In the year that it has been in office, the Biden administration has had to deal with something unprecedented in our history: a former president who refused to admit he lost the election and who has worked ever since, alongside allies, to undermine the administration of his successor.
Most important point of this letter to me regards the fact that no other president has had to deal with a defeated president who not only tried to reverse the election, but has promoted the lie that he (Biden) didn’t really win. And is believed by large numbers of our countrymen. Let that sink in. Biden has been actively undercut at every turn and in fact criminally opposed not just by one deranged man but by a whole party and by a large percentage of the public. And in spite of this he has made huge accomplishments on behalf of the American people! The psychic burden of such determined opposition must be immense on Biden. And yet liberal media talk of his “failures” and the democrats inability to get things done. Shame on them for not relentlessly reporting the truth of the threats to our democracy by this domestic enemy! Biden’s demeanor and calm presence are nothing short of miraculous! This beleaguered man is standing with one finger in the dyke while trying to orchestrate the restabilization of our whole country and doing it with grace and courage! Every day I say to myself, “imagine if TFG were president today - what a disaster we would be living through.”
This situation must be reported like the war that it is. And the man who leads us against this fascistic enemy needs our loud and unending gratitude and support!
Dear Heather: Another powerful and vividly informative letter! How do you manage it day in and day out?
Your opening lines are so very telling and sobering. Each time Biden fails, we forget that he "has had to deal with something unprecedented in our history: a former president who refused to admit he lost the election and who has worked ever since, alongside allies, to undermine the administration of his successor."
It behooves us to criticize less and to work harder on the ground to vote members of the Grand Old Profligates out of office this year and in '24.
Biden- in his first year, no incendiary racist comments, no mocking of disabled reporters, no massive turnover of white house staff and advisors, no use of the office of the president for personal gain, no fawning to dictators, no personal attacks on judges when their decisions go against him, no crowing against deceased political rivals such as Trump's disparaging comments about John McCain- the list could go on. And yet, despite his successes in distributing vaccines against covid, the passage of bills that make life better for millions of impoverished Americans, despite the weak hand he has been dealt- there is a chorus out there-and not just Trump's lackeys- who are using ageist tropes to write Biden's obituary less than half through his first term. I appreciate so much the efforts of this blog- it takes fortitude to keep your eyes open - to record history even when the news each day makes it so easy to sink into despair.
Congresswoman Katie Porter, who has quite a head for finance, told Lawrence O'Donnell this evening the cost of NOT doing the BBB Act. It would cost citizens $8 billion if Medicare is not allowed to negotiate drug prices with the big drug companies. $145 billion is the cost of handling the climate disasters we're experiencing which could be mitigated by the climate provisions of BBB Act. And, the government would have another Trillion dollars if with BBB the IRS is fully funded and people especially the rich payed what the really owed. The IRS is so short-handed that there are 6 million 2020 tax returns still unprocessed including my own although they cashed my check in 3 days. The IRS is warning that is will be worse in this year coming year with even refunds being considerably delayed. Representative Porter also said even with inflation that the average person has $354 more dollars in their pocket every month than the year before.
Most of this is on The Rachel Maddow Show. She goes into great detail and about all of it and is very through. You hear sprinklings of this on the CNN but they are to busy talking about poll numbers and inane points. The things they say about Biden on NewsMax are criminal. Thank you Heather, I feel like your letters should be on the front page of every major newspaper.
What Sinema and Manchin did to Biden and voting rights was simply deplorable. It reminds me of when then street thug, Jeff Gillooly, kneecapped Olympian Nancy Karagan, on behalf of her fellow Olympian Tonya Harding. While clearly hurt by Sinema and Manchin’s betrayal, Biden didn’t cry in front of the cameras, or whine like the former President does. Instead, he stood there defiantly, trading blows with the press for two hours, like the scrapper from Scranton that he is. 😎
It should be clear to everyone by now, especially Democrats, that Sinema and Manchin have been working on behalf of Republicans to block them, all along. Manchin and Sinema are Republicans’ hedge bet against the filibuster exceptions (financial bills and judicial appointments), where Manchin (plan A) is the 50th vote, Dems don’t have, in those matters. Then Sinema (plan C) is the 50th vote, Dems don’t have, in whatever Manchin does vote for or doesn’t try to block.
Some action items as we move quickly into 2022: Beto, running for governor in Texas, reminds us how important primaries are. The Texas primary is March and you can help, especially if you live in Texas. Same with Stacey Abrams in Georgia.
Fair Fight Action is gearing up again. There is a good training video and staff support is excellent. Call or texting. It focuses on voter registration now, not in the fall on Election Day.
Unsubscribe from msm that annoys you and tell them why. There are lots of free newsletters without clickbait. I like the LĀ Times.
On YouTube see actual entire videoes of the Biden administration in action, instead of CNN’s annoying talking heads and false poll stats. Biden and Harris were great last night on Democrats.org 1 year inauguration town hall. Jaime Harrison was outstanding when he had to wing it after Kamala’s audio failed. The slide show was full of clear info about what the Biden Administration has accomplished. Also check Whitehouse.gov.
I’m told the interview 2 days ago with Brian Tyler Cohen and Adam Schiff (YouTube) was a much more important discussion of what our attention needs to be on. I’ll be watching that today.
In other words, stop letting the msm get inside your head. Stress is bad for you and orange idjt 🤡 is happy to provide. You can always call CapitolHill switchboard, talk to any senator or rep office and tell them what ⭐️HCR⭐️ wrote. (202) 224-3121 ⭐️👍🏻🤣👏🏼
No idjt zone🤮🤡🤮🎃.
Primaries are vital to get out the vote. The time is now.
Thank you professor Heather. I read your letter every morning, over breakfast, in Brussels. It sets me on a hopeful (and deeply informed) path for the day. Thanks, too, for the comments everyone. They are also treasures.
Wow! Once again, Prof. Heather, you hit the nail on the head: President Biden "has had to deal with something unprecedented in our history: a former president who refused to admit he lost the election and who has worked ever since, alongside allies, to undermine the administration of his successor." That's the factor that is missing from every MSM story about the Biden presidency and the Democrat's "failures!" And many of T***p's "alongside allies" are actually in the government with actual power to block Biden's agenda! What can we do about this?
Remember boycotting lettuce and grapes in the early 1970's to support Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers? What if we started a national movement to boycott selected MSM until they start telling this story? They seem to be more influenced by ratings rather than by their job to "protect the governed not the governors." (U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black in New York Times Co. v. United States (1971) in an article by ACLU https://www.aclu.org/issues/free-speech/freedom-press)
I just googled "Biden administration failures" and within 1/2 second got "51,500,000 results" beginning with a headline from Newsweek: "Joe Biden's six biggest failures in his first year as president."
I subscribe to WaPo and NY Times and I used to be a fan of MSNBC. How would they respond to something like: "President Biden "has had to deal with something unprecedented in our history: a former president who refused to admit he lost the election and who has worked ever since, alongside allies, to undermine the administration of his successor." (cite Prof. Heather) Until you tell the WHOLE story each time you report on one of the Biden administration's "failures," starting with something like "Republican lawmakers block Biden administrations effort to (fill in the blank) we will no longer pay for your product."
I'm no expert and I certainly have never started a national movement. But from your comments over the months, I bet many of you would know how to do this. What's next?
The story is going public, amazing how many of the "players" are being fingered as perps. Sadly, it'll take the entire course of this administration to dig through the garbage of the last one, so the news will continue to be full of this story long after the sensation has extinguished. Noone is likely to get the kind of comeuppance that will satisfy the public, but the light of public scrutiny will demonstrate that this kind of conspiracy can't stay buried forever. Just one picture of the Orange-utang with cuffs in a striped suit, Ivanka in a Vera Wang jumpsuit accessorized with an ankle monitor, Junior hanging with the boys in the excercise yard and Jared on laundry duty would be enough for me.
When Ronald Reagan declared government the enemy, he was speaking to the disgruntled Dixiecrats the GOP was courting and the entrenched Republican elite resentful of taxation and regulation. He was speaking the language of the Confederacy and of the Capitalists. Of the populists and the paymasters.
Trump's intransigence has Republican provenance and precedence. Newt Gingrich burning down the House during the Clinton administration. Mitch McConnell opting out of the agreed legal framework of the Constitution during the Obama administration. Now the Trump show during the Biden administration.
Republican abuses are not simply sequential, their effect is exponential. And this, with the pandemic and climate change, is unprecedented. The Senate debate and vote over voting rights was dominated by a terrifying lack of imagination on the part of the Republicans, Manchin, and Sinema who believe it is business as usual. As contrasted with the foresight and insight of the Democrats who recognize these are parlous times.
Each of us must do all we can to keep
the Democratic majority in Congress. This is no time for the blinkered self indulgence which gave Trump the White House in 2016. The moment calls for imagining different metrics, different calculations, and unprecedented alliances. We do not have to imagine what a Republican takeover would be.
Olivia Troye had an excellent piece in the NY Daily News the other day, exhorting Mike Pence to shelve his presidential ambition, and “clear his conscience, start telling the truth. and tell Americans what really happened in four years under Trump. Tell them how he spent every day wondering whether our country would survive.” What a difference that could make.
Yup, can't get more perfect than The Donald. Just not possible.
Full prosecution, all of them who don't plea/make a deal. Bring it down and hard, and don't be afraid to indict the OCP. Hesitancy and mercy in this endeavor will be looked at as weakness and exploited the next time around (does anyone doubt they're looking ahead to the next time?). Full throttle. Do all those neat lawyer things, get them to turn on each other (since they're all so self-interested) and bring the whole house down. Do. Not. Stop.
Biden's problem is that he was a "French general" facing the Trump/Republican blitzkrieg when he came into office. Unable to comprehend the nature of his opposition, unable to accept that that people he had known for years and considered friends now had to be seen as his sworn enemies out to kill him. That's hard for anyone to get their head around, but he had four years watching Trump take over the Republicans, and he seemed to think that the thoroughly-inadequate "I'm not him" would be enough to change things around and bring back the nice sunny days of yore. His realization of the true nature of the enemy may be too late, but I really hope he can pull it out with his promise to campaign hard. (It also didn't help that too many - including many here - spent the first six months of 2021 thinking all was fine and dandy since Trump was out of office). Trump's like the monster in one of the movies I wrote: you have to kill him three times to finally put him face down.
But if this government and the Europeans think rapping Putin's knuckles over Ukraine will work, they are delusional. We should have given the Ukrainians 100 M1A3 Abrams tanks this past year and trained their crews. They'd then be able to take out every creaky old T-55 Putin's still dependent on in his 1995 army. The only thing someone like Putin understands is a gun barrel shoved up his mouth till it takes out his tonsils, and then he gets the "good talking to" with the hammer cocked.
Megalomania is clinical. Paranoia is clinical. Fascism threatens. Fascism is societal megalomania for paranoiac fascists. Fred Trump’s son hid all his transcripts. Fred Trump was a Queens landlord that would not rent to certain ethnic, religious and ethnic populations.
Prejudice is a disease. It spreads in communities and in families first.
Dictators need a whipping post. Donald knows this instinctively.
Donald Trump came by it honestly.
Our nation was predictable - for 500 years.
Fantasyland - How America Went Haywire
A 500-Year History
By Kurt Andersen
“A stunning sweeping explanation of how we got to Trump … the most important book that I have read this year.” Lawrence O’Donnell, MSNBC
Most important point of this letter to me regards the fact that no other president has had to deal with a defeated president who not only tried to reverse the election, but has promoted the lie that he (Biden) didn’t really win. And is believed by large numbers of our countrymen. Let that sink in. Biden has been actively undercut at every turn and in fact criminally opposed not just by one deranged man but by a whole party and by a large percentage of the public. And in spite of this he has made huge accomplishments on behalf of the American people! The psychic burden of such determined opposition must be immense on Biden. And yet liberal media talk of his “failures” and the democrats inability to get things done. Shame on them for not relentlessly reporting the truth of the threats to our democracy by this domestic enemy! Biden’s demeanor and calm presence are nothing short of miraculous! This beleaguered man is standing with one finger in the dyke while trying to orchestrate the restabilization of our whole country and doing it with grace and courage! Every day I say to myself, “imagine if TFG were president today - what a disaster we would be living through.”
This situation must be reported like the war that it is. And the man who leads us against this fascistic enemy needs our loud and unending gratitude and support!
Dear Heather: Another powerful and vividly informative letter! How do you manage it day in and day out?
Your opening lines are so very telling and sobering. Each time Biden fails, we forget that he "has had to deal with something unprecedented in our history: a former president who refused to admit he lost the election and who has worked ever since, alongside allies, to undermine the administration of his successor."
It behooves us to criticize less and to work harder on the ground to vote members of the Grand Old Profligates out of office this year and in '24.
Biden- in his first year, no incendiary racist comments, no mocking of disabled reporters, no massive turnover of white house staff and advisors, no use of the office of the president for personal gain, no fawning to dictators, no personal attacks on judges when their decisions go against him, no crowing against deceased political rivals such as Trump's disparaging comments about John McCain- the list could go on. And yet, despite his successes in distributing vaccines against covid, the passage of bills that make life better for millions of impoverished Americans, despite the weak hand he has been dealt- there is a chorus out there-and not just Trump's lackeys- who are using ageist tropes to write Biden's obituary less than half through his first term. I appreciate so much the efforts of this blog- it takes fortitude to keep your eyes open - to record history even when the news each day makes it so easy to sink into despair.
Congresswoman Katie Porter, who has quite a head for finance, told Lawrence O'Donnell this evening the cost of NOT doing the BBB Act. It would cost citizens $8 billion if Medicare is not allowed to negotiate drug prices with the big drug companies. $145 billion is the cost of handling the climate disasters we're experiencing which could be mitigated by the climate provisions of BBB Act. And, the government would have another Trillion dollars if with BBB the IRS is fully funded and people especially the rich payed what the really owed. The IRS is so short-handed that there are 6 million 2020 tax returns still unprocessed including my own although they cashed my check in 3 days. The IRS is warning that is will be worse in this year coming year with even refunds being considerably delayed. Representative Porter also said even with inflation that the average person has $354 more dollars in their pocket every month than the year before.
Most of this is on The Rachel Maddow Show. She goes into great detail and about all of it and is very through. You hear sprinklings of this on the CNN but they are to busy talking about poll numbers and inane points. The things they say about Biden on NewsMax are criminal. Thank you Heather, I feel like your letters should be on the front page of every major newspaper.
What Sinema and Manchin did to Biden and voting rights was simply deplorable. It reminds me of when then street thug, Jeff Gillooly, kneecapped Olympian Nancy Karagan, on behalf of her fellow Olympian Tonya Harding. While clearly hurt by Sinema and Manchin’s betrayal, Biden didn’t cry in front of the cameras, or whine like the former President does. Instead, he stood there defiantly, trading blows with the press for two hours, like the scrapper from Scranton that he is. 😎
It should be clear to everyone by now, especially Democrats, that Sinema and Manchin have been working on behalf of Republicans to block them, all along. Manchin and Sinema are Republicans’ hedge bet against the filibuster exceptions (financial bills and judicial appointments), where Manchin (plan A) is the 50th vote, Dems don’t have, in those matters. Then Sinema (plan C) is the 50th vote, Dems don’t have, in whatever Manchin does vote for or doesn’t try to block.
Some action items as we move quickly into 2022: Beto, running for governor in Texas, reminds us how important primaries are. The Texas primary is March and you can help, especially if you live in Texas. Same with Stacey Abrams in Georgia.
Fair Fight Action is gearing up again. There is a good training video and staff support is excellent. Call or texting. It focuses on voter registration now, not in the fall on Election Day.
Unsubscribe from msm that annoys you and tell them why. There are lots of free newsletters without clickbait. I like the LĀ Times.
https://membership.latimes.com/newsletters/
On YouTube see actual entire videoes of the Biden administration in action, instead of CNN’s annoying talking heads and false poll stats. Biden and Harris were great last night on Democrats.org 1 year inauguration town hall. Jaime Harrison was outstanding when he had to wing it after Kamala’s audio failed. The slide show was full of clear info about what the Biden Administration has accomplished. Also check Whitehouse.gov.
I’m told the interview 2 days ago with Brian Tyler Cohen and Adam Schiff (YouTube) was a much more important discussion of what our attention needs to be on. I’ll be watching that today.
In other words, stop letting the msm get inside your head. Stress is bad for you and orange idjt 🤡 is happy to provide. You can always call CapitolHill switchboard, talk to any senator or rep office and tell them what ⭐️HCR⭐️ wrote. (202) 224-3121 ⭐️👍🏻🤣👏🏼
No idjt zone🤮🤡🤮🎃.
Primaries are vital to get out the vote. The time is now.
Thank you professor Heather. I read your letter every morning, over breakfast, in Brussels. It sets me on a hopeful (and deeply informed) path for the day. Thanks, too, for the comments everyone. They are also treasures.
Wow! Once again, Prof. Heather, you hit the nail on the head: President Biden "has had to deal with something unprecedented in our history: a former president who refused to admit he lost the election and who has worked ever since, alongside allies, to undermine the administration of his successor." That's the factor that is missing from every MSM story about the Biden presidency and the Democrat's "failures!" And many of T***p's "alongside allies" are actually in the government with actual power to block Biden's agenda! What can we do about this?
Remember boycotting lettuce and grapes in the early 1970's to support Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers? What if we started a national movement to boycott selected MSM until they start telling this story? They seem to be more influenced by ratings rather than by their job to "protect the governed not the governors." (U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black in New York Times Co. v. United States (1971) in an article by ACLU https://www.aclu.org/issues/free-speech/freedom-press)
I just googled "Biden administration failures" and within 1/2 second got "51,500,000 results" beginning with a headline from Newsweek: "Joe Biden's six biggest failures in his first year as president."
I subscribe to WaPo and NY Times and I used to be a fan of MSNBC. How would they respond to something like: "President Biden "has had to deal with something unprecedented in our history: a former president who refused to admit he lost the election and who has worked ever since, alongside allies, to undermine the administration of his successor." (cite Prof. Heather) Until you tell the WHOLE story each time you report on one of the Biden administration's "failures," starting with something like "Republican lawmakers block Biden administrations effort to (fill in the blank) we will no longer pay for your product."
I'm no expert and I certainly have never started a national movement. But from your comments over the months, I bet many of you would know how to do this. What's next?
Blessings,
The story is going public, amazing how many of the "players" are being fingered as perps. Sadly, it'll take the entire course of this administration to dig through the garbage of the last one, so the news will continue to be full of this story long after the sensation has extinguished. Noone is likely to get the kind of comeuppance that will satisfy the public, but the light of public scrutiny will demonstrate that this kind of conspiracy can't stay buried forever. Just one picture of the Orange-utang with cuffs in a striped suit, Ivanka in a Vera Wang jumpsuit accessorized with an ankle monitor, Junior hanging with the boys in the excercise yard and Jared on laundry duty would be enough for me.
When Ronald Reagan declared government the enemy, he was speaking to the disgruntled Dixiecrats the GOP was courting and the entrenched Republican elite resentful of taxation and regulation. He was speaking the language of the Confederacy and of the Capitalists. Of the populists and the paymasters.
Trump's intransigence has Republican provenance and precedence. Newt Gingrich burning down the House during the Clinton administration. Mitch McConnell opting out of the agreed legal framework of the Constitution during the Obama administration. Now the Trump show during the Biden administration.
Republican abuses are not simply sequential, their effect is exponential. And this, with the pandemic and climate change, is unprecedented. The Senate debate and vote over voting rights was dominated by a terrifying lack of imagination on the part of the Republicans, Manchin, and Sinema who believe it is business as usual. As contrasted with the foresight and insight of the Democrats who recognize these are parlous times.
Each of us must do all we can to keep
the Democratic majority in Congress. This is no time for the blinkered self indulgence which gave Trump the White House in 2016. The moment calls for imagining different metrics, different calculations, and unprecedented alliances. We do not have to imagine what a Republican takeover would be.
Olivia Troye had an excellent piece in the NY Daily News the other day, exhorting Mike Pence to shelve his presidential ambition, and “clear his conscience, start telling the truth. and tell Americans what really happened in four years under Trump. Tell them how he spent every day wondering whether our country would survive.” What a difference that could make.
https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-mike-pences-choice-20220119-vcgjy3v5mjaelp6aukwz3qjywu-story.html
Your first paragraph should be the lead in EVERY news story about Biden’s first year.
Yup, can't get more perfect than The Donald. Just not possible.
Full prosecution, all of them who don't plea/make a deal. Bring it down and hard, and don't be afraid to indict the OCP. Hesitancy and mercy in this endeavor will be looked at as weakness and exploited the next time around (does anyone doubt they're looking ahead to the next time?). Full throttle. Do all those neat lawyer things, get them to turn on each other (since they're all so self-interested) and bring the whole house down. Do. Not. Stop.
Biden's problem is that he was a "French general" facing the Trump/Republican blitzkrieg when he came into office. Unable to comprehend the nature of his opposition, unable to accept that that people he had known for years and considered friends now had to be seen as his sworn enemies out to kill him. That's hard for anyone to get their head around, but he had four years watching Trump take over the Republicans, and he seemed to think that the thoroughly-inadequate "I'm not him" would be enough to change things around and bring back the nice sunny days of yore. His realization of the true nature of the enemy may be too late, but I really hope he can pull it out with his promise to campaign hard. (It also didn't help that too many - including many here - spent the first six months of 2021 thinking all was fine and dandy since Trump was out of office). Trump's like the monster in one of the movies I wrote: you have to kill him three times to finally put him face down.
But if this government and the Europeans think rapping Putin's knuckles over Ukraine will work, they are delusional. We should have given the Ukrainians 100 M1A3 Abrams tanks this past year and trained their crews. They'd then be able to take out every creaky old T-55 Putin's still dependent on in his 1995 army. The only thing someone like Putin understands is a gun barrel shoved up his mouth till it takes out his tonsils, and then he gets the "good talking to" with the hammer cocked.
Megalomania is clinical. Paranoia is clinical. Fascism threatens. Fascism is societal megalomania for paranoiac fascists. Fred Trump’s son hid all his transcripts. Fred Trump was a Queens landlord that would not rent to certain ethnic, religious and ethnic populations.
Prejudice is a disease. It spreads in communities and in families first.
Dictators need a whipping post. Donald knows this instinctively.
Donald Trump came by it honestly.
Our nation was predictable - for 500 years.
Fantasyland - How America Went Haywire
A 500-Year History
By Kurt Andersen
“A stunning sweeping explanation of how we got to Trump … the most important book that I have read this year.” Lawrence O’Donnell, MSNBC