"Biden did step aside, and it didn't matter. Could the Democrats have handled this better? Sure, but I don't think it would have mattered. The fact that more American voters chose Trump over Harris will forever remain a stain on our electorate."- NY Times comment
"Trump is an entertainer and our people have degraded to the point where this behavior is not just tolerated, but celebrated by voting this felon into power.
That’s who we are and that’s who 77 million American citizens voted for. 90 million Americans could have voted but were indifferent to the show Trump was promising us. When you don’t take government t seriously, this is what you get.
If there is a people on this planet that deserves a taste of what life is like in many parts of the world it’s us.
To take a 249 year model, flaws and all, and junk it for Donald Trump is absolutely insane to me." - NY Times comment
"No one talks about Trump's decline which should be evident to all. I will not read this book which seeks to demean and ridicule a man who served in the public spotlight for five decades. The piling on Biden is even more mystifying when Trump has been impeached twice, convicted as a felon, and knowingly prompted an attack on the U.S. Capitol. Then pardoned those criminals and insurrectionists allowing them to go back on the streets. What purpose is Jake Tapper's book then except to enrich himself? Can we please leave Joe Biden alone to die in peace?" - Denver Post comment
"Voting for a felon should be unconstitutional. I hope everyone who voted for him loses everything financially, emotionally, socially, and psychologically. There needs to be a price to be paid for destroying America with a vote."-WaPo Comment
"Can we get back to reality? If one of our major parties is to rot in political hell for harboring “people who knew and said nothing,” it’s the party that now controls Congress.
Congressional Republicans know Trump has usurped the powers of Congress, is using the Justice Department to prosecute his enemies, is abducting people off the street and sending them to a brutal prison in El Salvador, and is actively dismantling American democracy — and yet they say nothing." Robert Reich, Stop Asking About A Biden Coverup, Substack
"Many of the millions that voted Trump into office did not
vote for him. They voted against a black/Asian woman and for white male
supremacy. But that vote came with more than many bargained for. It also came
with exposure of the fear of change without understanding the cost they would
personally have to bear thinking they were only protecting their self interest."- NY Times comment
The new book — “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again” by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson - blames Democrats' defeat - in large part on Biden’s aides who, it asserts, hid the extent of his decline. In this hit job, the pair insist that the widespread refusal to admit Biden's age -related decline had become a “cover-up.” This is a pile of horse puckey.
Ok, look, there was certainly some covering up going on, especially among Biden’s insular inner circle. But good God, who else could have a chance of beating Traitor Trump? (Biden already proved he could in 2020).
Democrats were lying to themselves? No, more like protecting a human resource that already proven itself, against a known threat to this Republic. And this strategy isn't new. More than a dozen senators are currently 75 or older. One, Iowa’s Chuck Grassley, is in his 90s. "But he's mentally fit!" you say. Then you didn't see how he was stampeded into silence and stuttering at a recent meeting with his constituents, who wanted to know why Dotard was shipping innocent migrants off to a Gulag in El Salvador with no due process.
“Covering for an aging politician is commonplace in modern Washington,” write Tapper and Thompson, who quoted Nikki Haley calling the Senate “the most privileged nursing home in the country.”
But look, those elderly Senate statesmen didn't just materialize out of thin air. They were voted into their positions of power, so why aren't Thompson and Tapper bitching about the voters who - for whatever reasons - installed those creaking oldies into the Senate?
It’s not surprising, then, that Democrats didn’t view Biden as someone who needed to retire. Besides which, he'd been the only one to take on Trump - in 2020 - and beat him fairly and squarely. So why wouldn't many Dems - as well as voters - believe he could do it again? I did! Especially given the carnage that has now materialized thanks to the ignorant voters that put Bonespurs back in power.
Yes, the Democratic Party is still traumatized by November’s loss to a felon and traitor. But we now know, thanks to terrific research, this transpired not from Biden staying in, but rather the GOOPs continuing their decades old tactic of spraying nonstop lies on gullible voters in the swing states, e.g.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear — a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2028 — said in a more sympathetic take last Wednesday that it would have helped the party if Biden had ended his reelection bid earlier than July. “In retrospect, if the president was going to drop out, dropping out earlier would have given any candidate a little more time.”
He suggested, too, that Democrats would have had a better chance if their nominee, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, had drawn clear distinctions with Biden. Noting:
“It would also have taken a campaign willing to break with the president on certain issues.”
But the truth is that none of that likely would have made a dime's worth of difference given the $200 million plus Elon Musk used to flood the seven key swing states with misleading ads .
That, plus these voters placing their grocery prices over preserving their democracy is the real "original sin". Former megachurch pastor John Pavlovitz summed up these fools, twits and derelicts better than I can. He wrote on his Substack page about these Trump voters:
"They shunned their responsibility as Americans, they rejected the teachings of their faith tradition, and they abandoned any kind of moral footing by enabling the ascension of a felon-rapist-scumbag mobster who lacks a single noble impulse. Through whatever combination of racism, misogyny, prejudice, intellectual ignorance, and plain old hatred, they willfully coronated him."
Democratic leaders are now seeking to focus on a Republican spending bill, which they say will slash Medicaid, and on the potential economic chaos unleashed by Trump’s tariffs. Biden, they note, left office four months ago, was not the party’s candidate in 2024 and will never run again. Trump, in contrast, has only begun a four-year term that Democrats say is already causing irreparable damage. It helps to recall here Thomas Jefferson's words in his Notes on Virginia, i.e.
"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories. AND TO RENDER THEM SAFE, THEIR MINDS MUST BE IMPROVED"
Jefferson knew every government did disintegrate if the "rulers" alone determined its fate. There would always be tyrants, unhinged monarchs etc, seeking to impose their will. This is why he expected the PEOPLE to become its safe depositories, i.e. in protecting their democratic Republic.
Also, this had to go beyond "bread and butter" issues which were bound to vary year by year. So Jefferson's words meant the voters being attentive to the nation's politics and political dynamics. By NOT being misled by bogus political ads and propaganda networks. Again, it's all on the voters to be educated and responsible. No excuses!
Meanwhile, deranged Reepos, trying to get attention off their spinelessness in the face of Trump's historic overreach, are yapping about an investigation of the "coverup" of Biden's cognitive decline. One Wack job writing in the WSJ actually suggested Watergate -style hearings if you can believe it. But the time and energy of all these hapless termites would be better spent investigating the bogus executive orders and trashing of the nation's fabric by the resident Captain Bonespurs. As Janice so aptly put it:
"They want to go after the Dems for not calling out Biden's age foibles and they have an absolute madman in office and won't lift a finger to stop him?"
(This was after the orange imp ordered Walmart to eat the higher prices from his tariffs.)
Let's bear in mind the Repugs abominable actions in their "investigation" include playing the actual recording his interview with then special prosecutor Robert Hur. As the lead in to the Post story notes:
The Post adding:
"The excerpt, obtained by Axios, does not provide new information, since the written transcript of special counsel Robert K. Hur’s interview with Biden was released in March 2024."
In other words the Reep degenerates released it simply to send despicable shade on Biden's aging limits, memory misfires, halting speech - which by the way - I also have had my share of given I will be 79 one month after Trump. Trump - the WaPo notes- has repeatedly criticized Biden, now 82, as aging and mentally slow, but at least Biden never went off the freaking rails in any debate screeching: "They're eating the cats! They're eating the dogs!"
And I already wrote about Hur's stunt a year and a half ago:
As former DOJ prosecutor Andre Weissman put it after Hur's fish wrap first came out:
"You either put up or you shut up. Meaning you either decide you are going to charge or shut up. No one cares about your personal views of the evidence or the people involved."
Nicole Wallace was even more blunt in her Deadline
Whitehouse show the next day:
"It was a mistake to appoint Rob Hur because everyone
knew what he was."
Adding:
"It's not just that he's evil for working in the Trump
Justice Department, but that some of the things he did while there tell you
about his moral fiber. Namely, you do not make calls on cases based on what a
White House wants. That is the road to autocracy."
"Republicans are now with Trump’s egregious assaults on the Constitution, his cringey grifting, his crazed revenge moves against anyone who has crossed him, and his loony Truth Social screeds attacking Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift."
Biden, for his part, may well have shown his age, but he was never the egomaniacal, power mad psychopath that traitor Trump has been. And Tapper and Thompson can now congratulate themselves they've armed the occupying criminal clique with even more ammo - and distracted the media - even as we need to begin seeing a turn in the nation's future and fortunes.
As one NYT commenter put it: "The time spent complaining about Biden and the Dems is time better spent preventing further outrages by Trump."
My opinion now that Biden's metastatic prostate cancer (which has reached his bones) has been revealed? All the nattering nabobs of negativity (especially in the reactionary press) need to back the hell off and retrieve some level of compassion and decency. Give the venom a rest already and also stop with the mentally deficient conspiracy ideations that Biden was "hiding" his cancer. Jeezus Peace, has this country lost every microbit of shame?
For sure this is not the time to make political hay over what the Dems or Biden did or didn't do in the last campaign. (See also my next post on the hormone therapy that Biden may now have to undergo - like I am.)
Other comments from the WaPo:
I hope Jake Tapper's book tour takes a hit with this bad news about Biden s health. Promoting a book that bashes Joe Biden s "dementia" and a conspiracy theory about a cover up by his associates seems pretty mean spirited. It was, anyway, even without this recent cancer diagnosis.
"This is what our dysfunctional two party political system incentives politicians to do. The Democrats hid Biden's senility and the Republicans hid Trump's insanity (as best they could). And American voters chose insanity over senility (personally I would have preferred the former, because it is easier for others to compensate for). But in a functional democracy (with real political competition) thus would not have been the choice. Will Americans ever understand that the root cause of the problem is not the candidates - it is the (inherently dysfunctional) two party system itself (and only electoral reforms can fix that problem)?"
"God get over it already WAPO! We have an authoritarian fascist in office for the first time in our country's history right now who is tearing apart our very constitution, global partnerships and life saving aid and services and making billions on the side with 13 other billionaires in his cabinet and the worlds richest man who has dismantled our government and got rid of what - 12 investigations of his business practices! We have THE ENTIRE GOP IGNORING this! The question now is WHERE is the Republican PARTY and why have they handed their job over to a man who 1/2 the time doesn’t even know what’s going on “ask so and so about that…”!!! I’m so sick of everyone ignoring this very REAL threat."
See Also:
by Ailia Zehra | May 19, 2025 - 5:19am | permalink
According to a recent poll conducted by The New York Times and Siena College, people who were less engaged with prominent news coverage during President Donald Trump’s first 100 days were more inclined to view his performance favorably.
Roughly one in three voters reported being largely unaware of at least one major development from Trump’s first 100 days. These incidents include the erroneous deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, market volatility, or budget cuts initiated by tech billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), per the Times.
But despite these gaps in awareness, a majority of Americans say they are paying close attention to news from the Trump administration — a higher level of engagement than was seen during the initial phase of former President Joe Biden’s term.
Immigration was the issue on which Trump received his highest approval ratings, although a majority of Americans still viewed his approach negatively, according to the poll.
And:
by Ailia Zehra | June 2, 2025 - 5:25am | permalink
Senior journalist Jim Acosta warned in an article published Sunday that President Donald Trump is "spiraling further into incoherency."
"This is not hyperbole. This is simply stating the obvious to anyone who wants to face facts," he wrote on his Substack, noting that Trump's apparent cognitive decline is a story that has been largely overlooked.
"When Donald Trump was running to return to the White House, much was made of President Biden’s cognitive abilities. This reporter and others, though too few sadly, tried in vain to call attention to the unhinged elephant in the room - Trump’s mental state was a much bigger story," Acosta wrote.
"Now the current occupant of the Oval Office appears to be spiraling further into incoherency," he said.
And:
by Thom Hartmann | April 26, 2025 - 5:03am | permalink
The Trump administration just gutted Meals on Wheels. Seriously. Meals on Wheels!
Donald Trump didn’t just “disrupt” America; he detonated it. Like a political Chernobyl, he poisoned the very soil of our democratic republic, leaving behind a toxic cloud of cruelty, corruption, and chaos that will radiate through generations if we don’t contain it now.
He didn’t merely bring darkness; he cultivated it. He made it fashionable. He turned cruelty into currency and made ignorance a political virtue.
This man, a grotesque cocktail of malignant narcissism and petty vengeance, ripped the mask off American decency and showed the world our ugliest face. He caged children. Caged. Children. He laughed off their cries while his ghoulish acolytes used “Where are the children?” as a punchline for their next QAnon rally.
And:
- Sad To Say: Low IQ Among Voters Can Play A Role In Crashing A Democracy...
- And:
- Opinion | I’m an oncologist. Speculating about Biden’s cancer is dangerous. - The Washington Post
by Mike Lofgren | February 14, 2025 - 6:13am | permalink
In his book, The Present Age, the late sociologist Robert Nisbet applied a pithy descriptor to a phenomenon we have seen all too often in public life: the “no-fault” theory of political action, particularly in foreign affairs....
It would appear that Nisbet’s thesis needs revision. What he said was blatantly obvious: of course politicians rarely blame themselves for their own egregious policy failures, for it characterizes the typical behavior of ambitious, self-confident, and often corner-cutting people.
What is more significant, and troubling, is the reaction of the people who elect them: why do they more often than not reward leaders who inveigle them into national calamity? Isn’t there also a no-fault doctrine that applies to the American voter, a doctrine that is for the most part rigidly observed by journalists, pundits, and the self-proclaimed wise men who monopolize the op-ed pages of the prestige newspapers?
Perhaps the only well-known American literary figure to take a dim view of the people who actually elect the politicians was H.L. Mencken
- And:
- 'Biggest mistake of my life': Regret sets in for Trump voters as Republican politicians panic
- And:
History and literature abound with examples of charismatic individuals leading followers astray. The Pied Piper of Hamelin is a classic example: when the townspeople of Hamelin refused to pay the Piper for ridding the town of rats by charming them to their doom with his pipe, he drew many of the town’s children away similarly, and they disappeared forever.
A powerful fictional example comes from Willam Golding’s The Lord of the Flies in which a leader evolves among a group of young boys stranded on a desert island. The group soon reverts to primitivism and the leader persuades the others to shun, taunt, pursue and ultimately kill an unacceptably non-conformist member of the troupe. He then rallies them to pursue the only other individual who had accepted the dead boy. That individual is saved at the last moment when the spell is broken by the sudden appearance of an adult rescue mission from the outside world.
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