Biden’s Speech, Annotated. He realizes how much jeopardy democracy is in. This was an essential rallying cry. How Biden Decided To Directly Confront Trump:
Throughout the first year of Joe Biden’s presidency, Donald Trump was the name that must not be spoken.
Inside the White House, meanwhile, the president and his team strategized about when and how to break his silence. They decided to do so, finally, Thursday, as the nation paused to mark the first anniversary of the deadly attack on the Capitol.
Speaking from the Capitol’s iconic Statuary Hall, which last Jan. 6 had been overrun by violent pro-Trump rioters, Biden unburdened himself from the norms of presidential deference and unleashed a torrent of attacks against his immediate predecessor. Though he did not call out Trump by name, Biden made 16 references to the “former president,” whom he squarely blamed for undermining America’s democracy.
“The former president of the United States of America has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election,” Biden said. “He’s done so because he values power over principle, because he sees his own interest as more important than his country’s interest and America’s interest, and because his bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy or our Constitution.”
Biden’s remarks do not mark a permanent shift in strategy about how to handle Trump, according to the president’s aides and allies. Rather, they said, Biden felt he had no choice but to directly address Trump’s culpability in the Capitol insurrection last Jan. 6 and the threat he poses to democracy.
“You can’t talk about what happened on January 6 without talking about the former president’s role in it,” Mike Donilon, a White House senior adviser, said in an interview. “There’s no way to be truthful about what happened there without doing that.”
Another Anti-Vax Radio ‘Influencer’ Dies Of Covid. Yep, he attended the so-called ‘anthrax’ super-spreader event in Texas. Believed his own bullshit. Sad.
Florida’s DeSantis Denied That 1 Mill Covid Tests Had Been Allowed To Expire. He Lied:
In a press conference Thursday morning, Governor DeSantis admitted state officials found 1 million unused COVID-19 tests in a warehouse. The admission came as DeSantis unveiled a plan to get 1 million COVID-19 tests to Florida’s seniors.
Kevin Guthrie joined DeSantis at today’s press conference. Guthrie, the head of Florida’s Department of Emergency Management said, “We had between 800k and a million Abbott test kits in our warehouse that did expire.”
Today’s revelation follows allegations by Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried that the governor was stockpiling tests which were soon expiring. On Wednesday, the Governor’s office called that allegation “bizarre.”
The proposed solution? Get the Feds to say that the the test kits did not expire:
The governor said he’s asking the federal government to extend the expiration date on these newly-discovered tests. They are awaiting an answer.
‘Bizarre’.
Right-Wing Nuttery And Race. Cause? Effect? Survey in Brevard County, Florida suggests that, as the percentage of white population diminishes, there is a correlative increase in extremists and extremism:
Perhaps the most compelling study on the subject was published by Robert Pape at the University of Chicago, who found that Capitol insurgents were more likely to come from counties where the white population was getting smaller. “For every one-point drop in a county’s percentage of non-Hispanic whites from 2015 to 2019, the likelihood of an insurgent hailing from that county increased by 25 percent,” The Atlantic reported, citing his research.
For Pape, a political science professor and expert in political violence, the findings were further evidence that the Capitol attack was fueled by white nationalist fears over the “great replacement” — the conspiracy theory that one day Black people, Hispanic people and other minorities will not only overtake whites as the majority population in America but will also have more rights.
I hope to live to see that day. Another related explanation is also possible:
But some people in Brevard County have another, related theory for why so many of their neighbors were arrested in the storming of the Capitol: They were inspired in part by the rhetoric and actions of their local elected lawmakers and officials.
Brevard is home to a group of bellicose Republicans — all of whom have embraced former President Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen — who in recent years have targeted their political opponents with a particularly vile and vindictive mix of harassment and mendacity. The result has been incidents of alleged violence, vandalism, intimidation and even a false report of child abuse.
In this coterie are a sheriff with extensive ties to the extremist constitutional sheriffs movement; a state representative who may have created a website to falsely accuse two of his enemies of having an affair; a county commissioner who has advocated that a local Democratic official get an abortion so that her “litter” wouldn’t be a “scourge on humanity”; a mayor who bragged about stockpiling weapons to use against Democrats; and a U.S. congressman who recently said “Let’s go, Brandon” — a euphemism for “Fuck Joe Biden” — on the House floor.
Both theories can be, and are, true.
Rysheema Dixon Resigns From Wilmington City Council. That’s disappointing. Wonder if she’s placed politics on hold permanently. It’ll be interesting to see what grifters come out of the woodwork.
What do you want to talk about?