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Maybe Biden was referring to himself, not Putin — 62 Comments

  1. it has highlighted the utter corruption and destructiveness of the Democratic Party itself.

    What happens then? Do we think a Republican wave in 2022 is going to improve things?

    To begin with a lot can change between now and then. The legacy media and social media will be looking for squirrels to distract us; they will be tearing down Republicans and promoting Democrats, without any regard for truth or fairness; they will be burying bad news and controlling our speech. Of course, they’ve been doing that and probably diminishing returns are setting in.

    Assuming the media fails, then of course we have to have elections that are fair enough that Republicans even can win. The Canadian truckers seem like a long time ago don’t they? But we’ve all seen what can be done to citizens who try to organize politically.

    Next, assuming Republicans do win, the Uniparty Republicans would actually have to go along with undoing what has been done. John McCain is dead but Republican equivalents for Manchin and Sinema can be found to blame for any inaction. (The GOP fundraising letters should be hilarious though-“if only you can help us get to 70 Senators and 2 more Supreme Court Justices we can finally repeal Obamacare and control the border”.) But let’s say the Uniparty GOP comes to Jesus…

    Finally, the massive Federal government apparatus which is overwhelmingly Democratic and can’t really be fired would actually have to go along with these new priorities in order for anything to happen. What they will do, of course, is drag their feet and leak to the press on every initiative.

    What’s wrong is too big, and it’s not limited to one party, and elections are not going to do much to fix it. If we think otherwise we’re going to be very disappointed.

  2. Frederick:

    That issue has been discussed many times on this blog – for years, actually, in many different ways, and long before the Biden administration. But I’ll repeat that yes, it should improve things somewhat. But it will almost certainly fall far far far short of changing things in long-term institutional ways. The left has been getting its tentacles into nearly everything for a long long time. The most important fronts are educational and informational (schools, press) as well as government agencies of nearly all kinds, and now even the military.

    I don’t think people here are naive about that. But Republicans in office would help – if only to buy time for the more gradual and difficult work of reversing those deeper institutional trends.

  3. Neo,

    I have always felt you were more optimistic about people’s changes. Because you have seen it happen to yourself.

    I honestly hope your right. And more people show some ability to do so. But I think self reflection is a much rarer phenomenon these days than we believe.

  4. Biden isn’t operating in a vacuum. His gaffes are at least partially, revealing of his adviser’s positions and thoughts. His cognitive decline is resulting in a bit of ‘blabbermouth’.

    “We aren’t trying to replace Putin in Russia, we aren’t trying to have regime change, we’re not sending troops into Ukraine,…” Rand Paul

    Regime change is absolutely the goal of the sanctions. Biden said it himself, (the long term) maintenence of the sanctions is key to their effectiveness.

    The strategy is to make them so economically debilitating that Putin will be deposed.

    Simply getting Putin to retreat and end his invasion of the Ukraine will not end the threat that Putin poses to the West. The West’s leadership needs Putin to be gone as currently, he’s the foremost obstacle to the expansion of the Western leadership’s New World Order global governance agenda.

  5. “More and more people are noticing this, and perhaps that will matter.”

    Not really. Biden is not getting removed from office. The civil war it would provoke in the Democratic Party prevents that. Maybe “Dr.” Jill and the rest of the Biden life support system can be bribed with job offers so Joe won’t be on the ticket in 2024, but then you’ve got the (and this is hard to believe) even more incompetent and problematic Kamala in the catbird seat for the nomination.

    Of course, if Democrats suffer a cataclysmic defeat in November and the GOP winds up with both the House and a super-majority in the Senate…maybe it could be different.

    Mike

  6. As bad as Kamela is, at least she doesn’t have a Hunter Laptop compromising her (that we know of). The fact that he can be blackmailed, as well as being senile, if horrific. He needs to be replaced.

  7. @MBunge:Of course, if Democrats suffer a cataclysmic defeat in November and the GOP winds up with both the House and a super-majority in the Senate…maybe it could be different.

    Yeah it could, just like if the Washington Generals got a better power forward and a stronger coach they might start beating the Globetrotters….

    You might see more tax cuts, true, but the big change you’re going to see is that the people who vote against controlling the border and repealing Obamacare and for running up government spending will have Rs after their names instead of Ds.

  8. “But Republicans in office would help – if only to buy time for the more gradual and difficult work of reversing those deeper institutional trends.” neo

    The difficulty is too extreme for gradual remedies for the Left will not stop and has no internal restraints upon the treachery of their actions.

    The Senate confirmation of a racist, Marxist, pedophilic apologist/fascilitator to a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land reveals the writing on the wall.

    The 65 Project demonstrates just how little time remains to change the course of the American ship of state.

    Treason most foul is rampant and verbal and written protests now but the bleatings of the canceled. History will record those efforts as too little, too late.

    https://the65project.com/

  9. What happens then? Do we think a Republican wave in 2022 is going to improve things?

    1. You’re not the least bit constructive.
    2. You’re a bore
    3. No one is paid to listen to you. Find someone who is.

  10. I’m as cynical as anyone about the prospects of Republican victories overturning the decades-long corruption of America’s public and private institutions. If there is a way out of this mess, it will take a long time and I probably won’t live to see it.

    But I do have some hope that if DeSantis wins the next presidential election, he can at least make a start. He is almost alone among Republican leaders in understanding the depth of the problem and has the guts, and in contrast to Trump I think, the administrative competence to start making the types of changes that need to made.

    Of course no President can change the decadent drift in our culture, which is where most of our problems originate. I don’t really know how that gets turned around.

  11. Trump has shifted the GOP significantly. The Tea Party failed because it was compromised by old time professional pols. There was also a lefty president. While Trump was constantly attacked and harassed, he still inspired some people who might be the modern “Reagan Democrats.” A lot is going to depend on the primaries. Unfortunately, we should be able to clone Trump as he is outnumbered by grifters and phonies. We just have to hope the right people win the primaries. I used to oppose term limits because I believed it turned government over to the permanent bureaucracy. Maybe they would be of benefit now as it would expose the snake pit in DC to some newcomers.

  12. Whether self-referential or not; I see no reason why it can’t be the opposition’s tagline in the 2022 and 2024 elections. “For the love of god, this man should not be in power”! Of course, FJB is simpler and gets the same point across.

  13. “You might see more tax cuts, true, but the big change you’re going to see is that the people who vote against controlling the border and repealing Obamacare and for running up government spending will have Rs after their names instead of Ds.”

    If the GOP wins big in November, it might not do much to change the party leadership but the rank and file in Congress will be much, MUCH Trumpier. The ejection of so many neocons and grifters from the party and Trump’s demonstration of just how much “failure theater” had been going on has genuinely put the Republicans on a new course.

    Mike

  14. He also (as I’ve said many times) was mendacious, corrupt, full of himself, of dubious general principles, and kind of weird.

    I like to joke that he’s just as sharp as he ever was. But I truly agree that he’s not all that much worse now. But I don’t know if we may not be seeing his protectors breaking away. Both NYT and WaPo are a bad sign for him. After all, if a right winger like me has decided that even Kamala would be better than this guy*, surely they must be feeling the same.

    I also am less than secure about the belief the Democrats are committing electoral suicide. They don’t seem all that panicky, except for some of the more moderate ones. While the House is harder to steal, as so many districts aren’t adjacent to big corrupt cities, the Senate remains vulnerable to theft. And I cannot forget my dismay in 2018, when seats in both houses fell from our hands. It was a preview of 2020; leads that disappeared as the days past beyond Tuesday. (Which is why I was not surprised in 2020. I saw it coming.)

    *I have trouble believing that I believe that. But I do.

  15. What’s wrong is too big, and it’s not limited to one party, and elections are not going to do much to fix it. If we think otherwise we’re going to be very disappointed

    .–Frederick

    Could be. Certainly the case can be made and has. However, there is no guarantee it goes that way. History goes in one direction until it doesn’t

    Sometimes I get the impression conservative believe that “the arc of history bends towards [social] justice” as fervently as progressives.

    And I wonder if conservatives, in their cynicism about the future, are trying to avoid personal disappointment as much as to see the current situation clearly.

    A motivated conservative countercultural movement has emerged to challenge the today’s leftist status quo. I don’t know how much that opposition will come to, but I’m keeping an open mind.

    We’ve got some good hands coming up. Let’s make the best of them.

    Even dwarves started small.

  16. The only good thing about the Biden presidency so far, and I mean the only good thing, is that it has highlighted the utter corruption and destructiveness of the Democratic Party itself.

    Well and how corrupt the media is as well. I know I’m a broken record but with Biden they proved to me if Nixon was a democrat they would have done everything they could to protect him.

  17. Look at some of the folks who are longtime US Senators. Lindsey Graham just publicly called for the assasination of the head of a foreign government. Sheldon Whitehouse regularly sounds like he’s about to pull a tinfoil hat from under his desk. Mazie Hirano is perhaps the least self-aware person in the country.

    Maybe there’s something about being in the US Senate that causes people to lose their sense of decorum, or just their sense period. Biden has clearly declined over the last decade or so, but in a sense he’s just behaving now the way that he and a lot of other senators regularly behave.

  18. Maybe there’s something about being in the US Senate that causes people to lose their sense of decorum, or just their sense period.

    –Bauxite

    Isn’t there a rule of thumb about senators making poor presidents and governors making better ones?

    YMMV.

  19. MBunge,

    “If the GOP wins big in November, it might not do much to change the party leadership but the rank and file in Congress will be much, MUCH Trumpier. “

    Will it? Maybe but just as likely that, “the new boss, same as the old boss” syndrome will once again carry the day.

    Example: Dan Crenshaw said all the right things to get elected. It’s only recently that his actually being a RINO has emerged on the national stage.

    GOPe candidates well realize the mindset of the base on the right.

    Say all the right things to get elected.

    After election, plug into the revolving issue door, where you get to safely vote conservative occasionally on a few issues, to keep up the appearance of ‘mostly’ being a conservative.

    Example: Ted Cruz; fiercely exposing nominee Jackson… while last month, quietly in a late night session of the Senate Judicial Committee dropping his objections to 30 radical judicial nominees of Biden’s in exchange for getting in exchange approval to speak against authorization of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which his donors disfavor. All for naught when Putin invaded the Ukraine.

    All the supposed conservative stalwarts, including Hawley, Cruz and Cotton have and are playing that game for the rubes.

  20. “Maybe there’s something about being in the US Senate that causes people to lose their sense of decorum, or just their sense period.” Bauxite

    Congress is a collaborative venture, refuse to play ball and you’d better have an ace in the hole. Both parties will only tolerate a very few mavericks, provided it doesn’t result in too much obstruction.

    Given that consensus driven paradigm, its a rare Senator who truly stands above the rest. Kennedy had looks, youth, charisma, a war hero status and lots of money behind him. Obama was “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy, I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

  21. Sure is hard to be limited to having actual humans in government. They always seem to have flaws.

    A true, perfect, Dear Leader is sorely needed, eh?

  22. I don’t think any living life form within the Milky Way Galaxy pays any attention to anything joke bidet or kamala cackling harris have to say; certainly not Putin or the Chinese or even demonkrats.
    At least joke bidet has an excuse- he is senile, which is a medical/organic problem.

    Cackling Kamala would actually sound more intelligent if she was in fact senile.
    Perhaps given a sufficient “passage of time” she will finally be able to provide a coherent response to a question.

  23. It’s not Schoolhouse Rock any more guys. It may be that it never was.

    Nothing is going to get better until we open our eyes to what is really going on. Thinking it’s just a question of more Rs and fewer Ds (or vice versa) gets you more of what we have now.

    The national political parties are the Generals and the Globetrotters, they pretend to be opposed but they actually put on a show while they collect your money.

    There are too many people feeding at the taxpayer trough. That is why national politics looks the way it does.

    The long-term way to healthier national politics is to devolve things away from the Federal government, and see to it that politics cannot be anyone’s career. There’s a lot of ways that can be done, but we can’t get there by voting harder, especially not for incumbents.

    Doesn’t matter what letter they have after their names, it’s the same game being played on both sides: buy influence with taxpayer money, get votes so you can continue to buy influence with taxpayer money, get rich while doing it.

    In the meanwhile there is a Deep State not accountable to anyone but itself. The taxpayer money passes through its hands too, and it builds up power and influence. But no one votes for these people. At most, the top layer or two changes sides after an election. The Deep State, conveniently, is in charge of conducting the elections and counting the votes, and gets to make up all kinds of rules without any voter’s input…

    The long-term way to handle this is similar: devolve things away from the Federal government, and see to it that no one can make a career of working for the government.

  24. I wonder if General Mark Milley is going to call Putin to tell him that if President Bidet orders a strike on Russia that he will not carry it out.
    Just like he did with President Trump.
    Just wondering….

  25. It’s not Schoolhouse Rock any more guys. It may be that it never was.

    Nothing is going to get better until we open our eyes to what is really going on. Thinking it’s just a question of more Rs and fewer Ds (or vice versa) gets you more of what we have now.

    Frederick:

    Thanks for the advice, but I remind you — those are only your opinions.

    It’s so weird. This is the way the New Left talked in the late 60s/early 70s, when parts of the SDS decided there was no option Changing The System From Within and decided to become the Weather Underground.

    Then, after being underground for years, the FBI tainted their case and the Weather Underground high command surfaced to then devote their lives to … Changing The System From Within.

    And succeeding very well, thank you very much. Which is no small part of why we are having so much trouble today.

    Bill Ayers, you magnificent bastard!

    Who will be our General Patton?
    ___________________________

    They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
    For trying to change the system from within

    –Leonard Cohen, “First We Take Manhattan”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTTC_fD598A

  26. Frederick:

    What’s with the strawman argument? You write, “Thinking it’s just a question of more Rs and fewer Ds (or vice versa) gets you more of what we have now.”

    No one said anything of the sort.

  27. You must know a different group. No Biden voters I know admit to the slightest discomfort. Maybe they feel it, late at night when sleep comes hard.
    But they’re not going to admit it and the only way they’d vote R is if DeSantis’ recent opponent ran as an R.

  28. @neo:No one said anything of the sort.

    MBunge, Mike K, and Eeyore all did say things of that sort. True, they did not say that electing R’s is what’s only and exclusively needed to solve our problems, and if you choose to read my “thinking it’s just a question” as implying that they did then I suppose I was straw-manning to that extent.

    We could all use reminders about how to carefully read and characterize what others write, from time to time. At least those of us who don’t willfully mischaracterize the comments of others could use the reminder. I don’t think you do this, neo, but it’s not hard to find examples close by.

  29. “The national political parties are the Generals and the Globetrotters, they pretend to be opposed but they actually put on a show while they collect your money.”

    And then we elected a guy who wasn’t part of the show. I’m not saying you’re wrong about the problem but, post-Trump, there are a lot more people aware of the problem and a lot more who at least want to do something about it.

    It’s not much, but it’s a start.

    Mike

  30. @huxley:Thanks for the advice, but I remind you — those are only your opinions.

    Erm, yeah… in which respect I am no different from you or anyone else posting their opinions here. If it helps you can mentally preface “in my opinion” to any of my declarative sentences.

    It’s so weird. This is the way the New Left talked in the late 60s/early 70s, when parts of the SDS decided there was no option Changing The System From Within

    Well, whatever THEY said, I never said changes couldn’t be made by working from within.

    “Change from within” has to be more than just putting different people into the same slots. A lot more. It could look something like the reforms of the early 20th century, or maybe it looks more like replacing the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution, or maybe it’s something in between.

    There’s more than one way. But it can’t just be sending more people into the Swamp.

  31. @MBunge:And then we elected a guy who wasn’t part of the show.

    Exactly. We sent him in alone, and look how far he got. I don’t know if it could have been better, but we were lucky to get what we did.

    It’s not much, but it’s a start.

    That’s why I’m so concerned about people getting suckered back in by happy thoughts of an R wave in 2022.

  32. Erm, yeah… in which respect I am no different from you or anyone else posting their opinions here. If it helps you can mentally preface “in my opinion” to any of my declarative sentences.

    Frederick:

    No, I’d prefer you were explicit in that regard, so that I may understand you properly.

    It’s not hard to throw in “seems,” “appears,” “IMO” etc. I do it all the time so readers may be sure I do not mistake my opinions for Truth.

    There’s more than one way. But it can’t just be sending more people into the Swamp.

    Who says there is only one way?

    Andrew Breitbart said, as I keep mentioning, that “Politics is downstream from culture.”

    If so, if culture changes, politics changes. It’s not an A->B->C plan. The game changes. For instance, Trump was elected against all odds. Biden is failing spectacularly in spite of those who carry his water. CRT/Trans stuff is now on the map for American parents.

  33. I keep hearing the old New Left lines from today’s conservatives.

    All doom, gloom. We are trapped by oppressive structures which control everything. All conventional means to change are hopeless. Things will keep getting worse. It’s going to come down to armed struggle.

    Like I say. Weird.

    ‘Course, this is my personal problem because of my history. But I can’t take it all this talk too seriously.

    To me it looks like we are winning, just as the Left and Hippies were winning the culture back then, though the harder core didn’t realize it.

    My opinion.

  34. @huxley: I’d prefer you were explicit in that regard, so that I may understand you properly.

    Fair enough.

    It’s not hard to throw in “seems,” “appears,” “IMO” etc. I do it all the time so readers may be sure I do not mistake my opinions for Truth.

    But there’s two dangers. One, is that it’s easily confused for hedging or qualifying, and used excessively it’s weak writing. Two, there is a lot more “opinion” than most people realize in much of what we call “factual”, and there can be really stupid arguments as a result.

    Who says there is only one way?

    By saying this, I’m not arguing against some specific person who says there’s only one way. I’m letting people know that I am aware there is more than one way, because there’s people around here like to attribute views to others and so I sometimes anticipate those.

    “Politics is downstream from culture.”

    Was he right about this? Take CRT for example. How did people who hold CRT views accumulate so much political power when they are such a tiny minority? *They didn’t take over the culture, win elections, and THEN impose CRT when everyone agreed with them. *Same with some of these other issues like men competing in women’s sports. *Only a very tiny minority of the culture has this huge and outsized political influence. How is this happening if it’s like Breitbart said?

    *All of these are “my opinion”.

  35. Maybe Biden is referring to – throwing Ukraine off the troika.
    As usual, Dyer’s analysis is too complex to excerpt succinctly, but the connections are there.

    Part One is the Democrats’ rallying around the President’s emotional speech, “just like Reagan and The Wall,” coupled with what they are actually doing.
    Part Two are some connections among the Bidens, the biolabs, the companies funding and running the biolabs, the Science aka Saint Fauci (you just knew we’d get around to him), and — Hollywood.

    https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2022/03/28/toc-ready-room-28-march-2022-russia-ukraine-and-the-breakup-of-nato-biolabs-and-viruses/

  36. Believe It or Not – Neo’s link about Donald Duck’s pantslessness led me to this article at the same site.

    https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/what-india-can-tell-russia-amid-war-7845088/

    The Indian media, especially op-ed writers, have been surprisingly quiet on the planned visit of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Less surprisingly, the ministry of external affairs has been equally quiet. Yet, a visit by Russia’s top diplomat at a time when the country is at war is surely worthy of comment and more, serious questions.

    What will Foreign Minister S Jaishankar discuss with Lavrov? According to the little information that is trickling out, the war on Ukraine is not the only issue on the agenda. Apparently, it includes Indian defence purchases as well as revitalising the rupee-rouble account.

    To discuss arms purchases from a country while it bombs civilians and infrastructure in another country is surely a violation of even the low bottom line our leadership seems to have set. After prolonged silence, the Modi administration inched towards asserting support for sovereignty, territorial integrity and an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine. These principles, then, should top Jaishankar’s agenda with Lavrov.

    For a time-bound ceasefire to be meaningful, it needs to be in force for the duration of negotiations. Our political and military strategists, including those in the Opposition, know well that no sustainable peace can be arrived at while one side tries to militarily force the other to acquiesce in its goals. That should surely be the first point for Jaishankar to delicately convey to Lavrov, along with a clear if equally delicate message that India cannot negotiate defence purchases until Putin ends his war.

    This suggestion is not as outre as it sounds. The Russian Defence Ministry’s declaration that the country has achieved a major war aim, to degrade the Ukrainian military, indicates Russia is looking for face-saving ways to de-escalate. If so, Putin could accept President Volodymyr Zelensky’s offers to relinquish the aim of joining NATO, agree to Ukrainian neutrality and negotiate a resolution to the annexation of Crimea over a 15-year period. These are, of course, broad-brush offers; the devil will lie in the details. But they give President Putin the opportunity to announce a full ceasefire while claiming that other war aims have been, or are being, achieved through negotiation.

    That is a point that Jaishankar can put to Lavrov, who is presumably well aware that the sooner this war ends, the better it will be for Russia. Will Putin listen? Highly unlikely. But that should not prevent us from discussing these or other suggestions. Successive Indian administrations have made it clear that India has no interest in isolating Russia, as has the Modi administration, and that should be a sufficient sugar-coat. If Putin chooses to ignore Zelensky’s concessions, it will be clear that his irredentist ambitions supersede the interests of his people, allies or friends.

    Critics will immediately argue, incontrovertibly, that what I suggest will leave our army severely strapped. But it could equally well be argued that making arms purchases conditional on ending the war might add pressure without prejudicing the army’s need. After all, Russia is not doing us any favours by selling us arms. If a promise to follow through on existing purchase agreements helps bring about a full ceasefire, then it is worth considering. Otherwise it is not.

    As Putin’s war has progressed, a number of tired not-so-true truisms have been dredged up about what a reliable defence partner Russia is. But dependability has been in short supply since Putin came to power. His administration has delayed deliveries, ratcheted up prices and excluded India from areas of key security concern, such as Afghanistan under the Taliban and access to central Asia. It has chosen China over India on every issue.

    This a rare moment of confluence for India’s moral and strategic interests. With all eyes on it, China will not pursue its salami-slicing along our borders for a while. That gives us a little breathing space to diversify arms supplies. Which will better spur India’s military modernisation: Continued dependence on Russian weaponry or strengthening security partnerships through the Quad and perhaps Europe? Our air force has already indicated preference for Rafale over MIG. Our navy has pioneered diversification, with lessons for our army. Are we really prepared to let extremely short-term interests narrow our military options? Can we possibly believe that our Quad partners or Europe will be as open to our needs as they might be, if we buy from a Russia that violates every rule of international law, not to mention our own principles?

  37. “Biden is failing spectacularly…”
    The exact opposite, actually. (It’s just a matter of “appreciating” what “Biden”‘s goals are; as opposed to confusing those goals with what they “should be”. In this case, counter-intuitiveness is your friend! (The goal? Chaos, confusion, doubt, despair, CRISIS…failure!! all enabling the grand coverup to continue apace…and the Democrats to cement total power over the once-Republic.)

    “The long-term way to handle this…”
    Paradoxically, “Biden” might in fact have a handle on this: burn it all down so that it has to be rebuilt from scratch…not that “he” has any intention of rebuilding it—merely transforming it to become just another totalitarian nightmare…with the Democrats in charge.
    All joking aside, however, “he” may just burn ENOUGH of it down so that “We the People” get wise to what actually MUST be done to protect and preserve it….

    “I wonder if General Mark Milley is going to call Putin to tell him that if President Bidet orders a strike on Russia that he will not carry it out.”
    Heh, good one!
    But Milley won’t HAVE to call Putin; that is, “Biden” will call Putin “himself”.
    But not even that is going to have to happen…since “Biden”‘s already “called” “Putin” in advance. They’re already “in sync”. That is, Putin already knows—per the “understanding” already made between them—that whatever “Biden” says is simply NOT gonna happen, at least not to any degree that makes a difference; it’s simply for public consumption—all chaff—to give the media something to write about, the pundits to ponder their pupiks about…and to confuse everyone else.

    One MUST confuse the enemy. Think of it as “applied” dementia. IOW “Demented like a fox”….

  38. FWIW (how’s that for a hedge?) – I agree that Trump was outside of the system, but contra Mike K, I think Trump actually is a grifter and a phony. The scandal is that he was the only one available who was actually willing work against the system. And I agree that he was. Mike Pence vetoing the Indiana state Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) comes to mind. The federal RFRA passed something like 98-2 in the Senate during the Clinton administration. Progressives were all for it until they figured out that it also applies to those icky Christians. If conservative politicians wilt under corporate pressure and can’t even sign a bloody RFRA, why do we have conservative politicians anyway?

    I think Trump saw an opportunity to be president and bet the house.

  39. Happens that Trump was the CLEANEST politician out there.

    (Though I suppose that at least in theory, one COULD be a CLEAN grifter AND a CLEAN phony…. And pity all those poor Middle Eastern countries that actually were taken in by that phony grifter…Fortunately, we have “Biden” to set the record straight…)

    OTOH, maybe not as clean as Joe Biden…that is, AFTER the WH staff got finished power-cleaning the mess off…
    https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/03/29/biden-demonstrates-just-how-much-the-wh-is-lying-about-him-n542822

  40. So what happens should “Biden” decide to issue an EO—say at some point over the summer—declaring that illegal immigrants (so-called) have the right to vote…?

    You mean issues an executive order rewriting the election laws of all 50 states?

  41. …keeping in mind that the usual suspects fervently “believe” that elections should be held under federal laws….

  42. “Biden is failing spectacularly…”
    The exact opposite, actually

    Barry Meislin:

    I see. Biden is succeeding spectacularly well!

    So when Biden’s polls drop to 20% and Trump is re-elected in 2024 with blood in his eyes and Obama-like majorities in Congress, that will be the culmination of the diabolical Democrat plan to crush America.

    Your mileage may vary.

  43. There is a superficial appeal to the purism that calls out the likely deficiencies of the Republicans who we anticipate will take the seats of the Democrats in Congress. Let’s deal with that problem after we have it. Rending our garments over the likely ideological impurity of some within our coalition is foolish. In a two party system there will never be entirely comprehensive rationality because there will always be multiple axes upon which we can agree and disagree.

  44. Huxley, you’re right, of course… (were we on the “right” side of the looking glass…but we’re not….)

    Here’s another, fresh-out-of-the-oven example of “Biden”‘s success!
    ‘Biden Admin Unveils Response To “Putin’s Price Hike At The Pump”‘—
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/oil-slides-biden-admin-mulls-huge-spr-release-again
    Key grafs:
    “…as much as we want lower gas prices, these actions by the administration are bordering on the insane.”
    …along with that wonderful Einsteinian chestnut:
    “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

    Remember, it’s the “Putin Price Hike”(TM)—(and it’s why Putin had to be permitted to attack Ukraine).

    We’re talking about a level of perversity that is indeed difficult, perhaps even impossible, to fathom. But here it is! And it ain’t over by a long shot

    Yep. Success upon success upon success—it’s…contagious!

  45. BTW, the US is not alone in this mosh pit of madness….
    Our neighbors north of the border—or rather, those “governing” them—are as gung ho as “Biden” is….
    https://blazingcatfur.ca/2022/03/31/rex-murphy-ignore-whats-happening-in-the-world-the-trudeau-government-does/

    …and for the same reason…
    https://blazingcatfur.ca/2022/03/31/klaus-schwab-tells-global-leaders-to-collaborate-for-world-governance/

    They don’t expect to be toppled…but maybe that’s why they will be(?)….

  46. @vince: Rending our garments over the likely ideological impurity of some within our coalition is foolish.

    It’s not about ideological purity at all. It’s about people who take your votes and your money in order to make things worse and not better.

    At what point does Charlie Brown realize that Lucy is never going to let him kick the football? At what point does Krusty the Klown realize that the Washington Generals are not “due”?

    This isn’t about who’s pure. It’s about who is or isn’t selling us out behind closed doors. Openly and honestly moderate or even liberal Rs aren’t the problem.

  47. Fredrick makes simple statements that have been made before, by many. What to do about it? Convention of States, Article V, of the Constitution.

    Cue the “It will never work. Has never been done. It’s too dangerous. You fools expect to change anything for the better! What fools.”

  48. @om:Convention of States, Article V, of the Constitution.

    What’s wrong with that? It’s a perfectly legal avenue. It’s not the only one that could be tried, but there’s lots of things that could help. There could be much smaller changes that add up to the kind of results we need, or Article V could work if there’s a broad enough consensus and then it can be done in one swoop.

    The farther the national parties drift from the broad electorate the more viable Article V conventions get.

    Cue the “It will never work. Has never been done. It’s too dangerous. You fools expect to change anything for the better! What fools.”

    I hope you’re not attributing views to me that I don’t hold. Again.

  49. Our national government is going to start working for us again when we have things set up so that the bad people who invariably get in are willing to do the right thing for the wrong reasons. That’s what they were trying to do in 1789 and it was a great start:

    “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.”

    But the various accretions that have grown up over the years have reduced the effectiveness of this system until it’s the Leviathan we have today. New changes to the system are needed.

    These could come through Article V, but they might come faster and sooner if we elect people who are actually committed to making the changes. These people are not necessarily going to be found in one party, and the existing party structure is going to sabotage them where it can, from BOTH parties. The voters have to do a lot more work than vote Team Red or Team Blue.

  50. I have heard that refrain from many who fall into the “Uniparty and Woe is us!” schtick. Saying that the answer is to pare back the reach of the Federal Government without citing a proces to fix it isn’t much help.

    Good to hear that you aren’t tied to the schtick.

  51. My guess from day 1 was he wasn’t going to make it to the end of his term, though thought a year was it at most. But he is looking more lost and explosive every week.

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