The shutdown is the eleventh in U.S. history resulting in curtailment of government services, and the third under President Donald Trump. It is the first U.S. federal government shutdown since the 2018–2019 shutdown.
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Every single government shutdown over the past several decades has been the fault of the Republicans, which because of their bigoted Conservative ideology refuse to compromise with Democrats on anything, resulting in completely unnecessary partisan gridlock.
This matter is especially frustrating because Republicans control BOTH houses of Congress, plus Donald Trump, a Republican, is President, so passing a budget reflecting Republican priorities should be a simple matter. The problem: not all Republicans are MAGA extremists like Trump is, and so these moderates are reluctant to support a budget that cuts down the federal government. But the LEADERS of the Congressional Republicans ARE MAGA extremists and control the agenda.
A political leadership that refuses to compromise with opposing parties is authoritarian in nature and thus is unfit to rule or be representatives in a diverse Democracy. The Republican Party itself is illegitimate and must be brought down completely and replaced by another party that respects the standards and principles of the United States Constitution itself.
Google Bard was renamed Gemini, so I wondered if this new version of an A I chatbot made by Google was better than the one I dealt with in 2023. So I asked it the same question as before:
What are the ten most evil people in history?
And I got:
While it’s impossible to definitively create a list of the “ten most evil people in history” due to the subjective nature of “evil” and the complexities of historical figures, here are ten individuals who are widely considered responsible for immense suffering and atrocities:
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945): As the leader of Nazi Germany, Hitler orchestrated the Holocaust, the systematic genocide of approximately six million Jews and millions of others. His aggression also initiated World War II, leading to the deaths of tens of millions more.
Joseph Stalin (1878-1953): The dictator of the Soviet Union for over three decades, Stalin’s regime was responsible for the deaths of millions through forced collectivization, famines, purges, and a brutal system of forced labor camps known as the Gulag.
Pol Pot (1925-1998): The leader of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, Pol Pot oversaw the Cambodian genocide (1975-1979), in which an estimated two million people were killed through execution, starvation, disease, and forced labor in a radical attempt to create an agrarian communist society.
Idi Amin (c. 1925-2003): The president of Uganda in the 1970s, Amin’s brutal and erratic rule was marked by widespread human rights abuses, extrajudicial killings, political repression, and the expulsion of Uganda’s Asian population, leading to economic devastation and the deaths of an estimated 300,000 people.
Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945): As the head of the SS in Nazi Germany, Himmler was a key architect of the Holocaust and oversaw the vast network of concentration and extermination camps. He was also responsible for the Einsatzgruppen death squads operating in Eastern Europe.
Vlad the Impaler (c. 1431-1476/77): The Prince of Wallachia, Vlad III is notorious for his extreme cruelty, particularly his extensive use of impalement as a form of punishment and warfare, which instilled terror in his enemies.
Genghis Khan (c. 1162-1227): The founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, Genghis Khan led brutal military campaigns that resulted in the widespread destruction of cities and the deaths of millions across Asia. While he also established a unified empire and implemented progressive laws for his time, the scale of death and devastation associated with his conquests is undeniable.
Attila the Hun (c. 406-453): The leader of the Hunnic Empire, Attila led devastating invasions into the Roman Empire, leaving a trail of destruction and earning the moniker “the Scourge of God.”
Ivan the Terrible (1530-1584): The first Tsar of Russia, Ivan IV initially implemented reforms but later became increasingly paranoid and tyrannical, conducting purges and massacres, most notably the Sack of Novgorod, against perceived enemies.
Leopold II of Belgium (1835-1909): As the personal owner of the Congo Free State, Leopold II oversaw a brutal regime of forced labor and exploitation of the Congolese population for rubber extraction, leading to the death and mutilation of millions.
It is important to remember that this list is not exhaustive and other individuals throughout history could be considered among the most evil based on their actions and the suffering they caused. The study of such figures serves as a stark reminder of the dangers of unchecked power, hatred, and ideological extremism.
And here are my responses to the new entries on the list:
5. Himmler was not only one of the worst figures working for Hitler, in the end he tried to surrender to the Allies to save his own skin, angering Hitler himself, who disowned Himmler just before committing suicide. Himmler himself would die by suicide as well to avoid being tried as a war criminal. Still, I wouldn’t put him on this list. He was Hitler’s FOLLOWER, the most evil ones in history are LEADERS.
7. Genghis Khan was not much different from other conquerors in history; he was just a lot more successful at what he did than most. Ask a Mongolian today if they think he was evil.
8. Indeed, Attila was so horrible that even other barbarian leaders would side with the Romans to fight against him. Specifically, it was an allied army of Romans and Visigoths who brought down his empire.
So….what would MY list of most evil people in history consist of?
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945): The leader of the Nazi Party and Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945. Hitler was responsible for the Holocaust, the genocide of six million Jews, as well as the deaths of millions of other people, including Roma, homosexuals, and Soviet prisoners of war.
Joseph Stalin (1878-1953): The dictator of the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1953. Stalin was responsible for the deaths of millions of his own people, including through purges, executions, and forced labor.
Pol Pot (1925-1998): The leader of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. Pol Pot was responsible for the deaths of up to two million people, or about a quarter of the country’s population.
Caligula (AD 12-AD 41): The completely insane Roman Emperor that was so horrible to so many that even his own guards finally turned on and killed him after a few years.
Leopold II of Belgium (1835-1909): The King of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909. Leopold was the personal owner of the Congo Free State, a private colony in Central Africa. Leopold’s brutal exploitation of the Congolese people led to the deaths of millions of people.
Mao Zedong (1893-1976): The leader of the Chinese Communist Party and Chairman of the People’s Republic of China from 1949 to 1976. Mao’s policies, such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, led to the deaths of tens of millions of people.
Attila the Hun (c. 406-453): The leader of the Hunnic Empire, Attila led devastating invasions into the Roman Empire, leaving a trail of destruction and earning the moniker “the Scourge of God.”
Tomás de Torquemada (1420 – 1498): Leader of the Spanish Inquisition, he championed torture of many non-Catholics in Spain as “heretics”, often burning his victims at the stake after forcing them to confess to their “sins”.
Andrew Jackson (1767 – 1845): President of the United States, he was a notorious racist responsible for the infamous “Trail of Tears” in which vast numbers of Native Americans were forced to move off their lands and head west to Oklahoma.
Charles Manson (1934 – 2017): The cult leader and lunatic who caused his followers to kill several people, including a pregnant woman and her unborn baby. Even after being sent to prison, he remained unrepentant to the end of his life. He is one reason I have no problem with the death penalty being used in extreme cases like his.
And a dishonorable mention for one that is, unfortunately, still living among us.
Donald Trump (1946 – ) The current President of the United States, so degenerate in his character that some have even suggested he is the Anti-Christ. He is certainly the most amoral one we have ever had, if his personal life is any indication and his racism and other bigotries are well known too. By all appearances, he is a sociopathic narcissist…..much like some others on this list.
Germans mourn the 5 killed and 200 injured in the apparent attack on a Christmas market
MAGDEBURG, Germany (AP) — Germans on Saturday mourned the victims of an apparent attack in which authorities say a doctor drove into a busy outdoor Christmas market, killing five people, injuring 200 others and shaking the public’s sense of security at what would otherwise be a time of joy.
The alleged attack Friday evening in Magdeburg, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) west of Berlin, killed a 9-year-old and four adults and injured 41 people badly enough that authorities warned the death toll could rise.
Magdeburg marked the tragedy Saturday with the tolling church bells at 7:04 p.m., the exact time of the attack in the city of roughly 240,000 people.
The driver, a 50-year-old doctor who immigrated from Saudi Arabia in 2006, surrendered to police at the scene. He’s being investigated for five counts of suspected murder and 205 counts of suspected attempted murder, prosecutor Horst Walter Nopens said at a news conference.
Among other things, investigators are looking into whether the attack could have been motivated by the suspect’s dissatisfaction with the way Germany treats Saudi refugees, Nopens said.
“There is no more peaceful and cheerful place than a Christmas market,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said. “What a terrible act it is to injure and kill so many people there with such brutality.”
Although Nopens mentioned the treatment of Saudi immigrants angle, authorities said Saturday that they still didn’t know why the suspect drove his black BMW into the crowded market.
Police haven’t publicly named the suspect, but several German news outlets identified him as Taleb A., withholding his last name in line with privacy laws, and reported that he was a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy.
Describing himself as a former Muslim, the suspect appears to have been an active user of the social media platform X, sharing dozens of tweets and retweets daily focusing on anti-Islam themes, criticizing the religion and congratulating Muslims who had left the faith.
He also accused German authorities of failing to do enough to combat what he referred to as the “Islamification of Europe.”
Magdeburg is shaken
The violence shocked Germany and Magdeburg, which is the capital of the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, bringing its mayor to the verge of tears and marring the centuries-old German tradition of Christmas markets. It led several other communities to cancel their weekend Christmas markets as a precaution and out of solidarity with Magdeburg’s loss. Berlin kept its many markets open but increased its police presence at them.
Germany has suffered a string of extremist attacks in recent years, including a knife attack that killed three people and wounded eight at a festival in the western city of Solingen in August.
Chancellor Scholz and Interior Minister Nancy Faeser traveled to Magdeburg, where a memorial service took place Saturday. Faeser ordered flags lowered to half-staff at federal buildings across the country.
Although many people went to the site with candles to mourn the victims, several hundred far-right protesters gathered in a central square in Magdeburg with a banner that read “remigration,” German news agency dpa reported.
A witness recounts the horrifying attack
Verified bystander footage distributed by dpa showed the suspect’s arrest at a tram stop in the middle of the road. A nearby police officer pointing a handgun at the man shouted at him as he lay prone, his head arched up slightly. Other officers swarmed around the suspect and took him into custody.
Thi Linh Chi Nguyen, a 34-year-old manicurist from Vietnam whose salon is in a mall across from the Christmas market, was on the phone during a break when she heard loud bangs that she thought were fireworks. She then saw a car drive through the market at high speed. People screamed and a child was thrown into the air by the car.
Shaking as she described what she had witnessed, she recalled seeing the car bursting out of the market and turning right onto Ernst-Reuter-Allee street and then coming to a standstill at the tram stop where the suspect was arrested.
The number of injured people was overwhelming.
“My husband and I helped them for two hours. He ran back home and grabbed as many blankets as he could find because they didn’t have enough to cover the injured people. And it was so cold,” she said.
The market itself was still cordoned off Saturday with red and white tape and police vans, as armed officers guarded at every entrance. Some thermal security blankets still lay on the street.
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So let me get this straight…..this doctor, a domestic TERRORIST, killed and injured people because of his hatred for Islam?! REALLY???!!! HOW DOES HURTING INNOCENT BYSTANDERS DISCREDIT ISLAM?!
Maybe this guy should be DEPORTED back to Saudi Arabia and then the Saudis can punish him, since I know already the Germans won’t give him the death penalty if he is kept in Germany.
All this does is make Islam and Muslims look sympathetic, the exact opposite of what that idiot intended!
President Joe Biden issues pardon for son Hunter Biden
President Joe Biden has pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, who was convicted on federal gun charges and is due for sentencing in December.
Despite the White House’s assurances last month that the president had no intentions of pardoning his son, the announcement came through on Sunday evening that he had pardoned him.
In a statement, he said, “Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter,” for what he called a “miscarriage of justice.”
“From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,” he wrote.
President Biden also mentioned “political opponents in Congress,” whom he credited for instigating the charges and for ensuring that a plea deal, composed in July, fell apart in August.
The statement concluded, “Here’s the truth: I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice – and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further. I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.”
Over the summer, a jury found the younger Biden guilty on three felony counts related to his purchase and possession of a firearm while addicted to drugs. And in September, Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to nine tax-related charges, including three felonies, on the eve of what was expected to be a lengthy and grueling trial.
For the tax charges, Hunter Biden faced up to 17 years in federal prison and $1.35 million in fines. His gun-related conviction carried a potential of up to 25 years in prison.
Hunter Biden was scheduled to face sentencing for both cases in the coming weeks – on Dec. 12 on the gun-related charges in Delaware, and Dec. 16 on the tax charges in California.
Asked about the president’s intentions to pardon Hunter Biden on Nov. 7, shortly after the election results came through in favor of Donald Trump, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “We’ve been asked that question multiple times. Our answer stands, which is no.”
She declined to comment on any other pardons the president may make before the end of his term, including any administration officials or people threatened by President-elect Donald Trump with legal action.
President Biden had also previously told ABC News’ David Muir that he did not intend to pardon his son, during an interview in June.
He said, at the time, that he would accept the results of the trial.
At a White House briefing in June, President Biden also stated, “I’m extremely proud of my son Hunter. He has overcome an addiction. He is — he’s one of the brightest, most decent men I know.”
He added, “I said I’d abide by the jury decision, and I will do that. And I will not pardon him.”
He released a statement on Sunday, saying, “I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction – mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport. Despite all of this, I have maintained my sobriety for more than five years because of my deep faith and the unwavering love and support of my family and friends. In the throes of addiction, I squandered many opportunities and advantages. In recovery we can be given the opportunity to make amends where possible and rebuild our lives if we never take for granted the mercy that we have been afforded.”
The statement continued, “I will never take the clemency I have been given today for granted and will devote the life I have rebuilt to helping those who are still sick and suffering.”
Within an hour of President Biden’s pardon, Hunter Biden’s legal team filed perfunctory notices with the courts in both criminal cases. Attorneys wrote, “The President’s pardon moots Mr. Biden’s pending and yet to occur sentencing and entry of judgment in this case and requires an automatic dismissal of the Indictment with prejudice.”
For the record, if President Biden had issued that pardon after Kamala Harris was elected last month. I would have opposed such a move. But Donald Trump being elected means that the American people have decided once and for all that they do NOT want an ethical leadership. They WANT corruption, bigotry, cruelty and incompetence in America’s leadership, period! So President Biden has leaned his lesson and has given up; Republicans have ruthlessly treated ethical consistency as a weakness, and sought to punish Democrats like President Clinton for ethical failures, such as in his affair with Monica Lewinski, but even he had a sense of shame after owning up to that incident. Republicans like Trump have no shame whatsoever. Richard Nixon was pardoned for Watergate by Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan was never punished in any way for the Iran-Contra scandal, and President Bush Jr. was actually reelected after starting a totally needless war against Iraq.
Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter. From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted. Without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases, or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser, people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form. Those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties, are typically given non-criminal resolutions. It is clear that Hunter was treated differently.
The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election. Then, a carefully negotiated plea deal, agreed to by the Department of Justice, unraveled in the court room – with a number of my political opponents in Congress taking credit for bringing political pressure on the process. Had the plea deal held, it would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases.
No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong. There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.
For my entire career I have followed a simple principle: just tell the American people the truth. They’ll be fair-minded. Here’s the truth: I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice – and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further. I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.
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Executive Grant of Clemency Joseph R. Biden, Jr. President of the United States of America To All to Whom These Presents Shall Come, Greeting: Be It Known, That This Day, I, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., President of the United States, Pursuant to My Powers Under Article II, Section 2, Clause 1, of the Constitution, Have Granted Unto ROBERT HUNTER BIDEN A Full and Unconditional Pardon For those offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024, including but not limited to all offenses charged or prosecuted (including any that have resulted in convictions) by Special Counsel David C. Weiss in Docket No. 1:23-cr-00061-MN in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware and Docket No. 2:23-CR-00599-MCS-1 in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF I have hereunto signed my name and caused the Pardon to be recorded with the Department of Justice. Done at the City of Washington this 1st day of December in the year of our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty-four and of the Independence of the United States the Two Hundred and Forty-ninth.
No one who watched Trump misuse his position as President from 2017 to 2021 should object to Biden doing what Trump would have done for any of his own kids in the same situation.
When Republicans start supporting and electing ethical leaders again, I will take their whining about possible corruption in government caused or enabled by Democrats seriously.
If Republicans like Nixon did not go to prison for Watergate and Trump does not go to prison for his criminal convictions, why should a Democrat like Hunter Biden pay any legal penalty? The playing field is now leveled for both parties.
Satire publication The Onion buys Alex Jones’ Infowars at auction with Sandy Hook families’ backing
By DAVE COLLINS
Updated 2:33 PM CST, November 14, 2024
The satirical news publication The Onion won the bidding for Alex Jones’ Infowars at a bankruptcy auction, backed by families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims whom Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation judgments for calling the massacre a hoax.
The purchase turns over Jones’ company, which for decades has peddled in conspiracy and misinformation, to a humor website that plans to relaunch the Infowars platform in January as a parody. Within hours of the sale’s announcement Thursday, Infowars’ website was down and Jones was broadcasting from what he said was a new studio location.
“The dissolution of Alex Jones’ assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for,” Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the 2012 shooting in Connecticut, said in a statement provided by his lawyers.
The Onion acquired the conspiracy theory platform’s website; social media accounts; studio in Austin, Texas; trademarks; and video archive for an undisclosed sales price.
The satirical outlet — which carries the banner of “America’s Finest News Source” on its masthead — was founded in the 1980s and for decades has skewered politics and pop culture, including making Jones a frequent target of mocking articles. Mass shootings in the U.S., such as the Sandy Hook attack, are often followed by The Onion publishing slightly updated versions of one of its most well-known recurring pieces: “‘No Way to Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.”
“No price would be too high for such a cornucopia of malleable assets and minds,” The Onion said in a satirical post about the sale. “And yet, in a stroke of good fortune, a formidable special interest group has outwitted the hapless owner of InfoWars (a forgettable man with an already-forgotten name) and forced him to sell it at a steep bargain: less than one trillion dollars.”
On his live broadcast, Jones was angry and defiant, vowing to challenge the sale in court and calling it “a total attack on free speech.” He later announced his show was being shut down. Jones, who had told listeners for days that he had a new studio set up nearby, then resumed his broadcast from the new location, carrying them live on his accounts on X.
He claimed the takeover by The Onion was premature because the bankruptcy judge had not yet signed off on the winning bid.
A Jones-affiliated company named by the bankruptcy trustee as the backup bid requested an immediate status conference, citing “the apparent defects in the sale process, including changing the procedures, lack of transparency, and inaccurate disclosures to interested bidders.” A hearing was scheduled for Thursday afternoon in Houston.
The Onion, based in Chicago, consulted on the bidding with some of the Sandy Hook families that sued Jones for defamation and emotional distress in lawsuits in Connecticut and Texas, lawyers for the families said.
“Our clients knew that true accountability meant an end to Infowars and an end to Jones’ ability to spread lies, pain and fear at scale,” said Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the families.
Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, told The Associated Press in a video interview that it will relaunch the Infowars website in January with satire aimed at conspiracy theorists and right-wing personalities, as well as educational information about gun violence prevention from the group Everytown for Gun Safety. Collins would not disclose the sale price.
“We thought it would be a very funny joke if we bought this thing, probably one of the better jokes we’ve ever told,” Collins said. “The (Sandy Hook) families decided they would effectively join our bid, back our bid, to try to get us over the finish line. Because by the end of the day, it was us or Alex Jones, who could either continue this website unabated, basically unpunished, for what he’s done to these families over the years, or we could make a dumb, stupid website, and we decided to do the second thing.”
John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, said the organization will be the exclusive advertiser on the new Infowars website.
“When you think about the unmitigated harm that Alex Jones and Infowars brought to Sandy Hook families, it’s just poetic justice that now Everytown and The Onion together will open a new chapter on Infowars and a chapter that is devoted to the issue of gun safety,” he told the AP.
Jones did not lose his personal X account, which has more than 3 million followers, in the auction. But the bankruptcy judge is deciding whether his personal accounts can be sold off at the trustee’s request.
Sandy Hook families sued Jones and his company for repeatedly saying on his show that the shooting that killed 20 children and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax staged by crisis actors to spur more gun control. Parents and children of many of the victims testified that they were traumatized by Jones’ conspiracies and threats by his followers. Jones has since acknowledged the shooting was “100% real.”
The Onion bills itself as “the world’s leading news publication, offering highly acclaimed, universally revered coverage of breaking national, international, and local news events” and says it has 4.3 trillion daily readers. Recent headlines have included, “Trump Boys Have Slap Fight Over Who Gets To Run Foreign Policy Meetings,” “Oklahoma Law Requires Ten Commandments To Be Displayed In Every Womb” and “Man Forgetting Difference Between Meteoroid, Meteorite Struggles To Describe What Just Killed His Dog.”
Sealed bids for the private auction were opened Wednesday. The bankruptcy trustee named First United American Companies, which is affiliated with one of Jones’ product-selling sites, as the backup bid should the sale to The Onion fall through.
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You can oppose gun control without lying about one of the issues related to gun control. The simple fact that Alex Jones lied outright about such a sensitive issue is proof enough to me that the cause of opposing gun control is worthless.
Alex Jones really should be in prison, but the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech and the press means that it is perfectly LEGAL to tell lies for the sake of political propaganda. Which is why he and others like him have to be sued instead. Slander and libel are civil rather than criminal issues.
There should be NO legal or civil penalty for telling and printing the TRUTH, but lies about anything or anyone should never be tolerated anymore. The First Amendment in its current form is worthless and it should be replaced. I would recommend it say:
“Neither the federal government nor any state in the United States shall have an established religious body of any kind, and while truthful speech and postings in the media must always be protected, slanderous and libelous statements of any kind are prohibited and will be subject to prosecution”
President Joe Biden drops out of 2024 presidential race
Biden, after a five-decade career, faced a reckoning over his age and his ability to defeat Trump. He endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his party faces a historic effort to replace him.
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he will end his presidential re-election campaign, bringing an abrupt and humbling conclusion to his half-century-long political career and scrambling the race for the White House less than four months before Election Day.
Biden, 81, could not reverse growing sentiment within his party that he was too frail to serve and destined to lose to Donald Trump in November. He backed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him as the Democratic nominee.
“While it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” Biden wrote in a letter posted on X. “I will speak to the Nation later this week in more detail about my decision.”
Biden thanked Harris for “being an extraordinary partner” in his letter and then endorsed her in a subsequent post.
“My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President,” Biden posted. “And it’s been the best decision I’ve made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year.”
Biden and Harris spoke multiple times Sunday ahead of the president’s announcement, according to a source familiar with the campaign.
In a statement, Harris thanked Biden for “his extraordinary leadership” and his “remarkable legacy of achievement.”
“I am honored to have the President’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” Harris said. “I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party — and unite our nation — to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda,” she said.
Biden — who for weeks had insisted publicly that he planned to stay in the race — told his senior team he had changed his mind about continuing his campaign at 1:45 p.m. ET, according to a source with direct knowledge. The tweet announcing his decision was sent at 1:46 p.m.
His withdrawal caps a singular national political career, bookended by Richard Nixon’s fall and Trump’s rise. He mounted four presidential bids. He spent 36 years in the U.S. Senate representing tiny Delaware. He rose to the chairmanships of the powerful Judiciary and Foreign Relations committees. And he served eight years as Barack Obama’s vice president.
‘Great public servant’
Reactions from politicians quickly began pouring in.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote in a post on X that Biden “has been an extraordinary, history-making president — a leader who has fought hard for working people and delivered astonishing results for all Americans.”
“He will go down in history as one of the most impactful and selfless presidents,” said Newsom, who was one of the most prominent Biden surrogates. Newsom has been floated as a possible Democratic presidential contender, but threw his support behind Harris hours after the announcement, saying in a post on X that “no one is better to prosecute the case against Donald Trump’s dark vision and guide our country in a healthier direction than America’s Vice President, @KamalaHarris.”
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, another prominent Democrat talked about as a future national candidate, called Biden a “great public servant” in a post on X.
“My job in this election will remain the same: doing everything I can to elect Democrats and stop Donald Trump, a convicted felon whose agenda of raising families’ costs, banning abortion nationwide, and abusing the power of the White House to settle his own scores is completely wrong for Michigan,” Whitmer wrote.
First lady Jill Biden reposted her husband’s announcement with heart emojis. “Down to the last hours of the decision only he could make, she was supportive of whatever road he chose,” said her communications director, Elizabeth Alexander.
Across the aisle, Republicans slammed the move and many called on him to resign from office, days after the completion of a Republican National Convention where speaker after speaker slammed the Biden-Harris ticket.
“If Joe Biden is not fit to run for president, he is not fit to serve as President. He must resign the office immediately,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson.
In a brief phone interview with NBC News, Trump reacted to Biden’s decision, calling the president “the worst president in the history of the United States by far.”
When asked whether he was surprised by Biden’s decision, Trump said that Biden “should never have been there in the first place.”
“He should have stayed in his basement,” Trump said.
In a fundraising email, Trump’s campaign said that Biden “quit the race in complete disgrace.”
An unprecedented decision
Biden’s decision to exit the race less than a month before his party’s convention and a few months before voters head to the polls is unprecedented in the modern political era. The last sitting president to abandon a re-election bid was Lyndon Johnson, whose expansion of the Vietnam War in the 1960s split the Democratic Party. But Johnson’s announcement came in March 1968 — eight months before that election.
“We’re in uncharted waters,” said Barbara Perry, a presidential studies professor at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. “No president has dropped out or died this close to the convention.”
Replacing Biden atop the Democratic ticket is likely to set off internal Democratic tremors as ambitious officials maneuver to become his successor. Factions have already formed around Harris, Whitmer and Newsom.
Harris, who at 59 is 22 years younger than Biden, would seem to be the heir apparent. She broke a barrier as the first female vice president. A woman of color, she enjoys strong support among African Americans, a loyal piece of the Democratic coalition. Overall, though, Harris’ approval rating stood at only 32% in an NBC News poll released earlier this month.
“There’s no one you can name right now who is an obvious substitute,” Perry said. “That’s what makes this so uncertain and chaotic.”
Unlike Republican delegates, who are bound to their candidate, Democratic delegates aren’t, so they are free to do what they want at the convention. Biden could have some influence over the delegates, but they could vote for a different candidate than his chosen pick, pending any rule changes at the convention meant to address this unprecedented situation. The rules currently say that the delegates simply have to “in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.”
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Biden has proven, once and for all, that he is a better man than Trump. And it doesn’t surprise me that Republicans are angry over this move. Kamala Harris taking on Trump directly and tearing him apart in public will be their worst nightmare!
Building now for a conservative victory through policy, personnel, and training.
It is not enough for conservatives to win elections. If we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left, we need both a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on Day One of the next conservative Administration.
This is the goal of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project. The project will build on four pillars that will, collectively, pave the way for an effective conservative Administration.
I wonder what “radical Left” they could possibly be talking about. The only radical Leftist movements in America I know about are socialist or communist in nature and those have never been popular here. The Democrats currently in power under President Biden are moderate or centrist in nature; only a minority can be called leftist and they don’t have much influence now. I do wish they did, though.
The actions of liberal politicians in Washington have created a desperate need and unique opportunity for conservatives to start undoing the damage the Left has wrought and build a better country for all Americans in 2025.
What damage are they talking about? And how will their polices benefit Americans that are not benefiting now under the present policies of government?
The project is the effort of a broad coalition of conservative organizations that have come together to ensure a successful administration begins in January 2025. With the right conservative policy recommendations and properly vetted and trained personnel to implement them, we will take back our government.
The 2025 Presidential Transition Project is being organized by The Heritage Foundation and builds off Heritage’s longstanding “Mandate for Leadership,” which has been highly influential for presidential administrations since the Reagan era. Most recently, the Trump administration relied heavily on Heritage’s “Mandate” for policy guidance, embracing nearly two-thirds of Heritage’s proposals within just one year in office.
Paul Dans, former chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) during the Trump administration, serves as the director of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project. Spencer Chretien, former special assistant to the president and associate director of Presidential Personnel, serves as associate director of the project.
So what do they want to do, exactly?
Policy Agenda
This book is an invitation for you the reader—Mr. Smith, Mrs. Smith, and Ms. Smith—to come to Washington or support those who can. Our goal is to assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained, and prepared conservatives to go to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative State.
This book is the product of more than 400 scholars and policy experts from across the conservative movement and around the country. Contributors include former elected officials, world-renowned economists, and veterans from four presidential Administrations. This is an agenda prepared by and for conservatives who will be ready on Day One of the next Administration to save our country. The Heritage Foundation is once again facilitating this work, but as our dozens of partners and hundreds of authors will attest, this book is the work of the entire conservative movement.
The next conservative President will enter office on January 20, 2025, with a simple choice: greatness or failure. It will be a daunting test, but no more so than every other generation of Americans has faced and passed. The Conservative Promise represents the best effort of the conservative movement in 2023—and the next conservative President’s last opportunity to save our republic.
Save our country and republic from WHAT? And why should I have to buy and read a BOOK to understand what their plans are? Moving on….
On page 19 of their book, we read the following:
America’s Bicentennial, which culminated on July 4, 1976, was a spirited and unifying celebration of our country, its Founding, and its ideals. As we approach our nation’s 250th anniversary, which will take place during the next presidency, America is now divided between two opposing forces: woke revolutionaries and those who believe in the ideals of the American revolution. The former believe that America is—and always has been—“systemically racist” and that it is not worth celebrating and must be fundamentally transformed, largely through a centralized administrative state. The latter believe in America’s history and heroes, its principles and promise, and in everyday Americans and the American way of life. They believe in the Constitution and republican government. Conservatives—the Americanists in this battle—must fight for the soul of America, which is very much at stake.
More false buzzwords. At the time of the American Revolution, race based slavery was an institution in the southern states. It took a civil war and the passage of the 13th Amendment to abolish slavery. Additional Constitutional Amendments (the 14th and 15th) enabled the federal government to stop states from passing laws to discriminate against newly freed slaves. You know who favored slavery and also championed the concept of “states rights” in opposition to federal authorities banning racist policies in southern states? CONSERVATIVES! And after the Reconstruction period, they won control of the southern states and were able to force racist policies and laws anyway, and it wasn’t until the mid-20th Century that the Supreme Court and the Congress began to change things in accordance to the 14th and 15th Amendments.
Many of America’s “heros” were slaveowners, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Are these promoters of Project 2025 saying we should accept slavery again because some of our Founding Fathers owned slaves? Moving on to page 283…..
When our Founders wrote in the Constitution that the federal government would “promote the general Welfare,” they could not have fathomed a massive bureaucracy that would someday spend $3 trillion in a single year—roughly the sum, combined, spent by the departments covered in this section in 2022. Approximately half of that colossal sum was spent by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) alone—the belly of the massive behemoth that is the modern administrative state. HHS is home to Medicare and Medicaid, the principal drivers of our $31 trillion national debt. When Congress passed and President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law these programs, they were set on autopilot with no plan for how to pay for them. The first year that Medicare spending was visible on the books was 1967. From that point on through 2020—according to the American Main Street Initiative’s analysis of o cial federal tallies—Medicare and Medicaid combined cost $17.8 trillion, while our combined federal deficits over that same span were $17.9 trillion. In essence, our deficit problem is a Medicare and Medicaid problem.
So….what was the amount of our Defense spending in 2022?
The United States’ defense budget for fiscal year (FY) 2022 was $782 billion, as agreed upon by a bipartisan group in March 2022. This was part of a $1.5 trillion budget for the year, which helped avoid a government shutdown. However, actual military spending in 2022 was closer to $1.537 trillion, which is more than double the officially acknowledged amount. This increase was largely due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, after which the U.S. provided over 40 billion euros in military aid to the country.
So where the hell did the Project 2025 people get that 3 trillion dollar amount regarding welfare spending from? If they want to cut that, why not cut military spending as well? Oh, wait, Republicans have always favored MORE Defense spending, not less. As often do Democrats.
The real problem with our deficits is Republicans cutting taxes to the rich instead of making them pay their fair share of the responsibility for maintaining our way of life. Those that have more should naturally pay more.
Speaking of Defense issues, we read this on page 87:
“Ever since our Founding,” former acting secretary of defense Christopher Miller writes in Chapter 4, “Americans have understood that the surest way to avoid war is to be prepared for it in peace.” Yet the Department of Defense “is a deeply troubled institution.” It has emphasized leftist politics over military readiness, “Recruiting was the worst in 2022 that it has been in two generations,” and “the Biden Administration’s profoundly unserious equity agenda and vaccine mandates have taken a serious toll.” Additionally, Miller writes that “the atrophy of our defense industrial base, the impact of sequestration, and effective disarmament by many U.S. allies have exacted a high toll on America’s military.” Moreover, our military has adopted a risk-averse culture—think of masked soldiers, sailors, and airmen—rather than instilling and rewarding courage in thought and action.
You know this is all in code, right? The “profoundly unserious equity agenda” must refer to allowing LGBT people to join the military. “Vaccine mandates” refer to efforts to stop the spread of covid 19 and other diseases, which would naturally weaken our troops and therefore our defense abilities. What idiots!
Then on page 657 of the book:
The next Administration must prioritize the economic prosperity of ordinary Americans. For several decades, establishment “elites” have failed the citizenry by refusing to secure the border, outsourcing manufacturing to China and elsewhere, spending recklessly, regulating constantly, and generally controlling the country from the top down rather than letting it flourish from the bottom up.
Lies. Most of the outsourcing to China and elsewhere is a direct result of the globalization of capitalism, which is not the fault of governments, but of private corporations obsessed, quite naturally, with making their profit margins as large as possible. It would take government action to BAN such outsourcing. As for securing the border, I think that is code for keeping more non-English speaking people of color from coming here to seek a better life, which is racist by nature.
I have read enough of this shit. We must oppose this SCAM with all our might. We must save America from THEM!
DiAngelo was born Robin Jeanne Taylor into a working-class family in San Jose, California, the youngest of three daughters born to Robert Z. Taylor and Maryanne Jeanne DiAngelo.[3][4]
She lived with her mother in poverty until her death from cancer, after which she and her siblings lived with her father. She became a single mother with one child in her mid-20s, and worked as a waitress before beginning college at the age of 30.[5]
In her youth, she saw that her poverty led to class oppression, though it was only later in life that she identified personally benefiting from white privilege, even while being “poor and white”.[6] In 2018, DiAngelo stated that her “experience of poverty would have been different had [she] not been white”.[6]
_______________________
What drew her to this conclusion? Did she have an experience with police similar to mine many years ago?
But then again…..skin color alone must NEVER be the issue. O J Simpson literally got away with murder by playing the race card…..with a legal dream team he could afford as a rich celebrity. A poor person, whether black or white, facing the same charges O J did would almost certainly have been sent to prison for those murders. The case of Bill Cosby, serial rapist, is another example.
Also, white people, Americans, and liberals are not the enemy. White supremacy, corruption in capitalism, and misrepresenting liberalism are the enemy. You are not promoting truth or justice when you paint ALL members of any group with the same brush. Like, I condemn Israel and the Zionists that run it, but I don’t hate all Jews. I abhor Islamic states, but I don’t hate all Muslims We should always be judged as individuals, period. It’s what you DO that defines your character, not what GROUP of any kind you are said to belong to.
I am a white person, but I am also one that came from a working class family. I have also worked alongside black people for most of my life, so the idea that ALL white people are better off in this society than ALL black people strikes me as the most absurd form of nonsense. A black person who works the same job as me is my equal, no less. And a black manager or executive of the company I work for is my superior.
Here is the listing for DiAngelo’s most famous book in Beacon Press.
In White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo explained how racism is a system into which all white people are socialized and challenged the belief that racism is a simple matter of good people versus bad. DiAngelo also made a provocative claim: white progressives cause the most daily harm to people of color. In Nice Racism, her follow-up work, she explains how they do so. Drawing on her background as a sociologist and over 25 years working as an anti-racist educator, she picks up where White Fragility left off and moves the conversation forward.
Writing directly to white people as a white person, DiAngelo identifies many common white racial patterns and breaks down how well-intentioned white people unknowingly perpetuate racial harm. These patterns include:
rushing to prove that we are “not racist”
downplaying white advantage
romanticizing Black, Indigenous and other peoples of color (BIPOC)
pretending white segregation “just happens”
expecting BIPOC people to teach us about racism
carefulness
and feeling immobilized by shame.
DiAngelo explains how spiritual white progressives seeking community by co-opting Indigenous and other groups’ rituals create separation, not connection. She challenges the ideology of individualism and explains why it is OK to generalize about white people, and she demonstrates how white people who experience other oppressions still benefit from systemic racism. Writing candidly about her own missteps and struggles, she models a path forward, encouraging white readers to continually face their complicity and embrace courage, lifelong commitment, and accountability.
To put it bluntly, this does not help the cause of anti-racism one iota. It actually promotes racism against white people by indicating that any effort by white people to oppose racism by seeking unity with people of color is useless. No wonder so many whites refuse to support black politicians like Barack Obama. With allies like Robin DiAngelo talking down to them, anti-racist whites don’t need enemies. They might even turn against the cause altogether and become racist because of dogmatic assertions like those of DiAngelo!
And I remember how disgusted I was by that radical feminist website many years ago.
As a white male person, I refuse to hate myself in order to fight racism or sexism, and if Robin DiAngelo thinks I should, that’s her problem. It won’t be mine!
Especially considering that Wahid Azal is a fan of that sort of hateful approach. And I know what a monster he is!
For starters, I wish to state that in an issue like politics, extremism among some individuals is inevitable. There are two reasons for this. First, many people mistakenly apply religious impulses to politics and thus attempt to be consistent with a certain political viewpoint, even at the expense of ignoring or denying clear empirical evidence that is against it. Quite simply, it is easier (if you are intellectually lazy) to just blindly follow a dogma of some kind that happens to appeal to your ego than to dig for the truth, apply consistent logic to all issues, and thus have a perspective that is subject to change and moderation over time. Second, extremists on any issue tend to work the hardest for their chosen causes and thus tend to rise to leadership positions within political organizations as well as single-issue pressure groups, by virtue of their extensive track record of having done so much for their causes as well as appearing to be experts on the issues they represent. This explains why so many otherwise worthy causes, such as animal rights, get so absurdly corrupted by groups that claim to represent them, such as PETA or ALF, and people who might be motivated by natural compassion to support animal rights are repelled by seeing extremist groups like the aforementioned ones claiming to be the best examples of those causes’ representatives. Let me assure you, they are not and I would be quite happy to see them destroyed without thinking for one second that this would be damaging at all to the cause of animal rights. If you, by your words or actions, make a cause look loony, that’s the best way to ruin it, and you might as well just oppose the cause altogether.
Dale Husband's Intellectual Rants 