of drones that have spent weeks flying over populated areas, or they somehow legitimately don’t know what’s going on with these sightings. Contemplating either of these possibilities should widen your eyes a bit.” (12/14/24)
“When the American government says it seeks improved relations with a country like China, it typically refers to its relationship with the Chinese Communist Party-state and not the nation of China. This is because the U.S. State Department is biased toward relations with governments and not people. And by the very form of our diplomacy, the governments are, in effect, declared to be legitimate representatives of their people. But some governments do not actually represent the people. They rule without the consent of the governed – or any partial variant of consent embodied in such cultural traditions, like respect for the hierarchical authority of kings or tribal chieftains. So, when our diplomacy, in effect, bestows legitimacy on totalitarian tyrannies – regimes that oppress their people – we harm relations with their subject peoples.” (12/14/24)
“President-elect Donald Trump announced Saturday that he’s picked longtime foreign policy adviser Richard Grenell to serve as an envoy for special missions, tasking him with helping the incoming administration deal with some of the toughest foreign policy challenges. Grenell served as ambassador to Germany during Trump’s first administration, special presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations, and did a stint as acting director of national intelligence. He was also a contender to serve as secretary of state, but Trump opted to nominate Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.” [editor’s note: Grenell’s career goes back to long before the Trump presidency. He’s pretty much 125% establishment – TLK] (12/14/24)
“In the span of six days, subway vigilante Daniel Penny has gone from sweating a future jail cell to hanging out with the president-elect in a luxury suite. The Marine vet received a hero’s welcome Saturday as he joined soon-to-be commander-in-chief Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance at the annual Army-Navy football game. Penny, who was acquitted Monday by a Manhattan jury in the chokehold death of NYC subway rider Jordan Neely, was Vance’s personal guest to attend the fierce grudge match in the president-elect’s suite at Northwest Stadium in Landover, MD. Others attending the game included Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, Intelligence Director nominee Tulsi Gabbard, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and billionaire Elon Musk. Before kickoff, Penny, dressed in a navy blue suit and tie, was spotted in the luxury suite talking with Vance, the future veep’s wife, Usha, and Johnson.” (12/14/24)
“The U.S. national debt just passed $36 trillion, only four months after it passed $35 trillion and up $2 trillion for the year. Third quarter data is not yet available, but interest payments as a percent of tax receipts rose to 37.8% in the third quarter of 2024, the highest since 1996. That means interest is eating up over one-third of our tax revenues. Total interest for the fiscal year hit $1.16 trillion, topping $1 trillion for the first time ever. That breaks down to $3 billion per day. For comparative purposes, an estimated $11 billion, or less than four days’ federal interest, would pay the median rent for all the homeless people in America for a year. The damage from Hurricane Helene in North Carolina alone is estimated at $53.6 billion, for which the state is expected to receive only $13.6 billion in federal support.” (12/14/24)
