It has been quite a week in our World as America celebrated the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Denmark celebrated a new king, and America's election campaign formally kicked in as the Iowa Caucus was in full-blown despite the nasty subzero temperature. President Biden celebrated the life and legacy of Dr. King today by volunteering at a Food Pantry as the war in Gaza and Ukraine raged on.
We present a snapshot of the week courtesy of the Crooked Media team, Coop Sccop, Heather Cox Richardson, Aljazeera; The Institute for Policy Studies, and the Financial Times of London.
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New From CBOMonthly Budget Review: December 2023
You Don't Have to Vote for Biden When There are Six Ways to Vote for TrumpEvery third party vote is a vote for Trump
January 12, 2024 By Marc Cooper First of all, Happy New Year, Enjoy it while you can because it’s going to get really nasty and ugly as we move toward the showdown November vote on the future of the United States. I am, however, fully prepared. After spending an entire month, ducking the PNW atmospheric rivers, in Clearwater Beach Florida and after successfully refusing to join up either with Scientology (that’s based there) or QAnon, that runs the state government, I have returned tanned, rested and ready to serve. It was a great break even though it was sort of a shock to get snow dusted last night back here in South West Washington! I don’t know how excited you are, maybe uncontrollably, knowing that the Iowa caucuses are skedded for this coming Monday with weather projections falling to 20 degrees below zero on caucus night. It should be quite a sight to watch Donald Trump’s aged constituents stumble into the caucus sites like so many half-frozen zombies. Not that the severe cold will further impair their already aberrant thought processes. I made the mistake of listening to a TV report from Des Moines of some babbling Trump supporters and it was quite a scene. Never have so many ruddy cheeked all-American granmas and crusty old pops shown so much enthusiasm and zeal planning to vote for a serial liar and public psychopath who is facing 91 felony counts in 5 different jurisdictions, a man on the cusp of being railroaded by the courts out of his fraudulent New York real estate business, a guy ruled by the courts to be a sexual abuser, and a guy who has frankly morphed from being obnoxious into simply demented and irrational while vowing he will only be dictator for a day…just long enough to implement the Insurrection Act and begin the round up of immigrants. Or…what? You don’t believe what he says? I had been kicking around the idea of going to report for y’all on the Iowa caucuses but it’s not gonna happen. Flying off to Florida for the month of December got in the way of doing the necessary fundraising and…more importantly…it sure seems there would be damn little to report in any case. The last we looked Trump was leading his two limp rivals, DeSantis and Haley by 20 or 30 or 40 points and, yes, yes, anything can happen in an election. But that said, I would venture that there is somewhere between a 98.6 percent and 99.9 percent chance that Donald Trump will emerge as victor on Monday night. That 1 percent or less chance that he will lose pertains only to the possibility of a giant icicle breaking loose from his hotel portico and piercing his very thick skull. One thing that is not going to stop Trump, at least in Iowa, is Nikki Haley (nor the soon to be former candidate DeSantis). Look, I understand the media doing its damnedest trying to turn this Trump juggernaut into a “race” but are you kidding me? Some network wags have actually used the term “surging” to describe Nikki Haley’s breathtaking rise to something like 12 points in total. Wow! Imagine if she was flatlining. I did tune into the final Iowa debate last nite and was happy to see “the field” had been reduced down to just Nikki and Ron who commenced from the first moment to do nothing except sling moon pies and cow pies at each other, arguing who is the more craven and heartless. I declared it a tie as both are equally nauseating. They tried to beat each other to the punch in proclaiming that all 10 million “illegal aliens” must be deported – no exceptions, pal. If one of them slips into office, which I doubt, or if the Great Orange Jesus should be elected and does the same, please do me the favor of waking me up early that day as I won’t want to miss a minute of what will be the historic clown show of so many upstanding American burghers surrendering their maids, mechanics and gardeners to La Migra or, conversely, using their BMW’s and Teslas as barricades as they throw their bodies against the jack-booted Feds coming to take Maria and Jose out of the kitchen, If this should ever come to pass it will be a re-run on steroids of the political catastrophe of the last 18 months since the Republican hounds caught up with that speeding abortion car and now doesn’t know what to do with it. It’s one thing to campaign against immigrants, it’s quite another to start actually dismantling, jailing and then deporting a strategic sector of the American work force. After Iowa comes New Hampshire – another “flinty” place the media completely gets wrong and out of which it consistently builds a fantasy world usually centered in some greasy spoon café in which poorly educated obese white men with John Deere caps on are interrogated by relentless TV reporters who want to know how these geniuses are going to vote. Having spent many a caucus and primary in Iowa and New Hampshire, I can affirm they are quite different places and Hew Hampshire can be quirky. That’s why I am lowering my prediction of Trump’s primary victory there to an 88-95% chance (and frankly, I don’t even really believe that).
Barring any real news, and that does not count early polling, Trump is going to be the nominee of the Republican Party for President of the United States. And if that thought doesn’t chill you, even at this juncture, you are not paying enough attention. To cite the obvious parallel, we are in much worse shape than when he was first elected 2016. Back then a lot of us knew he was a liar a con man, and an ignoramus. But that was before the Muslim ban, the kids in cages, the deal with the Taliban, the 91 felony counts, being found liable for sexual assault, the vow to become a dictator, the intoxication with the musk of Xi, Putin and Kim, the steady stream of threats, insults, and non-sequiturs that pour hourly out of his mouth. To be honest, I sit here rather amazed today, I am amazed that voting for the president begins on Monday and one of the candidates is a declared fascist while his political party, the GOP, has descended into a state of permanent obstruction, fear mongering, racism, xenophobia, and militant anti-democratic politics while the other major party, the Democrats, and most of the American people, for that matter, are sitting quietly on their hands. It is no longer hyperbole to say November might the last free and fair election in our lifetime and I just don’t see what people are doing about it. If anything. I was pleased to finally hear Biden last week give his deep throated warning about the fascist threat that MAGA now represents – though it did come three year late and after thousands of words of prior bullshit from Biden about the wonders of bi-partisanship and about how many friends he has “on the other side.” Let’s hope that Biden has finally realized that the other side are committed anti-democrats absolutely bent on the destruction of the institutions that once bound America. Personally, at least this week, I don’t think Trump can win. He appears to have a ceiling of about 46-47% and that might be enough to win the electoral college. Maybe. Biden is gonna have to break 50% and not just by some decimal points, to keep this reprobate out of office. I think he will. It sure looks like in spite of all the delays, that Trump will have the all-important January 6 trial before the election and he will be convicted. That conviction will not void his candidacy but it will sink it. (BTW, on the topic of trial dates, can we please work up a few boos and catcalls for the Wimpy General Merrick Garland who waited a year and half to indict Trump on January 6 when it should have been within the first month. I am convinced that Garland would have simply let Trump skate if it were not for the pressure brought by the January 6 committee. When this history is written, Liz Cheney will brightly outshine Merrick Garland). Biden—and the Democrats—are going to have make several campaign moves very quickly now if they want to win. The president is going to have sustain his rhetoric about the authoritarian threat BUT he has to add in a second part to that warning. He has to explain how democracy and the rule of law are pre-requisites for all the more mundane issues that affect daily life: how much you get paid, what kind of medical care can you get, what kind of consumer protection can be had, what is the quality of public information and government transparency exists, what kind of reproductive rights you have, what kind of education is available and who pays for it and how about that little issue of retaining your right to vote for and elect the representatives of your choice. There is no wall between democracy and “kitchen table issues.” The Democrats need a virtual army of strong and compelling surrogates, especially given Biden’s communication weakness. Where are the great human rights and civil rights defenders of the past who can draw an audience and hold their attention? Sorry, I can’t name one. They have to exist, I assume. But maybe if we can push Schumer, Pelosi, Clayburn and the other decomposing mummies off center stage there might be room for some new, younger more inspiring voices. They better appear fast. Also, the campaign has to do something radical to re-inspire or re-enlist the youth. I get their despair over the war. When I was 17 years old in November 1968 I was too young to vote. But I did attend an on campus SDS rally billed as “Vote in the Streets – Vote With Your Feet” that argued there was no difference between Humphrey and Nixon and therefore no reason to vote, other than for the Peace and Freedom Party. Youth alienation from Humphrey over Vietnam definitely cost him the election and while just the thought of Old Hubert still leaves a sour taste in my mouth, I can say we were just plain wrong. Humphrey was a stumble bum but he was no Dick Nixon. I don’t know If the war would have ended earlier with him – I think it would have—but the country as a whole would have been better off if we had just skipped the whole Nixon Crime Gang Era. Vietnam was a much greater trauma than Gaza, though the latter seems to grow worse daily. Biden’s responsibility in backing Israel – even with his growing regrets—cannot and should not be denied and he should be roundly criticized for his posture. And then you should vote for him for president. I have written this 100 times and will probably do so another 100 this coming year, but elections –almost without exception—are among competing power blocs and candidates that individual voters played at best a minor role, if next to nothing, in selecting as candidates. They are not your heroes (they should not be), they are not your friends, they probably do no not really represent you, and you probably disagree with a number of positions they hold and associations they maintain you are unaware of. They are stand-ins created by a system that is pretty much not controllable by ordinary citizens. They are a pre-determined choice created by The System. Should you be ok with? Of course not. It’s despicable. It’s also a reality. I have been seeing a lot of fb posts from younger folks angry over Gaza and saying they “could never vote” for anybody like Biden again. Oh, really? I don’t know. There were about 30 issues I strongly opposed Biden on but I voted for him in 2020 simply because the other alternative was Donald J. Trump. Just like it will be this year. Here’s some news you can take to the bank: Marianne Williamson is not going to get elected, though she will raise her speaking fee. Jill Stein is not going to get elected (though she might get another dinner invite from Vlad), RFK JR. is what you can call a wrecker and he is not going to win. An arsehole like Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema might run on the deceptive and insidious No Labels ticket and they ain’t gonna win. And Cornel West? WTF? He’s not gonna win even though he seems due for another yearly mental health check up. No third party you are tempted to vote for is going to win. The winner in 2024 is going to be Joe Biden or Donald Trump (and Trump will be on the ballot as the Supremes will guarantee it). And any vote for any of the above third parties is a vote FOR Donald Trump. Period. Also, if you vote “your conscience” and you vote for, say, Cornel West instead of Biden, guess what? Nothing is going to change overnight except maybe Trump getting elected. Eugene Debs or V.I. Lenin are not going to resuscitate to pin a virtuous red ribbon on your shirt for doing the right thing by shunning neoliberal Joe. Nope. This is not a time for a protest vote, a vote of conscience or any other sort of vote except a deeply pragmatic one. We now have just about half the country having bought into the Big Lie. They are disdainful of democracy and want to do away with it because It unfairly allows queers and Blacks the right to vote. This is not like 2016 where millions were willing to “take a chance” with a quirky half-bonkers celebrity populist. This is 2024 where a sizable minority and a possible electoral college majority actually WANT to vote for someone willing to “suspend” the constitution, deploy army troops in the cities, deport millions of hard working immigrants, persecute and jail his political rivals and Godknowswhatelse. They yearn for dictatorship while too many on the left yearn for personal purity. And that means we are going to face a huge internal threat even after the elections and even if Trump is defeated (in that case what do you suppose his die-hard Trumpanzee followers are gonna do?). I cannot think of a more self-centered- a more egotistical, a more privileged stand than saying in 2024 instead of voting for the one albeit flawed alternative to authoritarian rule, you prefer to vote for a more purified loser because it will make YOU feel better. That’s right. So what if Trump get elected and starts pruning away civil liberties and social support programs. It’s not your problem if he kicks a bunch of folks off of Medicaid, or WIC or food stamps and lies down in bed with the Saudis, the Chinese and the Russians or of he hands Taiwan over to Xi?. Or if signs a national abortion aban passed by a Christian Nationalist congress voted in with him? Not your fault. Hey, you didn’t vote for him, right? You voted for Jill Stein! And you, then, are not the kind of serious person these perilous times demand. You are a 17 year old in disguise. We have a prolonged and existential fight facing us. If you are going to be a fool, please just step out of the way.++ Last week, after President Joe Biden went to Valley Forge and then spoke in Pennsylvania, I got a chance to sit down with him to ask a few questions. What I wanted to hear from him illustrates the difference between journalists and historians. Journalists are trained to find breaking stories and to explain them clearly so that their audience is better informed about what is happening in the world. What they do is vitally important to a democracy, and it is hard work. One of the reasons I always try to call out the names of journalists whose articles I’m describing is to highlight that there are real people working hard to dig out the stories we all need to know and that we are all part of a community trying together to figure out what’s happening in this country. Historians do something different than journalists. We study how and why societies change. We are trained to see larger patterns in the facts we find in documents, speeches, letters, and photographs…and in the work of journalists. Some historians believe that mass movements change society, and so they focus on such movements; others believe that great figures change society, and they focus on biographies. Still others focus on economic change. And so on. In my case, I am fascinated by the way ideas change society, and I am especially interested in the gap between what people believe and what is actually happening in the real world. That interest means that I always want to know how people think and especially how their worldview informs the way they act. Then I compare that worldview to the real-world policies they are putting into place. I sometimes think of what I study as the place where the rubber of ideas meets the road of the real world. I have twice now been able to interview President Biden. (And let me tell you, it is an odd experience to have your historical subject be able to talk back to you!) The opportunity to ask a historical figure how he thinks, after I have spent years studying his policies, is mind-blowing. To that end, I wanted to know why he chose to go to Valley Forge, where General George Washington quartered his Continental Army troops for six months in the hard winter of 1777–1788, to start his 2024 presidential campaign. Valley Forge looms huge in American mythology, but most people probably can’t say why. So what did it mean to him to launch his 2024 presidential campaign from there? I also was deeply interested in what he means when he says he has great faith in the American people—something he says all the time but usually without much context. So what exactly is it about the American people that gives him such faith? The answers are important, I think, and I found at least one of them surprising. As I say, it is an odd thing to have a historical subject who can talk back to you, but in all the right ways: it forces you to adjust your understanding of our historical moment. That’s the sort of information that will make the historical record clearer and that, when today’s society has itself become history, will help historians in the future better understand how and why it changed. 
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