The Conspiracy of Silence to Protect Joe Biden (nymag.com)
Reporters Blame “Right-Wing Media†for Their Failure to Disclose Biden’s Infirmity – JONATHAN TURLEY
one week ago the curtain was pulled back and we all saw what was behind it. It was an important moment for the well being, safety and security of this country and the world.
I’ve enjoyed spending extra time with my peaceful tribe in the LR in the last week. Whether in your view I was “trolling” or “spewing nonsense” or saying things that just made you uncomfortable for whatever reason I have enjoyed my time and found it profitably spent.
My additional reason for spending some extra time here is my need to spend less time here in the near future.
The Republican National Convention is coming to town in a week and a half. I am looking forward to playing my small part in welcoming a unified and energized party to town and in assisting in any way I can to build a strong unified and positive vision for those in this country desperately seeking change and leadership at all levels.
I wish you well in working through your grief and your changes. I leave by spewing 2 more pieces of nonsense at you. And one last admonishment… you all knew this was true and you did and said nothing about it. you followed people here and elsewhere that were telling you things you wanted to hear while deciding other people saying things you didn’t want to hear were trolls. Don’t don’t don’t.
I am looking forward to playing my small part in welcoming a unified and energized party to town and in assisting in any way I can to build a strong unified and positive vision for those in this country desperately seeking change and leadership at all levels.
So you’ll be working to rid your party of the scourge of Trump and restore integrity, honesty, decency, and conservative values to the GOP. Good to hear.
Pro tip: you may want to consider an alternate slate of electors for the nomination process. If it doesn’t work, at least it may be considered an official act so you won’t need to worry about prosecution.
The Republican National Convention is coming to town in a week and a half. I am looking forward to playing my small part in welcoming a unified and energized party to town
Being unified in support of a serial liar, an adjudicated sexual abuser and fraudster, who was found guilty by a jury of 34 felony counts, that led an attack on the Capitol with fake electors waiting in the wings, and so on and so on, is not a strength. It is revealing of a deeply flawed party that puts power ahead of country.
Demonstrating any level of “energy” for the effort to re-elect that man further underscores the brokenness of the party and the people that are part of it.
I’d rather be fractured than be unified in support of someone wholly unworthy.
regarding your subject line, yes it has. Electing to go forward with the debate told me that Biden and his team were confident that he could (not would–as fingers were crossed) be equal to the task. If he passed they then would have kept in check the failing mental capacity storyline. Now for a week they have been circling the wagons in defense. On day 8 their defense appears not to be holding. And they know they have no other options but to continue to limit his “thinking on his feet” moments. Self confidence has sailed and is not returning. Pride, as a prime motivator, sucks and they know it.
This next week could offer even more significance and reveal. I applaud the honesty and openness (disunity if you will) of those supporters of Biden who have declared that it is over for him and are calling for his eventual decision to drop out of the race. A new found unity from the dems will then come easily with Harris or chaotically in an open convention, but it will come with a consensus candidate winning the nomination.
As for unity and leadership on your side? I’ll give you one (party unity) but not the other. Leastwise, a leader who can inspire beyond his cult numbers. He does a fine job still with his cult. When he gets matched against a new candidate who can stand toe to toe, hold the moral high ground and inspire the others not holding membership cards in the cult, then we have a new ballgame.
See its post like this, why its clear your Republican, now maybe a RINO not totally sure on it, I guess not, since you say its a unified party, which clearly its not its very split RINO and MAGA.
Not sure how telling the week is, we all knew both candidates are old and have mental issues, Joe’s really showed up at the Debate, and overshadowed Trumps, which all showed, with his bizarre rants and clear lies (no one is killing babies after birth).
The thing that has to be down right scary for the Republicans now, is your easiest win (which is still a close race) could be taken off the ticket. The Republican party has to be in great fear of that.
I really hope, the day before the Republican convention starts Joe Withdrawals, and the Dems do not come out with a plan till after the convention. What will MAGA do, I guess just rant about how no one will run against them. Cause we know Trump wont talk about his policies as he has none. (The wall, done and failed to get Mexico to pay for it, Revamp H.C. well he said that 4 yrs and never produced a plan, economy- his swap income tax for Tarrif’s bill was laughed at by everyone, End the Ukraine War in a day - well the Russian Ambassador already said yeah that is not happening. ) So with no candidate named yet to call names of (really he is even slipping with those laffy? really)
Anyhow, not really sure how important a week it has been nor revealing, as not a lot has changed, other than the Dems now have a higher chance of running someone who will take the election fairly easily. Time will tell if they do it.
Another 206,000 jobs added in June. This country really is in the shitter.
You know I don’t get into the budget spending, taxes, economy, inflation issue thing because it is way out of my comfort zone. But what little of it I do read I do find it hard to reconcile his in the shitter assessment.
The best I can do is that bread, butter, gas and rent cost more and there is an actual pocketbook hurt for some. Pocketbook status does play on election day.
Another 206,000 jobs added in June. This country really is in the shitter.
You know I don’t get into the budget spending, taxes, economy, inflation issue thing because it is way out of my comfort zone. But what little of it I do read I do find it hard to reconcile his in the shitter assessment.
The best I can do is that bread, butter, gas and rent cost more and there is an actual pocketbook hurt for some. Pocketbook status does play on election day.
But the NJ elite that post on ST don’t feel the pain of the common worker.
Another 206,000 jobs added in June. This country really is in the shitter.
You know I don’t get into the budget spending, taxes, economy, inflation issue thing because it is way out of my comfort zone. But what little of it I do read I do find it hard to reconcile his in the shitter assessment.
The best I can do is that bread, butter, gas and rent cost more and there is an actual pocketbook hurt for some. Pocketbook status does play on election day.
But the NJ elite that post on ST don’t feel the pain of the common worker.
I think the pain is that people 1) felt the benefits of widespread cash transfers and want that extra cash they had in 2021 2) see inflation as bad as mental models are not built against their wages and 3) feel that increasing wages are due to their productivity not inflation.
Another 206,000 jobs added in June. This country really is in the shitter.
You know I don’t get into the budget spending, taxes, economy, inflation issue thing because it is way out of my comfort zone. But what little of it I do read I do find it hard to reconcile his in the shitter assessment.
The best I can do is that bread, butter, gas and rent cost more and there is an actual pocketbook hurt for some. Pocketbook status does play on election day.
But the NJ elite that post on ST don’t feel the pain of the common worker.
You can try to deflect all you want, but if Trump had been President for the last 3.5 years, he’d be tweeting every day about how great the jobs market is, how low unemployment is, how much inflation has been reduced and how high the stock market is. And you would be agreeing with him.
But the NJ elite that post on ST don’t feel the pain of the common worker.
Real wage growth is in historically anomalous territory right now. “Real” meaning vs. inflation. Wage increases have outstripped inflation for 12 straight months, which is pretty unheard of.
And also post-pandemic, hourly wage earners outperformed those with college degrees in terms of wage growth for a number of quarters.
For nominal wage growth, from the below you can see that the blue line - college degrees - beat hourly workers for decades. Often by a whole percent. In growth that compounds over time. But in the post-pandemic inflation surge, you can see that hourly workers reversed that trend for a quarter, and then have matched those with college degrees for around two years.
Both of these trends are flattening, and things may eventually return to pre-pandemic trends. Both the Trump and Obama admins played roles in preventing the pandemic economy from crashing - even if they personally played no particular strong role in determining policy. While I feel the U.S. blew some aspects of the pandemic, I think we knocked the economic part out of the ballpark. If you’d asked people in 2020 what life would look like in 2024, I bet few would have picked an economy as rosy as ours is now on paper.
I think one lesson the elites learned during the pandemic is that when common people take a week off work the economy grinds to a fucking halt. They’re needed. Go figure. So better pay them just enough to keep working before siphoning off the rest to shareholders.
You’re right, I don’t know how it “feels” for the common worker. But I live in a small Western town with lots of “common people,” and I don’t see visible signs of distress. Anyone who wants to work can work. And get an historically decent wage on paper. Yes, food and other staples are more expensive. And luxury items are also more expensive. But wages are much higher as well. And I mean low-end wages. In my little town an entry-level McDonald’s worker makes $18/hour. That means a couple both starting jobs at McDonald’s could have a household income over $70K/year pre-tax. That was unheard of a few years ago.
But while I don’t know how it feels, I do know that an explicit tactic of the Trump campaign is to paint a dark, dark picture of life right now. People unable to afford staples, daughters raped by rampaging hordes of brown-skinned people, etc.
Another 206,000 jobs added in June. This country really is in the shitter.
You know I don’t get into the budget spending, taxes, economy, inflation issue thing because it is way out of my comfort zone. But what little of it I do read I do find it hard to reconcile his in the shitter assessment.
The best I can do is that bread, butter, gas and rent cost more and there is an actual pocketbook hurt for some. Pocketbook status does play on election day.
One big psychological aspect is that people think when they make more money it is because they deserve it, but when things are more expensive, that is some else fault.
So even though wages outpaced inflation by 4.5% over the past year, people would be happier if their wages grew 2% but inflation was 0, even though they are objectively better off with 4.5% growth. It partly explains why so many people rate their personal finances as much improved, but then say that the economy is bad.
The wildest is that the highest wage growth is at the lowest wages, the ones most sensitive to inflation. The lowest wage growth since 2020 has been for the highest earners, the ones least sensitive to inflation. That is amazing and basically the first time that has happened in 40 years.
**The biggest danger here is that policy makers will fear inflation so much they will never do what they did during COVID, spend a bunch of money, even though it was objectively the correct thing to do! They will prefer more people unemployed and stagnant wages, to avoid inflation, which will cause huge amounts of pain. **
Another 206,000 jobs added in June. This country really is in the shitter.
You know I don’t get into the budget spending, taxes, economy, inflation issue thing because it is way out of my comfort zone. But what little of it I do read I do find it hard to reconcile his in the shitter assessment.
The best I can do is that bread, butter, gas and rent cost more and there is an actual pocketbook hurt for some. Pocketbook status does play on election day.
You could ask why certain disingenuous posters didn’t mention the the unemployment rate went up if you were curious.
You could also ask why they neglected to mention May’s number was revised down from 272 to 218.
Also you could point out 70K of the gain was government jobs. (49K was also social assistance jobs leading one to ask some questions whereas professionals saw job losses).
Another 206,000 jobs added in June. This country really is in the shitter.
You know I don’t get into the budget spending, taxes, economy, inflation issue thing because it is way out of my comfort zone. But what little of it I do read I do find it hard to reconcile his in the shitter assessment.
The best I can do is that bread, butter, gas and rent cost more and there is an actual pocketbook hurt for some. Pocketbook status does play on election day.
But the NJ elite that post on ST don’t feel the pain of the common worker.
You could ask why certain disingenuous posters didn’t mention the the unemployment rate went up if you were curious.
Unemployment rate under about 5% is considered to be pretty much full employment and healthy. It’s expected that at any given time some people are looking for jobs. So 4% to 4.1% is pretty much irrelevant. 4-5% is sometimes referred to as “frictional unemployment,” or the unemployment that’s workers just trying to get better jobs or change careers.
Also you might ask how the unemployment rate can rise while so many jobs are being added? Well it’s because the labor participation rate increased. By the same 1/10th of percent. Also the prime age rate (ages 24-54) rose to 83.7%, the highest in 22 years. This is fantastic news. Not only has prime age labor participation healed itself from the pandemic, it’s at historically high levels. The fear mongering that all the pandemic “dole” handouts was going to destroy the will of the American worker and lead to legions of people dependent on handouts for life turned out to be completely unfounded. No one works as hard as Americans - for better or worse.
Of course you know all this, but were just intentionally lying to fit your narrative. I’m just throwing it out there in case someone actually bought your schtick. Though I think most people are on to you at this point.
You could ask why certain disingenuous posters didn’t mention the the unemployment rate went up if you were curious.
Unemployment rate under about 5% is considered to be pretty much full employment and healthy. It’s expected that at any given time some people are looking for jobs. So 4% to 4.1% is pretty much irrelevant.
Also you might ask how the unemployment rate can rise while so many jobs are being added? Well it’s because the labor participation rate increased. By the same 1/10th of percent. Also the prime age rate (ages 24-54) rose to 83.7%, the highest in 22 years. This is fantastic news. Not only has prime age labor participation healed itself from the pandemic, it’s at historically high levels. The fear mongering that all the pandemic “dole” handouts was going to destroy the will of the American worker and lead to legions of people dependent on handouts for life turned out to be completely unfounded. No one works as hard as Americans - for better or worse.
Of course you know all this, but were just intentionally lying to fit your narrative. I’m just throwing it out there in case someone actually bought your schtick. Though I think most people are on to you at this point.
I’m lying? Piss off wanker. I just literally listed off facts. I’m not the trying to pass off the headline number (which is for muppets) as some evidence the jobs situation is great. The jobs report was so fucking rosey Jan is calling for a rate cut in September
You could ask why certain disingenuous posters didn’t mention…
The labor force participation rate? Remember when LFPR was your primary squawk to deflect from good economic numbers?
LFPR April 2019 62.8
LFPR April 2024 62.7
For the primary age groups it is the highest it has ever been.
Labor Force Participation Rate - 25-54 Yrs. (LNS11300060) | FRED | St. Louis Fed (stlouisfed.org)
