With Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s impending retirement, President Joe Biden (D) has an opportunity. Unfortunately, he’s about to abuse it badly, to the detriment of our nation and to his legacy.
Biden has a chance to follow through on a campaign promise to appoint a Black woman to the court.
Biden has a chance to keep a racist and sexist campaign promise. What a legacy to leave behind.
Right up there with the blatantly racist Woodrow Wilson.
NBC now says they’ll provide geopolitical context along with their coverage of the upcoming olympics [sic] doings in the People’s Republic of China.
…our coverage will provide perspective on China’s place in the world and the geopolitical context in which these Games are being held.
Tellingly, that claim comes only after prodding by members of Congress.
Sure, though. NBC will provide every syllable of the perspective the PRC government tells it to. And not a syllable else.
I’ll not be watching NBC while Beijing’s olympics are going on. Not during the coverage. Not during any other part of those days and weeks.
I’ve also lost interest in the actual Olympics, summer or winter, as they’re currently run and as long as the incumbent managers remain in place. The International Olympics Committee, and the US part of that, the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee, have shown where their values are. I don’t approve of the PRC’s genocide. At best, the IOC and USOPC don’t care about the PRC’s genocide.
Ex-SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt Jr. had some thoughts on negotiating in his take on the relationship between the Biden-Harris White House and Congress. In one thought in particular, though, Levitt is badly…off.
Governance takes two. If a director opposed the CEO without proposing something better, he’d be ignored. In Washington, Republicans don’t seem interested in negotiating. … Republicans, you can oppose, but if you have an opportunity to shape policy, take it.
Levitt badly misunderstands. Progressive-Democrat Ocasio-Cortez openly hoped for Progressive-Democrat control of Senate explicitly so Party would not need to negotiate with Republicans.
Republicans have often tried to negotiate, only to be told “we won, you lost.” The last time Progressive-Democrats controlled Senate, then-Majority Leader Reid routinely “filled the tree” precisely to prevent Republicans from offering amendments.
Progressive-Democrats have already passed one reconciliation bill so as to exclude Republican amendments, and they’re bent on same a second time. They’re also determined to blow up up the filibuster so they no longer have need even to pay lip service to negotiating.
Where is this “opportunity” of which Levitt wrote for Republicans to shape policy with Progressive-Democrats refusing to negotiate?
President Joe Biden (D) often says it’s his goal to fundamentally change America. How is it possible to negotiate with a Party that refuses to negotiate and that is openly bent on destroying the republican democracy that is the United States and to remake us into their image?
USAF General and Supreme Allied Commander Europe (NATO) from 2013-2016 Philip Breedlove, along with “former officials and analysts,” have posited a scenario for a partial invasion of Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The image below Breedlove’s supposition also is supplied by the WSJ. I’m disregarding Putin’s naval maneuvering in the Black Sea in this post.
The northern portion of Russian forces arrayed against Ukraine could easily drive due west through Belarus and arrive very close to Kyiv relatively unopposed. Ukraine’s best forces are tied down on the line of contact on the border of Donbas. So this northern thrust would bypass the most capable Ukrainian forces.
Such a thrust could be used by the Kremlin to put pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government and attempt to force concessions or perhaps try to bring about its collapse, former officials and analysts said.
A separate group of Russian forces in the east, General Breedlove said, could push into Donbas to support the Russian garrison there and Russian-backed separatists.
Still a third group of Russian forces in Crimea and southwest Russia could seize terrain along the coast and encircle the port city of Mariupol to cut it off from the rest of Ukraine.
I think Breedlove understates the case. If Putin is going to take that northern route, he won’t stop with merely threatening the government in Kiev; he’ll take all of Ukraine—which is what he wants, anyway.
Beyond that, a thrust up from occupied Crimea won’t be used merely to isolate Mariupol; it will form the other side of the pincer to be used in seizing all of the nation. The attack into the Donbas will serve only to keep the bulk of the Ukrainian military occupied there.
If this is the invasion plan, look, too, for the attack into the Donbas to proceed for a couple of days before the attacks through Belarus and up from Crimea go in; Putin will be looking to get those best forces fully involved and their destruction well in progress first.
In the end, too, the whole invasion and conquering affair will take just four to six days—far too fast for Biden-Harris’ “we’ll sanction the hell out of you if you invade” nonsense even to begin to do anything. Fast enough, even, to be well inside Biden-Harris’ decision loop of beginning recognize the invasion in progress, then beginning to think about applying those “devastating sanctions.”
The Progressive-Democrat Jamaal Bowman now says his fellow Progressive-Democrat Kyrsten Sinema is a traitor for her continued verbal support for the Senate’s filibuster.
John Lewis is a hero, you [Sinema] are a traitor to his legacy, your constituents and our democracy.
This is typical of the Progressive-Democrat Party: either you support Party, or you’re a traitor, and separately, you’re also a racist.
Bowman’s rant brings to mind a couple of quotes. I’ll leave it as an exercise for the student to name the source(s).
It is thus necessary that the individual should finally come to realise that his own ego is of no importance in comparison with the existence of the nation, that the position of the individual is conditioned solely by the interests of the nation as a whole.
In every revolution, it has been the rule to brand political opponents as enemies…and so to justify completely depriving them of legal protection and property.
The…government will regard its first and supreme task to restore to the…people unity of mind and will. It will preserve and defend the foundations on which the strength of our nation rests…. In place of our turbulent instincts, it will make national discipline govern our life.
It is nonsense to suppose that a people wants to rule itself. It always comes to such ideas only when it is badly ruled.
Each activity and each need of the individual will be regulated by the party as the representative of the general good. There will be no licence, no free space in which the individual belongs to himself. The decisive factor is that the State, through the Party, is supreme.
And finally:
I will tolerate no opposition. We recognise only subordination—authority downwards and responsibility upwards.