Brett Stephens & Jonathan Weisman in a panic about Joe Biden's Pseudo-Socialism. Old Socialist ...
You needn’t read the perpetually paranoid Niall Ferguson’s latest book ‘Doom’ , or even wait for one of those three Library copies, to become available! ‘We’ have a homegrown political paranoiac in Brett Stephens, and his political ally Jonathan Weisman.
Headline: Another Failed Presidency at Hand
This Sept. 11, a diminished president will preside over a diminished nation.
We are a country that could not keep a demagogue from the White House; could not stop an insurrectionist mob from storming the Capitol; could not win (or at least avoid losing) a war against a morally and technologically retrograde enemy; cannot conquer a disease for which there are safe and effective vaccines; and cannot bring itself to trust the government, the news media, the scientific establishment, the police or any other institution meant to operate for the common good.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/07/opinion/biden-failed-afghanistan.html
Then the long forgotten Will Durant is quoted:
A civilization “is born stoic and dies epicurean,” wrote historian Will Durant about the Babylonians.
‘The Story of Civilization’ by Will and Ariel Durant was offered by the Book-Of-The-Month Club in the late 1970’s I purchased a set, my friend Phillip and my future wife bough a set. I actually read ‘The Age of Voltaire’ and ‘Rosseau and Revolution’ . How many of Stephens’ readers will even recognize the name? It’s distance lends rhetorical enchantment?
Following the Durant quote is this:
Our civilization was born optimistic and enlightened, at least by the standards of the day. Now it feels as if it’s fading into paranoid senility.
Followed by more …
Joe Biden was supposed to be the man of the hour: a calming presence exuding decency, moderation and trust. As a candidate, he sold himself as a transitional president, a fatherly figure in the mold of George H.W. Bush who would restore dignity and prudence to the Oval Office after the mendacity and chaos that came before. It’s why I voted for him, as did so many others who once tipped red.
Instead, Biden has become the emblem of the hour: headstrong but shaky, ambitious but inept. He seems to be the last person in America to realize that, whatever the theoretical merits of the decision to withdraw our remaining troops from Afghanistan, the military and intelligence assumptions on which it was built were deeply flawed, the manner in which it was executed was a national humiliation and a moral betrayal, and the timing was catastrophic.
The ‘Wars’ in Afghanistan and Iraq were the cornerstones of the Neo-Conservative ascension of 2000. Even though both were murderous incompetent failures. Stephens can’t forgive Biden for ending this oldest murderous catastrophe. Yet look at the actual and potential successors to Afghanistan and Iraq: Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Peru, the whole of Africa, The South China Sea…
The political hysteria intensifies:
We find ourselves commemorating the first great jihadist victory over America, in 2001, right after delivering the second great jihadist victory over America, in 2021. The 9/11 memorial at the World Trade Center — water cascading into one void, and then trickling, out of sight, into another — has never felt more fitting.
Now Biden proposes to follow this up with his $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill, which The Times’s Jonathan Weisman describes as “the most significant expansion of the nation’s safety net since the war on poverty in the 1960s.”
When Lyndon Johnson launched his war on poverty, its associated legislation — from food stamps to Medicare — passed with bipartisan majorities in a lopsidedly Democratic Congress. Biden has similar ambitions without the same political means. This is not going to turn out well.
On Jonathan Weisman, this 2019 news story in The Wrap, by J. Clara Chang, might put Mr. Weisman’s judgement into proper perspective:
Headline: New York Times Demotes Jonathan Weisman, Deputy Washington Editor, Over ‘Serious Lapses in Judgment’
Sub-headline: Weisman will no longer oversee the Times’ congressional team or be active on social media, a Times spokesperson told TheWrap
The New York Times has demoted its deputy Washington editor, Jonathan Weisman, over his behavior on social media.
A spokesperson for the Times told TheWrap in a statement that Weisman met with Executive Editor Dean Baquet on Tuesday and “apologized for his recent serious lapses in judgment.”
“As a consequence of his actions, he has been demoted and will no longer be overseeing the team that covers Congress or be active on social media,” the statement read. “We don’t typically discuss personnel matters but we’re doing so in this instance with Jonathan’s knowledge.”
The spokesperson declined to elaborate on what exactly Weisman’s new role would be and what he will cover in the future.
Weisman told the Times’ media reporter Marc Tracy that he accepted and agreed with Baquet’s decision. “I embarrassed the newspaper, and he had to act,” Weisman said.
The demotion comes after Weisman initiated a number of controversies online over his tweets. Late last month, the journalist wrote — and then deleted — a tweet which seemingly questioned the ability of congressional members Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Lloyd Doggett, and John Lewis to accurately represent the regions that their constituents are in.
“Saying @RashidaTlaib (D-Detroit) and @IlhanMN (D-Minneapolis) are from the Midwest is like saying @RepLloydDoggett (D-Austin) is from Texas or @repjohnlewis (D-Atlanta) is from the Deep South. C’mon,” Weisman tweeted on July 31.
Another tweet, sent last Wednesday, stated that the Justice Democrats political action committee was backing a different candidate “seeking to unseat an African-American Democrat” but failed to acknowledge that the endorsed candidate, Morgan Harper, is also black. When she pointed that out to Weisman on Twitter, he responded by saying that the endorsement “included a photo.”
…
https://www.thewrap.com/new-york-times-demotes-jonathan-weisman-deputy-washington-editor-over-serious-lapses-in-judgment/
The tone of this ‘news story’ , and the politics of Mr. Weisman are apparent by these quote sources of an etiolated Neo-Liberalism.
N. Gregory Mankiw, a Harvard economist who was chairman of President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers.
Michael R. Strain, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
Not forgetting this blatant ‘Socialism’ of the Biden Plan:
That would change profoundly if the social policy bill were enacted. The expanded child tax credit has begun to provide monthly checks of up to $300 per child to millions of families, but is slated to expire in 2022. Its extension for as long as a decade could make it a fixture of life that would be very difficult for future Congresses to take away. The same goes for the Child and Dependent Care Credit, which now offers up to $8,000 in child care expenses but also expires in a year.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/06/us/politics/democrats-biden-social-safety-net.html?action=click&algo=clicks_raw&block=trending_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=512207485&impression_id=277290b0-0ff0-11ec-839a-971d691cee9a&index=5&pgtype=Article&pool=pool%2F91fcf81c-4fb0-49ff-bd57-a24647c85ea1®ion=footer&req_id=527693306&surface=eos-most-popular-story&variant=holdout_most-popular-story
On Joe Manchin , here is part of what the reader needs to know:
Headline: Joe Manchin is opposing big parts of Biden's agenda as the Koch network pressures him
KEY POINTS
The Koch network has been actively pressuring Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin to oppose key legislative items linked to Biden's agenda, including filibuster reform and voting rights legislation.
The lobbying effort appears to be paying off. Manchin, in a recent op-ed, wrote that he opposed eliminating the filibuster and that he would not vote for the For the People Act.
The Koch network specifically calls on its grassroots supporters to push Manchin, a conservative Democrat, to be against some of his party's legislative priorities.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/08/joe-manchin-is-opposing-big-parts-of-bidens-agenda-as-the-koch-network-pressures-him.html
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Headline: JOE MANCHIN’S DIRTY EMPIRE
Sub-headline: The West Virginia Senator Reaps Big Financial Rewards From a Network of Coal Companies With Grim Records of Pollution, Safety Violations, and Death
…
For decades, Manchin has profited from a series of coal companies that he founded during the 1980s. His son, Joe Manchin IV, has since assumed leadership roles in the firms, and the senator says his ownership is held in a blind trust. Yet between the time he joined the Senate and today, Manchin has personally grossed more than $4.5 million from those firms, according to financial disclosures. He also holds stock options in Enersystems Inc., the larger of the two firms, valued between $1 and $5 million.
Those two companies are Enersystems Inc. and Farmington Resources Inc., the latter of which was created by the rapid merging of two other firms, Manchin’s Transcon and Farmington Energy in 2005. Enersystems purchases low-quality waste coal from mines and resells it to power plants as fuel, while Farmington Resources provides “support activities for mining” and holds coal reserves in the Fairmont area. Over the decades, whether feeding tens of thousands of tons of dirty waste coal into the power plants in northern West Virginia or subjecting workers to unsafe conditions, Manchin’s family coal business has almost entirely avoided public scrutiny.
…
https://theintercept.com/2021/09/03/joe-manchin-coal-fossil-fuels-pollution/
Brett Stephens is a political hysteric, ‘Socialism’, in even its most benign iterations, is anathema to this child of privilege. In that he resembles Wm. F. Buckley Jr. - let David Klion, in the New Republic of September 24, 2019, narrate the family history of Mr. Stephens, in all its melodrama:
https://newrepublic.com/article/155144/conscience-bret-stephens
Old Socialist