Bidenomics for the Green New Deal

"Biden’s economic program looks less like a deliberate attempt to move beyond neoliberalism and more like an ongoing commitment to political pragmatism over any particular economic ideology. That it worked is a testament not to Biden’s profound economic foresight, but to the limits of economic analysis. Economists often disagree with one another over important issues, which means that on any given question, a lot of them are just wrong. The Federal Reserve, for instance, spent the past two years trying to generate mass layoffs in order to cure inflation. Those layoffs never materialized—economists aren’t really sure why—and inflation came down anyway, because the Fed had misdiagnosed its cause. The country had been suffering not from an excess of household wealth, but from a pandemic-induced supply crunch."

Full-employment is Biden's True Legacy, by Zachary D. Carter, Slate

Go Joe! And Harris/Walz will be his legacy! Of note, however, the Fed's misdiagnosis is in fact pure neoliberalism. The market, or supply shocks, in this instance, which were obvious at the time to everyone paying attention, and historically expected after any global disruption in normal economic operations, were ignored by the Fed. Like the role of "seller's inflation," in the subsequent surge of inflation, is ignored to this day by the Fed and elite journalists and economic experts. According to these people, unfettered market and corporate behavior cannot be the problem; and should never be regulated or reformed, this is the neoliberal default position. And it's the position of the Fed and mainstream economics and so the mainstream media, coincidentally all owned and paid for by corporate oligarchs. Biden's genius, attributable probably to spending decades in the special interest scrum that is congress, is in calling out and going after the failings of the neoliberal order-- yeah, pragmatically-- while not getting tied up in soapboxing ideological battles with the chattering class, where he'd have to explain to the public via corporate owned media that so-called "free markets" are in fact not very free at all-- as he's already noted after all, "trickle-down economics don't work"-- but are actually costly for workers, the environment, and when you get down to it not even the most pro-growth or not the kind of economic growth that promotes sustainability and the shared general prosperity of all Americans, anyway.  

Horse-Race Election Coverage Abets Fascist Takeover

 "An extraordinary effort to use the courts to set up a Trump dictatorship appears largely to have been hidden under the horse race.

And now that this scaffolding is in place, Trump’s team has begun to try to make him look more moderate than he is. On July 5, Trump claimed not to know anything about the extremist Project 2025, which calls for an authoritarian leader to impose Christian nationalism on the United States, despite the fact that his own appointees wrote it, his own political action committee advertised it as his plan, and his name appears in it 312 times."

Letter from an American Historian, HCR

Sinclair Floods Local News Sites with Disinformation

"This month, Sinclair Broadcast Group has flooded a vast network of local news websites with misleading articles suggesting that President Biden is mentally unfit for office. The articles are based on specious social media posts by the Republican National Committee (RNC), which are then repackaged to resemble news reports. The thinly disguised political attacks are then syndicated to dozens of local news websites owned by Sinclair, where they are given the imprimatur of mainstream media brands, including NBC, ABC, and CBS." 

Sinclair Disinfo War on Public, Judd Legum, Popular Information

MAGA Repugs own Sinclair, which owns more local news outlets than anyone else. Hitler had a newspaper magnet Alfred Hugenberg as well, but Hugenberg resisted the Furor's takeover more than Sinclair resists Grump's criminality and treason. BTW, the Sinclair station to avoid in Seattle is KOMO (channel 4) and KATU (channel 2) in Portland. More relevant commentary, 

The Republicans Feeding You Cheapfakes Think You're Stupid, Brian Buetler at Off Message 

D-Day and Today

 “The struggle between a dictatorship and freedom is unending,” he [Biden] said, and he vowed that the U.S., NATO, and allied countries will not walk away from Ukraine in its fight to resist Russia’s assault. “[T]o bow down to dictators,” he said, “means we’d be forgetting what happened here on these hallowed beaches.”

“History tells us freedom is not free,” Biden said. “If you want to know the price of freedom, come here to Normandy…and remember: The price of unchecked tyranny is the blood of the young and the brave."

“In their generation, in their hour of trial, the Allied forces of D-Day did their duty. Now the question for us is: In our hour of trial, will we do ours?"

“We’re living in a time when democracy is more at risk across the world than at any point…since these beaches were stormed in 1944. Now, we have to ask ourselves: Will we stand against tyranny, against evil, against crushing brutality of the iron fist?" 

“Will we stand for freedom? Will we defend democracy? Will we stand together?"

“My answer is yes. And it only can be yes.” 

“Let us be the generation that when history is written about our time—in 10, 20, 30, 50, 80 years from now—it will be said: When the moment came, we met the moment. We stood strong. Our alliances were made stronger. And we saved democracy in our time as well.”

D-Day, Biden, NATO, Free World, HCR

How Grump and MAGA Increase Political Violence

How Fear and Menace Are Transforming Politics, NY Times

Here's a story primarily about the alarming increase in political violence and threats of political violence spearheaded by Trump and his violent fascist MAGA minions but you'd never know that by the headline or sub-heading or by the bothsidesing gestures sprinkled throughout. 

It's a simple story, really. We're experiencing a shocking uptick in political violence or threats of political violence nearly all coming from Trump and the conservative right. If you don't want more political violence then don't vote for Trump or a Republican until he is gone and they, as a party, return to the human family and American democracy and condemn and reject political violence of any kind. But, instead, here we have a story that screams out for such an angle but still actually does everything it can in framing the story so as to obscure such a take. 

It's a problem with corporate and mainstream media. And a problem made worse by the fact most Americans never make it past the headlines. Here are some of the salient facts buried in the story: 

Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, refused to rule out violence if he were to lose in November. “It always depends on the fairness of the election,” he said in an interview late last month.

[Doesn't this obviously, again, violate the Insurrection Clause of the 14th amd?]

But experts describe this moment as particularly volatile, thanks in great part to social media platforms that can amplify anonymous outrage, spread misinformation and conspiracy theories and turn a little-known public employee into a target.

No politician has harnessed the ferocious power of those platforms like Mr. Trump. The former president has long used personal attacks as a strategy to intimidate his adversaries. As he campaigns to return to the White House, he has turned that tactic on the judges and prosecutors involved in his various legal cases, all of whom have subsequently been threatened.

[And so he should be muzzled and/or locked up and his prosecutions expedited, NOT delayed!]

Research does show, however, that recent acts of political violence are more likely to be carried out by perpetrators aligned with right-wing causes and beliefs.

[No kidding?!]

Senator Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah who is retiring at the end of this year, told a biographer that some G.O.P. lawmakers voted not to impeach and convict Mr. Trump after the Jan. 6 attack because they were afraid for their safety if they crossed his supporters. Mr. Romney did not identify the legislators by name and declined an interview for this article.

[Nazi stuff, face it.]

Election officials — from secretaries of state to poll workers — have faced hostility and abuse after Mr. Trump’s false claims of fraud in the 2020 election, leading to resignations and difficulty recruiting and retaining staff members and volunteers. Such threats “endanger our democracy itself,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said this week.

[What Garland said.]

Biden thwarting hateful bigotry and building a better future for all Americans

 "Then Biden turned to a speech that centered on faith. Churches talk a lot about Jesus being buried on Friday and rising from the dead on Sunday, he said, “but we don’t talk enough about Saturday, when… his disciples felt all hope was lost. In our lives and the lives of the nation, we have those Saturdays—to bear witness the day before glory, seeing people’s pain and not looking away. But what work is done on Saturday to move pain to purpose? How can faith get a man, get a nation through what was to come?” 

Letters from an American

Very Lincolnesque. The speech is from Biden's commencement address at Morehouse College, a historically Black school of higher education founded in the aftermath of the Civil War. MLK was a "Morehouse man." Best case Biden has made yet that he is the right man for the moment. 

Go Joe!