Tag Archives: Joe Biden

Political Rants

The hot air balloon we call the inflation debate

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I saw Larry Summers on television today. That says all you need to know about the corporate media’s state of discourse on the economy. The Democratic leadership in Congress is like a deer in the headlights – they are just effing doing nothing. Didn’t they have at least two shots at reconciliation? Has it occurred to any of them that they should pass something under the Byrd rule, seeing as they plan on leaving the filibuster intact?

I suspect the answer to these questions is a resounding no, and I suspect the reason for that answer may be, well, Larry Summers. The austerians appear to be winning the day in the Biden Administration and the Democratic-led Congress. They are afraid of spending money on anything apart from the military, which is the beneficiary of lavish amounts of public funds in excess of $800 billion per annum.

The notion that social spending is responsible for recent price rises is simply laughable. There are other, more likely causes.

Pumping profits straight from the ground

Gas prices are an obvious driver of inflation. The price at the pump is somewhere around $5, the highest they’ve been perhaps ever. The thing is, crude oil prices are not at a record high, not by any means. Oil peaked in 2008 above $140 a barrel, and yet gasoline in the U.S. was selling at about $4 a gallon. Right now oil’s around $108 a barrel. So …. what gives?

One big factor is refining. During the pandemic, oil refining capacity in the United States fell about 5%, from over 19 million barrels in 2019 to less than 18 million. This was because there was less domestic travel due to COVID, which meant less demand for oil. Now that demand has shot up like a rocket again, the oil refining capacity in the United States is simply not sufficient to meet the need.

Why not reopen some of that refining capacity? Well …. that would mean more supply, lower price, less profit. Get the grift … I mean, drift?

From every misfortune a fortune is made

Why are prices rising? Over the course of 2021, corporate profits were up by more than 25%. There’s some serious profit-taking going on here, obviously. While everyone else was struggling to get through the pandemic, these fuckers have been cleaning up. Jim Hightower talks about Proctor and Gamble’s diaper business, an industry they and maybe one other mega corporation have a corner on:

Procter & Gamble Co. announced a year ago that COVID-19-driven production costs were forcing it to raise the price for its Pampers brand. At the time, it had just posted a quarterly profit of $3.8 billion, so P&G could easily have absorbed a temporary rise in its costs. But instead of holding the price to ease their customers’ economic pain, the conglomerate used a global health crisis to justify upping diaper prices. Six months later, P&G’s quarterly profit topped $5 billion. And—in that same quarter—P&G spent $3 billion to buy back shares of its own stock.

Just one of many examples. Bottom line is, as working families are stripped of the modest benefits they received from the Child Tax Credit, they must now contend with rising prices driven by the greed of monopolistic companies that contribute heavily to our leaders’ campaign coffers.

Asleep at the wheel

Why isn’t the mainstream press reporting on this? Too busy reporting on the many challenges of air travel – Turmoil at the Terminal! As I’ve mentioned previously, corporate journalists are disproportionately focused on the airline industry. That’s because they make up the seven percent of Americans who fly regularly (once a month or more). Maybe Jim Hightower should hang out in airports and talk to the correspondents as they wait impatiently for their flights.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

The war dog that didn’t bark in the night

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I’ve heard a few stories this week about mission creep in the U.S. led response to Russia’s Ukraine invasion. Frankly, it would surprise me if there wasn’t any. This is something empires do, and the United States has done it multiple times in not at all subtle ways. Libya is probably the most glaring recent example of this. First we’re going to save the people of Benghazi; then, well, we’re going to act as the Libyan rebels’ air force. That’s when you get people back home saying, did we sign up for this?

Well, now we have members of congress going around saying that this is a proxy war against Russia, which speaks to the intention behind the policy. Granted, Seth Moulton was the source, but still – he probably hears a lot from the national security establishment on this. Trouble is, there’s a proxy only on one side – ours. This is not like Syria. Russia has a direct interest in this war, not a supporting role. Given what we’re hearing about intelligence sharing, it’s kind of a miracle that we’re all still here.

Unannounced, unmolested visitors

But intelligence sharing is not the only thing going on behind the scenes. There must be a substantial amount of de-confliction taking place, or even relatively high level conversations. The reason I think this is that Russia has the capability to strike anywhere in Ukraine by air, via either planes or medium range ground-to-ground missiles. And yet, when American dignitaries – congress members, cabinet officials, the first lady – show up in Kviv, there are no Russian strikes. Coincidence? I think not.

This cannot be chalked up to not knowing about the trips. Russia hits these cities at random, at will. But when important people from the U.S. are in town, the missiles stop. This is not a coincidence. It’s evidence of some rudimentary rationality on the part of Russian leadership – they don’t want World War III. Frankly, there are a lot of things they could be doing militarily that they haven’t opted for. That’s not cause for praise, of course – if someone with a gun stabs you to death, it doesn’t mean you should praise them for not shooting you. But in this case, it means that things can, indeed, get a lot worse.

Going over the top

All that said, there remains a better than strong chance that this Ukraine conflict will result in a broader war, and perhaps nuclear escalation. The pieces are all in place to make that happen. It seems clear, based on recent reporting, that the Biden administration has been sharing targeting information with the Ukrainians that has contributed to bringing about the deaths of numerous Russian generals. If it’s being reported, it was certainly known already to the Russian leadership. Now the whole world knows, and they have egg on their face.

In recent days, the Russians have been zeroing in on Ukraine’s supply lines from the West. They hit Odessa as part of this campaign, reportedly. We know there are American and European operatives working in Ukraine. How long before some of these people are hit, captured, killed? If the Ukrainians continue to succeed on the battlefield with our weapons, how long before Russia strikes at the source of these weapons, if only obliquely? It might turn out to be a light tap on the arm, but that might be all that’s needed.

What doesn’t help is American politicians spouting off about turning this into another Afghanistan, as Seth Moulton was kind of saying on Fox the other day. I expect this idiocy from Republicans … but Democrats should know better, somewhat.

Damn the ICBMS – full speed ahead!

I got into a Twitter skirmish with a Congressional candidate a couple of weeks ago over the topic of Ukraine. He is an independent, and he was advocating removing Putin from power. I asked him how he proposed to do this, and after some hedging he said through military action. When I pointed out that this would likely lead to World War III, he basically accused me of not caring about the suffering of Ukrainians, and called me a “coward” because I was not willing risk nuclear war to advance his regime change policy.

The thing that’s truly frightening about this is that other people – progressives, even – seem to think this makes sense. This is the problem with having a massive military that can project power all around the globe at will. We use it too much – like Russia, only worse – and get used to the idea of it being a solution to all problems, when it, in fact, solves none.

If we try to pull an Iraq or a Libya on Russia, it’s game over. That’s the reality, like it or not.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.

Political Rants

Froggy’s getting warmer by the minute

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It’s worth remembering that, before the 1973 coup, Chile had a long stretch of stable electoral democracy. A military takeover was beyond the imagination of many, and yet it happened. Of course, it happened with full support from the United States under Nixon, but the administration found plenty of willing collaborators in country.

Granted, we’re not faced with a similar threat of powerful foreign intervention. Indeed, the current generation of Americans – and more than a few back – has never faced an all-powerful foreign foe like Chile had in the U.S. We don’t exactly walk around on tip-toe, and practically every nation of the world bears marks left by us at some point. But we ourselves don’t know what it’s like to get skull fucked by an empire.

Models exist – there’s one you’ll choose

You may have heard that Trump recently endorsed Viktor Orban, the Hungarian Prime Minister, for re-election. He’s a right-wing electoral strong man, a bit like Putin but with less opponent poisoning, and a particular favorite of the American right. Then there are the garden variety dictators that our networks never mention – Sisi in Egypt, MBS in Saudi, etc. Those countries hold demonstration elections as an unconvincing means of conferring legitimacy on the autocrat.

As hard as it may be for most people in America to accept, we really are on the brink of losing even the weak, highly attenuated say we have over our government. The Republican party would very much like to see us move more towards a Hungarian model. Say what you like about it, it’s a great way to stay in power permanently, and since that’s what they want above all things, they’re likely to try to bring it about. And if that doesn’t work, there’s always Egypt.

Old boys club, once again

The problem we have is what might be described as the curse of false expectations. Things have always been a certain way. Republicans and Democrats alternatively win an election, lose House and Senate seats in the mid terms, then usually (though not always) rebound on the re-elect year. The normal political cycle is burned into our brains and into the brains of our television pundits. We normalize everything, almost autonomically.

The trouble is, what we’re going through now is not normal. This is not the same thing that happens every two years. As I’ve said before, every time they come back they’re worse, only this time it’s worse than merely worse.

The extremely aged leaders of the Democratic party seem incapable of treating this situation as uniquely dangerous. Biden holds international conferences on Democracy. Garland encourages everyone to be nice to one another and to do what we can to preserve Democracy. Like with the climate crisis and COVID, they seem hyper focused on maintaining the appearance of moderation, at the expense of taking the kind of bold action that’s needed.

And if they’re wrong, well …

Let’s face it, a gradual coup is still a coup. The Republicans are putting the pieces in place to seriously game national elections. Democrats are acting like deer in the headlights. The right is out-organizing the left, and it’s clear that if they win the fall elections, they will finish what they started last year.

The water in this pot is getting hotter, folks. It’s time we leapt the hell out.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Rhetorical question: Can pundits that fly swim?

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I’ve said this many times and in many ways (as far back as 2010), but I’ll say it again. Our pundit / journalist class is obsessed with air travel. Their reporting on the state of the industry is way out of proportion with most Americans’ experience of it. Many airline workers are out because of COVID, causing delays and cancellations, and the press’s hair is on fire.

Traveler’s tip: if your hair is on fire, don’t attempt to board a domestic flight. (International travel is fine.)

It’s not my intention to rant about this incessantly. I’m merely raising it as indicative of the gap between wealthy people’s experience of America and that of non-wealth people. There are many dangers facing poor and working class people in the U.S.; missing an early flight to Miami is not high on their priority lists, by and large.

COVID: The long and the short of it

Here’s another thing I’ve talked about repeatedly: I don’t understand why the Biden administration isn’t pushing harder on COVID. While the uber press is complaining about long wait times at airports and restaurants, something like 200,000 people are getting sick every day and well more than a thousand are dropping dead of this stupid ailment.

So forgive me for repeating myself, but WHY did the administration not prepare properly for the holidays (i.e. ramp up tests, masks, etc)? Why aren’t they using the Defense Production Act to mass produce the new oral COVID therapies, test kits, masks, and hell … vaccines? Why aren’t they supporting Dr. Peter Hotez’s efforts to distribute the COVID vaccine his team developed – a vaccine with no patent and a simple formula easily replicated in developing countries?

I think the answer to the first question is simple. They didn’t think COVID would continue to be a problem by the end of the year, and didn’t want to seem alarmist. Again, the nineties Democratic party brain kicked in, and they were primarily concerned with messaging and perception.

The self-imposed limits of power

The answers to the second and third questions go deeper, but still reflect the timidity of Democrats even when they hit a trifecta of governmental power at the federal level. Last week I talked about the administration’s take on sending masks to every American. It would be relatively simple for them to beat the low bar set by Trump last year. Arguably they have done this, but only just.

The fact is, people are still marching into eternity at a sickening rate. There should be no holds barred when it comes to fighting this scourge. And yet, the administration still observes the constraints set by neoliberal economic policy. Yes, they want to appear bold to the activist base. But whenever the opportunity arises to move an issue forward, they do nothing and focus the blame on some immutable force: the parliamentarian, the filibuster, immigration judges, etc.

Like the corporate media, they seem to live in another world. It’s a world where you can ignore every country in sub-Saharan Africa without risking new strains of COVID. It’s a world in which action in mid-January is an appropriate response to an emergency in mid-December – a world of frequent flights and limo rides.

What we can do

You can call or write the White House and tell them what you think they should do. I know you’re one person, but it doesn’t hurt to add your voice to the thousands of others calling in.

Another thing you can do is contact your Congressional Representatives. I say you can do that, though for me it’s kind of a waste of time – my Rep is a Trump-loving twitter troll named Claudia Tenney, and there’s zero point in contacting her unless you want a Tenney/Trump bumper sticker. I’m thinking about contacting members in neighboring districts.

There are myriad other ways to make your voice heard. I really think we need to push back hard against these policy failures. Don’t let the lobbyists be the only ones they hear from.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Keeping an eye on the foreign policy blob

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After a week of nearly non-stop domestic news, good and bad, I’m going to talk about foreign policy. Think of this as the latest in an ongoing series of posts about how bad Biden’s foreign policy is. Frankly, the only good thing I can say about it at this point is that it is better than Trump’s version, albeit not by much.

Longtime readers of this blog and listeners to my podcast Strange Sound (now on hiatus) know that I have been critical of Biden’s imperial world view from the beginning. Since his candidate days, he has de-emphasized foreign affairs. His campaign web site, for instance, included almost no detailed information about his plans in this regard. That was not because he had no plans – it was because he didn’t want to talk about them.

Target Asia (again)

If you watch the mainstream media, you can’t miss the extent to which they are obsessing over China. They don’t do that unless our nation’s political leaders give them the space to bloviate. This is true of the so-called liberal networks, like MSNBC.

Morning Joe, for instance, platformed Indiana Senator Todd Young, who stuck to his party’s current insistence on referring to the nation of China as “The Chinese Communist Party”. (See Young’s pinned tweet about his “Endless Frontier Act”.) Young spent some of his time warning of China’s undue influence in the South China Sea (which, as the name suggests, is closer to them than it is to us). There have been multiple stories, also, about China’s supposed military hardware, like hypersonic missiles, and so on.

Enter the killer subs

This would be laughable if it weren’t so potentially dangerous. The United States accusing another country of throwing its weight around militarily is objectively ridiculous. We have a much, much more muscular presence on the periphery of China than China does. That includes massive military installations throughout the region, thousands of troops, fighter/ bomber squadrons, and a fleets of warships.

Case in point, as Noam Chomsky pointed out recently on Democracy Now!, a single Trident submarine holds enough nuclear weapons to destroy nearly 200 cities in Asia. We have more than one, of course, and have contracted with the Australians to ensure that there will be more killer subs patrolling the Chinese coast.

So, why the hell …. ?

Of course, this policy is about Asia writ large and who calls the shots in the region. American presidents have been focused on this for multiple administrations, with a significant uptick since the Bush II regime. A permanent presence is essential to our ability to project power – and, crucially, the credible threat of power – across the continent.

That’s why it’s target China time. Frankly, we can’t maintain a large military presence in the region without inventing some enemies. I’m personally convinced that that is the reason why the Korean conflict has remained in stasis for seven decades. We need to keep the threat level up to continue this toxic policy.

In short, regardless of what happens on the home front, we need to keep an eye on Biden’s foreign policy establishment, even – and really, especially – if they don’t want us to.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.

Political Rants

Towards yet another new cold war

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I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating. As a society, we appear to be stuck in a holding pattern, circling our somewhat fractured collective memory of the Cold War. It seems we long for the illusion of a simple, good guys v. bad guys conflict, and we will stop at nothing to conjure one up again.

The echoes of the previous Cold War still reverberate, sometimes in odd and almost laughable ways. For instance, this week my Congressional Rep. Claudia Tenney called Pope Francis a communist. She is, of course, an unreconstructed Trumpist just visible under a faded coat of John Birch Society lacquer. But putting aside retrograde small-fry politicians mired in the failed policies of previous decades, we face a much larger problem.

Paging Howard Phillips!

Back in the days before the Internet, crazy people could only make their voices heard on radio and direct access cable television. One of those crazy people was the late Howard Phillips, co-founder of the American Constitution party or Taxpayers’ Party. Phillips had a regular show on direct access in the 1980s and 90s where he would rail against China, show scary videos, and look kind of grisly on his best days.

The reason I raise this is that even back then, this mentality was dated. We used to laugh about Phillips’s big map of “Red China” behind his desk, straight from the 1950s. Now he’s gone, but the anti-China rhetoric is still with us. Don’t get me wrong – there’s plenty to criticize about China. But people in glass houses …. etc. The folks that angst over China’s policy towards Taiwan probably don’t give Puerto Rico’s status a moment’s thought.

Barry’s pivot, redux

True to form, Biden is resuscitating some of the worst parts of Obama’s foreign policy while preserving some of the worst elements of Trump’s. Both of his predecessors took aim at China, most notably Obama, whose “pivot to Asia” filled me with both dread and anger at the time. (What’s with the “pivot” language? Clearly meant to conjure up images of howitzers, or some gun fighter turning on his heel.)

This is obviously a priority for Biden, as indicated by the fact that he was willing to put the French government’s nose out of joint in service to their planned confrontation with China. They have continued training exercises, started under Trump, with the Taiwanese military, and extended arms sales. What’s more, their pullout from Afghanistan has freed up additional forces that they can devote to confronting China.

Slow-motion train wreck

Look, folks – this is not good. We are heading for a conflict with a nation of over a billion people The policies we are putting in place will eventually lead to military clashes between our two countries, whether intentional or accidental. That would have catastrophic consequences.

We need to stop this madness before it starts. Make clear to your congressional representatives that you do not want this coming war. Tell your friends and neighbors, even the Trump-ites. My guess is that no one wants this to happen, so the sooner we make our voices heard, the better.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

We’re not doing this for our health

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News flash: our health care system is broken. That is to say, it is broken from the standpoint of the people who need medical treatment. From the industry investor standpoint, it’s working just fine. People are making a killing, quite literally, from COVID and other illnesses, lending credence to that line from our song Well, Well, Well: “from every misfortune a fortune is made.”

I say this on a week when women’s health is under attack to an even greater extent than usual. The Texas anti-abortion law, which the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed to go into effect, has effectively made abortion illegal in the lone star state, regardless of what their moronic governor claims. This inevitably will be followed with similar restrictions in other “red” states. But even under the best of circumstances, women have trouble accessing and affording care precisely because of the kind of system we still have.

Promises, promises

When he was running for president, Donald Trump promised that he would replace the ACA (“Obamacare”) with something much better, a plan that would cover everyone, etc. Of course, that was a transparent lie that he had no intention of even pretending to make good on. Then last year, when he was running for president, Joe Biden promised adding a public option to the ACA. No sign of that yet, either.

I don’t know what Biden’s plans are for the reconciliation package with respect to health care. What I do know is what he said during the campaign. Back then, he claimed that workers loved their employer-based healthcare and suggested that they had “negotiated” for it. I pointed out back then on my podcast Strange Sound that this was balderdash. Less than 15% of American workers (generously) have union contracts. No one other than a subset of unionists ever “negotiates” the particulars of their health coverage with their employer. The plain fact is that employers provide substandard coverage to their employees, by and large, and that it leaves tremendous gaps.

The six thousand dollar man

As some of you know, I spent about a week in the hospital at the height of the COVID first wave back in April 2020. (It was an ailment unrelated to COVID, as it happened.) After I got out, I got bills that amounted to about $6,000. Now let me be clear – if I did not have health insurance, provided by my employer, the cost would have been much higher. But with this great insurance that Joe Biden suggested I love so much, I was six grand out of pocket over an unexpected illness. I opted for a payment plan with the hospital (which, I should point out, receives a lot of public subsidy).

That is not the way it works in civilized countries. In civilized countries, they do their best to make you well, and that’s it. No bill, or none of any consequence. In Britain and France, I believe, they even give you money when you leave the hospital, under certain circumstances. Why are we not a civilized country? I don’t know. Ask Joe Biden. And every other president, for that matter.

I am fortunate that i had the resources to bear that cost with only minor sacrifices. Most people – including many with employer based coverage – are not that lucky. We need a system that works for those people, not the people who seek to profit from our misfortunes.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.

Political Rants

Adding some pounds to the white man’s burden.

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Once in a somewhat long while, there are those moments when the forces that animate our society can’t help but reveal themselves. The late Alexander Cockburn once described it as being like turning on the kitchen light in the middle of the night and seeing all the cockroaches before they scatter. It’s a bit like that.

The epic fail of the Afghanistan adventure is one of those. The Taliban has been running the country for a little over a week, and what are we hearing? That a third of the country lives in abject poverty and half of the children are severely malnourished. That, my friends, didn’t happen over the last ten days. Where was that news a month ago? Two months ago? Fifteen years ago?

The wrong ordinance

In the first glorious year of the reign of Trump the Malodorous, our dear, fat leader made a point of dropping a big bomb on Afghanistan. It was one of those “daisy cutter” bunker-buster type bombs – I did a post about it back in 2017. This “mother of all bombs” was the largest non-nuclear bomb ever exploded, supposedly, and was used for demonstration purposes, mostly.

Of course, it was just the latest in a long line of ordinance dropped on Afghanistan since 2001. 2018 and 2019 saw a lot of bombing, and a lot of civilian casualties, as the Trumpists cynically sought to bring the Taliban to the table. Given that half of the nation’s children were starving even then, the things we should have been dropping were pallets of food and water. Is this what Tony Blair came out of retirement to tell us? No, I thought not.

Play it again, Uncle Sam

Amazingly, I have heard more than one T.V. commentator suggest starting all over in Afghanistan. What I mean is, I’ve heard them suggest that we start supporting insurgents against the Taliban. This is literally how we started this bullshit back in the Carter administration. Back then, we were using Afghans as bludgeons against the Soviets so that they would pull back from eastern Europe.

What is our imperial game now? Veto power over the mineral reserves in Afghanistan, so we can deny it to, say, the Chinese if we have a mind to? Lord effing knows. All I can be sure of is that we are not finished with Afghanistan, even if we have zero interest in Afghans. And with the recent attack that killed 13 U.S. troops and a bunch of civilians, the bleeding hasn’t stopped either.

Bring them here

I’ve heard Tucker Carlson and other racists complain about bringing Afghans to America, describing it as an invasion, etc. That sounds like a good reason to bring them here – if only to make Tucker unhappy. We’ve got a refugee center here in Utica, NY – why not process some of them through there? Sounds like a good idea to me.

Side benefit: it would probably make Claudia Tenney’s head explode, too.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Pirates (or landlords) of the Caribbean .

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Did I mention that the Biden Administration’s foreign policy is abysmal? I thought so. It’s always worth repeating, and the last couple of weeks have borne it out entirely.

On July 12, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken made a statement to the press regarding recent demonstrations in Cuba. Among some other boilerplate nonsense about our supposed commitment to human rights, Blinken told the press that the protesters “criticized Cuba’s authoritarian regime for failing to meet people’s most basic needs, including food and medicine,” chiding Cuba’s leaders that “peaceful protesters are not criminals”.

Okay, a couple of things. First, Cuba has been under sanction by the United States my entire life – sixty years – with the most punishing restrictions having been added during the Trump years. I’m not sure how well most Americans understand what these sanctions mean for a poor country like Cuba. They can’t do business with us, the regional hegemon, and other countries are threatened with retaliation if they trade with Cuba.

What this means, of course, is that food, medicine, and other goods are scarce. Now, I’m not claiming that the Cuban government is a model of efficiency, but I would say that any government that can maintain a standard of living exceeding that of its regional neighbors while under siege is doing something right.

Comparing like with like

I hate to keep bringing up Morning Joe, but when the protests began in Havana, the very next morning Joe Scarborough was sniping at the Cubans’ socialist “workers paradise”. “How’s that going?” snarked the former Florida congress member. Meanwhile in Colombia, massive protests against this capitalist banker’s paradise propped up by billions in U.S. aid were in their seventieth (and now eighty-fifth) day. That story didn’t make it onto the Morning Joe couch.

I know hypocrisy is kind of an impotent charge in this day and age, but honestly, the record of capitalist failure in Latin America is broad and deep. There is no lack of examples, no paucity of dumpster fires. I believe the Morning Joe crew commented on the “chaos” in Haiti the same day they cat-called Cuba, but of course when capitalist experiments fail abysmally, it’s always the fault of the populace.

Where’s the change?

What angers me most about this policy is that it doesn’t even reach the low standard of the Obama administration. Biden is literally leaving Trump’s extremist Cuba sanctions in place. He was in the government that decided at the eleventh hour to lessen tensions with Havana, and yet now he’s content with observing the new/old status quo.

Let’s face it – we have no standing to criticize Cuba on human rights, none at all. We support plenty of governments that abuse human rights on a far more horrific scale, including Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt … the list goes on and freaking on. Did I expect better from them? No, of course not. But that’s no reason not to be pissed off.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.

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This week the airwaves were filled with more breathless speculation than we’ve seen since the last major award show. Biden meeting with Vladimir Putin! The newly repopulated set of Morning Joe was all a-twitter with neo-Kremlinology. They even invited John Bolton on board to share his valuable perspective (though his only use might be as a reverse barometer).

The talking heads, I kid you not, were hoisting charts that compared the wait times of various heads of state who met with American presidents over the past fifteen years. If Biden comes a half hour late, what does that mean? Is Tony Blinken frowning too much? Jesus Christ, I wish I were joking. You would think, with all the air time, they would talk about the IMF treaty, or Open Skies …. something substantive. Not a chance.

The only mildly interesting piece of this whole sordid drama was the competition for the moral high ground underway between Biden and Putin, each playing to his own domestic audience.

Sympathy for the Devil

In the lead-up to the summit, Putin was interviewed by an NBC reporter, who asked him about Alexei Navalny, the Russian dissident (and ultra nationalist, btw). Now, there are plenty of counter examples Putin could have invoked in response if he wanted to demonstrate American hypocrisy. He instead chose the January 6 insurrectionists as examples of people being arrested for expressing political views.

That’s just plain adorable. Putin sees a gang of white supremacists trying to overthrow elective government as dissidents and freedom fighters, even though they had the backing of the President of the United States and more than a few members of the institution they were attacking that day. Hardly outsiders, and treated with relative kid gloves by the police. Of course, they wanted Putin’s favored candidate to remain in power – not because Putin loves Trump, but because Trump is a burning disaster.

Suggestion Box

If Vlad wanted to perform some genuine what-about-ism, he could have chosen much better subjects. Now, I’m sure he has no sympathy for Reality Winner – who was recently released from prison – because she exposed some intelligence on Russia’s influence campaign in the 2016 Presidential election. But he might have gone with Edward Snowden, who after all, is relatively close at hand (in exile in Russia).

Probably a better pick would have been Julian Assange, who is now serving hard time in London and under indictment by the U.S. Justice Department and whose health is rapidly deteriorating. Assange’s “crime” was the release of the Iraq war documents, diplomatic cables, and collateral murder video, for which they’ve been hounding him non-stop for over a decade, through administrations of both parties (see my older posts on this). They are slowly killing Assange, in essence. That’s roughly equivalent to the Navalny accusation.

Of course, Putin could also point to, I don’t know, millions of other incarcerated Americans. Or perhaps the text of our 13th Amendment. The man just has no imagination!

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.