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Opinion: America voted for a dumpster fire — Democrats just need to let it burn itself out

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Opinion: America voted for a dumpster fire — Democrats just need to let it burn itself out 

From The Hill Newletter December 15 2024

BLOG EDITOR’S NOTE: This is one of the best pieces for Democrats “coping with the fraud-free Trump election” (imagine– no Fraud this time! MAGIC!) for Democrats that I have seen. Surprising from “The Hill”, which often has a conservative bent.

FLS, editor

There’s a quiet but intense debate going on today in America, over how and whether the country will function over the next few years. 

Despite Republicans having an ostensible House majority for the last two years, it has been Democrats who have done all the actual governing. More House Democrats than House Republicans have voted for the bills funding the government, authorizing our national defense programs and raising the debt ceiling. In short, the House Republican caucus has been so dysfunctional that neither Kevin McCarthy nor Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) could have kept the lights on without Democratic votes.Second Chances Start With You

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There is no reason to think the next Congress — with an even narrower House Republican majority — will be any different. So the question is, should congressional Democrats continue to bail out Republicans, or should they let them sink or swim on their own?

If Johnson wants to do something that’s good for America, shouldn’t Democrats lend him their support regardless of whether his own caucus backs him or not? Shouldn’t Democrats act responsibly even when Republicans won’t? 

Surprisingly, there’s a correct answer here. And it comes, of all places, from the field of addiction recovery. 

For the last two years, Democrats have thought they were acting in the country’s best interests by helping Republicans govern. They have not been. They meant well, but they have actually been protecting voters from the consequences of Republican dysfunction and enabling bad Republican behavior. Related video: Top Democrat says party lost election because of ‘overreliance on consultants and pollsters’ (NBC News)

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Joining me now is Congressman Bennie Thompson, Democrat from Mississippi,

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Top Democrat says party lost election because of ‘overreliance on consultants and pollsters’

Republican politicians are now addicted to drama, outrage and “owning the libs.” When you shield addicts from the consequences of their actions, you’re not doing them any favors. All you are doing is enabling their addiction. 

The same goes for their voters. Many are hooked on the political performance and continue to elect unserious, bomb-throwing zealots who pander on social media for the clicks and the television appearances. But Congress is not a reality television show. In real life, dysfunction has consequences.

The country won’t be on the road to recovery until it is allowed to experience those consequences. If that means giving free rein to the collection of clowns with flamethrowers that now passes for the Republican Party, so be it. Democrats should resist the urge to intervene when the inevitable happens and they set themselves on fire. Here Are The 33 Best Christmas Gifts In 2024

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For the next two years, Democrats have no responsibility to govern. They should focus on politics instead and take a longer view of the country’s best interests. If, for example, House Democrats had allowed Republican dysfunction to shut down the government in September, they almost certainly would have won a House majority in November. A few weeks of furloughed workers and shuttered national parks would have been a small price to pay for an effective check against Donald Trump’s plans for an American autocracy. Democrats should be practicing tough love and allowing Republicans to inflict pain on themselves, even if that also inflicts some pain on the country.

This isn’t to say they should let Trump permanently wreck America just to teach his voters a lesson — an approach advocated by some angry progressives. If there is an issue that could do irreversible damage to America’s future, then Democrats should be prepared to step in. But, as a general rule, if Republicans can end a crisis just by acting like responsible adults, Democrats should stand by and do nothing at all, for just as long as it takes. Book The Standard High Line - Restaurant Onsite

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Both of these situations will come up over the next few weeks. On Jan. 1, 2025, the debt ceiling kicks back in, so one of the first jobs for the new Congress will be raising the borrowing limit. Since an American debt default would be a disaster from which we might never fully recover, Democrats need to prevent that at all costs. If that means backing House Speaker Mike Johnson when Republicans won’t — as it very well might — Democrats should be prepared to do that. 

But government shutdowns are a different story. On Dec. 20, the government’s funding will run out. Some Republicans are already planning to vote to shut down the government. Democrats, on the other hand, appear willing to help the Speaker pass a continuing resolution, especially if they can pry some funds loose for disaster relief in the process. 

That would be a mistake. This time, Democrats should refuse to save Republicans from themselves. Keeping the government open and finding funds for disaster relief are the responsibility of the Republican House majority, not the Democratic minority. If the government gets shut down until sometime in the next Congress or there’s no money for hurricane cleanup, then either Republicans will learn responsibility or their voters will learn that Republicans are feckless and can’t be trusted to govern. Either way, that’s a win for the country.

Politics as usual is dead. In the age of MAGA, congressional Democrats are resistance fighters, and resistance fighters are often called on to make difficult and distressing choices. Trump has a lot of things planned for America — foolish things, dangerous things, things he often promised but that many of his voters don’t want and never believed he would do. Democrats should not be enabling him by spending their political capital to make all this a little more bearable.

Having won undivided power, Trump Republicans are like the dog that has caught the car. If the government now lurches from one pointless crisis to the next, or if Trump’s plans are disastrous, the Democrats’ one job is to make sure voters know who is to blame and what they can do about it. 

Chris Truax is an appellate attorney who served as Southern California chair for John McCain’s primary campaign in 2008. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Expressing Sympathy (and Congratulations) to VP Harris

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The View from This Seat Guest post from colleague, Dr. L.K. Seat

Introduction From Blog editor Frederick L. Shiels

I am please to share a blog post from, Dr. Leroy Seat from Missouri, a perceptive colleague whom I just reconnected with almost forty years after my Fulbright year in Japan 1985-86. Dr. Seat, whose credentials are listed at the bottom of this “guest post”, has a fine blog written from the perspective of a Christian scholar with insights on a variety of subjects, including politics. Leroy, a former Chancellor of Seinan Gakuin University in Fukuoka, Kyushu, Japan. His keen intellect and generous assistance to our young family was so welcome after many conversations and assistance “settling in” to my one year sabbatical in Japan. Here is the Link to his entire blog, “From This Seat.” Link: https://theviewfromthisseat.blogspot.com/2024

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Friday, November 8, 2024

Expressing Sympathy (and Congratulations) to VP Harris

This is not the article I planned to write for this month’s first blog post. “Expressing Congratulations (and Sincere Sympathy) to Pres. Harris” was the title of the post I anticipated making. But the sad news I read upon arising early Wednesday clearly indicated that I would have to write a different article. 

VP Harris making concession speech (11/6)VP Harris making concession speech (11/6)

Kamala Harris campaigned well, but both the popular and the electoral votes were decisive. Nevertheless, I congratulate her for her valiant efforts, determination, and forward-looking spirit. In her concession speech on Wednesday afternoon, she said,

… while I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign—the fight: the fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness, and the dignity of all people. A fight for the ideals at the heart of our nation, the ideals that reflect America at our best. That is a fight I will never give up.

Of course, no politician likes to lose, but for VP Harris herself, losing may have been good for her. Because of current and lurking problems in the U.S. and the world, she could have well ended up with a failed presidency. (For some of the same reasons, the same may happen to Trump). 

If Harris had won, she would have had to contend with debilitating Senate opposition and continual opposition by the NAR (which I wrote about here a month ago) and other MAGA adherents, including the growing number of White Christian nationalists.

In addition, Kamala would have had to—and now Trump will have to—deal with the warfare in the Near East, which will likely grow worse before it gets much better. We don’t know how she would have handled that incendiary situation, but she would likely have faced considerable criticism no matter what she did.

Perhaps more serious than anything else is the worsening of climate change and the urgency of dealing with the ecological predicament. This crucial matter will quite surely get markedly worse in the new Trump administration, but Harris would not have been able to forestall the coming crisis.

Consider why Trump “should” have won the election. In addition to the large block of White Christians voting for Trump and the residual racism and sexism still lingering in the land (as I wrote about in last Saturday’s “extra” blog post (see here)**, consider the following:

* The unpopularity of President Biden. According to a highly reliable poll taken on Nov. 1-2, Biden’s approval rating was 40% and 56% disapproving. It is rare for the Party in power to win a presidential election with the sitting president’s rating 16% more negative than positive.

* The perception that the country is on the wrong track. As indicated here, 63% of the U.S. public think the country is headed in the wrong direction (on the wrong track), and only 26% that it is headed in the right direction. That makes it very hard for the incumbent Party to win a presidential election.

* Continuing high prices because of inflation and corporate greed. This 11/6 Washington Post piece doesn’t deal with corporate greed as I think it should, but it does suggest that the widely held perception that the economy is “not good” or “poor” impelled many to cast their vote for Trump.

* The unaddressed problem of classism. This issue is addressed well by a 11/6 New York Times opinion article by the eminent journalist David Brooks (see here). Another source indicates that while voters with graduate degrees vote Democratic overwhelmingly, this year more than ever before, those with no college education voted overwhelmingly for Trump.

Where do we go from here? On Wednesday, the editorial board of the New York Times wrote, “Benjamin Franklin famously admonished the American people that the nation was ‘a republic, if you can keep it’.” They go on to say,

Mr. Trump’s election poses a grave threat to that republic, but he will not determine the long-term fate of American democracy. That outcome remains in the hands of the American people. It is the work of the next four years.”

So, I conclude by again congratulating VP Harris for her valiant campaign and expressing sympathy to her for losing the election to a far less worthy candidate. And I trust that she will, indeed, continue to lead in the struggle for implementing “the ideals at the heart of our nation.”

_____

** In that post, I wrote, “If VP Harris loses the election, … it will be because of the votes of White Christians more than any other chosen demographic (that is, other than non-chosen demographics such as gender, race, or ‘class.’)” Thursday morning there was this post on Religious News Service’s website: “White Christians made Donald Trump president — again.”

Posted by LKSeat at 5:30 AM 

About Me

LKSeat* Born in Grant City, Mo., on 8/15/1938 * Graduated from Southwest Baptist College (Bolivar, Mo.) in 1957 (A.A.) * Graduated from William Jewell College (Liberty, Mo.) in 1959 (A.B.) * Graduated from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, Ken.) in 1962 (B.D., equivalent of M.Div.) * Received the Doctor of Philosophy degree in theology from SBTS. * Baptist missionary to Japan from 1966 to 2004. * Full-time faculty member at Seinan Gakuin University (Fukuoka, Japan) from 1968 to 2004. * Chancellor of Seinan Gakuin from 1996 to 2004 

Labels: 2024 election, Harris (Kamala)

WE GOT WHAT MUCH OF AMERICA WANTED: NO ILLUSIONS~ CARLOS LOZADA

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What I like about this guy’s work is: he doesn’t deal in illusions, or rationalizations. To call him cynical just proves his point. To do so requires “whistling a happy tune” ~ FL SHIELS EDITOR

By Carlos Lozada

Opinion Columnist

I remember when Donald Trump was not normal.

I remember when Trump was a fever that would break.

I remember when Trump was running as a joke.

I remember when Trump was best covered in the entertainment section.

I remember when Trump would never become the Republican nominee.

I remember when Trump couldn’t win the general election.

I remember when Trump’s attacks on John McCain were disqualifying.

I remember when Trump’s “Access Hollywood” tape would force him out.

I remember when Trump was James Comey’s fault.

I remember when Trump was the news media’s fault.

I remember when Trump won because Hillary Clinton was unlikable.

I remember when 2016 was a fluke.

I remember when the office of the presidency would temper Trump.

I remember when the adults in the room would contain him.

I remember when the Ukraine phone call went too far.

I remember when Trump learned his lesson after the first impeachment.

I remember when Jan. 6 would be the end of Trump’s political career.

I remember when the 2022 midterms meant the country was moving on.

I remember when Trump’s indictments would give voters pause.

I remember when Trump’s felony convictions would give voters pause.

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I remember when Trump would win because Joe Biden was old.

I remember when Kamala Harris’s joy would overpower Trump’s fearmongering.

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I remember when Trump was weird.

I remember when Trump was not who we are.

There have been so many attempts to explain away Trump’s hold on the nation’s politics and cultural imagination, to reinterpret him as aberrant and temporary. “Normalizing” Trump became an affront to good taste, to norms, to the American experiment.

We can now let go of such illusions. Trump is very much part of who we are. Nearly 63 million Americans voted for him in 2016. Seventy-four million did in 2020. And now, once again, enough voters in enough places have cast their lot with him to return him to the White House. Trump is no fluke, and Trumpism is no fad.

After all, what is more normal than a thing that keeps happening?

In recent years, I’ve often wondered if Trump has changed America or revealed it. I decided that it was both — that he changed the country by revealing it. After Election Day 2024, I’m considering an addendum: Trump has changed us by revealing how normal, how truly American, he is.

Throughout Trump’s life, he has embodied every national fascination: money and greed in the 1980s, sex scandals in the 1990s, reality television in the 2000s, social media in the 2010s. Why wouldn’t we deserve him now?

At first, it seemed hard to grasp that we’d really done it. Not even Trump seemed to believe his victory that November night in 2016. We had plenty of excuses, some exculpatory, some damning. The hangover of the Great Recession. Exhaustion with forever wars. A racist backlash against the first Black president. A populist surge in America and beyond. Deaths of despair. If not for this potent mix, surely no one like Trump would ever have come to power.

If only the Clinton campaign had focused more on Wisconsin. If only African American turnout had been stronger in Michigan. If only WikiLeaks and private servers and “deplorables” and so much more. If only.

Now we’ll come up with more, no matter how contradictory or consistent they may be. If only Harris had been more attuned to the suffering in Gaza, or more supportive of Israel. If only she’d picked Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, as her running mate. If only the lingering fury over Covid had landed at Trump’s feet. If only Harris hadn’t been so centrist, or if only she weren’t such a California progressive, hiding all those positions she’d let slip in her 2019 campaign. If only Biden hadn’t waited so long to withdraw from the race, or if only he hadn’t mumbled stuff about garbage.

Harris decried Trump as a fascist, a petty tyrant. She called him divisive, angry, aggrieved. And that was a smart case to make if, deep down, most voters held democracy dear (except maybe they didn’t) and if so many of them weren’t already angry (except they were). If all America needed was an articulate case for why Trump was bad, then Harris was the right candidate with the right message at the right moment. The prosecutor who would defeat the felon.

But the voters heard her case, and they still found for the defendant. A politician who admires dictators and says he’ll be one for a day, whom former top aides regard as a threat to the Constitution — a document he believes can be “terminated” when it doesn’t suit him — has won power not for one day but for nearly 1,500 more. What was considered abnormal, even un-American, has been redefined as acceptable and reaffirmed as preferable.

The Harris campaign labored under the misapprehension, as did the Biden campaign before it, that more exposure to Trump would repel voters. They must simply have forgotten the mayhem of his presidency, the distaste that the former president surely inspired. “I know Donald Trump’s type,” Harris reminded us, likening him to the crooks and predators she’d battled as a California prosecutor. She even urged voters to watch Trump’s rallies — to witness his line-crossing, norm-obliterating moments — as if doing so would inoculate the electorate against him.

It didn’t. America knew his type, too, and it liked it. Trump’s disinhibition spoke to and for his voters. He won because of it, not despite it. His critics have long argued that he is just conning his voters — making them feel that he’s fighting for them when he’s just in it for himself and his wealthy allies — but part of Trump’s appeal is that his supporters recognize the con, that they feel that they’re in on it.

Trump has long conflated himself with America, with the ambitions of its people. “When you mess with the American dream, you’re on the fighting side of Trump,” he wrote in “The America We Deserve,” published in 2000.

The Democrats tried hard to puncture those fantasies in this latest campaign. They raised absurd amounts of cash. They pushed the incumbent president, the standard-bearer of their party, out of the race, once it became clear he would not win. They replaced him with a younger, more dynamic candidate who proceeded to trounce Trump in their lone presidential debate.

None of it was enough. America had voted early, long before any mail-in ballots were available, and it has given Trump the “powerful mandate” he claimed in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

This time, that choice came with full knowledge of who Trump is, how he behaves in office and what he’ll do to stay there. He hasn’t just shifted the political consensus on a set of policy positions, though by moving both parties on trade and immigration, he certainly has done that. The rationalization of 2016 — that Trump was a protest vote by desperate Americans trying to send a message to the establishment of both parties — is no longer operative. The grotesque rally at Madison Square Garden, that carnival of insults against everyone that the speakers do not want in their America, was not an anomaly but a summation. It was Trumpism’s closing argument, and it landed.

The irony of one of the more common critiques of Harris — that her “word salad” moments and default platitudes in extended interviews made it hard to know what she believed — is that Trump manages to seem real even when his positions shift and his words weave. Authenticity does not require consistency or clarity when it is grounded in pitch-perfect cynicism.

We don’t call this period “the Trump era” just because the once and future president won lots of votes and has now prevailed in two presidential contests. It remained the Trump era even when Biden exiled him to Mar-a-Lago for four years. It is the Trump era because Trump has captured not just a national party but also a national mood, or at least enough of it. And when Democrats presented the choice this year as a referendum on Trumpism more than an affirmative case for Harris, they kept their rival at the center of American politics.

Harris gave it away whenever she called on voters to “turn the page” from Trump. Didn’t we do that in 2020 when we chose Biden and Harris? Not really. Trump was still waiting in the epilogue.

For those who have long insisted that Trump is “not who we are,” that he does not represent American values, there are now two possibilities: Either America is not what they thought it was, or Trump is not as threatening as they think he is. I lean to the first conclusion, but I understand that, over time, the second will become easier to accept. A state of permanent emergency is not tenable; weariness and resignation eventually win out. As we live through a second Trump term, more of us will make our accommodations. We’ll call it illiberal democracy, or maybe self-care.

“We’re not going back,” Harris told us. The tragedy is not that this election has taken us back, but that it shows how there are parts of America’s history that we’ve never fully gotten past.

In her book “America for Americans,” Erika Lee argues that Trump’s immigration policies and statements are part of a long tradition of xenophobia — against Southern Europeans, against newcomers from Asia, Latin America and the Middle East — a tradition that has lived alongside our self-perception as a nation of immigrants. In his book “The End of the Myth,” Greg Grandin warned of the “nationalization of border brutalism” under Trump, whereby harsh policies at the U.S.-Mexico border would spread elsewhere, an “extremism turned inward, all-consuming and self-devouring.”

When Trump first began his ascent into presidential politics, some readers turned to Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel, “It Can’t Happen Here,” about homegrown authoritarianism in the United States. In the story, Doremus Jessup, a liberal-minded newspaper editor, marvels at the power of Buzz Windrip, a crudely charismatic demagogue who captivates the country and imposes totalitarian rule. The stylistic similarities between Trump and Windrip are evident, but Lewis’s real protagonists are the well-meaning, liberal-minded citizens, like Jessup, who can’t quite bring themselves to grasp what is happening.

Jessup tells his readers that the insanity won’t last, that they can wait it out. “He simply did not believe that this comic tyranny could endure,” Lewis wrote. When it does endure, Jessup blames himself and his class for their obliviousness. “If it hadn’t been one Windrip, it’d been another. … We had it coming, we Respectables,” he laments.

For too long, today’s Respectables have insisted on Trump’s abnormality. It is a reflex, a defense mechanism, as though accepting his ordinariness is too much to bear. Because if Trump is normal, then America must be, too, and who wants to be roused from dreams of exceptionalism? It’s more comforting to think of Trumpism as a temporary ailment than a pre-existing condition.

When Hillary Clinton described half of Trump’s supporters as a “basket of deplorables” in September of 2016, she did more than dismiss a massive voting bloc and confirm her status as a Respectable in good standing. What she said about those voters moments later was even more telling: “Some of those folks, they are irredeemable. But, thankfully, they are not American.”

It’s a neat move: Rather than accept what America was becoming and who Americans could become, just write them out of the story.

Are we what we say, or what we do — are we our actions or our aspirations? From America’s earliest moments, we have lived this tension between ideals and reality. It may seem more honest to dismiss our words and focus on our deeds. But our words also matter; they reveal what we hope to do and who we want to be. That yearning remains vital, no matter in what direction our national reality points.

The way to render Trump abnormal is not to insist that he is, or to find more excuses, or to indulge in the great and inevitable second-guessing of Democratic campaign strategy. It begins by recognizing that who we are is decided not only on Election Day — whether 2024 or 2016, or 2028 for that matter — but every day. Every day that we strive to be something other than what we’ve become.

I remember when I thought Trump wasn’t normal. But now he is, no matter how fiercely I cling to that memory.

Opinion

Biden should not just drop out of the race. He should resign.

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from THE HILL, (Washington newsletter)

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BY JAMIE BARNETT, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR – 07/02/24 9:45 AM ET

This is a tough question, BUT: Absolutely not resign. WTF? Yet an open convention might be good. If Joe has no more senior moments his nomination could be reaffirmed. But note that the conservative HILL newsletter also has an opinion piece urging BOTH major party nominees to resign for the good of the country. We have two old men, one of which is certifiably insane. And then there’s the other: Joe Biden. The mainstream press that The Trump is always denigrating has been working diligently to ease Biden out for his senior moment daily updates.

This news blog editor is not voting for the President. But that has nothing to do with doubts about his age. It has to do with being EYELESS IN GAZA: a human rights catastrophe that Biden-Blinken seem to be deaf to. So a write-in is in order: say, Micky Mouse. Biden’s opponent is the most dangerous, mentally defective individual to seek the office– Ever.

The press gave lip service to Donald’s cascade of lies at the debate and his threats if elected. But they did not do much more than tap his wrists, because the expectations were so low and it was assumed that Biden would be in “State of the Union” mode. He wasn’t when it counted, but Was when visiting North Carolina the next day. The fact that ex-President Bone-spur has avoided prison and will be kept out of jail by his pet Supreme Court, another disgrace guarantees that 2024 will continue to be a rocky year. Yes, Joe Biden should have been a highly rated 1-term president.

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA – MAY 29: U.S. President Joe Biden and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris wave to members of the audience after speaking at a campaign rally at Girard College on May 29, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Biden and Harris are using today’s rally to launch a nationwide campaign to court black voters, a group that has traditionally come out in favor of Biden, but their support is projected lower than it was in 2020. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

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President Joe Biden should not just leave the presidential race. He should resign the presidency. Now. 

The New York Times editorial board and a host of other non-partisan voices have called for Biden to announce that he will no longer run for president. But in this particular race, it is not enough. Biden’s departure from the race this summer would kick-off a tumultuous, bitter fight for the nomination in an open convention that is already in jeopardy of crippling protests. The infighting would leave bruises or wounds among the likely Democratic contenders and the constituencies that have been loosely united behind the incumbent until his unfortunate debate performance. Biden’s remaining in the race would most probably ensure a return of Donald Trump to the White House.  

These are not the musings of a Trump supporter. I actively campaigned for the Obama-Biden ticket twice and appeared on stage at the Democratic National Convention in 2008 and in a convention video in 2012. I served in a low-level appointive position in the first Obama administration. I campaigned for Joe Biden in 2020, and I have a picture of him on the wall of my office. I think history will remember him as an extraordinarily effective president in a time of incredible peril. 

Joe Biden does not get anywhere near the credit he deserves for his performance. He came into the presidency with the economy wrecked by Donald Trump’s malfeasance in handling the COVID-19 pandemic. Biden was able to overcome embittered partisanship to deliver the infrastructure bill with $1.2 trillion in investments to bridges, roads, waterways, broadband and energy. The infrastructure bill also paved the way to record-breaking job growth. 

The CHIPS Act bolstered strong jobs with an industrial policy that ensures national security and a reliable supply chain. His Inflation Reduction Act has actually helped reduce the inflation caused by Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic and the Trump tariffs, which drove up prices for Americans. There are many other examples. At this time in history, no one else could have achieved this except Joe Biden. Whatever mistakes Biden has made, these achievements shine brightly. 

But his greatest achievement was his first one, the one that caused him to run in 2020: saving the nation and the world from the disaster of another Trump term. 

Biden has the judgment and the character to be president again, two things that Donald Trump does not have and never will. But judgment and character will not defeat Donald Trump. If President Biden stays in the race, I will vote for him, but we may look back at this moment and wonder whether Biden’s judgment and character should have led him to leave the race and the presidency. 

If the goal is once again for Joe Biden to save the nation and the world from the disaster of another Trump term, there is no dishonor if Biden passes the baton, of his own accord, having run the good race. If he resigns the presidency now, he will give the Democratic Party a fighting chance to beat Trump. He will create the first female president, the first African American female, the first multi-racial female president in history. In one fell swoop, he will have enlivened many of the constituencies that the media have claimed are disaffected. Kamala Harris will have the first first gentleman in history, one who is Jewish. She will be able to unite the party with a strong running mate.  

This will not keep the Democratic National Convention from being a chaotic, open convention, but it will be a strong move that could lead to unity and victory. It will be Joe Biden that provides that victory.  

There are drawbacks, there are counterarguments to such a bold move. One is that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) would be second in line to the presidency, and the minority-controlled Senate would be unlikely to confirm a new vice president before the election. Biden would be criticized for choosing his successor, but he already did in choosing Harris as his vice president. 

Biden is no quitter. He has overcome many, many tragedies and challenges. But despite his weakened presentation as a campaigner, he is a truth teller, and he has good judgment and good character. He has said over and over: This is not about him. 

It’s about the country. It’s about the democracy. It’s about the people. 

Jamie Barnett is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, serving 32 years in the Navy and Navy Reserve. After he retired, he served as the chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission during the Obama administration.

Biden should not just drop out of the race. He should resign.

BY JAMIE BARNETT, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR – 07/02/24 9:45 AM ET

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PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA – MAY 29: U.S. President Joe Biden and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris wave to members of the audience after speaking at a campaign rally at Girard College on May 29, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Biden and Harris are using today’s rally to launch a nationwide campaign to court black voters, a group that has traditionally come out in favor of Biden, but their support is projected lower than it was in 2020. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

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President Joe Biden should not just leave the presidential race. He should resign the presidency. Now. 

The New York Times editorial board and a host of other non-partisan voices have called for Biden to announce that he will no longer run for president. But in this particular race, it is not enough. Biden’s departure from the race this summer would kick-off a tumultuous, bitter fight for the nomination in an open convention that is already in jeopardy of crippling protests. The infighting would leave bruises or wounds among the likely Democratic contenders and the constituencies that have been loosely united behind the incumbent until his unfortunate debate performance. Biden’s remaining in the race would most probably ensure a return of Donald Trump to the White House.  

These are not the musings of a Trump supporter. I actively campaigned for the Obama-Biden ticket twice and appeared on stage at the Democratic National Convention in 2008 and in a convention video in 2012. I served in a low-level appointive position in the first Obama administration. I campaigned for Joe Biden in 2020, and I have a picture of him on the wall of my office. I think history will remember him as an extraordinarily effective president in a time of incredible peril. 

Joe Biden does not get anywhere near the credit he deserves for his performance. He came into the presidency with the economy wrecked by Donald Trump’s malfeasance in handling the COVID-19 pandemic. Biden was able to overcome embittered partisanship to deliver the infrastructure bill with $1.2 trillion in investments to bridges, roads, waterways, broadband and energy. The infrastructure bill also paved the way to record-breaking job growth. 

The CHIPS Act bolstered strong jobs with an industrial policy that ensures national security and a reliable supply chain. His Inflation Reduction Act has actually helped reduce the inflation caused by Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic and the Trump tariffs, which drove up prices for Americans. There are many other examples. At this time in history, no one else could have achieved this except Joe Biden. Whatever mistakes Biden has made, these achievements shine brightly. 

But his greatest achievement was his first one, the one that caused him to run in 2020: saving the nation and the world from the disaster of another Trump term. 

Biden has the judgment and the character to be president again, two things that Donald Trump does not have and never will. But judgment and character will not defeat Donald Trump. If President Biden stays in the race, I will vote for him, but we may look back at this moment and wonder whether Biden’s judgment and character should have led him to leave the race and the presidency. 

If the goal is once again for Joe Biden to save the nation and the world from the disaster of another Trump term, there is no dishonor if Biden passes the baton, of his own accord, having run the good race. If he resigns the presidency now, he will give the Democratic Party a fighting chance to beat Trump. He will create the first female president, the first African American female, the first multi-racial female president in history. In one fell swoop, he will have enlivened many of the constituencies that the media have claimed are disaffected. Kamala Harris will have the first first gentleman in history, one who is Jewish. She will be able to unite the party with a strong running mate.  

This will not keep the Democratic National Convention from being a chaotic, open convention, but it will be a strong move that could lead to unity and victory. It will be Joe Biden that provides that victory.  

There are drawbacks, there are counterarguments to such a bold move. One is that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) would be second in line to the presidency, and the minority-controlled Senate would be unlikely to confirm a new vice president before the election. Biden would be criticized for choosing his successor, but he already did in choosing Harris as his vice president. 

Biden is no quitter. He has overcome many, many tragedies and challenges. But despite his weakened presentation as a campaigner, he is a truth teller, and he has good judgment and good character. He has said over and over: This is not about him. 

It’s about the country. It’s about the democracy. It’s about the people. 

Jamie Barnett is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, serving 32 years in the Navy and Navy Reserve. After he retired, he served as the chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission during the Obama administration.

Crisis-ridden Haiti turns a page, officially welcomes new transitional government

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Crisis-ridden Haiti turns a page, officially welcomes new transitional government

Jacqueline Charles

Wed, June 12, 2024 at 4:07 PM EDT·4 min read

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Garry Conille - Alchetron, The Free Social Encyclopedia

Haiti welcomed a new government on Wednesday, completing the final step in a new political transition that many are hoping will bring a reprieve to the country’s ongoing gang-fueled crisis and pave the way for long-overdue general elections.

A new cabinet of ministers was presented by newly selected Prime Minister Garry Conille at a ceremony. Conille this week finalized his government after days of negotiations with members of the transitional presidential council. Conille, 58, a former regional director with UNICEF, the United Nations child welfare agency, managed to reduce the cabinet from 18 ministers to 14 by combining some ministries.

Like former Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who was forced to resign by the United States to pave the way for a transition amid gang attacks that erupted on Feb. 29, Conille will keep for himself the portfolio of interior minister. In Haiti, the interior ministry is responsible for issuing passports and staging elections.

Most of the members of Conille’s new cabinet are unknowns or relative newcomers to Haitian politics. Most of their names, however, were put forward by the sectors represented on the nine-member presidential council, where seven members have voting rights and two serve as observers. Still, there are some notable names among them. They include Carlos Hercule, the new minister of justice; Dominique Dupuy, the minister of foreign affairs and Haitians Living Abroad, and Ketleen Florestal, the minister of finance and planning.

Hercule, a lawyer, formerly headed the Port-au-Prince bar association. In his role he will need to rebuild the justice system that today is wrestling with the escape of more than 4,000 inmates after armed groups raided the country’s two largest prisons in early March. There is also the thorny issue of the investigation into the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. More than 50 people, including the president’s widow, have been indicted and Hercule will face pressure to continue to pursue the case.

The justice ministry has also been intimately involved in the negotiations with the government of Kenya over the deployment of the Multinational Security Support mission to help the country’s beleaguered police take on powerful gangs.

Dominique Dupuy, Haiti’s former ambassador to UNESCO, has been named Haiti’s foreign minister.
Dominique Dupuy, Haiti’s former ambassador to UNESCO, has been named Haiti’s foreign minister.

Dupuy was Haiti’s ambassador to UNESCO and had been previously named as one of the seven members of the presidential council by a political party coalition led by former prime minister and foreign minister Claude Joseph. She resigned, citing threats to her life. She will be charged with not only overseeing Haiti’s foreign policy but cleaning up a ministry saddled with corruption allegations in some of its foreign embassies.

A Columbia University graduate, Florestal is an economist who began her career as a law intern and briefly served as chief of staff in Haiti’s justice ministry in the early 1990s. She replaces finance minister Michel Patrick Boisvert, who served as interim prime minister after Henry’s resignation Florestal has worked on the Haiti portfolio at the three leading international lending institutions including the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Florestal holds a master’s degree from Columbia University in economic policy management and a master’s from Johns Hopkins University in applied economics.

The new government faces a host of challenges, from restarting the economy to addressing the ongoing violence.

Armed violence that escalated nearly four months ago has brought Haiti to the brink of both economic and humanitarian collapse. The most recent numbers from the United Nations show that there’s been a 60% increase in the number of people displaced between March and June, from 360,000 to nearly 580,000.

On Wednesday, a court in Kenya postponed for two weeks a hearing on a new lawsuit against the government’s efforts to deploy police officers to Haiti. Days earlier three Haitian police officers were killed after armed gang members set a trap, leading to their ambush in the Delmas neighborhood of the capital.

In March, the Caribbean Community, along with the U.S. and other nations, brokered a deal with Haitian political and civic leaders that led to the formation of a nine-member presidential council. Last month, after wading through more that five dozen applications, the council selected Conille, a former U.N. development expert who briefly served as prime minister between 2011 and 2012 , as the new prime minister.

Over the weekend, Conille needed medical care after experiencing breathing problems. He was discharged from a hospital after spending the night. Though he immediately addressed the population in a video about his ordeal, Conille has yet to provide specifics about his priorities or how he intends on governing Haiti.

Haiti formalizes transitional council in move toward new elections

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Haiti formalizes transitional council in move toward new elections

by Brad Dress – 04/12/24 6:03 PM ET

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Haiti has formalized a new presidential transitional council that will help to move the embattled nation toward peace after the Caribbean island has been consumed by gang violence and left with almost no government.

A decree was published Friday establishing the new nine-member council in Le Moniteur, the official gazette of the Haitian government, according to local Haitian outlets. The decree states a goal of securing peace in the country and moving toward elections, with the formation of various governmental bodies to achieve those aims.

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM), an organization made up of regional nations, welcomed the arrival of the new council as the “possibility of a new beginning for Haiti.”

“CARICOM has supported Haiti, its sister nation, through the challenging process of arriving at a Haitian owned formula for governance that will take the troubled country through elections to the restoration of the lapsed state institutions and constitutional government,” the group said in a statement.

Haiti plunged into violence after the 2021 assassination of – Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, and gang violence has grown particularly rampant in the past year.

Gangs have run amok in the capitol of Port-au-Prince, pushing the island nation into a humanitarian crisis that the United Nations and aid groups say is teetering on the brink of a complete collapse.

The violence and demands from gang leaders forced Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry to step down last month. The U.S., U.N. and CARICOM want to restore order with a Kenyan-led police force, but Kenya paused its deployment in the wake of Henry’s resignation because there was no official government to work with.

The transitional council is viewed by regional countries as a step toward securing peace in Haiti.

In the decree shared by Haitian outlets, officials said Haiti must hold elections by February 2026. Haiti has not had an election since 2016 and has been without a president since 2021.

The decree also outlines steps toward constitutional and election reform and economic recovery.

CARICOM said the first priority for the new council will be to “address the security situation so that Haitians can go about their daily lives in a normal manner” and get access to food, water and other critical services.

“There are still daunting challenges ahead,” the organization said in the statement. “CARICOM stands ready to continue to support the Haitian people and their leaders as they determine their future in a sovereign manner through this transitional period on the path to stability, security and long-term sustainable development for Haiti.” Tags Ariel Henry CARICOM gang violence Haiti Haiti Jovenel Moise transitional council

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Supreme Court Seems Inclined to Reject Bid to Curtail Abortion Pill Access

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Supreme Court Seems Inclined to Reject Bid to Curtail Abortion Pill Access

A majority of the justices questioned whether a group of anti-abortion doctors and organizations trying to sharply limit availability of the medication could show they suffered harm.

BLOG Editor: When Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomajor are all on the same page, more or less, That’s News!!!

The U.S. Supreme Court facade behind some vegetation.
The challenge to the abortion pill was brought in the fall of 2022, a few months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.Credit…Kent Nishimura for The New York Times

By Abbie VanSickle

Reporting from Washington

  • March 26, 2024

A majority of the Supreme Court appeared deeply skeptical on Tuesday of efforts to severely curtail access to a widely used abortion pill, questioning whether a group of anti-abortion doctors and organizations had a right to challenge the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the medication.

Over nearly two hours of argument, justices across the ideological spectrum seemed likely to side with the federal government, with only two justices, the conservatives Samuel A. Alito Jr. and, possibly, Clarence Thomas, appearing to favor limits on the distribution of the pill.

Describing the case as an effort by “a handful of individuals,” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch raised whether it would stand as “a prime example of turning what could be a small lawsuit into a nationwide legislative assembly on an F.D.A. rule or any other federal government action.”

The challenge involves mifepristone, a drug approved by the F.D.A. more than two decades ago that is used in nearly two-thirds of abortions in the country. At issue is whether the agency acted appropriately in expanding access to the drug in 2016 and again in 2021 by allowing doctors to prescribe it through telemedicine and to send the pills by mail.

The Biden administration had asked the Supreme Court to intervene after a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court favored curbing distribution of the drug. Until the justices decide, access to mifepristone remains unchanged, delaying the potential for abrupt limits on its availability.

Even if the court preserves full access to mifepristone, the pills will remain illegal in more than a dozen states that have enacted near-total abortion bans. Those bans do not distinguish between medication and surgical abortion.

The case brought the issue of abortion access back to the Supreme Court, even as the conservative majority had said in the case that overturned Roe v. Wade, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, that it would cede the question “to the people and their elected representatives.”

Justice Gorsuch’s pointed questioning was echoed by other justices, who asked whether any of the doctors involved in the lawsuit could show they were harmed by the federal government’s approval and regulation of the abortion drug.

In one instance, Justice Elena Kagan asked the lawyer for the anti-abortion groups whom they were relying on to show an actual injury.

“You need a person,” Justice Kagan said. “So who’s your person?”

Although the argument contained detailed descriptions of abortion, including questions about placental tissue and bleeding, the focus on whether the challengers were even entitled to sue suggested that the justices could rule for the F.D.A. without addressing the merits of the case.

Since the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade ended a nationwide right in place for nearly a half-century, abortion pills have increasingly become the center of political and legal fights.

The case began in November 2022, when a group of anti-abortion doctors and medical organizations sued the F.D.A., asserting that the agency erred when it approved the drug in 2000.

A federal judge in Texas, Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, issued a preliminary ruling last spring invalidating the F.D.A.’s approval of the drug. In August, a panel of federal appeals judges in New Orleans limited his ruling, determining that mifepristone should remain legal but imposing significant restrictions on access. Those focused on the F.D.A. decisions about telemedicine and pills by mail.

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A ruling for the anti-abortion doctors could have implications for the regulatory authority of the F.D.A., potentially calling into question the agency’s ability to approve and distribute other drugs.

Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar, arguing for the government, warned of the far-ranging consequences, both for the pharmaceutical industry and for reproductive rights. “It harms the pharmaceutical industry, which is sounding alarm bells in this case and saying that this would destabilize the system for approving and regulating drugs,” she said. “And it harms women who need access to medication abortion under the conditions that F.D.A. determined were safe and effective.”

To bring the legal challenge, the anti-abortion doctors and groups must show that they will suffer concrete harm if the pill remains widely available. Lawyers call this requirement standing.

Whether anti-abortion groups had met this basic threshold took up much of the questioning.

The argument zeroed in on the declarations by seven anti-abortion doctors in the lawsuit. They said they have suffered moral injuries from the availability of the abortion pill because they may be forced to treat women who come to emergency rooms suffering complications from the pill, including heavy bleeding.

Erin M. Hawley, the lawyer for the anti-abortion doctors, claimed that her clients suffered harm from the abortion pill and were subjected to acting against their conscience. They were forced to treat women in “life-threatening situations in which the choice for a doctor is either to scrub out and try to find someone else or to treat the woman who’s hemorrhaging on the emergency room table,” she said.

Ms. Hawley, who is married to Josh Hawley, a Republican senator from Missouri who has been involved in anti-abortion legislation, added that in an emergency, “it’s a lot to ask” for “doctors to go up to the top floor and litigate this with the general counsel when the federal government’s telling them they don’t have a conscience protection.”

Ms. Prelogar asserted that the claims by the anti-abortion doctors and groups “rest on a long chain of remote contingencies,” with scientific studies showing that medical complications from abortion pills are very rare.

She argued that there was only a slim chance that doctors who oppose abortion would have to treat patients. If those doctors wanted to opt out, they can do so under federal conscience protections, policies that allow doctors and other health workers to refrain from providing care they object to.

The anti-abortion challengers had made generalizations, with no specific example of a doctor who had to provide care against their conscience, Ms. Prelogar said, demonstrating “that the past harm hasn’t happened.”

She urged the justices to “put an end to this case.”

Justice Thomas asked Ms. Prelogar who could bring such a lawsuit, if she was correct that the doctors could not show a direct injury.

When Ms. Prelogar demurred, Justice Alito, who wrote the majority opinion in Dobbs, returned to the point.

“Is there anybody who could challenge in court the lawfulness of what the F.D.A. did here in this particular case?” he asked.

“In this particular case, I think the answer is no,” Ms. Prelogar responded.

“Well, that wasn’t my question,” Justice Alito said. “Is there anybody who can do that?”

Ms. Prelogar said there was “a profound mismatch here” between the injury claimed by the doctors — that they would be forced to participate in abortion by treating women who had taken an abortion pill — and the remedy they sought, which was to end access to the drug for everyone.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson examined the idea that if the justices chipped away at the F.D.A.’s regulatory powers, it may fall to “judges parsing medical and scientific studies” to determine whether a drug is safe.

Jessica L. Ellsworth, the lawyer for Danco Laboratories, a manufacturer of the drug, agreed that such a system would raise concerns for “pharmaceutical companies who do depend on F.D.A.’s gold standard review process to approve their drugs and then to be able to sell their products in line with that considered judgment.”

Abbie VanSickle covers the United States Supreme Court for The Times. She is a lawyer and has an extensive background in investigative reporting. More about Abbie VanSickle

Biden and Trump set for election rematch after clinching nominations

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OK, then the question becomes: How long are the media going to fill their copy with obsession with the aging candidate? Or candidate’s? Or as a neurologist on NPR interview suggests: age Can be a a factor increasing cognitive issues. BUT age is not a disease, you have to judge the older person on a specific basis. Biden’s sharpness on policy speaks for itself.

By Kayla Epstein,BBC NewsShare

Getty Images Viewers watch a 2020 presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. The two will likely face off again in the 2024 US presidential election.Getty ImagesViewers watch a 2020 presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. The two will likely face off again this year

US President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump have both passed the delegate thresholds to clinch their parties’ nominations.

They each won several states in primary elections on Tuesday to propel them over the finish line.

The two 2020 contenders will provide the US with its first rematch in a presidential election for 70 years.

Polling suggests it will be a tight race that will come down to narrow margins in a few key states.

The nominations will be made official at party conventions this summer.

The 81-year-old president said on Tuesday evening that he was “honoured” voters had backed his re-election bid “in a moment when the threat Trump poses is greater than ever”.

Citing positive economic trends, he asserted the US was “in the middle of a comeback”, but faced challenges to its future as a democracy, as well as from those seeking to pass abortion restrictions and cut social programmes.

“I believe that the American people will choose to keep us moving into the future,” Mr Biden said in a statement from his campaign.

Incumbency gave Mr Biden a natural advantage and he faced no serious challengers for the Democratic nomination.

Despite persistent concerns from voters that his age limits his ability to perform the duties of the presidency, the party apparatus rallied around him.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump, 77, remains very popular with the Republican voter base, which has propelled him to victory in primary after primary over well-funded rivals.

His campaign for a second term in the White House has zeroed in on stricter immigration laws, including a pledge to “seal the border” and implement “record-setting” deportations.

Graphic showing delegates won in Republican race

Mr Trump has also vowed to fight crime, boost domestic energy production, tax foreign imports, end the war in Ukraine and resume an “America first” approach to global affairs.

Tuesday night’s results do not come as a shock, as both men have dominated their races so far.

Both their re-nominations seemed all but predetermined, despite polling that indicates Americans are dissatisfied with the prospect of another showdown between Mr Biden and Mr Trump in November.

The US presidential primaries and caucuses are a state-by-state competition to secure the most party delegates.

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The Democrats and the Republicans have slightly different rules for their primaries, but the process is essentially the same.

Each state is allocated a certain share of party delegates, which are awarded either as a whole to the winning candidate or proportionally, based on the results.

A Republican candidate must secure at least 1,215 of their party’s delegates during the primary season to win their presidential nomination, while a Democrat must secure 1,968.

On Tuesday, Republicans held primaries in Mississippi, Georgia and Washington State, as well as a caucus in Hawaii.

Democrats, meanwhile, held primaries in the states of Georgia, Washington and Mississippi, as well as in the Northern Mariana Islands and for Democrats living abroad.

Graphic showing delegates won in Democratic race

Mr Biden and Mr Trump’s main competitors had dropped out before Tuesday’s primary contests, so the results had been all but certain.

Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, Mr Trump’s last remaining rival, dropped out earlier this month after losing 14 states to Mr Trump on Super Tuesday.

Although several more states have yet to hold their primary contests, with Mr Trump and Mr Biden over the delegate threshold, the 2024 general election is now in effect under way.

The US presidential election will be held on 5 November 2024.

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