Tag: Joe Biden

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A Critique

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President Biden delivering the State of the Union.

 

President Joe Biden shone bright during his 8 February 2023 State of the Union message. He was vibrant as he outlined ten or more of his Administration’s numerous accomplishments over the previous two years. He stood and spoke for a little over an hour without any difficulty, even bantering with far right-wing Republicans led by Q-Anon conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Green as they shouted insults at him.  He then spent another 20 minutes or more on his feet as he greeted well-wishers while leaving the chamber.

The Republican response delivered by Sarah Huckabee Sanders was simply, to use her own word, “crazy,” and not a response at all.  Rather than responding in any way to the invitation to bipartisanship that was at the core of the President’s State of the Union message, Sanders harkened to the “crazy” messages of the Republican MAGA ultra-right and their conspiracy theories. Sanders accused the President of leading “a woke mob that can’t even tell you what a woman is.” Those aren’t Biden’s words, they are hers. What do they even mean? Crazy.

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Sarah Huckabee Sanders

According to Sanders, “The dividing line in America is no longer between right or left. The choice is between normal and crazy,”  implying that the Republicans are “normal.” Crazy, right?

Sanders’s allusion to the “Little Rock Nine,” the brave students who integrated Central High School forty-plus years ago and who now have been memorialized in bronze at the Arkansas capitol came out of nowhere and seemed designed to align herself with them. Crazy, crazy, crazy!

I could go on, but why? In a mere 14 minutes and 37 seconds, Sanders revealed her true colors, her ignorance, and her disdain for every Democrat, moderate Republican, and Independent in the country. Many of the things she said about the Biden Administration fly in the face of the truth. It makes me wonder if anyone vetted her speech. It is sad and hard to believe her crazy rant really is how the Republicans want to portray themselves.  PEI

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Thoughts on the Final 2020 Presidential Debate

Week before last, Donald Trump said, “I’m not going to waste my time on a virtual debate!” What that actually meant, folks is, “I’m not going to waste my time talking to the majority of the American people.”  And, so he reverted to type. Less than a week out of the hospital with Covid-19, Trump was on the hustings creating Super-Spreader rallies with his acolytes. He makes no bones about it: He is their president, not yours and mine.

Joe Biden and Trump have  agreed to a final debate at Belmont University in Nashville TN on Thursday, October 22 at 8 PM CDT, 9 EDT. I usually tape  and alternate between both C-SPAN and PBS, and that’s what I will do on Thursday. I like those stations because they don’t do any or much talking while the candidates are sharing their points of view.

Of course, the number one question on everyone’s mind is a two-parter: will Trump act with decorum or try to wreck this final debate as he did the first; and will NBC’s Kristen Welker be able to maintain order on the set?

I’ll be watching and hope you will be, too. I’ sure you’re sick of hearing what a momentous election will conclude on Tuesday, November 3. But you know it is. Most people already have made up their minds, and millions already have voted, so the last debate is rather anticlimactic. For most of us the debate is more a thought exercise than anything else.

In the few remaining days until the debate, the media – and you and I – will speculate on how it will go, and how often Trump will misbehave and flaunt the rules he’s agreed to observe. Have fun!

pei