Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell struck up a friendship during their nearly quarter-century in the Senate together. Now in their 80s, the Democratic president and the Senate GOP leader appear to be giving political cover to each other as they fend off questions about their advanced age and health issues.
Notably, McConnell, R-Ky., 81, hasn’t joined Donald Trump, 77, and other Republicans who have attacked Biden’s age, health and mental acuity as he seeks re-election.
And after McConnell’s second freeze-up last week, Biden was one of the first to call McConnell, telling reporters that his “friend” sounded like “his old self” and that such episodes are a “part of his recovery” from a fall and a concussion this year.
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This. He’s not nearly as progressive as I’d like, but he accomplished much more in his first 2 years than I thought he could get done in 2 terms. The railroad strike thing was a massive letdown, but I understand that a major focus in that moment was the state of the economy, and it was very much getting back on track and an industry-wide strike would’ve resulted in more supply chain shit, more inflation, and damning criticisms that he failed to solve economic woes because he’s too weak. He was looking at the bigger picture. A decent person would’ve supported the strikes, but Jimmy Carter proved that a decent person doesn’t make for a very good president. Sometimes, you have to make tough decisions that conflict with your personal beliefs for the good of the entire country.
As an armchair quarterback who doesn’t really know the nitty gritty details, I think I would’ve looked into nationalizing the rail industry entirely. If it’s so important to national security that the workers are barred from striking and the companies are running the industry so poorly that even with unions they are skeleton crews with shit benefits and pay with an awful safety record, then those companies have lost the privilege of privatization.
Jimmy Carter would also not have allowed rail workers to illegally strike, in violation of their contract, and in such a way that thousands of people would literally die. That is why their contract forbids striking.
Like Biden, Carter would have sought to continue to address issues regardless of the strike not materializing.
https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid
Then maybe we shouldn’t have allowed the railway companies to try and fuck them over into suicide schedules for profit.
Or, and I’m just spitballing here, if the rail companies are that important then maybe they shouldn’t be allowed to be run for profit. If they’re that critical, maybe they should be GASP nationalized.
Maybe you should be angry at the financiers that bought the companies and forced the workers to run suicide schedules for forcing the workers into a position where they started to feel like they had to strike to have normal human lives.
You’re blaming the victims here.
Vote for Congresspeople who will change the law.
I do not appreciate Presidents changing laws on a whim. That’s Trumpian horseshit.
I haven’t blamed anyone for anything - I’ve simply explained the end result that occurred, because of Biden, after you stopped paying attention.
If you’d cared enough to continue following the story, I wouldn’t need to explain any of these things to you. I knew what to look for because I did care enough to continue following the story.
We’ve had an imperial presidency since at least bush. If you’d cared enough to pay attention recently, you’d know that legal precedent has already occurred to give the president almost any power they want.
Calling that Trumpian either shows your age, or how long you’ve cared about this.
Incrementalism is an intentional tactic used by liberals to explain why they can’t undo the things the right wing does, and to explain why they can’t change things themselves when they are in power.
Liberalism is a fucking disease.
EDIT: Congress sure as shit wasn’t required to fuck over all the air traffic controllers. Funny that. Congress is never required to fuck over workers, but it is always an excuse as to why we can’t do things for the workers.
“imperial presidency” is not a phrase with any meaning. Imperialism isn’t “shit I don’t like.”
In this case, Congress is literally the authoring body of the contract’s binding legislation.
https://www.npr.org/2022/11/30/1139876084/congress-house-railroad-strike-bill
Consider knowing what you’re talking about before getting mad about it.
The precedent had been set that the US president can assassinate US Citizens without trial or judicial overview, right?
You know who set that precedent, right? That it wasn’t Trump, and there was no talk of impeaching the president that set that precedent, right?
We have a fucking imperialist presidency for the same reason people hated Trump (not a fan, or a right winger, before you accuse me of that.) People hated Trump for violating the norms of the office. Most of the powers Presidents have now are based on executive orders and precedent from previous presidents, not, you know, by actual laws. I am exaggerating for effect here somewhat, but not a lot. But violating norms is not a crime, especially when you don’t have clear laws delineating what a president can and can’t do. And it apparently isn’t a broken norm to assassinate US citizens without a trial. I don’t know how you don’t consider that an imperial presidency. Or, you’re just younger then 40 and haven’t been paying attention.
If norms are all that define a position, and you have one side breaking the norms, and the other side following them and whining to a non-existent hall monitor that the other side is breaking, not the rules but the norms, then you get what we have now.
Justifying Democratic presidents not using power they absolutely have because of subsection 6 of paragraph 5 is just a self righteous way to justify why they didn’t fight for you when the time came.
A drone strike against a terrorist group is both legal and not an assassination. They didn’t isolate that one guy. He was killed while doing terrorist shit with a terrorist group, and the entire group was killed.
In other words, legal. Don’t join Al Qaeda if you don’t want to be hit by a drone.
Imperialism isn’t “violating the norms of office” any more than it is “shit you personally don’t like,” and the above is not a violation of the norms of office, but rather something the President was given power to do by Congress, twice by that point.
I’m not sure what you wanted Biden to do here when he accomplished his goal without overstepping the bounds of his office, per the union that asked for help.
Exactly how many Republican votes has Biden got for Democratic legislation? Have you ever watched a Republican primary? Bipartisanship is the easiest way to lose a Republican race.
Only liberals believe bipartisanship works both ways. I get it, I was liberal once. But I stopped reading liberal op-eds and now I don’t have this urge to blame everyone else when Biden does things that are unpopular with the majority of voters.
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I blame the system, not the voters. Humans operating under good faith are well equipped to make sane and mutually beneficial decisions. So when the opposite is happening that is a sign of systemic problems.