PS, there may be people who can’t take the stress of reality, or just don't want to (and it’s not like I don’t sympathize but I don’t think it’s a good idea to tune out yet) and will now tootle along like Trump never happened - a few may think Biden will solve everything but I doubt anyone here is that naive. I think most people here are smarter than that. I have to have faith that most people in general are smarter than that - while continuing to be mindful of just how close the US came to a electing a Trump dictatorship, which the rest of the world would have had to suffer, too.
BIDEN - Some people think......... How do you feel?
- Thread starter Delightful Life
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Mrs.Anteater
Just keep going....
Very well said, kimmio
Mrs.Anteater
Just keep going....
What is still left is that the possibility to any kind of dictatorship is made so easy in the American system. With the power to put in his own judges, the power to write unlimited executive orders, the power over the military, the closeness to the nuclear button and the power to pardon everyone and everything- Trump just was too stupid to think this all through and build his own more sophisticated system. I think they really need to change their structure of government and put in more safeguards. I doubt that Biden is the man to do that.
I agree. I dont have high hopes that Biden will change things much. I do, however, hope the newer left side of the Democratic Party holds him accountable to moving, or at least pointing the ship, in a better direction for the American people, and for working to correct the problems Trump highlighted and made worse - not straight into the hands of a more savvy right wing fascist.
Mrs.Anteater
Just keep going....
I am guessing he would have to change the constitution. Not easy with the amount of Trumpish followers on the Republican side.
I need to understand the US constitution better - but the only parts of it I know are all called “Amendments” - which leads me to assume it’s at least possible to change it. (To add: to change it is also fraught with possible dangerous precedents. And I say that as someone who is perplexed by certain Amendments that still exist, like the 2nd; and I understand both the high regard for and the dangers of the 1st - like the ability to speak out against systemic inequality vs the propagation of Trumpism and qanon running amok - we saw where that led and it could’ve been much worse. It’s not a simple problem.)
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Mendalla
Happy headbanging ape!!
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Their constitution is even harder to amend than ours. IIRC, they need both houses at something like a 2/3 majority and all 50 states. We just need both houses and 7 out of 10 provinces with 50+% of the population. Though a number of provinces have put in requirements to hold referenda (not always binding) on constitutional changes, so that ramps things up (but maybe some states do that, too).
I think it comes down to getting the big money out of politics and political lobbying, more than changing the constitution. The constitution works as long as it’s not being exploited by corrupt actors that fund superpacs to run spurious advertising campaigns and propoganda. I’m glad that in the end, Barr, McConnell, Graham, etc. seized their last opportunity to not act corruptly. I doubt it’ll last. But I appreciate that they were honest once, one time, at the very last minute.
Redbaron
Pirate fan since the dark ages
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BetteTheRed
Resident Heretic
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This is the country that couldn't ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.
Mendalla
Happy headbanging ape!!
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I am not sure I actually "like" this, but it makes the point quite nicely so I hit Like anyhow.
GeoFee
I am who I am becoming...
Delightful to see Bernie at the inauguration. Loved his mitts. Splendid to see his image being spread in so many creative ways.
Ritafee
Is Being Human
Ritafee
Is Being Human
At an inauguration ceremony where everyone was dressed to the nines, like the rulers of the Capitol in “Hunger Games,” Bernie looked like one of the downtrodden from the districts.
As Caitlin Johnstone put it...
“This is why something as simple as Bernie Sanders turning up in mittens captured everyone’s hearts and imaginations. It was such a glitch in the whole phony performance and such a nice break from being lied to all the f***ing time. We need to give people that experience way more.”
"Bernie has already been pushing and pressuring the Biden administration to be more aggressive in helping people suffering in the districts, to use “Hunger Games” terminology." (We’d say “flyover country.”)
Meanwhile, back in the Capitol, people were gushing over Michelle Obama’s fashion sense, or Lady Gaga’s inaugural outfit, with its huge golden bird that truly echoed the privileged getups of Capitol denizens.
A full-throated Lady Gaga. If only that golden bird had been a mockingjay. - Ron Placone
As Bernie wrote in his recent op-ed:
“In this moment of unprecedented crises, Congress and the Biden administration must respond through unprecedented action. No more business as usual. No more same old, same old."
"Democrats, who will now control the White House, the Senate and the House, must summon the courage to demonstrate to the American people that government can effectively and rapidly respond to their pain and anxiety. As the incoming chairman of the Senate budget committee that is exactly what I intend to do.”
Good luck, Mitten Man
As Caitlin Johnstone put it...
“This is why something as simple as Bernie Sanders turning up in mittens captured everyone’s hearts and imaginations. It was such a glitch in the whole phony performance and such a nice break from being lied to all the f***ing time. We need to give people that experience way more.”
"Bernie has already been pushing and pressuring the Biden administration to be more aggressive in helping people suffering in the districts, to use “Hunger Games” terminology." (We’d say “flyover country.”)
Meanwhile, back in the Capitol, people were gushing over Michelle Obama’s fashion sense, or Lady Gaga’s inaugural outfit, with its huge golden bird that truly echoed the privileged getups of Capitol denizens.
A full-throated Lady Gaga. If only that golden bird had been a mockingjay. - Ron Placone
As Bernie wrote in his recent op-ed:
“In this moment of unprecedented crises, Congress and the Biden administration must respond through unprecedented action. No more business as usual. No more same old, same old."
"Democrats, who will now control the White House, the Senate and the House, must summon the courage to demonstrate to the American people that government can effectively and rapidly respond to their pain and anxiety. As the incoming chairman of the Senate budget committee that is exactly what I intend to do.”
Good luck, Mitten Man
Ritafee
Is Being Human
Joe Biden has announced plans to roll out new domestic terrorism laws in the wake of the Capitol Hill riot.
“Mr. Biden has said he plans to make a priority of passing a law against domestic terrorism, and he has been urged to create a White House post overseeing the fight against ideologically inspired violent extremists and increasing funding to combat them,” Wall Street Journal reports.
The last time Washington reacted to terrorism on home soil, the Patriot Act was the result.
Biden has often boasted about being the original author of the US Patriot Act.
The first draft of the civil rights-eroding Patriot Act was magically introduced one week after the 9/11 attacks.
Legislators later admitted that they hadn’t even had time to read through the hundreds of pages of the history-shaping bill before passing it the next month, yet somehow its authors were able to gather all the necessary information and write the whole entire thing in a week.
This was because most of the work had already been done. CNET reported the following back in 2008:
Biden’s bill was never put to a vote, but after 9/11 then-Attorney General John Ashcroft reportedly credited his bill with the foundations of the USA PATRIOT Act.
“Civil libertarians were opposed to it,” Biden said in 2002 of his bill. “Right after 1994, and you can ask the attorney general this, because I got a call when he introduced the Patriot Act. He said, ‘Joe, I’m introducing the act basically as you wrote it in 1994.’”
A recent Morning Joe appearance by CIA analyst-turned House Representative Elissa Slotkin eagerly informed us that the real battle against terrorism is now inside America’s borders.
“The post 9/11 era is over,” Slotkin tweeted while sharing a clip of her appearance. “The single greatest national security threat right now is our internal division. The threat of domestic terrorism. The polarization that threatens our democracy. If we don’t reconnect our two Americas, the threats will not have to come from the outside.”
“Before Congress, Elissa worked for the CIA and the Pentagon and helped destabilize the Middle East during the Bush and Obama admins,” tweeted journalist Whitney Webb in response.
“What she says here is essentially an open announcement that the US has moved from the ‘War on terror’ to the ‘War on domestic terror’.”
***
In response to pressures from all directions including its own staff, Twitter has followed Facebook’s lead and removed Donald Trump’s account.
And it wasn’t just Trump.
It also wasn’t just Trump supporters; leftist accounts are getting suspended too.
The online left is hopefully learning that cheering for Twitter “banning fascists” irrationally assumes that (A) their purges are only banning fascists and (B) they are limiting their bans to your personal definition of fascists. There is no basis whatsoever for either of these assumptions.
This push to marginalize is making the libertarian argument of “If you don’t like censorship just go to another platform” look pretty ridiculous.