ACLU Urges Senate to Abandon Disastrous Anti-Immigrant Proposals in Supplemental Funding Negotiations https://www.aclu.org/press-releases...roposals-in-supplemental-funding-negotiations
It seems so at times. He's certainly gone back to building more of Trump's wall. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-build-new-barriers-roads-texas-border-area-2023-10-05/ This goes beyond Biden, though, because with the GOP having so much constant influence, this kind of legislation will often sail through the house and the senate, and it's going to result in a lot more loss of innocent life.
The first sentence in the article: "The White House is reportedly offering sweeping, draconian measures targeting immigrants to Senator James Lankford, the Republican lead negotiator, as it seeks to move forward on its supplemental funding request. In addition to previously reported changes to our asylum system, the latest proposals reportedly include ratcheting up mandatory detention of immigrants and expanding the deeply flawed fast-track deportation system called “expedited removal” nationwide." The original post that notified me:
I haven't been truly worried that Biden might find a way to piss away all this good (domestic) work and a should-be gimmie election until now. Between the Gaza disaster and caving on this, really big stumbles. BUT. I have thought in the past that he was betraying his professed ideals (i.e. the railroad strike for example) and then he slides out a month later and it turned out he had the shit together all along. I don't know how he'll pull that rabbit out if they really are caving on immigration and whatever 5th dimensional chess he might be playing on Israel is costing a fuck-ton of suffering in the meantime. It really is VERY eerie how closely he's paralleling LBJ. Do remarkable, transformative, important stuff at home and still manage to piss it all away because of an unpopular foreign war (Gaza, not Ukraine) and with a monster waiting to take his job. I hope he pulls out of it because I'm in the camp that Trump is the end of everything. However much I'm unhappy with Biden unless he drops dead at some point in the next 6-8 months we're stuck with him. (and too be clear, there's a LOT of his accomplishments I like and some I love - but there's also stuff I simply cannot defend)
Last I heard, Bidens offers to the Republicans on this were basically a trap, that he offered them a blank cheque or whatever awful hardline anti-immigrant shit they claim to want, just so they'd have to publicly reject it and admit that's not really why they're holding up aid to Ukraine. But that was a few days ago.
See, and I understand that even though I feel differently about Biden in general. I don't want Trump, but we can do so much better than Biden. There are so many better choices than Biden, even the polls show it, but instead of opening up and saying "okay, who do we need?" the DNC is pushing to make it almost impossible for anyone else to step up, like what happened in Florida where the Florida Democratic Party removed every other name from the ballot except Biden's. That's only going to foster resentment when they pull stuff like that. I see Biden more as a Paul von Hindenburg, who set up disastrous policies that only accelerated the rise of Hitler as a potential power rival, and then essentially opened the door for him to walk through when the time came. Yeah, that's a very rough synopsis of what happened, but it's still true in that Biden's working on policies that Trump was pushing. Why? It's not going to mollify Republicans. You'd have better luck getting an evangelical Christian minister to preside over your gay wedding. These guys see right through compromise, because they don't want compromise. It's about power and control. They don't give two shits about their constituents. So why build more walls? Why deport more people? Why allow for more drilling? Yes, the Republicans can roadblock him on more progressive policies, so why engage in regressive policy? To appease them? They don't care, nothing will appease them. All this does is hurt people, a lot of people, and make it more likely he will lose. See, Trump is a known quantity now, and so is Biden. People can now compare the two. Obviously, evangelicals and the hard right will flock to Trump, because they want power, and Trump is the strong man who will promise them anything. So who is the champion of the center right? Apparently, Joe Biden, who I do not believe is remotely up for a second term. I do not share your optimism in his ability, my friend. As far as I'm concerned, if Trump wins, we get a stronger fascist state by order of Trump. If we get Biden, we'll still get a stronger fascist state by order of Biden, as a sign of "compromise." In the end, the only people who benefit are the rich. The rest of us will continue to lose ground economically, and socially. That's just my opinion, though.
I agree that both are now a known quantity. Biden is something akin to a bowl of beef stew made with many fine ingredients and beef that's way too old and might make you ill. Trump is a bowl of pure unfiltered dog shit. AS THINGS STAND NOW we're gonna eat one of these, and under the circumstances I'll have to choose the stew. And contributing to how things stand now is that if the party pressures him to stand down it's an admission of weakness which deeply hurts the party position. The one and only way out of this is if Biden is revealed to have some serious health condition and another nominee is required. If that alternative were Whitmer (ideally) or Newsom or someone with similar appeal, fine, but there's a real risk that the DNC (with Biden's backing) would push hard to nominate Harris and I don't think she can win a national election. Certainly one can postulate theocraticals where we can do better because the party has a considerable list of people who are simply better on many issues (albeit, look at Fetterman's comments today - sigh) but unless Biden is disabled or dead, they aren't going to happen any more than RFK Jr is going to win.
I have so many more issues with Biden than his age. For me it's a guaranteed bowl of shit with Trump, or a guaranteed bowl of shit with sprinkles when it comes to Biden. Neither the Democrats as a party, or the Republicans, as a party, give a single fuck about any of us beyond telling us how grateful we should be that they're in charge and not the other guy. There are individual Democrats whom I consider damn good people, but they're nowhere near the front of the line when it comes to presidential likelihood. Harris would instantly sink. She's awful. It would be a landslide for Trump. Fetterman's a giant turd, and yeah, he proved it today. Whitmer? Don't know enough about her yet. The party shouldn't have put people in this position. Obama chose Biden to appeal to the more "conservative" Democrats (stage whisper: racists), and it worked. The man won't make it through another term, you can see it. It's not just his age, it's everything. I don't care what the GOP says, they always say shit, but he really is physically and mentally unfit for the office. Whatever they're pumping in his veins to keep him vertical has to quit being effective eventually. Plus, I just think he's a racist, predatory piece of shit. We deserve better. Immigrants deserve better. The LGBTQ+ community deserves better. The poor deserve better. Future bombed peoples deserve better than this dog and pony show we call a democracy. As long as we limit ourselves to shitbag #1 and shitbag #2, the only progress we'll make is our country becoming progressively worse for everyone who isn't a rich, white piece of shit. What's worse is that the system will ensure that always happens. It will always be the most important election ever, and we'll always have to choose the "lesser" of two evils. It's been going on for decades. Perhaps, just maybe, we should vote for someone whom we consider "good."
a. Of course we deserve better. We always have. Even the best of those who held that office had some serious flaws (albeit some of them were very god men on a personal level, apart from their actions) b. I have almost no problem with Biden's age. His poor choices now are a reflection of age only insofar as that in some areas he's unable to shake off 20th century Washington brain (Israel being a glaring example)
Oh definitely, age isn't a factor as long as someone is still mentally and physically capable. Also, yeah, Biden has a tendency to think we're still back in the 1980s style of politics. We really do need someone younger, someone who has a stake in the future to come.
I need to spend some time looking her up. I've heard her name bandied about in higher circles and need to dig.
Whitmer's awesome. She doesn't back down, she gets shit done, and she won by 10 points in a state that had helped Trump get elected two years earlier. (Naturally, the Bernie wing of the party was fervently opposed to nominating her.)
I have to agree there is this romanticizing Biden when really Biden has been much closer to a dixiecrat who did not leave than a modern democrat. As for the fine ingredients to a Biden it is more like Biden is Olive Garden special. It is all canned and pretend semi edible crapola that is overpriced and told to you that it is fine cuisine. Even real italians do not like Olive garden, just like real repugs do not like Biden. This is what happens when you are frozen replica of what a corporation thinks is good. Any day of tyhe week I go down to my real Italian restaurant and can get some fine dining for much less. As for Fetterman, I like his fight, but I could have called this crap. I end up thinking this was a big money set up. Fetterman was red leaning conservative BDS to begin with. He might be liberal in some acceptance areas, but he is like a fucking white prosperous gay couple. Sure they seem all great because they are hanging at the gay club and will bring you home for a threesome with their wife????, but if you hang around enough yiou eventually realize brown people are for fucking and forgetting, and the darker they get the less they are for fucking even if they have money. That is because black doesn't look good in the family portfolio and they bring down values. That is complicit support for the racism and prejudice of white america.
That's it exactly. This video is about Minnesota but could easily be describing Michigan. Given a narrow majority but trifecta control they GET.SHIT.DONE. This is the future old school Democrats need to embrace, promote, celebrate, redefine their brand with - BOLD policy achievements. https://www.facebook.com/reel/805974201266247 and by the way, Biden HAS some bold policy achievements - almost entirely to the extent that he follows the advice of Warren school people in his Administration and in Congress (no disrespect to the Sanders folks but they are further out than Biden can bring himself to go, but you can get-shit-done that's bold and significant even if you can't go where Bernie and AOC are leading). I give Biden credit insofar as he was smart enough to know good policy when it was presented to him and didn't recoil in horror. And I assign blame to him inasmuch as it's presented to him and he can't bring himself to go there. In Minnesota and Michigan (in particular) they "went there" and it's been glorious. Now that Whitmer has ridden that wave there's no reason she wouldn't want to recreate it in Washington.
Whitmer will be portrayed as tyrannical because she (GASP) dared to try and protect her state during the lockdowns! And “ew, she’s a girl who wants power!!” Newsom could be taken down via “he’s from Commiefornia, and wants to take your guns!!” President Biden strikes me as someone who could be favorably compared to the late President Eisenhower. He’s not flashy, but he gets the job done.
