[Youngian]

Is Cenk talking about liberal orientated networks like CNN and MSNBC which just parallel Fox News by having an 'I reckon' left leaning talking head like Rachel Meadow and Medhi Hasan droning on to camera? In fact that's exactly what Young Turks do as well.
Or is he saying traditional terrestrial network news has strayed from their 'on the other hand' reporting values?
I'm not very impressed with veteren news gatherers like Jon Sopel's coverage of this US election. Polls had remained fairly even while he was spurting unsubstantiated nonsense like Taylor Swift support being a game changer for Harris.
Kamala did run a very good campaign and that distracted from the fact she wasn't a very good candidate. A last minute uncontested one at that.

[Watchman]

How the word “establishment” is used, takes you down so many rabbit holes

[RedSparrows]

When the fear/resentment of the 'modern' blinds you to the absolute debasement of revolutions and/or unleashed conservative greed.

[The Weeping Angel]

Is Cenk talking about liberal orientated networks like CNN and MSNBC which just parallel Fox News by having an 'I reckon' left leaning talking head like Rachel Meadow and Medhi Hasan droning on to camera? In fact that's exactly what Young Turks do as well.
Or is he saying traditional terrestrial network news has strayed from their 'on the other hand' reporting values?
I'm not very impressed with veteren news gatherers like Jon Sopel's coverage of this US election. Polls had remained fairly even while he was spurting unsubstantiated nonsense like Taylor Swift support being a game changer for Harris.
Kamala did run a very good campaign and that distracted from the fact she wasn't a very good candidate. A last minute uncontested one at that.

The establishment mainly being the Democratic establishment which is basically anyone but Bernie Sanders, AOC and her mates. But also the deep state which is full of neo-con warmongers.

[Crabcakes]

I’ve read quite a few post-election out-of-bubble dissections of what went wrong. Some have a lot of interesting things to say about how Harris just wasn’t really a particularly good candidate outside of not being Trump and not being old.

Cenk’s take, however, ain’t it.

[Youngian]

Biden wasn’t once so keen on pardoning drug takers who get themselves in the shit
https://x.com/nelsabbey/status/1863573220097466643?s=46

[Bones McCoy]

Biden wasn’t once so keen on pardoning drug takers who get themselves in the shit
https://x.com/nelsabbey/status/1863573220097466643?s=46

This, sadly, will be a stick to beat every Democrat, and excuse every Trump overreach for the coming four years.

[Abernathy]

Biden wasn’t once so keen on pardoning drug takers who get themselves in the shit
https://x.com/nelsabbey/status/1863573220097466643?s=46

This, sadly, will be a stick to beat every Democrat, and excuse every Trump overreach for the coming four years.

Having listened to O’Brien earlier, he admitted that that was his first reaction too, but that he’d had a bit of a re-think. Principally because he’d realised that Trump was going to do what he is going to do in his second term come what may (eg pardoning then appointing Charles Kushner as US Ambassador to France) - whatever Biden does in respect of his son, but also because Hunter Biden, while undoubtedly having offended, has been pursued and prosecuted largely because of who he is, and not, in large part, because of what he has done. He is on the hook because of his dad. Joe Biden undoubtedly felt an obligation as Hunter’s dad to act to help him while he still has it in his power to do so, with 6 weeks or so of his presidency remaining. There may also be a suggestion that Biden felt no obligation to the Democratic Party and its immediate political future because he still feels that he was harshly treated by being pressurised to stand down in favour of Harris, and indeed probably thinks he could and should have fought the election and saw Trump off.


I think Joe must just have thought “Fuck it. I might as well use my presidential pardon power to help my surviving son. The election is lost, Trump is coming in, and I’ve got nothing to lose. I know I said I wouldn’t do it, but I was running for election then and I’m not now.”

They’ll still use it to excuse Trump’s excesses, but they’d be excusing them in some other way if they did not.

I think that broadly speaking, I agree with Biden’s decision.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3dx9n3m9y2o

[Youngian]

A majority of the US electorate no longer care about their leaders being subject to the the rule of law so why should Biden?

[Samanfur]

Trump'll hate the pardon and try to use it as a stick to beat the Democrats with, but he can't do anything about it without setting a precedent for somebody rolling back the favours he'll undoubtedly hand out to his family, enablers and assorted sycophants.

That said, I suspect that Biden's mental soundtrack is currently something like this:

[Bones McCoy]

A majority of the US electorate no longer care about their leaders being subject to the the rule of law so why should Biden?

Politicians, they're all the same...

Bent as a seven buck nickel (or someting).

[Crabcakes]

I think it was the right thing to do, as it was always politically motivated. It’s also exposed (again) the hypocrisy of the US media and the MAGA cult, who are going mad over something that Trump has done before and with no justification other than rewarding sycophants, and will do again regardless of what Biden does anyway.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

The fault is in the constitution, in politically appointed prosecutors and judges and in 'executive' power. It's a failed state because it still tries to make sense of an eighteenth century model of democracy.

[Abernathy]

This is true indeed.

Things the USA really needs to do to arrest its descent into right-wing populist autocracy :

- Scrap the amazingly stupid electoral college system for electing the president.
- Scrap the second amendment and get some proper, meaningful gun regulation.
- Scrap political appointments to the judiciary and establish an independent judiciary.
- Scrap the presidential pardon option completely.

And that’ll do for starters. Won’t happen, though.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Nope. The Constitution is now a fetish. I can see amendments (or the removal of) but not a re-write.

Even though, I believe, the 'Founding Fathers' did envisage revision at some point in the future.

[Crabcakes]

Biden’s pardon move is smarter than face value too - just seen somewhere that, to reverse it in pursuit of petty revenge, the MAGAs will have to unpick the presidential immunity package the SCOTUS delivered. And I suspect Trump won’t be keen on losing that prize.

[Bones McCoy]

Nope. The Constitution is now a fetish. I can see amendments (or the removal of) but not a re-write.

Even though, I believe, the 'Founding Fathers' did envisage revision at some point in the future.

The founding fathers may have been the remarkable visionaries they are hailed as bu US patriots today.
Perhaps they were not.
I know they are remarkable since I have read some of their bar-tabs.

But their constitution has not been immutable.
A partisan judicial system, and big money have created a system designed to fail in a specific way.
Destined to be ripe for corporate capture and oligarchy.

On our little islands, we can merely watch, like the fall of Atlantis.

[Andy McDandy]

"The constitution's immutable!"

"Prohibition."

It's like the Bible, or Magna Carta - a fetish object, almost a symbol of the thing rather than the thing itself. And absolutely immutable in the bits they like.

[Youngian]

The constitution does not encourage executive dictatorship but when one person of bad faith has a mandate, checks and balances can be steamrolled.
The US has been an outlier in executive government in the Americas for not lurching into autocracy but that maybe about to change.
Jamaica had a wobble in the 70s but can't think of any parliamentary systems in the Americas that faced the same fate (not that there's many of them).

[Youngian]

More allies the better isn't controversial but hope the government has a Plan B. If America no longer wishes to be a European power and even proiritise Russia as an ally to check Chinese power in Asia, there's fuck all Limey Atlanticists can do about it.

Keir Starmer has “utterly rejected” the idea that the UK must choose between the United States and Europe when Donald Trump comes to power, arguing that it is in the national interest to work with both.

The prime minister said the UK would “never turn away” from its relationship with the US, despite the difficulties the new administration could pose, as it had been the “cornerstone” of security and prosperity for over a century.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... key-speech