A PARTY WILL NOT BE NECESSARY

For Joey Biden, who turns 81 today, another birthday may bring more liability!!! than revelry, offering one more reminder of his age to an ALREADY skeptical electorate. 

Biden and his team have taken the approach that his record of domestic legislation and international leadership should belie any worries about his capacity, even though polls have shown consistently that line of argument has NOT been persuasive, at least NOT yet.

In recent weeks, many of Biden’s staff and the majority of Dems, in general, have argued that Biden needs to do more to draw the contrast!!! with his likeliest Republican challenger, Donald John Trump.

Some have said the president needed to start getting out on the campaign trail more to show his vigor, deploy more humor to defuse the matter and even boast about his age rather than ignore it. Remember, the Orange Despot is NO spring chicken…he’s 77.

You can be certain, NOTHING irritates White House officials more than discussion of Biden’s age, which they view as an obsession of the news media that does NOT correspond with the energetic and mentally sharp president they describe inside the Oval Office. 

ALL together…

Happy Birthday to Joey, Happy Birthday to you…would someone wake up the president…and take down those damn streamers!!!

A LADY WITH CONSUMMATE GRACE

Rosalynn Carter, a true-life partner to Jimmy Carter who helped propel him from rural Georgia to the White House in a single decade and became the most politically active first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt, died yesterday afternoon in Plains, Georgia. She was 96.

What an absolute class act. Grace personified. Mrs. Carter seemed to truly care more about people than herself. Clearly a strong personality. She was an example of everything good in our country – helping those in need.

Over their nearly eight decades together, Mr. and Mrs. Carter forged the closest of bonds [77 years of marriage], developing a personal and professional symbiosis remarkable for its sheer longevity.

As I’ve mentioned before in this blog, through my wife’s relationship with the Carters, we got to know them from a distance, yet up-close-and personal. Due to my wife’s position at Emory University, she was relatively close to them: book signings; the opening of The Carter Center in Atlanta; and the scheduling of strategic sessions with visiting dignitaries to the Center.

The former president was fond of kidding us that my wife was the only Republican within his circle of associates.

Rosalynn Carter represented the best of American values and American democracy’s generosity of spirit.

Years after their tenure in the White House, few have done more than the Carters to serve the everyday Man/Woman and to push for the best that humans have to offer as global stewards.

Heaven is joyous with their latest addition.

AIN’T THINGS JUST GRAND?!!

The Senate voted 87 to 11 to clear the temporary funding patch!!! and send it to Biden, who is expected to sign it, just hours before a deadline at midnight tomorrow. 

Congress gave final approval yesterday to a bill to fund federal agencies into early next year, averting an immediate shutdown crisis but leaving the path toward a longer-term agreement on government spending as rocky as ever…how much longer can the old can be kicked down the road!!!!!!!!?????

The bill, known as a continuing resolution (CR), sets up two deadlines in early 2024, with money for some agencies running out on January 19th and the rest on February 2nd. It continues funding at current levels and contains NO policy conditions – two aspects that pleased Dems and enraged far-right Re’Trump’licans who have demanded steep cuts and conservative policy requirements.

So-o-o-, Mike Johnson has had his 15 minutes of fame…maybe. Who and what may be around the corner?!!

It’s ALL theater to satisfy their primary voters, who haven’t a clue of what it would do to them economically if the budget cuts proposed by the “Freedom Caucus” were actually adopted.

NOT a f!#king clue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This maybe a preview, of sorts, of what things could be like if the GOP retains the House and takes over the Senate in ’24.

Negotiations require talent and, more importantly, maturity!

MIKEY’S STOPGAP

Speaker Mike Johnson has ALREADY learned a valuable lesson: Being an uncompromising conservative hard-liner is much easier from the backbenches of the House than it is from the leadership suites.

The stopgap spending bill he pushed through the House yesterday with overwhelming support from Dems over the objections of a solid bloc of Republicans was a near-exact replica of the funding package he had opposed six weeks ago, when he was still an obscure lawmaker from Louisiana.

Need more oxygen, Mikey?!!

Johnson made the calculation that House Republicans, divided and known more for acrimony than accomplishment these days, could NOT afford to be held responsible for a crippling pre-Thanksgiving government shutdown.

Johnson was forced to bow to the political reality that spending proposals designed to appease the far right can NOT become law in a divided government. In doing so, he exhibited a pragmatic side that surprised Dems and frustrated allies on the right who just days ago were exultant at his sudden rise.

Still, there was NO sugarcoating the fact that the stopgap continuing resolution headed for quick approval in the Senate as early tomorrow was a far cry from what those on the far right would have written.

Who says they can’t do the ‘two-step’ in Louisiana??!!??!!?!!

PLANS FOR an EXTREME AGENDA

It’s NOT a surprise to any sane individual.

The babbling incoherency of “I am your retribution.”

Donald John Trump, in a series of public threats, has promised his plans that would upend core elements of American governance, democracy, foreign policy and the rule of law if he regained the White House.

Since leaving office, Boy Orange‘s advisers and allies at a network of well-funded groups have advanced policies, created lists of potential personnel and started shaping new legal scaffolding – laying the groundwork for a second Trump presidency they hope will commence on January 20, 2025.

Allies of Trump have also been developing an intellectual blueprint to cast aside!!! the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department investigatory independence from White House political direction, reports the New York Times.

As I posted earlier, bolstered by agents reassigned from other federal law enforcement agencies and state police and the National Guard, officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement would carry out sweeping raids aimed at deporting millions of people each year.

Military funds would be used to erect sprawling camps to hold undocumented detainees. A public-health emergency law would be invoked to shut down asylum requests by people arriving at the border. And the government would try to end birthright citizenship for babies born on US soil to undocumented parents.

As regards our military, while the Posse Comitatus Act generally makes it illegal to use federal troops for domestic law enforcement purposes, another law called the Insurrection Act creates an exception.

Trump wanted to invoke the Insurrection Act to use troops to crack down on protesters after the 2020 police killing of George Floyd, but was thwarted, and the idea remains salient among his advisers. Among other things, his top immigration adviser has said they would invoke the Insurrection Act at the southern border to use soldiers to intercept and detain undocumented migrants.

There is growing talk that the Trump camp has adopted a maximalist version of the so-called unitary executive theory, which says the president can directly command the entire federal bureaucracy!!! and that it is unconstitutional for Congress to create pockets of independent decision-making authority.

Tighten your breeches, kids!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

h/t: National Constitutional Center.

THWARTED BY “ANONYMOUS”

More than 400 political appointees and staff members representing some 40 government agencies sent a letter to President Biden protesting!!! his support of Israel in its war in Gaza.

The letter, part of a growing internal dissent over the administration’s support of the war, calls on the president to seek an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and to push Israel to allow humanitarian aid into the territory. It is the latest of several protest letters from officials throughout the Biden administration, including three internal memos to Secretary of State Tony Blinken signed by dozens of State Department employees as well as an open letter signed by more than 1,000 employees of the US Agency for International Development.

We have officials who we elect in the US to set policy, NOT staffers, who are paid to implement decisions.

Many Americans support Biden and his leadership for the US position in this war, and while free speech is a right, one has to wonder if the implementation of US policy goals is being thwarted by “anonymous.”

Furthermore, anonymous protests are a gift to Boy Orange and simply supports his narrative that there is a “deep state” at work in our country, undermining our elected officials.

2024 will be interesting for ALL of us.

WILL DEMS BACK MIKEY?

Speaker Mike Johnson’s proposal to avert a government shutdown at the end of the week ran into increasing opposition yesterday from hard-line Re’Trump’licans.

But…

With Democratic opposition softening, it appeared the plan could be headed toward bipartisan approval.

Maybe a little too simple. but much of the problem is because every program has a constituency of businesses that make campaign “donations” to politicians to get their interests cared for. While we vote for these people, they are chosen based on their ability to raise unbelievable amounts of money. They spend more time raising money than anything else.

It’s become their ‘real’ job!!!

The shifting alliances came as the House planned to take its first action on the bill as early as today. The legislation would fund federal agencies into early 2024 with two “staggered” deadlines, allowing lawmakers time to try to finish off the annual spending bills and putting off a debate over wartime aid to Israel and Ukraine.

Johnson – who is far more conservative than former Speaker “Squatter” McCarthy – is NOT expected to face similar blowback [for the moment!] from Re’Trump’licans, who are NOT eager to repeat the dysfunction and paralysis [for the moment!!] that followed their last speaker’s ouster.

Top Dems are NOT happy with the convoluted approach but see the plan, known as a continuing resolution (CR), as potentially the surest way to avoid a shutdown in the short time remaining before the deadline.

Just another unmitigated disaster in the center ring of The Swamp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE COUNTLESS UNNAMED

As in any conflict, there is a multitude of massive collateral damage.

Specifically, I’m talking about human beings.

Because of social media, technology and 24/7/365 cable news it has become magnified by factor of 10!

We are being told that there are more than 4,500 children who have been killed in Gaza, according to its Ministry of Health, since Israel began its military campaign in response to the brutal October 7th Hamas attack on Israel.

On that day, Hamas fighters slaughtered 1,400-plus people, among them many children. Hundreds of Israeli hostages, including children, are believed to be held in Gaza by Hamas, their families desperate for their safe release.

The spoils of war, to put it another way.

The perilous status of the hospitals was made clear early last Friday when projectiles struck inside the Al Shifa complex, Gaza’s largest hospital, and a video appeared to show people being turned back by gunfire as they tried to evacuate another hospital.

Israel has long maintained that Hamas uses the hospitals as shields, operating from within them, while thousands of Palestinian civilians have taken refuge on their grounds. The chief of Al Shifa Hospital said it was struck four times on Friday, killing seven people, with several others wounded. The sources of the strikes and the extent of the damage were NOT immediately known [and, may NEVER be!!!].

The Gazan authorities have NOT said how many of those killed have been leaders and fighters of Hamas, Israel’s stated target, but they say the highest toll has been on the most vulnerable. More than 4,500 Gazan children and 3,000 women have been killed since the conflict began, they reported, and close to 27,500 people have been wounded [many will go on to die, due to lack of proper care and medical supplies].

There are NO easy answers/solutions…trust me, I know.

Like many people, I have been struggling to come to grips with the scale and devastation of the conflict unfolding right now in Gaza. Hamas’s heinous attack on Israel was a rampage of unrelenting brutality and cruelty that the killers live-streamed.

Israel has responded with a bombing campaign in Gaza that has become one of the most intense of the 21st century, prompting growing global scrutiny of its scale, purpose and cost to human life.

Respectfully, allow me to put it this way: the promise of future lives has been broken, NEVER to be wakened from the sleep of death.

WHAT WE CAN EXPECT…

He isn’t hiding his hand…

In this case, I am talking about BOTH legal and illegal immigration.

Donald John Trump is planning an extreme expansion of his first-term crackdown on immigration if he returns to power – including preparing to round up undocumented people ALREADY in the United States on a vast scale and detain them in sprawling camps while they wait to be expelled.

I wonder where the Orange Despot plans for the camps to be located – Mar-a-Lago? as a start?!!

He plans to scour the country for unauthorized immigrants and deport people by the millions per year.

The New York Times is reporting, in their overnight edition, that in order to help speed mass deportations, Boy Orange is preparing an enormous expansion of a form of removal that does NOT require due process hearings [but, of course!!!].

To help Immigration and Customs Enforcement carry out sweeping raids, he plans to reassign other federal agents and deputize local police officers and National Guard soldiers voluntarily contributed by Republican-run states [I’d love to be a fly on the wall during those discussions].

Plus, Trump wants to build huge camps to detain people while their cases are processed and they await deportation flights. And to get around any refusal by Congress to appropriate the necessary funds, Trump would redirect money in the military budget, as he did in his first term to spend more on a border wall than Congress had authorized.

In a second Trump presidency, the visas of foreign students who participated in anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian protests would be cancelled. US consular officials abroad will be directed to expand ideological screening of visa applicants to block people!!! the Trump administration considers to have undesirable attitudes.

Think about this…people who were granted temporary protected status because they are from certain countries deemed unsafe, allowing them to lawfully live and work in the United States, would have that status revoked. The impact on the medical profession, alone, potentially, could prove to be dramatic!!!

Much more on this latest revelation in the coming days.

WHAT’S THE PLAN, MIKE?!!

Next week should be a three-ring circus.

Speaker Mike Johnson, just two weeks into the job, has yet to give any public indication about his plan to prevent!!! a lapse in government spending – currently slated to happen next Friday, the 17th, at midnight if Congress fails to act. 

At odds with one another on spending, House Re’Trump’licans abruptly scrapped their legislative work yesterday and left Washington with little progress toward funding the government and NO plan to avert a shutdown next week.

It was/is yet another reflection of the rifts among House Re’Trump’licans that have made their tiny majority ungovernable, leading to the ouster of their last speaker and so far confounding his successor, who is far more conservative and less experienced.

Whether Johnson is willing to put forward a stopgap spending bill that Dems can accept remains to be seen. That move ultimately doomed his predecessor as speaker, Kevin “The Squatter” McCarthy, after it became clear he could NOT pass a temporary funding measure.

Stock up on your popcorn over the weekend!!!