Nobody wants weak crypto rules more than the President of the United States. A majority of President Tump's wealth, as much as seven billion dollars worth, is now based in crypto from issuing some stablecoins to issuing his own meme coin to owning a bitcoin mining company and to controlling a huge portfolio of crypto investment.
In March, President Trump's sons Eric and Don Jr. founded American Bitcoin when it merged it with crypto miner Hut 8, of which it is a majority-owned subsidiary. It has announced plans to go public with a reverse merger later this year with Gryphon Digital Mining.
But the rest is accurate. Even before taking office for a second time, Donald Trump had accumulated wealth of approximately seven billion dollars. And now
.
The 47th president has his own memecoin, which has a market
capitalization of more than $1.7 billion. And then there’s World Liberty
Financial, a sprawling crypto project that includes a yet-to-be-released app
for decentralized finance—a term for banking services like lending and
borrowing conducted on a blockchain.
Moreover, World Liberty Financial has its own stablecoin, or
cryptocurrency pegged to stable assets like the U.S. dollar. Its market
capitalization is now $2.2 billion.
And as if to remind us that he's a wholly-owned subsidiary of Donald Trump, Eric Trump has concluded his tweet with "Thank you for your attention to this matter," which his father has been doing since late June.
And of course, "Pocahontas." When Donald Trump tried to call Elizabeth Warren's bluff by calling her "Pocahontas," she rose to the occasion and took the test. That proved to be a strategic error as it angered tribal groups and the last thing a Democratic politician ever wants to do is to hurt someone's feelings. It did expose Donald Trump as a bigot, which any sentient being already knew he was. With repetition of the slur, Eric has demonstrated that the validity of the old cliches that the apple does not fall far from the tree and like father, like son.
Democrats could call President Trump a name, if they ever could agree upon one. Unfortunately, the public might not have a problem if their President were labeled "Vladimir." And if the slur "Adolph" were applied publicly to Donald Trump, he might be flattered and not be so gracious as to laud them for their insight.
The Black Lives Matter movement generally failed, perhaps in part because the Say Her Name Campaign did not gain much traction. Other than that of Ms. Taylor, the names of these women did not become commonly known and even in late 2020, the "Breonna Taylor" was probably unknown to a great many Americans.
Nonetheless, the concept was a very wise one, which- in his own twisted way- Mr. Trump understands.
During Elizabeth Warren's 2012 Senate campaign in Massachusetts, she claimed to have some Native American/American Indian/ tribal ancestry, which she since has largely verified and which evidently never was used for political gain. It gained currency, though, with identification of "Pocahontas" with Senator Warren during Trump's first presidential campaign, in 2016.
At that time, Trump was asked a question about Elizabeth Warren and in the next 85 seconds of condemning her because she had claimed a measure of tribal ancestry, mentioned the Senator's name once.
When in April of 2017 President Trump spoke before the NRA, he said that the Democratic field of candidates for the 2020 presidential nomination would be swamped, and added "it may be Pocahontas, remember that, and she is not big for the NRA, that I can tell 'ya."
Soon after, in May, a bi-partisan organization which describes itself as "the oldest, largest and most representative American Indian and Alaska Native organization in the country," issued a statement noting
In the next election, you are going to be swamped with candidates, but you’re not going to be wasting your time…It may be Pocahontas, remember that,” said President Trump during his NRA address, referring to Senator Elizabeth Warren. While campaigning for president in 2016, candidate Trump also invoked the name of the well-known historical Native figure to belittle Warren. In fact, the cultural misappropriation of Native American cultures and traditions unfortunately was a common occurrence during the 2016 election season, with multiple attacks by candidates and their surrogates during debates, rallies, and live broadcast appearances. As an example, radio personality Howie Carr conducted a war whoop while on the podium at a presidential rally.
revived his derogatory nickname for Sen. Elizabeth Warren,
D-Mass., on Monday, referring to her as "Pocahontas" during an event
honoring Native American veterans at the White House.
Trump told the veterans: "You were here long before any
of us were here. Although we have a representative in Congress who they say was
here a long time ago. They call her Pocahontas."
The families of the Navajo war veterans who were honored were, ahem, not amused.
In the first State of the Union Address of his second term, Trump received relatively little response following one applause line, then followed it with "you want to keep it going for another five minutes, yea, yea, you would say "Pocahontas says yes." He then changed subjects while Elizabeth Warren, who finally has figured it out, smiled and applauded.
America's foremost bigot and budding fascist is at it again:
Trump on the debt ceiling: "Pocahontas even agreed with me. She's been wanting to get rid of the debt ceiling because she said it's too violent. It is violent." pic.twitter.com/Kd33uBEJV4
He does it periodically because he gets no pushback; it's a freebie, a shout-out to his supporters which garners little attention from the media. He gets a pass because he is clever enough not to mention Warren's name, except when necessary to make it absolutely clear of whom he is speaking.
So say her name, as the African-American Policy Forum should appreciate.The President, unless he has no choice, does not. His base, undoubtedly approving, knows who he's talking about while two or three of them know the actual details of the case.
Those details now are irrelevant, especially while Trump is President of the United States of America and Elizabeth Warren is only one of 100 senators. But say her name. Trump loves to punch down. However, doing so becomes less effective and more risky when the opponent's name is acknowledged.
Directly connect the name of a US Senator and a misunderstood young woman from the 1600s. In its 2017 statement, the NCAI commented "we cannot and will not stand silent when our Native ancestors, cultures, and histories are used in a derogatory manner for political gain." That organization may not, but the news media does when it stays silent, or changes the subject, when Trump invokes "Pocahontas." At a minimum one reporter can ask the President "who are you talking about, Mr. President" or "please tell us whom you are talking about, Sir."
Trump might ignore the question or more likely, attack the interlocutor, thus making clear the value of the question. In either case, the news outlet could- and should- report that the President refused to answer the query. If he does mention Warren, he lays bare bigotry beyond reference to "Pocahontas.". Whatever the response, it is a legitimate question and the reporter and his/her emplyer will survive.
Blown out in the 2024 election cycle, Democrats know they need a new message. They're all over the place, however, and the only common theme is Mark Cuban's simplistic advice: "just getting angry is not the way to go."
True, but not much of a game plan. Democrats had a chance to annoy Donald Trump and get under his skin by referring repeatedly to "President Musk." They did so briefly and Trump was forced to play defense, pleading "No, he's not going to be President, that I can tell you. And I'm safe, you know why? He can't be- he wasn't born in this country." They had gotten the President-elect off his game, and Trump doesn't play defense well. So they stopped- too rude.
Currently, Elizabeth Warren has a clue. She has sent to Elon Musk as chairperson of the Department of Government Efficiency a letter outlining measures which would reduce government inefficiency and save taxpayers at least two trilllion dollars "over the next decade." Noting that she has introduced the bipartisan Stop Price Gouging the Military Act, Warren explains that the Air Force has been overcharged by 7,493 percent for soap dispensers.
Would it be so difficult for Democrats to deride, say, "$27,000 soap dispensers"? Ir shouldn't be, but has been.
"By the mid-1980s," Wikipedia reminds us, defense "spending became a scandal when the Project on Government Oversight reported that the Pentagon had vastly overpaid for a wide variety of items, most nefariously by paying $435 for a hammer, $6,000 for a toilet seat, and $7,000 for an aircraft coffee maker."
The numbers were "inaccurate," apparently, and insignificantly. President Reagan appointed a commission which made several recommendations to reform the procurement process and in 1986 Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 219. Soon after, the Goldwater-Nichols Act reformed the Joint Chiefs of Staff and implemented some of the recommendations.
Positive change came about after the President had responded to misguided, hyperbolic outrage from the public. Understandably, then, when asked whether the Democratic Party should nominate a celebrity as a presidential candidate, Mehdi Hasan in early January explained (at 3:32 of the video below)
Whether it's a celebrity or not a celebrity, whether it's a normal Senator politician, you need Democrats who are not afraid to say wild shit. Focus group bulshit has got to stop. Like, it's got to be- I said this in 2016- Democrats to go on Meet the Press and say "we're going to have a $25 minimum wage" or "we're going to spend a trillion dollars on health care."
"How are you going to pay for it?" "We just will. Trust me."
How are you going to pay for it?" Canada's going to pay for it."
Just say absolute bullshit. Trump has set the bar. Say whatever the hell you want. I'm so fed up with a political system, this assymetric warfare which Donald Trump gets up and says "I'm going to buy Greenland and then we have serious discussions about him buying Greenland. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden or Kamala Harris produces a 27-page policy document on child care fully costed.
That's assymetric warfare, right? It just seems to be it needs to be apresidential candidate who says "vote for me and I'll make sure $30 minimum wage. I'll make sure everyone has the best health care in the history of the world." Just say wild things because that's apparently what the American public wants and that's what social media is mainly.
Saying "whatever the hell you want" may take the form of extreme exaggeration, as Hasan points out, or misrepresenting the opponent's motives while highlighting the effect of his actions. Such an opportunity has been presented to Democrats on a silver platter, and Vice President J.D. Vance has given the good guys a blueprint:
Vance attacks the church: "The US Conference of Catholic Bishops needs to look in the mirror a little bit & recognize that when they receive more than $100m to resettle illegal immigrants, are they worried about humanitarian concerns or are they worried about their bottom line?" pic.twitter.com/YOoMrOtHxy
The criticism by rhe US Conference of Catholic Bishops is telling because it opposes punitive immigration policies for two reasons: 1) it is generally welcoming to immigrants; and 2) most of the immigrants affected are Catholic.
If most of the newcomers were not Catholic, the Church still would oppose the Trump Administration policy. However, the leaders of the faith are aware of three things: 1) most of the affected individuals are Catholic; 2) most of these Catholics are more committed to their faith then American Catholics are and 3) the Church, facing declining numbers, need these immigrants, their numbers and the vitality they bring.
This situation is simultaneously both fundamentally different and analogous to the Trump Administration's attack on immigration eight years ago. Campaigning for the presidency, Trump demanded "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on." Once he took office, he "stopped nationals from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from being allowed to travel to America for 90 days."
The day before President Trump retroacitvely left office in 2021, the ACLU recalled
When Trump implemented his first Muslim ban, the public
response was immediate. Crowds of protesters flooded airports in support of
Muslims and other impacted communities who were immediately being detained or
turned away all over the country. Lawyers and immigrants’ rights organizations
nationwide, including the ACLU, filed a series of lawsuits as court after court
ruled to block the ban.
Despite the backlash, Trump issued new iterations of
the ban to circumvent the law and conceal its real purpose, which in his own
words was to block Muslims from entering the United States. Ultimately, the
Supreme Court allowed the third iteration of the ban to be implemented. The
Trump administration then further expanded the ban, explicitly targeting
Africans. As a result, people from 13 countries still remain barred from coming
to the U.S.
By contrast, the Administration crrrently is targeting individuals who entered the USA through our southern border. They are from Latin America and with a few exceptions, are not Muslim. They are not Jewish or Hindu. They are Christian- mostly Roman Catholic, with some evangelical Protestants.
Layered upon that, the Vice President has called out the Church with which most of them identify. Vance asks rhetorically "are they worried about humanitarian concerns or are they worried about their bottom line?"
Both, ovbviously, but there is no shame in doing well by doing good. Nonetheless, the Administration- if Vance was not talking out of his posterior- is hostile to the interests of the Church in building its numbers. Yet only last September
"They're anti-Christian, and it's driving people
out," (Catholic League President Bill) Donohue said in a phone interview of Democrats, citing similar
comments from former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who recently endorsed
Trump. "And the guys I'm talking to, it's not even so much abortion. It's
just they feel like they don't speak their language anymore. This whole idea of
letting men compete against women in sports abuses the bathrooms, they think
they've just gone off the deep end”….
"Kamala Harris hates Catholics and everything we hold
sacred. We can’t pretend otherwise. Our institutions, families, culture and
belief in the sanctity of all human life are the antithesis of her vision for
America. Donald Trump and JD Vance — and now RFK — are the antidote to the
ruling class that has destroyed our country," Brian Burch, president of
conservative non-profit, CatholicVote, said in the Trump campaign’s press
release.
It's time to turn the tables, for Democrats to point out that Republicans are trying to drive Catholics,or more generally Christians, out of the country. When it was Muslims, Democrats were apoplectic, especially outraged because Trump was singling out individuals based on their religion.
Now, the Administration is discrimating against Catholics and other Christians. Presumably, that's not by intent, though Vance's comments can be interpreted otherwise. It is, however, a blow against Christianity in effect.
However, if Democras truly wish to change their message, the President and the Vice President, the former by policy and the latter by words, have given them an opening. You can drive a Mack truck through that gaping hole. Unfortunately, Democrats may be waiting for an electric-powered vehicle to take that drive.
A particularly good, traditional line invoked to ridicule
and repudiate a fascistic comment goes something similar to "I liked it
better in the original German." Think Donald Trump remarking of immigrants
"they are poisoning the blood of our country." Altered slightly- but significantly- the tenor of the quote
can be used to describe various things, even approvingly.
Fervently praising President Biden's State of the Union address, at 20:13 of the video
(with bad audio) below, Max Brooks, author and son of Mel Brooks, is seen
remarking on Real Time with Bill Maher
There was- there was something buried in his speech that I
think needs to get a lot more play- when he talked about billionaires paying
their fair share. You know, remember when Obama said you didn't build that and
got shouted down. He should have doubled down because there is a bond between
the state and the marketplace and Biden's (word indistinguishable to me)
because it's not that we don't want Bezos to make billions of dollars.
We do. But he can only make his billions because his trucks
drive on roads that I pay for, that his workforce is educated in public schools
that I pay for, that his drivers got driving licenses at DMV's that I pay for.
And the cops that protected vans that I pay for and the entire global supply
chains protected by the United States military that I, the taxpayer, pay for.
So I am paying my fair share and all I want is for billionaires to pay theirs.
It's an excellent point and Obama did get dumped upon when
in July, 2012 he commented
... look, if you've been successful, you didn't get there on
your own. You didn't get there on your own. I'm always struck by people who
think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart
people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let
me tell you something - there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out
there.
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you
some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to
create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to
thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business. you
didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn't get
invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the
companies could make money off the Internet.
The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of
our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are
some things, just like fighting fires, we don't do on our own. I mean, imagine
if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize
fighting fires.
The remark was uncharacteristic of Obama both because it was
not particularly well-crafted while being unabashedly progressive. It's a
critically important point- but I preferred it in the original Warren, of
September 2011:
There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own.
Nobody,. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear:
You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired
workers the rest of us paid to educate. You built a factory, and it turned into
something terrific or a great idea: God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part
of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward
for the next kid who comes along.
Barack Obama got re-elected. Elizabeth Warren won the
Democratic nomination, as expected, for U.S. Senator from Massachusetts and won
the general election and re-election in the heavily Democratic state, then got
pummeled in her bid for a presidential nomination. Much more narrowly, Hillary Clinton invoked a related idea in 2016 with "it takes a village." We all know how that turned out.
Max Brooks believes Biden's similar statement "needs to
get a lot more play," and it very much does... on merit. The voting
public- let alone corporate interests, which hate such sentiment
publicly expressed- seems to be in no mood for such an argument.
Americans are in mood at this dark and disturbing time.
Communitarianism is out, conflict is in.
Still, some things have to be said, no matter the anger it invokes in
the moneyed interests or disinterest in the media- and whether in the original
Warren or emulated by a President or two.
History doesn't always repeat, circumstances change over
time, and Republican voters are not identical to Democratic voters. In the
following podcast of Breaking Points. in which Emily Jashinsky told Krystal
Ball discussed polling results which display Joe Biden's vulnerability in a
general election and even in being nominated. They transitioned into addressing
the Republican race for the nomination and Jashinsky caught my eye (ear,
really) when she remarked (at 3:02 of the video below)
When I think about Tim Scott's campaign, uh, they're saying,
like literally, we have no idea what's going to happen a year from now. We have
no idea what's going to transpire, so we're just going to kind of wait in the
wings and see what happens and we'll be the best in position if, if something
changes.
The conventional wisdom is that Donald Trump's campaign is
most likely to be upended or stymied if the candidate is indicted (beyond
Manhattan) and GOP voters become considerably wary that the ex-President could
not be elected because of his legal troubles. However, not only is there
another path to defeating Trump as the nominee but it the one which Tim Scott-
and perhaps others- believe is more likely.
Consider a little bit of history, which may or may not be
applicable. In an article which appeared in the May, 2004 issue of The
Atlantic, Paul Maslin, one of the four chief strategists for Howard Dean,
detailed the presidential campaign
strategy of his candidate in the run-up to the Iowa caucus, which largely
decided the nomination. Shortly before caucus day, as the two top candidates
were expected to be John Kerry and Dean, the campaign ran a television ad
criticizing Dean's strongest opponent. Maslin wrote
When we ran the ad, it barely brushed the intended
targets—Kerry and Edwards—but delivered a devastating blow to (Dick) Gephardt.
Quite naturally, he fought back—with a "kitchen sink" negative ad on
us, which ran midweek. That ad, which attacked Dean's views on Medicare and
Social Security, snuffed out what little chance we had left at victory—Dean and
Gephardt were both increasingly seen by Iowans as running negative campaigns.
The exchange, called off within days by both sides, nevertheless sent us
hurtling to a crushing defeat instead of a narrow loss that we should have been
able to endure. Had the vote been closer, I believe, there would have been no
"I have a scream" speech on caucus night. All the habits we had
learned so early in this race—work fast, use Iraq, be aggressive—were coming back
to haunt us.
As the front-runner, Dean had been criticized by several
candidates but most strenuously by Representative (and former Minority Leader)
Gephardt. Gephardt had gone hard after Dean, and Dean (inadvertently, according
to Maslin) retaliated robustly. Gephardt dropped out, Dean lost the primary and
subsequent to the much overhyped, infamous "scream," went on to
losing the nomination decisively.
The nomination went to the candidate, John Kerry, who mostly
had stayed out of the fray. Fast forward sixteen years to the 2020 contest for
the Democratic presidential nomination and before the Nevada caucus, when
Elizabeth Warren
launched her first broadside against Bloomberg just
minutes into the debate, setting the tone for the night.
“I’d like to talk about who we’re running against,” she
said. “A billionaire who calls women ‘fat broads’ and ‘horse-faced lesbians.’
And no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump. I’m talking about Mayor Bloomberg.”
About 40 minutes later, the debate returned to Bloomberg’s
alleged mistreatment of women when he was asked to address the accusations. He
responded by touting the number of women in leadership positions within his
foundation and business, noting, “I have no tolerance for the kind of behavior that
the #MeToo movement has exposed.”
Bloomberg faces attacks for refusing to release women from
confidentiality agreements
“I hope you heard what his defense was: ‘I’ve been nice to
some women,’ ” Warren said, drawing applause. “That just doesn’t cut it.”
Warren then immediately zeroed in on the nondisclosure
agreements signed by women who sued Bloomberg, demanding that he release them
from the deals and allow their alleged accounts of harassment or discrimination
to become public. And from there, the situation only continued to spiral.
Warren repeatedly pressured Bloomberg to reveal how many
agreements were signed and attacked his character and electability in light of
the allegations, prompting the former mayor to issue defenses that many thought
made him look worse.
“None of them accused me of anything other than maybe they
didn’t like a joke I told,” Bloomberg said at one point, prompting boos and
gasps from the audience. He also declined to release women from the
nondisclosure deals saying, “They signed the agreements, and that’s what we’re
going to live with.”
Bloomberg was done, finished, obliterated while Warren was
boosted. This sort of reaction was common:
Time to update Bloomberg's Wikipedia page...
Date of death: 2/19/2020 Place: Democratic Debate stage Cause: Elizabeth Ann Warren#DemDebate
On CNN, Van Jones stated “Bloomberg went in as the Titanic —
billion-dollar-machine Titanic. Titanic, meet iceberg Elizabeth Warren.”
Bloomberg went in to the debate as an extremely plausible Democratic nominee
and came out shattered.
Warren had proven the giant-killer. Two days after the
debate, the Nevada caucus was held and Bernie Sanders emerged as the most(more?) viable progressive contender for the nomination as he pulled down 46.8%
of the voted. Joe Biden received 20.22%, Pete Buttigieg, 11.3%,, and Warren
9.7%.
The Massachusetts senator stayed in the race for a while but
she was essentially eliminated after Nevada. She was done in by Nevada voters,
who saw two Democrats fighting and decided that strife was not for them. Better
to hold hands and sign "kumbaya," and eventually Sanders lost out to
the milquetoast Joe Biden. That's the way it is with Democrats, anyway. "Can't we
all just get along?"
Republicans may be different. Joe
Scarborough and others in the mainstream media blather about Tim Scott having a lane in the
Republican nominating contest because he exudes a cheery optimism reminiscent,
they pray, of Ronald Reagan while Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis are nattering
nabobs of negativism. They fundamentally miss the rationale of the Senator's
candidacy.
Republican voters believe
the country is going to hell in a handbasket, a major reason they are attracted
to DeSantis and especially Grump- uh, er, Trump. Many believe, additionally,
that the latter is the once, current, and future President.
Although something has to happen to Trump if he is to be
derailed, no Republican in the race is willing to criticize the 45th President.
They all are waiting around wishing and hoping that the other guy (or gal)
attacks Trump, erodes his numbers, and give them their opening.
Realistically speaking, there is one and only one
(potential) candidate who would do that.
Someone confrontational, brash, and not a little nasty, perhaps somebody who exudes a bit of that Sopranos, stereotypical Jersey impulse.
Donald Trump says he would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours tonight on CNN. Despite how ridiculous that is to say, I suspect he would try to do it by turning Ukraine over to Putin and Russia. #Putin’sPuppet
Each- but especially a Tim Scott, who has better than a
snowball's chance in hell- is waiting for former New Jersey governor Chris
Christie He can be, candidates believe, a modern Jesus Christ- sacrificing
himself to death (in this case of the political sort) on their behalf.
Ironically, there are GOP candidates whose best hope lies in the possibility
that Republican voters are similar to Democratic voters.
As a New Jerseyan, I can confirm that the only similarity
between Chris Christie and Jesus Christ is in the first six letters of the
former governor's name. And yes, Tim
Scott would like to demonstrate vote-getting ability in presidential primaries
so he can become vice-presidential timber. However, Scott won't attain even
that status unless someone puts a serious dent into the clear front-runner. A
former prosecutor, Christie likely believes he can prosecute the case against
Trump and, in either case, is probably the only one who can do so in the
belligerent manner necessary for Republican voters to sit up and take notice.
It's conceivable that Christie will stay out of the race. He
is, after all, more concerned with his own political future than anyone else's,
a characteristic of most politicians. Nonetheless, he is a very good retail
politician and unlike some candidates- such as Scott, DeSantis, and Nikki
Haley- has no chance to be a vice-presidential nominee. He'd be in it to draw
blood.
"If something changes," as Emily Jashinsky put it,
it probably would be a fellow Republican getting into a figurative knife fight
with Donald J. Trump. Like Richard
Gephardt and Elizabeth Warren, Chris Christie would take no prisoners. That
would be a confrontation worth watching and provide the best opportunity for someone to
thwart Donald J. Trump.
As Business Insider notes (and is discussed in the video
from CNN below)
Sen. Elizabeth Warren has called Vice President Kamala
Harris twice to apologize for an offhand remark about the upcoming 2024
election, but reportedly Harris hasn't called Warren back.
The perceived vice presidential snub came after Warren gave
a radio interview in January in which she was dodgy about endorsing Harris as
the VP candidate as President Joe Biden signaled his intent to seek reelection,
CNN reported.
"I really want to defer to what makes Biden comfortable
on his team," Warren told Boston Public Radio when asked about Harris,
shortly after enthusiastically endorsing Biden.
She added: "I've known Kamala for a long time. I like
Kamala. I knew her back when she was an attorney general, and I was still
teaching and we worked on the housing crisis together, so we go way back. But
they need — they have to be a team, and my sense is they are — I don't mean
that by suggesting I think there are any problems. I think they are."
Within days, Warren issued a statement saying that she
"fully" supports a Biden-Harris 2024 ticket "and never intended
to imply otherwise," Boston Public Radio reported.
A source close to Harris told CNN that the incident was
"pretty insulting."
Insulting? Now it's "pretty insulting" when a
Senator states "my sense is they are" a "team." Now it's
"pretty insulting" when a Senator who has praised the President,
acknowledges what everyone knows- that the choice of a running mate is the
prerogative of that President.
But as every pol in the Democratic Party realizes- which evidently no one will admit- there is something "pretty insulting" in
this saga. The report continues
Warren, however, has
not been able to speak with the vice president since, the outlet reported.
Instead, Warren has only communicated with Harris' chief of staff, Lorraine
Voles, who returned Warren's call in lieu of the vice president, CNN reported.
Warren is a United States senator, an essential part of a bare
majority in the upper chamber of members of the party of the President and of
the Vice President. Yet Harris wouldn't call her, leaving the task to her chief
of staff, as if to say "I'm too important to listen to her."
If Warren has lost confidence in Harris, she is not alone because
The feud joins a list of other infractions made by those
within the Democratic party who have, in the eyes of Harris' staff, snubbed her
performance and abilities.
In February, several Democrats from the White House and
congress told The New York Times they had lost hope in Harris, who they felt
failed to rise to the occasion of her office.
I don't know what the occasion is of the vice presidency,
given that the only constitutionally specified duty of the office is to cast
the deciding vote when there is a tie in the Senate, which Harris has done very
well. However
Months before (February), Biden himself hinted at tensions
when he was quoted as telling a close friend that Harris was a "work in
progress" in Chris Whipple's book "Fight of his Life," Business
Insider previously reported. At the time, according to Whipple, Biden was
annoyed that First Gentleman Doug Emhoff had complained about Harris' policy
assignments.
Credit Joe Biden for at least recognizing the obvious. Less credit should be given the vice
president, who now won't call a prominent United States senator to complain
about a perceived slight and apparently left it to her husband to complain
about policy assignments.
Nevertheless, one can credit Kamala Harris with this: she has
attitude, only not in a good way. In July, 2020 the American Prospect explained
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), a leading candidate to be Joe
Biden’s running mate, repeatedly and openly defied U.S. Supreme Court orders to
reduce overcrowding in California prisons while serving as the state’s attorney
general, according to legal documents reviewed by the Prospect. Working in
tandem with Gov. Jerry Brown, Harris and her legal team filed motions that were
condemned by judges and legal experts as obstructionist, bad-faith, and
nonsensical, at one point even suggesting that the Supreme Court lacked the
jurisdiction to order a reduction in California’s prison population.
The intransigence of this legal work resulted in the
presiding judges in the case giving serious consideration to holding the state
in contempt of court. Observers worried that the behavior of Harris’s office
had undermined the very ability of federal judges to enforce their legal orders
at the state level, pushing the federal court system to the brink of a
constitutional crisis. This extreme resistance to a Supreme Court ruling was
done to prevent the release of fewer than 5,000 nonviolent offenders, whom
multiple courts had cleared as presenting next to no risk of recidivism or
threat to public safety.
Why bother showing any respect for the court-- or for
Elizabeth Warren or even Joe Biden, other than to come out periodically and strategically declare her undying admiration for him. Yet Kamala Harris, selected to be the
Democratic Party's vice presidential nominee because she was born female and
black, feels snubbed or, in the last decade's lexicon, disrespected.
During the period of black lives matter and of the George Floyd protests, Kamala Harris, a powerful, de facto advocate for mass incarceration, was placed on the presidential ticket by the nation's more liberal party. Elizabeth Warren hurt her feelings and won't return her call. Harris is a problem, though one of his own creation, for Joe Biden. In some way at some point, consequences for the Democratic Party and the nation itself may follow.
There must be a nationwide shortage of Kamala Harris flavored Kool-Aid because this guy is hoarding and drinking it all.
Warren stops short of backing Harris for VP in 2024
So many of us have pointed out the problems with Elizabeth Warren for years. Her response here is indefensible. https://t.co/hynQ9K1kGo
— @david_darmofal@mstdn.social (@david_darmofal) January 27, 2023
WGBH in Boston on January 27 reported that upon being asked, Senator Warren stated that President Joe Biden should run for re-election. However
Her response to a follow-up question of whether Harris
should be his running mate was less concrete.
“I really want to defer to what makes Biden comfortable on
his team,” she said. “I’ve known Kamala for a long time. I like Kamala. I knew
her back when she was an attorney general and I was still teaching and we
worked on the housing crisis together, so we go way back. But they need — they
have to be a team, and my sense is they are — I don’t mean that by suggesting I
think there are any problems. I think they are.”
Whatever Warren's reasoning, that was not only a defensible answer, it was the only answer that would make any sense. Speaking in the Florida capital of Tallahassee on January 22 to honor the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Vice President had remarked (at 2:28 of the video below)
So we are here together because we collectively believe and
know America is a promise. America is a
promise. It is a promise of freedom and
liberty — not for some, but for all.
A promise we made in the Declaration of Independence that we
are each endowed with the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Be clear. These
rights were not bestowed upon us. They
belong to us as Americans.
Harris is correct that the rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness- however they exist at varying times and in varying contexts- were not bestowed upon us but belong to us specifically as Americans. In most nations they do not exist or do so only in limited measure.
Nevertheless, Harris' statement was an unforced error and politically tone-deaf. It enabled the right wing to jump on her for leaving out a portion of the phrase "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Of course, opposition to abortion rights is not grounded in a pro-life sensibility but in a preference for forced-birth. Nevertheless, conservatives label themselves "pro-life" or "for life" and the media gladly obliges them this myth.
As transcribed above, the Vice-President's first and the third paragraphs were good while the second should have been promptly flagged as seriously problematic. With her periodic gaffes and mediocre record before becoming Vice President, an obvious question is "why, Kamala?" or as Elizabeth Warren may be- and should be- thinking "why Kamala?"
"When they go low, we go high," Michelle Obama
pompously declared at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. As diagnosis, it
still applies. As prescription, it is awful. This is how you do it:
"Kevin McCarthy is a liar and a traitor,"
Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren maintained on Sunday's State of the
Union on CNN. Three things:
1) Bad grammar- she meant "Kevin McCarthy is a liar and
traitor." ("Liar and a traitor" implies two individuals.);
2) The subject is not a traitor because treason is defined in the US Constitution as
"aid and comfort" to the nation's enemies to the enemy" and the USA is not officially at
war with anyone;
The first two points are irrelevant. Kevin McCarthy is a liar, and protesting that he's not
a traitor draws attention to the fact that he is a liar and to provoke
further discussion about whether or not he is a traitor.
It would not be a good look. The Republican Party knows that
and as of this moment, is mum about the accusations leveled by Warren.
This is a rare play run by Democrats, who are rarely on the
offensive and are content with their status as punching bags as long as they're
lauded for occasionally fighting back.
Syndicated columnist Jennifer Rubin, who no longer considers
herself a conservative and supports Joe Biden, lavishly praises Michigan
Democratic State Senator Mallory McMorrow and Missouri state Representative Ian
Mackey. The latter
went viral by denouncing the persecution of LGBTQ Americans. Addressing his Republican colleague Rep. Chuck Basye, who sponsored an amendment to a bill to prohibit transgender girls from participating in sports, Mackey noted that Basye’s gay brother had delayed coming out for fear of Basye’s reaction. Basye began his response with “If I were your brother, I would have been afraid to tell you, too."
When McMorrow was attacked in a fundraising email by a Republican colleague as one who would "groom and sexualize kindergartners," she responded with a statement which included
I know that hate will only win if people like me stand by and let it happen. So I want to be very clear right now: Call me whatever you want. I hope you brought in a few dollars. I hope it made you sleep good last night. I know who I am.
My, "I hope it made you sleep good last night" is going to strike fear into the hearts of Republicans. This passive-aggressive response is more typical of Democrats, as we can glean by reaction to US Representative Madison Cawthorn, a right-wing Republican from North Carolina.
Upon standing in 2020 as a 25-year-old for election to the House, former classmates of the dropout from Patrick Henry College circulated a letter noting
Cawthorn’s time at PHC was marked by gross misconduct towards our female peers, public misrepresentation of his past, disorderly conduct that was against the school’s student honor code, and self-admitted academic failings. During his brief time at the college, Cawthorn established a reputation for predatory behavior. … We urge the voters of North Carolina to seriously reevaluate Madison Cawthorn’s candidacy in light of who he really is.
The sexual perversion that goes on in Washington, I mean—being kind of a young guy in Washington, where the average age is probably 60 or 70 and I look at all of these people, a lot of them I’ve looked up to through my life … then all of a sudden you get invited to, ‘Oh, hey, we’re going to have kind of a sexual get-together at one of our homes, you should come!’ And I’m like, ‘What did you just ask me to come to?’ And then you realize they’re asking you to come to an orgy.
Or the fact that, you know, there’s some of the people that are leading on the movement to try and remove addiction in our country, and then you watch them do a key bump of cocaine in front of you.
And now, this:
This, too:
Dude has been a sexual predator, apparently drives with a revoked license, allegedly runs an office with more liquor bottles than water bottles and illegally fires a female staffer, and now
New photos show Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn dressed in women's lingerie, chugging wine and surrounded by women - just weeks after he accused his GOP colleagues of inviting him to cocaine-fueled orgies.
The photos obtained by Politico how the 26-year-old Republican with a vacant look in his eyes, wearing women's hoop earrings and a woman's necklace along with a bra and lingerie set.
Screenshots of the photos were provided to the outlet by someone who used to be close to Cawthorn and his campaign. A second former confidante of Cawthorn verified the photos. It's unclear when they were taken, but he appears to be sitting in his wheelchair, indicating they were taken after the car accident that left him paralyzed in 2014.
If this were a Democrat, Republicans already would make sure Americans believed the Democratic Party were infested with liars, rapists, drug addicts, and perverts. The GOP wants Americans to think of Democrats as "groomers.". Christina Pushaw, press secretary to Florida governor Ron DeSantis, has responded to Democratic opposition to the state legislature's "Don't Say Gay" bill by charging "If you’re against the Anti-Grooming Bill, you are probably a
groomer or at least you don’t denounce the grooming of 4-8 year old children.
Silence is complicity. This is how it works, Democrats, and I didn’t make the
rules..."
But this is what leading Democrats have had to say about Madison Cawthorn:
Crickets. Their mouths are shut. Notwithstanding Senator Warren, relatively few Democrats have denounced Kevin McCarthy. Even fewer have even mentioned Madison Cawthorn.
In the latter's case, that may be in part because the LGBTQIA+-friendly Party probably is loathe to criticize a man who enjoys wearing sexy woman's clothing, But this isn't a case of sexual preference, generally determined at birth and beyond personal choice. It's personal choice, and one the vast majority of voters would find odd, were Democrats even to mention it. Additionally, it's Madison Cawthorn, and his behavior has been atrocious at every turn. He is- or should be- a poster boy for hideousness. News flash: he's a bad seed, or at least as much as is imaginable.
This is a case for political behaviorists or even social psychologists. Democrats rag on President Trump or his enablers, Steve Bannon, Steve Miller, Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, and the whole roster of rogues. But they are unable or unwilling even to question their colleagues in the House of Representatives or the Senate. It shouldn't be up to Elizabeth Warren to save the country from the likes of Kevin McCarthy and Michael Bloomberg. Her colleagues need to step up, go low, and save this nation's democratic institutions.
At 2:18 of the video below, Senator Elizabeth Warren can be
seen asking General Gustave F. Perna, Chief Operating Officer, Federal COVID-19
Response For Vaccine, "will D.O.D. commit to procurement transparency on
our federal vaccine efforts?" Perna deferred to an aide but justifiably dissatisfied with the answer given, Warren a moment later stated
The terms of these contracts were bad, too. Public interest groups had to fight OWS to release its contract and when it did it became clear that the Trump Administration had sold out the American public. Key contracts including contracts with Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson excluded critical taxpayer pricing protections.
The Department of Defense has not been the only cabinet-level agency to hide from the public. Only four days after that Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, we would learn from STAT News
The Trump administration quietly took around $10 billion
from a fund meant to help hospitals and health care providers affected by
Covid-19 and used the money to bankroll Operation Warp Speed contracts, four
former Trump administration officials told STAT.
The Department of Health and Human Services appears to have
used a financial maneuver that allowed officials to spend the money without
telling Congress, and the agency got permission from its top lawyer to do so.
Now, the Biden administration is refusing to say whether the outlay means there
will be less money available for hospitals, physicians, nursing homes, and
other providers.
Several provider groups said they had not heard that $10
billion for providers was spent on Warp Speed contracts until STAT’s reporting.
Congress set aside that money to help health care providers pay for
pandemic-related expenses including staffing, personal protective equipment,
care for uninsured patients, and vaccine distribution. One of the top hospital
lobbyists in D.C., who also did not know about the outlay, emphasized how much
some hospitals still need the funding.
Operation Warp Speed was widely celebrated in the media as one of the great successes of the Trump Administration. On November 13, Reason declared
President Donald Trump stood in the Rose Garden at the White House this afternoon touting the truly amazing progress that Operation Warp Speed has made with respect to developing COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics. Launched officially on May 15, 2020, the Trump administration deserves much credit for the successes of Operation Warp Speed.
But as the AP observed in a fact check of the President's speech
Pfizer notably did not accept government money to develop, test or expand manufacturing capacity under Trump’s Operation Warp Speed initiative to quickly find a vaccine and treatments for the disease sweeping the country.
In fact, Pfizer partnered with the vaccine’s original developer, Germany’s BioNTech, in March and the following month announced the first human study in Germany. The White House announced Operation Warp Speed in May.
Nonetheless, the propaganda from Reason and other portions of the media would have been politically crucial had Pfizer and BioNTech announced "evidence of efficacy" of its Covid-19 vaccine before a majority of the votes were cast in the last election cycle, rather than on November 9.
It's likely that the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense were manipulating levers of government to enhance the possibility of an announcement of a viable vaccine before the presidential election. Had that ensued, the impact of the propaganda from Reason and elsewhere would have had a much greater impact.
As Senator Warren summarized, the Department of Defense has been opaque. The Department of Health and Human Services was sneaky, sleazy, and dishonest with the $10 billion they kept from health care providers. Fortunately, their timing was off and, probably as a consequence, we're not now six weeks into a second Trump term.
Politico has reported that nearly three dozen
House Democrats have sent to the White House a letter proposing that the
President relinquish sole authority to launch nuclear weapons. Alternatives
suggested include one which would require the Speaker of the House or the vice
president "neither of whom can be removed by the
president if they disagree — to concur with a launch order.”
As usual, the right-wing propaganda machine is not arguing
against the merits of the proposal, instead borrowing from their bag of ad hominem
attacks. This includes Gateway Pundit retweeting the
remark "Joe Biden is mentally compromised and they know it" and concluding "Biden is not nearly as sharp as he used to be. Anyone
who has watched him trying to speak knows this."
In 2019 Elizabeth Warren introduced (with six co-sponsors)
the Senate version of a bill to declare as USA policy no first use of nuclear
weapons. The proposal was met with hostility from Republicans and skepticism
from some Democrats. However, it should bring to mind this BBC story of a Cold War near-miss:
In the early hours of the morning, the Soviet Union's
early-warning systems detected an incoming missile strike from the United
States. Computer readouts suggested several missiles had been launched. The
protocol for the Soviet military would have been to retaliate with a nuclear
attack of its own.
But duty officer Stanislav Petrov - whose job it was to
register apparent enemy missile launches - decided not to report them to his
superiors, and instead dismissed them as a false alarm.
This was a breach of his instructions, a dereliction of
duty. The safe thing to do would have been to pass the responsibility on, to
refer up.
But his decision may have saved the world.
"I had all the data [to suggest there was an ongoing
missile attack]. If I had sent my report up the chain of command, nobody would
have said a word against it," he told the BBC's Russian Service 30 years
after that overnight shift.
Mr Petrov - who retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel
and now lives in a small town near Moscow - was part of a well-trained team
which served at one of the Soviet Union's early warning bases, not far from
Moscow. His training was rigorous, his instructions very clear.
His job was to register any missile strikes and to report
them to the Soviet military and political leadership. In the political climate
of 1983, a retaliatory strike would have been almost certain.
And yet, when the moment came, he says he almost froze in
place.
"The siren howled, but I just sat there for a few
seconds, staring at the big, back-lit, red screen with the word 'launch' on
it," he says.
The system was telling him that the level of reliability of
that alert was "highest". There could be no doubt. America had
launched a missile.
"A minute later the siren went off again. The second
missile was launched. Then the third, and the fourth, and the fifth. Computers
changed their alerts from 'launch' to 'missile strike'," he says.
Mr Petrov smokes cheap Russian cigarettes as he relates the
incidents he must have played over countless times in his mind.
"There was no rule about how long we were allowed to
think before we reported a strike. But we knew that every second of
procrastination took away valuable time; that the Soviet Union's military and
political leadership needed to be informed without delay.
"All I had to do was to reach for the phone; to raise
the direct line to our top commanders - but I couldn't move. I felt like I was
sitting on a hot frying pan," he told us.
Although the nature of the alert seemed to be abundantly
clear, Mr Petrov had some doubts.
Alongside IT specialists, like him, Soviet Union had other
experts, also watching America's missile forces. A group of satellite radar
operators told him they had registered no missiles.
But those people were only a support service. The protocol
said, very clearly, that the decision had to be based on computer readouts. And
that decision rested with him, the duty officer.
But what made him suspicious was just how strong and clear
that alert was.
"There were 28 or 29 security levels. After the target
was identified, it had to pass all of those 'checkpoints'. I was not quite sure
it was possible, under those circumstances," says the retired officer.
Mr Petrov called the duty officer in the Soviet army's
headquarters and reported a system malfunction.
If he was wrong, the first nuclear explosions would have
happened minutes later.
Twenty-three minutes later I realised that nothing had
happened. If there had been a real strike, then I would already know about it.
It was such a relief," he says with a smile.
One of President Reagan's favorite quips- "trust, but
verify"- was a translation of the Russian "Doveryai no proveryai."
It's critical that other nations trust that the USA will avoid using nuclear
weapons as a first option. When Senator Warren was asked at an 8/19/15 debate
about her bill, she explained "We don't expand trust around the world by
saying, ‘You know, we might be the first ones to use a nuclear
weapon."
In order to trust that a decision by the federal
government to order a nuclear strike is reasonable, there should be two very high-ranking officials, neither beholden to the other, to
agree. If that policy were known to our
rivals- as obviously it would be- they would be less likely to mistake an act
of ours for a nuclear attack. Thus, it probably wouldn't be necessary in the
coming decades or centuries for another Stanislav Petrov to save the world.
