Thread: President Joe Biden

just for fun.

• Conservative House Republicans knock debt ceiling deal

Conservative House Republicans are already voicing criticism about the agreement in principle to cap spending and raise the debt ceiling announced late Saturday as the White House and GOP leadership work to avoid a default on the nation’s debt.

Rep. Dan Bishop (R) tweeted a vomiting emoji to express his thoughts on the proposed deal, noting that RINOS, or Republicans in Name Only, were “congratulating [Speaker Kevin] McCarthy [(R-Calif.)] for getting almost zippo in exchange for $4T debt ceiling hike.”

“Actually, it’s so bad they won’t give a figure for the debt ceiling hike … only that it’s suspended til Q1 2025. Our bill was a year less,” Bishop added.

Additionally, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) tweeted: “I do not like the ‘deal’ as I understand it from the cheerleading so far… I will have more to follow once I see more details.”

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), meanwhile, said that he is “appalled by the debt ceiling surrender” McCarthy outlined Saturday evening.

“The bottom line is that the U.S. will have $35 trillion of debt in January, 2025. That is completely unacceptable,” Buck tweeted.

President Biden and McCarthy announced that the two sides came to an agreement in principle late Saturday, and the release of the legislative text could come as early as Sunday. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned last week that without congressional action, the country could default on June 5, a deadline that McCarthy says Congress will meet.

McCarthy said he expects the House to hold a vote as soon as Wednesday, when the bill likely will face challenges from conservative GOP members.

President Biden Delivers Remarks on the Bipartisan Budget Agreement

• Debt deal text released as leaders corral votes

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) released text of the bill to raise the debt limit on Sunday evening as Democratic and Republican leaders work to corral support ahead of this week’s vote.

The bill — which spans 99 pages — raises the debt limit for two years, strengthens work requirements on federal public assistance programs and rescinds COVID-19 funding that went unused, among other provisions.

McCarthy spoke to Biden on the phone late Sunday shortly before the text of the bill was released.

The bill’s release officially starts the clock on the 72-hour rule, which gives House members at least three days to review a bill before voting on it. Sticking to the 72-hour rule was a key demand of the conservatives who withheld support for McCarthy during the drawn-out Speaker’s race in January.

With text released on Sunday, the House can vote on the bill as early as Wednesday and send it to the Senate for consideration.

https://thehill.com/wp-content/uploa...onsibility.pdf

Biden honors troops' sacrifice on Memorial Day

President Joe Biden honored U.S. troops who died fighting for their country, marking Memorial Day with the traditional wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, and he is making remarks to pay tribute to the fallen.

We're here to "once again stand amid the rows and rows of stones that bear witness to the brave women and men who served and sacrificed for our freedom and for our future, those who died" Mr. Biden said, "so that our nation might live."

Memorial Day falls close to the date of the death of the president's son, Beau Biden. "Tomorrow marks eight years since we lost our son, Beau, Mr. Biden said, adding that his life was not taken on the battlefield, but by cancer. He said the sense of the loss of his son is "particularly sharp" on Memorial Day, but at the same time, he feels pride at his service. The younger Biden served in Iraq for the Delaware Air National Guard.

The president spoke of the need to fulfill the "sacred obligation" the nation has "to prepare those we send into harm's way and care for them and their families when they come home." He mentioned 25 bipartisan laws that have been passed to support veterans, military members, their families and survivors, and highlighted legislation to help millions of veterans exposed to burn pits.

Earlier, Mr. Biden was joined by first lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Harris' husband, Douglas Emhoff, for the 155th National Memorial Day Observance. The president stood for a moment of contemplation before the wreath and bowed his head in prayer.

The holiday honoring America's fallen service members came a day after Mr. Biden and Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reached final agreement on a deal that would raise America's debt limit and that now awaits approval by Congress.

The president has taken pride in the fact that his administration has overseen a time of relative peace for the U.S. military after two decades of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It's been nearly 21 months since Biden ended the nation's longest war in Afghanistan, making good on a campaign promise to end a 20-year-old "forever war" that cost the lives of more than 2,400 U.S. service members.

The war in Afghanistan, however, ended in deadly and chaotic fashion on Mr. Biden's watch in August 2021 with critics blasting the administration's handling of the evacuation of some 120,000 American citizens, Afghans and others as poorly planned and badly executed.

The Biden administration last month released a review of the last days of the war, largely blaming his Republican predecessor, President Donald Trump, and asserting that Mr. Biden was "severely constrained" by Trump's decisions.

The U.S. now finds itself leading a coalition of allies pouring tens of billions of dollars in military and economic aid into Ukraine as it tries to repel the Russian invasion, which does not appear to have no end in sight.

Mr. Biden has said he has no desire for U.S. troops to enter the conflict but maintains that the Russian effort to grab territory is an affront to international norms, and he has vowed to help Kyiv win, sending artillery, tanks and drones and recently agreeing to allow allies to train Ukrainian military on American F-16 jets.

Before Monday's ceremony at the Arlington, Virginia, cemetery, the Bidens hosted a breakfast at the White House for members of veterans organizations, military service and military family organizations, surviving families of fallen U.S. troops, senior Department of Defense officials and other administration officials.

The president and the first lady were scheduled to return their home near Wilmington, Delaware, later Monday to spend the rest of the federal holiday.

Inside Biden’s relentless soft-sell on the debt ceiling bill

The White House is kicking its outreach to congressional Democrats into overdrive as it tries to sell lawmakers on President Biden's debt ceiling deal with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Why it matters: Democratic votes likely will be necessary to pass the bill through the narrowly divided House led by McCarthy, given the vows from right-wing House Freedom Caucus members to oppose it.

Driving the news: The Biden administration's pitch to fellow Democrats is an intellectual appeal on the merits of the bill, rather than trademark D.C. tactics such as legislative horse-trading or high-pressure tactics.

• After the deal was announced late Saturday, the White House sent out briefing materials and talking points to Democratic lawmakers.
• The administration followed up with Zoom briefings for House and Senate Democrats on Sunday, in which Biden aides offered details on the president's deal with McCarthy.
• Six issue-specific briefings are planned for Democrats on Monday and Tuesday — two each on key components of the plan: spending levels, changes to permitting rules for energy projects, and new work requirements for welfare recipients.

By the numbers: More than 60 House Democrats have received calls about the deal from administration officials including Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients, according to a White House official.

• All House Democratic leaders have been called, as have the ranking Democrats on House committees, caucus chairs and leading Appropriations Committee members.
• Some Senate Democrats have gotten those calls as well, the official said, but that outreach will begin in earnest on Monday.

Zoom in: House Democrats mostly used their Zoom briefing on Sunday to seek clarification on the details of the bill, according to members on the call and a recording obtained by Axios.

• Several members told Axios they felt more secure about voting for the bill afterward, and believe White House officials made a strong pitch.

The call also gave Democrats a chance to air their frustrations about being cut out of the debt ceiling talks — and largely kept in the dark by the White House, even after the deal was struck.

• "I feel that the White House has not provided ... direct communication and consistent outreach," said Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), who was echoed by colleagues in the Zoom chat, according to a screenshot shared with Axios.
• Horsford, the Congressional Black Caucus chair, said Republicans got in-depth details “within minutes of the deal being agreed to,” adding, “We’re in a messaging war… and we’re losing.”
• White House director of legislative affairs Louisa Terrell, one of Biden's debt ceiling negotiators, responded that “we have pivoted now that we have an arrangement. We are … going to be able to be in a place to be really clear and crisp.”

State of play: Top Democrats are optimistic about being able to make up for enough GOP "no" votes to get the debt ceiling bill through the House — and avoid a catastrophic default by the U.S. government.

• “Most are surprised by how modest the concessions appear to be," a senior House Democrat told Axios.
• The lawmaker told Axios they expect the "vast majority" of the 213 Democrats in the 435-member House to vote for the bill if progressive Democrats don't actively whip against it.
• House GOP sources have said as many as 60 of their members could vote against the package because its spending cuts don't go far enough – meaning it could need dozens of Democratic votes to pass.

House aides noted that while Freedom Caucus members have been vocal in blasting the bill, Democrats' misgivings have been relatively muted.

• A senior progressive aide told Axios they expect all but a few of the most left-leaning Democrats to hold their noses and vote yes.

Yes, but: Not everyone is sold. One House Democrat with lingering concerns told Axios that Sunday's Zoom meeting with White House aides felt “scripted” and “there wasn’t real back and forth dialogue."

• Even so, the lawmaker expects the issue-focused briefings that start today to provide the needed clarity.
• “I think people are going to slowly get on board, but ... people still want answers.”

What's next: The House is expected to return to session on Tuesday, with votes on the debt ceiling bill scheduled for Wednesday.

must hurt


Rep. Nancy Mace (R) - Washington is broken.

Republicans got outsmarted by a President who can’t find his pants.

I’m voting NO on the debt ceiling debacle because playing the DC game isn’t worth selling out our kids and grandkids.: https://twitter.com/RepNancyMace/sta...10647190040578

^ Would she have voted to increase it were the Reps in power? Of course she would have.

Originally Posted by S Landreth

Rep. Nancy Mace (R)

She's not all bad, but tends to lose perspective a bit and does her politicking.

MACE: Well, then you can lay that blame on the president of the United States for not taking responsible measures to rein in spending. The reason we have inflation is because of the spending that we've had in both parties, by the way. President Biden added $4 trillion to the debt in the last two years. President Trump added 8 trillion during his tenure. So just over the last six years - $12 trillion in debt alone. We have $32 trillion now in total put on by both parties. And so I would hope that the American people would hold both sides accountable for the debacle that we're facing today. But if we don't cut taxes and we don't cut spending and the Federal Reserve doesn't slow down the amount of money they're printing year over year, we wouldn't be in this problem. So we've got to face the music, and both sides have to come together to figure this out...

Biden and lawmakers postpone debt ceiling meeting as their staffs keep negotiating : NPR

Takes a swipe at Trump and her own party as well . . .

• Biden: ‘Things are going as planned’ on debt ceiling bill passing House

President Biden said Wednesday that he believes that things are going according to plan so far for the House to pass the bipartisan debt ceiling package despite several Democrats and Republicans vowing to vote in opposition of the measure.

“We’re going to deal with the debt ceiling,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office. “I think things are going as planned, God willing.”

Biden said he is hopeful that by the time he lands in Colorado later Wednesday evening ahead of a planned address to the U.S. Air Force Academy, the bill will have passed the House. The vote on final passage is scheduled for roughly 8:30 p.m.

“I’ll be landing in Colorado tonight in preparation for my commencement speech at the Air Force Academy tomorrow. And, God willing, by the time I land, Congress will have acted — the House will have acted — and we’ll be one step closer,” the president said.

I hear that McCarthy will hold press conference at 9:30.

• Biden-McCarthy debt ceiling bill heads for House passage after clearing key test vote

The Republican-controlled House moved toward a final vote Wednesday on the debt ceiling legislation negotiated by Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden, a high-stakes moment for the bill aimed at averting a disastrous default.

Although the McCarthy-Biden deal has faced heavy criticism from GOP hard-liners who argued that its spending cuts and conservative provisions are too weak, the bill cleared a key procedural vote Wednesday afternoon, 241-187.

While most Republicans voted yes, 29 voted no.

The "rule" vote passed with the help of 52 Democrats, who were instrumental to the outcome. They kept their powder dry early on, waiting to see how many Republicans would vote for it, before casting their votes toward the end.

The House will now debate and then vote on the legislation later in the evening. The exact timing is fluid, but if the bill passes, it would go to the Democratic-led Senate, where it would need 60 votes before it could get to Biden’s desk. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., have both endorsed it.

Biden wins again. House just passed the bill.

House passes debt ceiling bill

The bill has reached the crucial 218 threshold to pass, though members are still voting. Now it’ll advance to the Senate.

• The debt ceiling bill passed the House. Here’s how Biden won over Democrats there

Biden tried an ice-then-court strategy with House Dems. It worked.

For 11 days this spring, President Joe Biden iced out his Democratic allies as he negotiated with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy over raising the nation’s debt limit.

With Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries at the table, Biden was convinced the talks had grown too unwieldy. The White House wanted to narrow the conversation, leaving other Democrats to steam.

Progressives openly criticized Biden. Allies, such as Congressional Black Caucus Chair Steven Horsford, vented that the White House needed to do more to communicate about Republican demands. Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal warned of backlash in the streets if Biden gave in to Republicans.

After the deal was announced Saturday night, his team went into overdrive to ensure that the frustration they’d sparked from within their party didn’t metastasize into a full blown revolt. Administration officials placed over 100 one-on-one calls with House Democrats. They held wonky virtual meetings over the negotiation details and took pointed questions on the policy they’d agreed to.

The ice-then-court strategy worked. On Wednesday evening, 165 House Democratic voted for the Biden-McCarthy bill, more than the 149 House Republicans who supported the measure. Many of those Democrats who had voiced opposition to the bill praised the White House for negotiating what they still consider to be a terrible piece of legislation and, ultimately, supported it.

It was a major victory for Biden, not just preventing an economic calamity that could have come with a debt ceiling breach but proving — five months into a divided government — that the White House and House Democrats have persevered through what seemed, at times, like a rocky relationship.

“It’s the most incredible thing,” Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) said of the president, a close ally who Biden explicitly asked to help sell the bill in one of their regular conservations throughout the process. “I don’t know if he’s that lucky or that skillful. Whatever it is, it’s damn sure working.”

Not all Democrats left the process happy. Progressives, in particular, remained upset that the president backtracked on his pledge to not negotiate around the debt ceiling at all. But when it became clear that Republicans would not support a “clean” lift of the debt ceiling, Democrats said they felt a collective sense of being in the trenches.

That gave Biden some space to engage in negotiations. Helping matters was that the end deal exceeded expectations that the House Republicans had set after having successfully passed their own, far more conservative version of a debt ceiling hike in late April.

“We were operating with hostage takers who were attempting to take no prisoners. And I think Joe Biden, if I might say, did a miraculous and important job of holding off the tsunami,” said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), who supported the bill. “We were in a bloody war. We were apt to get mutilated. We didn’t. We came out, we’re standing.”

More in the link

Statement from President Joe Biden on House Passage of the Bipartisan Budget Agreement

Tonight, the House took a critical step forward to prevent a first-ever default and protect our country’s hard-earned and historic economic recovery. This budget agreement is a bipartisan compromise. Neither side got everything it wanted. That’s the responsibility of governing. I want to thank Speaker McCarthy and his team for negotiating in good faith, as well as Leader Jeffries for his leadership.

This agreement is good news for the American people and the American economy. It protects key priorities and accomplishments from the past two years, including historic investments that are creating good jobs across the country. And, it honors my commitment to safeguard Americans’ health care and protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. It protects critical programs that millions of hardworking families, students, and veterans count on.

I have been clear that the only path forward is a bipartisan compromise that can earn the support of both parties. This agreement meets that test. I urge the Senate to pass it as quickly as possible so that I can sign it into law, and our country can continue building the strongest economy in the world.

President Biden - Happy Pride, America.

This month, in the face of cruel attacks on LGBTQI+ rights across the country, we celebrate the LGBTQI+ Americans who are fiercely and unapologetically fighting for freedom and equality – and reaffirm that their rights are human rights. https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1664261182713217026

Biden to Air Force graduates: The world is ‘changing rapidly’

President Biden on Thursday celebrated the Air Force Academy 2023 and warned that the new graduates were entering a rapidly evolving world defined by Russian aggression, tensions with China and advances in technology.

“The world you’re graduating into is not only changing rapidly, the pace of change is accelerating as well,” Biden said in a commencement speech in Colorado Springs.

“We’re seeing proliferating global challenges from Russia’s aggression and brutality in Europe to our competition with China, and a whole hell of a lot in between,” Biden told the Airmen and Guardians, who will join the Air Force and Space Force, respectively. “From growing instability to food insecurity to natural disasters, all of which are being made worse by the existential threat of climate change.”

Biden also pointed to the role of emerging technology like 3-D printing and artificial intelligence, which he said could change the nature of conflicts with other nations. He recalled meeting with leading scientists in the Oval Office recently to discuss the issue of artificial intelligence, saying some were “worried that AI can actually overtake human thinking.”

The new graduates will enter the service at a time when the U.S. has played a key role in providing military aid to Ukraine in the face of Russia’s invasion. Biden on Thursday called the Air Force and Space Force the “backbone” of efforts to provide assistance to Ukrainians.

The president admonished Russian aggression and spoke about the importance of U.S. leadership in maintaining a united front in support of Ukraine with NATO allies. He vowed U.S. support for Ukraine “will not waver.”

On China, Biden reiterated that the U.S. seeks competition, not conflict, with Beijing.

“The world stands at an inflection point… the decisions we make today are going to determine what the world looks like decades from now,” Biden said. “No graduating class gets to choose the world into which they graduate.”

Thursday’s speech marked the second commencement address Biden delivered this graduation season. He spoke last month at Howard University’s commencement ceremony in Washington, D.C.

Meanwhile, Vice President Harris last Saturday delivered the commencement speech to cadets at West Point, becoming the first woman to do so.

Air Force Academy Graduation 2023

Oh dear, this is going to be on loop with all the other falls and stumbles.

Poor Sleepy Joe.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Oh dear, this is going to be on loop with all the other falls and stumbles.

No doubt but really silly political crap. Joe is old and falls down a bit. So what. One of the greatest US Presidents ever, FDR, couldn't walk!

Originally Posted by Norton

No doubt but really silly political crap. Joe is old and falls down a bit. So what. One of the greatest US Presidents ever, FDR, couldn't walk!

Yes but the problem is visuals. Remember, many American voters are as gullible and thick as shit.

Originally Posted by Norton

No doubt but really silly political crap. Joe is old and falls down a bit. So what. One of the greatest US Presidents ever, FDR, couldn't walk!

The difference is:

FDR was paralyzed.

Biden is paralyzing the U.S.

Step down Opa Joe!

Originally Posted by HermantheGerman

The difference is:

FDR was paralyzed.

Biden is paralyzing the U.S.

Step down Opa Joe!

Ignoring your half-assed attempt at humor, please explain how he is “paralyzing“ the US.

Originally Posted by beachbound

Ignoring your half-assed attempt at humor, please explain how he is “paralyzing“ the US.

How do explain something to someone who doesn't know the difference between humor and reality.
Let me tell you a little secret, I can see the future....

The United States of paralysis

The longer the corporate state erodes our social bonds the more inevitable an authoritarian state becomes

April 27, 2023

Political paralysis is snuffing out what is left of our anemic democracy.
It is the paralysis of doing nothing while the ruling oligarchs, who have increased their wealth by nearly a third since the pandemic began and by close to 90 percent over the past decade, orchestrate virtual tax boycotts as millions of Americans go into bankruptcy to pay medical bills, mortgages, credit card debt, student debt, car loans and soaring utility bills demanded by a system that has privatized nearly every aspect of our lives.

It is the paralysis of doing nothing about raising the minimum wage, despite the ravages of inflation, around 600,000 homeless Americans and 33.8 million people living in food insecure homes, including 9.3 million children.

It is the paralysis of ignoring the climate crisis, the greatest existential threat we face, to expand fossil fuel extraction.

It is the paralysis of pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into the permanent war economy rather than repairing the nation’s collapsing roads, rails, bridges, schools, electrical grid and water supply.

It is the paralysis of refusing to institute universal health care and regulate the for-profit insurance and pharmaceutical industries to fix the worst health care system of any highly industrialized nation, one in which life expectancy is falling and more Americans die from avoidable causes than in peer nations. More than 80 percent of maternal deaths in the US alone are preventable, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It is the paralysis of being unwilling to curb police violence, dismantle the world’s largest prison system, end wholesale government surveillance of the public and reform a dysfunctional court system where nearly everyone, unless they can afford high-priced lawyers, is coerced into accepting onerous plea deals.

It is the paralysis of standing passively by as the public, armed with arsenals of assault weapons, slaughter each other for crossing into their yard, pulling into their driveway, ringing their doorbell, angering them at work or school, or are so alienated and bitter at being left behind, they gun down groups of innocent people in acts of murderous self-immolation.

Democracies are not slain by reactionary buffoons like Donald Trump, who was routinely sued for failing to pay workers and contractors and whose fictional television persona was sold to a gullible electorate, or shallow politicians like Joe Biden, whose political career has been devoted to serving corporate donors. These politicians provide a false comfort of individualizing our crises, as if removing this public figure or censoring that group will save us.

Democracies are in the billions of dollars?

Democracies are slain with false promises and hollow platitudes. Biden told us as a candidate he would raise the minimum wage to $15 and hand out $2,000 stimulus checks. He told us his American Jobs Plan would create “millions of good jobs.” He told us he would strengthen collective bargaining and ensure universal pre-kindergarten, universal paid family and medical leave, and free community college. He promised a publicly funded option for health care. He promised not to drill on federal lands and to promote a “green energy revolution and environmental justice.” None of that happened.

But, by now, most people have figured out the game. Why not vote for Trump and his grandiose, fantasy-driven promises? Are they any less real than those peddled by Biden and the Democrats? Why pay homage to a political system that is about betrayal? Why not sever yourself from the rational world that has only brought misery? Why pay fealty to old truths that have become hypocritical banalities? Why not blow the whole thing up?

As research by professors Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page underscores, our political system has turned the consent of the governed into a cruel joke. “The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence,” they write.

The French sociologist Emile Durkheim in his book On Suicide called our state of hopelessness and despair, anomie, which he defined as “rulelessness.” Rulelessness means the rules that govern a society and create a sense of organic solidarity no longer function. It means that the rules we are taught—hard work and honesty will assure us a place in society; we live in a meritocracy; we are free; our opinions and votes matter; our government protects our interests—are a lie. Of course, if you are poor, or a person of color, these rules were always a myth, but a majority of the American public was once able to find a secure place in society, which is the bulwark of any democracy, as numerous political theorists going back to Aristotle point out.

Tens of millions of Americans, cast adrift by deindustrialization, understand that their lives will not improve, nor will the lives of their children. Society, as Durkheim writes, is no longer “sufficiently present” for them. Those cast aside can participate in society, he writes, only through sadness.

The sole route left to affirm yourself, when every other avenue is closed off, is to destroy. Destruction, fueled by a grotesque hypermasculinity, imparts a rush and pleasure, along with feelings of omnipotence, which is sexualized and sadistic. It has a morbid attraction. This lust to destroy, what Sigmund Freud called the death instinct, targets all forms of life, including our own.

These , is an exploration of the demons that grip the American psyche.

A web of social and political bonds—friendships and family ties, civic and religious rituals, meaningful work that imparts a sense of place, dignity and hope in the future—allow us to be engaged in a project larger than the self. These bonds provide psychological protection from impending mortality and the trauma of rejection, isolation and loneliness. We are social animals. We need each other. Strip away these bonds and societies descend into fratricide.

Capitalism is antithetical to creating and sustaining social bonds. Its core attributes—relationships that are transactional and temporary, prioritizing self-advancement through manipulating and exploiting others and the insatiable lust for profit—eliminates democratic space. The obliteration of all restraints on capitalism, from organized labor to government oversight and regulation, has left us at the mercy of predatory forces that, by nature, exploit human beings and the natural world until exhaustion or collapse.

Trump, devoid of empathy and incapable of remorse, is the personification of our diseased society. He is what those who have been cast adrift are taught by corporate culture they should strive to become. He expresses, often with vulgarity, the inchoate rage of those left behind and is a walking advertisement for the cult of the self. Trump is not a product of the theft of the Podesta emails, the DNC leaks or James Comey. He is not a product of Vladimir Putin or Russian bots. He is a product, like aspiring doppelgängers such as Ron DeSantis, Tom Cotton and Margorie Taylor Greene, of anomie and social decay.

Individuals are “too closely involved in the life of society for it to be sick without their being affected,” Durkheim writes. “Its suffering inevitably becomes theirs.”

These charlatans and demagogues, who reject the customary restraints of political and civic decorum, ridicule the “polite” elites who sold us out. They offer no workable solution to the crises besetting the country. They dynamite the old social order, which is already rotten, and cry for vengeance against real and phantom enemies as if these acts will magically resurrect a mythical golden age. The more that lost age remains elusive, the more vicious they become.

“Since the bourgeoisie claimed to be the guardian of Western traditions and confounded all moral issues by parading publicly virtues which it not only did not possess in private and business life, but actually held in contempt, it seemed revolutionary to admit cruelty, disregard of human values, and general amorality, because this at least destroyed the duplicity upon which the existing society seemed to rest,” Hannah Arendt writes in The Origins of Totalitarianism of those who embraced the hate-filled rhetoric of fascism in the Weimar Republic. “What a temptation to flaunt extreme attitudes in the hypocritical twilight of double moral standards, to wear publicly the mask of cruelty if everybody was patently inconsiderate and pretended to be gentle, to parade wickedness in a world, not of wickedness, but meanness!”

Our society is deeply diseased. We must heal these social illnesses. We must mitigate this anomie. We must restore the severed social bonds and integrate the dispossessed back into society. If these social bonds remain ruptured it will guarantee a frightening neofascism. There are very dark forces circling around us. Sooner than we expect, they may have us in their grip.

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, a New York Times best-selling author, a professor in the college degree program offered to New Jersey state prisoners by Rutgers University, and an ordained Presbyterian minister. He has written 12 books, including the New York Times best-seller “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt” (2012), which he co-authored with the cartoonist Joe Sacco. His other books include “Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt,” (2015) “Death of the Liberal Class” (2010), “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle” (2009), “I Don’t Believe in Atheists” (2008) and the best-selling “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America” (2008). His latest book is “America: The Farewell Tour” (2018). His book “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning” (2003) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction and has sold over 400,000 copies. He writes a weekly column for the website ScheerPost.

This article originally appeared on ScheerPost.com.

https://canadiandimension.com/articl...s-of-paralysis

...you are going to blame the Rebiblelicans for everything.

• America's economic holding pattern

Americans are not happy with the economy. Which is weird, given that it is doing just fine.

Why it matters: It's hard to see what could turn sentiment around. That's largely because of Fed chair Jerome Powell, who doesn't want and won't allow some kind of economic boom — he thinks the economy is running too hot already.

The big picture: The U.S. economy continues to defy the odds. The May employment report, released on Friday morning, marked the 14th straight month that more jobs were created than economists expected.

• It's all a far cry from the misery in other countries like the U.K. — with sky-high inflation — or Germany, which is now officially in a recession.

By the numbers: The U.S. economy has created more than 4 million new jobs in the past 12 months.

• GDP continues to grow, and is up more than 5% from its pre-pandemic peak, even after accounting for inflation.
• The average U.S. employee now makes $33.44 per hour, a raise of more than 17.5% since pre-pandemic.
• The stock market is up 10% so far this year, and we're not even halfway done.

Between the lines: Americans, however, don't buy it. They're broadly happy with their own personal finances, but a majority consistently thinks (erroneously) that we're in a recession, and just 18% think the national economy is in good shape, per the Fed's most recent Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking.

• Part of the problem is higher consumer prices. Inflation might be coming down rapidly, but even if it goes all the way to zero prices will still be much higher than Americans became accustomed to.
• The highly visible congressional dysfunction surrounding the debt ceiling, and all the associated rhetoric about the unsustainability of the national debt, can only have had negative effects in terms of Americans' attitude to their national economy.

• More broadly, some of the feverishness of the pandemic years is beginning to wear off. What remains is a highly disconcerting "New Not Normal."

Where it stands: The Federal Reserve has been hiking interest rates aggressively to try to cool down the economy and get inflation under control. Any hint of further exuberance will be met by even more rate hikes.

• The Fed has no mandate to deliver a booming economy; its job is to just reduce inflation while keeping employment high. So far it seems to be succeeding, albeit more slowly than many would have preferred.

The bottom line: Money can't buy happiness.

___________

Originally Posted by HermantheGerman

...you are going to blame the Rebiblelicans for everything.

if he doesn't, I will

Senate approves bill to avert national default, sending it to Biden’s desk

The Senate on Thursday night capped four months of contentious debate and voted to send a compromise bill to President Biden’s desk that extends the government’s borrowing authority until January of 2025 and staves off a potential default next week.

A large bipartisan majority of the Senate voted 63-36 to approve the bill, which passed the House on Wednesday night.

The approval came after the Senate clinched an agreement to conduct a series of amendment votes on Thursday night and move directly to final passage. The normally slow-moving chamber raced through a dozen votes in just over three hours.

“By passing this bill we will avoid default tonight. America can breathe a sigh of relief,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) declared on the Senate floor.

Ona positive note the President stumbled and recovered, the wiser heads ensured the world economy didn't stumble due to a few hotheads who may sincerely believe in a different level of tax and spend but didn't realize sudden defaults leave egg on all faces