Joe Biden 2: President Dark Brandon For The Win!

[SassyPants]

3 hours ago, Howl said:

 Dark Brandon was en fuego last night.  

Alt-reich Twitter lit up immediately; apparently most of their followers were not watching, so they could spin that Biden was losing the thread, stumbling over words,  all the things that Trump actually does.  Also, accused him of yelling -- also called forcefully, emphatically making points. 

Kamala Harris was an utterly brilliant cheerleader, looked completely happy, and  perfectly timed clapping and rising to her feet in response to each Biden point. Bobo, Gaetz, MTG realized that they were severely out classed. 

So let's get to the Republican response to the SOTU. Katie Britt, senator from Alabama, gave the response from her *checks notes* kitchen.  A minute or two after she started talking,  people all over Twitter simutaneously noted that it would be the SNL cold open -- no, not that it would be an SNL cast member, it would just be her speech.  Other references to Handmaid's Tale and so on.  But to save you from that horror,  

Never mind, you're strong!  Here's the original.  Put on your anti-cringe armor - it's hard to take. It's like watching someone with multiple personality disorder flip through their alternate identities. Also, many evangelical women raised in fundy families immediately noted the breathy baby voice (I'm submissive!), a la Michelle Duggar et al..

Ever since Kayleigh McEnany, those little "I'm just a big ol' fan of Jesus!" cross necklaces just chafe my chaps. 

 Went to Mass this morning, and the Gospel reading (and the theme of the homily) was about the 2 greatest commandments, loving God and your neighbor as yourself. And the deacon spoke about how the church is not like a museum and only there to attract the holiest and the best, but rather more like a field hospital serving the most in need of help, and often times people classify those in need as “others.” People like this woman are certainly free to have those opinions and to vocally proclaim that message, but in making that choice, they also need to stop wearing the outward signs of Christianity. This is not the message of Jesus Christ. You cannot hide from Jesus. He knows what is in your heart and it doesn’t matter how many crosses or T-shirts you wear claiming otherwise.

[GreyhoundFan]

Dark Brandon!

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Glad to see this:

 

[Cam]

On 3/8/2024 at 10:46 AM, Howl said:

Yes!  Interesting takes from NYT on her "speech".  

"With a sunny, inviting smile, Senator Katie Britt of Alabama welcomed Americans into her kitchen on Thursday night.  Many soon backed away nervously...

...Ms. Britt chose a domestic backdrop, trying to underscore her argument that Mr. Biden represents a threat to prosperity for American families.

But the scene seemed to confuse viewers on social media, where Ms. Britt was mocked by some for using a dramatic, breathy voice to deliver critiques of the president." 

Jess Piper offers a rural progressive point of view. She has a good article on Ms. Britt’s speech if you care to watch it:

“The Fundie Baby Voice”

As soon as Senator Katie Britt started speaking, I knew exactly who she is. She is so many of the pastor's wives and Sunday School teachers I knew growing up in an Evangelical church. Be sweet. Obey. - Jess Piper 

article link:   https://jesspiper.substack.com/p/the-fundie-baby-voice

Edited March 9 by Cam

[Howl]

22 hours ago, Xan said:

I read that the bond was underwritten by the Chubb Corporation.  Chubb has insurance companies and is owned by Ace Limited, which is a holding company out of Switzerland.  The chief executive officer is Evan Greenberg.  He's on the board of United States - China Relations and was against the taxpayer funded bailout in 2008.  He's the son of the former head of AIG.  Greenberg appears to be against nationalism.  I'm not sure why he okayed this funding.  I'm wondering if someone else (e.g. Musk) backed it up with investments in Chubb.

Greenberg is a Trump appointee: "In 2018, Trump appointed Chubb's CEO Evan Greenberg to a White House advisory committee for trade policy and negotiations."

Mr. Howl noted that Chubb is making bank off this transaction; they're charging a fee for putting up this money.   Likely there's a quid pro quo in there somewhere to make the risk of lending Trump money worth it, or it's the business face of some dark money entity that can't be made public (laundered dirty Russian money to the rescue!) or both. 

 

[Howl]

Chubb is a global entity and has a large office in Moscow. 

[Howl]

One more note on Katie Britt's "rebuttal".   Yes, she chose a domestic setting, but it was probably a set, because it certainly wasn't her own kitchen. 

An enterprising person looked up the realtor's photos from 2018, when presumably the Britts bought their home.  Nope, not the kitchen depicted last night.  

A nice rebuttal: 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I think it’s rich that Newt, of all people, dares to accuse anyone of pettiness, nastiness, and dishonesty..  

[Howl]

One more thing about Katie Britt.  I follow a newspaper on line that serves three communities in SW Colorado -- two have less than 1,000 population and the main town is around 10,000 -- a very conservative area with more than a few wingnuts.  The newspaper threads a narrow line, and doesn't get into the weeds on national politics. However, in their Associated Press section of 6 linked articles (3 were sports, 1 was Rupert Murdoch's engagement), they included  "Katie Britt used decades-old example of rapes in Mexico as Republican attack on Biden border policy"    It's interesting that this is a Big Deal and getting some exposure. 

And while I'm thinking about it, **** New Gingrich with a rusty spoon. His very ugly tweet is really about the power and success of  Biden's SOTU that's making Republican's very nervous. His type  of Republican messaging will be effective because most MAGA won't have actually watched Biden's SOTU and will adopt this narrative. 

However,  there are some Trump supporters who watched the SOTU and now  realize that the Republican narrative about a confused and enfeebled Biden is just bullshit. 

MSM is FINALLY starting to feature little "person on the street" interviews with former Trump supporters who are tired of Trump's "shenanigans", were deeply disappointed by him and won't vote for him again.  

 

[Howl]

Erma Gerd! Will she EVER stop going on about Katie Britt?  

Here's the last word -- Scarlett Johansson's brilliant take down on SNL

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Biden hoped to be a peacemaker. Now, he knows he must be a warrior."

Quote

Two ideas about how to move the United States back to normal, less acrid politics have warred with each other ever since Donald Trump rode division and resentment to power. On one side were calls for big-hearted efforts at reconciliation and mutual understanding. On the other was an insistence that the extremist virus had to be contained before anything better was possible.

President Biden’s State of the Union address on Thursday was about many things, especially a furious energy that countered talk about the limitations of his age. But above all, it marked the final collapse of the reconciliation strategy. It was an acknowledgment that sermons about putting aside our differences are out of touch with the country we have become.

It’s hard to imagine a more reluctant convert to the warrior class than Biden. A champion of bipartisanship, the veteran of 36 years in the Senate loves few things more than reminiscing about past friendships with some of his most reactionary colleagues. He proved that a degree of bipartisanship is still possible, earning cross-party support for his big infrastructure and technology investment programs. These and other Biden measures pushed huge sums into Trump-supporting states and counties.

None of this breached the barricades built out of mutual suspicion because you can’t reconcile with those who have no interest in civility or dialogue.

Hopes that Trump would fade away were stillborn. He is more radical and dangerous than ever. Immediately after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, one Republican leader after another disowned him. Then came silence and, after that, surrender. The GOP’s capitulation was sealed after last week’s endorsement of Trump by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Biden’s old friend and a man well known to despise Trump.

There could be no better example of the futility of outreach than the fate of the tough bipartisan border bill that Biden and his party negotiated with Sen. James Lankford, a conservative stalwart from Oklahoma.

Lankford could only sadly nod in agreement when Biden in his address described the measure as “the toughest set of border security reforms we’ve ever seen” and touted its endorsement by the Trump-friendly Border Patrol union. Under orders from Trump, Republicans killed the concessions they had once demanded.

So Biden the peacemaker gave way to Biden the scrapper on behalf of a threatened democracy. He reached for the most dramatic metaphor available to him in expressing just how irreconcilable our differences have become. “Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War,” he declared, “have freedom and democracy been under assault at home as they are today.”

The models for Biden’s war strategy are Harry S. Truman, who spoke relentlessly but cheerfully of a “do-nothing Republican Congress,” and Theodore Roosevelt, who declared in accepting the Progressive Party’s 1912 nomination: “We stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord.” Truman won. Roosevelt lost that time, but his progressive politics would shape the future.

A strategy of warfare requires tactical decisions. Rallying Democrats was the first priority of his speech, but Biden made two of his other top objectives obvious. He intends to fight hard for the kinds of Republicans and independents who rallied to Nikki Haley’s candidacy by making clear that he will stand up for Ukraine’s survival and stand strong against Vladimir Putin’s threats. His pointed contrast of Trump with Ronald Reagan reminded many Republicans of a heritage their soon-to-be nominee would squander by “bowing down to a Russian leader.”

Biden’s emphasis on reproductive rights, including in vitro fertilization, also appeals to a large share of middle-of-the-road and even moderately conservative suburbanites, particularly women, who see radicalism in the drive to upset the old status quo on abortion access.

At the same time, Biden still sees himself as a friend to “working families,” including union members — no matter how many of them might be in Trump’s camp for now.

Pundits frequently deride policy proposals as “laundry lists.” But offering detail about what government could do to ease the day-to-day problems of the non-affluent — from health care to child care to the curse of “junk fees” and “price gouging” — is popular with the many voters who long to escape the trenches of our cold civil war. It’s a vision of a politics that refocuses on the everyday. And Biden’s plea for tax fairness calls the bluff of a political adversary who is about as “populist” as the dues-paying members of Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster.

Still, there’s no way back to the normal skirmishes of democracy and the possibilities of civic friendship without first routing those who threaten democracy itself. They thrive only in a politics that sees domestic enemies everywhere and view groups they dislike as “poisoning the blood of our country.”

Biden finds his comfort zone in compromises over infrastructure bills and budgets. He’ll have to live the next eight months far from that happy place, doing battle against the forces of “resentment, revenge and retribution” that make the approach to public life he loves impossible.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I couldn’t agree more:

[thoughtful]

The Biden administration restored rules protecting people in need from god-botherers.

Quote

The American Civil Liberties Union commends the Biden administration’s finalized rules to restore religious freedom protections for people who use federally funded social services, including food banks, homeless or domestic violence shelters, job training, and elder care. The rules replace Trump administration regulations that had stripped away these safeguards.

 

Quote

Specifically, the finalized regulations eliminate Trump-era provisions that were designed to allow religious social service providers to refuse to provide key services and that were intended to open the door to discrimination in taxpayer-funded programs. The new rules require that individuals seeking services be informed of their religious freedom rights, including that they cannot be discriminated against because of their religion or because they are nonreligious, that they cannot be required to pray or participate in religious activities, and that they may file a complaint if their rights are violated.

https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-commends-biden-administrations-new-rules-protecting-religious-freedom-for-people-who-use-government-funded-social-services

More details here:

Spoiler

 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

Lol

 

[GreyhoundFan]

More from Dark Brandon:

[GreyhoundFan]

BTs are unhappy with Dark Brandon:

[GreyhoundFan]

We need more of this:

[WatchingTheTireFireBurn]

I'm so confused about people's perception of Biden. I was on a financial forum on reddit and somebody was asking advice because they got laid off. There were many comments about how hard it was to look for a job "in this economy" and "good luck, there's nothing out there!"  - this combined with a relative I have, who was recently looking for a job and "not finding anything" despite the fact that in our area, we're actually below the average for # of unemployed people nationwide and as I understand as a whole the US is having very low unemployment, and in fact many employers are struggling to find workers.....So where does this idea that it's hard to find a job "in this economy" and "blame biden" even come from?? Based on my reading of a basic chart on the labor statistics site - we're basically at historically low unemployment for several years now, excepting a covid blip. My retirement stocks are waaaaaay up. My particular field continues to have a nationwide shortage. I just don't get it.  I would think looking for a job in low unemployment environment would be easier - and not such a political thing. People talk and talk about the price of gas and certain grocery items to the point of obsession but a lot of it's talk because really gas prices are still stupid low. People are still buying gas though despite blaming it on Biden. ...I don't think I'm being super clear. I'm just confused. Are people trying to not get a job so they CAN blame Biden??? Anything seems possible.

[Cam]

15 hours ago, WatchingTheTireFireBurn said:

I'm so confused about people's perception of Biden. I was on a financial forum on reddit and somebody was asking advice because they got laid off. There were many comments about how hard it was to look for a job "in this economy" and "good luck, there's nothing out there!"  - this combined with a relative I have, who was recently looking for a job and "not finding anything" despite the fact that in our area, we're actually below the average for # of unemployed people nationwide and as I understand as a whole the US is having very low unemployment, and in fact many employers are struggling to find workers.....So where does this idea that it's hard to find a job "in this economy" and "blame biden" even come from?? Based on my reading of a basic chart on the labor statistics site - we're basically at historically low unemployment for several years now, excepting a covid blip. My retirement stocks are waaaaaay up. My particular field continues to have a nationwide shortage. I just don't get it.  I would think looking for a job in low unemployment environment would be easier - and not such a political thing. People talk and talk about the price of gas and certain grocery items to the point of obsession but a lot of it's talk because really gas prices are still stupid low. People are still buying gas though despite blaming it on Biden. ...I don't think I'm being super clear. I'm just confused. Are people trying to not get a job so they CAN blame Biden??? Anything seems possible.

I understand the frustration. I don’t know if it is wrong to feel this way, but I’ve listened to numerous middle-class married women who own houses complain about the price of eggs or celery or butter and I want to say, “How many pairs of shoes do you have in your closet? How many purses? Where’d you go on vacation last year? How many toys did you buy for your grandkids who already have more than they’ll ever play with? How much money did you spend at the craft store? What was your bill at the restaurant you ate at last Friday?” and so on. I mean, they are wanting for nothing, yet insist on griping as if they are doing without. They are not!

My husband hears guys bitching about the price of gasoline. He knows they own multiple vehicles, boats, motorcycles and one even owns a small plane. None of these guys are doing without in any way shape or form because of gas prices, but they bitch up a storm about it! Of course, they don’t gripe about food prices because they don’t do the grocery shopping! The women in their lives do! They are entitled white guys! 

Edited March 26 by Cam

[fraurosena]

Dark Brandon strikes again. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Go, Dark Brandon!

 

[thoughtful]

I like Colbert's slipping in a reference to Joseph Welch's confronting Joe McCarthy, with "At long last sir, have you no chip shot?"  If Welch could see what's going on now, he'd be appalled (but probably not surprised).

Spoiler

 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Biden knows how to make a self-deprecating joke.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Yes!