The Biden - Harris Era.

[DMac]

Have heard many a catholic tell someone to phukoff back in the early 60s (probably before that too) and that's going back to the church you were raised in. Way too much of a generalization going on there. Catholics are no different than the rest of the population, you've got a percentage of all kinds in your church. Look no further than your priests and alter boys....been going on since before you were born.

[seacoaster]

Brooksie, in the Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/21/opin ... icans.html

"Most calls to “national unity” are vacuous pap. They are unrealistic, kumbaya pleas to “come together” around nothing.

But, as Richard Hughes Gibson wrote this week in The Hedgehog Review, the best calls to national unity are arguments. They are aggressive calls to come together around a specific idea of America, a specific national project.

What idea of America does Joe Biden call us to unite around? It’s the old one. As Walt Whitman understood, America was founded mostly by people fleeing the remnants of feudalism, the stratified caste societies of Europe.

Today we have homegrown feudalism. On the right, we have white supremacy, an effort to perpetuate America’s racial caste system, and Christian nationalism, an effort to define America in a way that erases the pluralism that actually exists.

On the left, less viciously, we have elite universities that have become engines for the production of inequality. All that woke posturing is the professoriate’s attempt to mask the fact that they work at finishing schools where more students often come from the top 1 percent of earners than from the bottom 60 percent. Their graduates flock to insular neighborhoods in and around New York, D.C., San Francisco and a few other cities, have little contact with the rest of America and make everybody else feel scorned and invisible.

Enter Joe Biden, a man who is repelled by the ancient feudalism of the right and is outside the “meritocratic” feudalism of the left. Here is a Truman-like figure, whose Inaugural Address was spoken in the plain words and with the plain values of Main Street.

My favorite passage was this: “Here is the thing about life: There is no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days you need a hand; there are other days when we are called to lend a hand.” The Biden values are there: humility, vulnerability, compassion, resilience, interdependence, solidarity. Donald Trump’s patriotism was bloated and fear-based. Biden’s is the self-confident patriotism he absorbed by growing up in a certain sort of country during the American century.

Every president sets the moral and cultural tone for the nation. We saw that in a terrible way over the past four years. Just by who he is, Biden sets the stage for a moral revival. His values cut across the left/right, urban/rural culture war we’ve been enduring for a generation.

This will begin to heal a broken and ungovernable nation. Next, Biden will work to depoliticize American life. Over the last years, politics was about everything except actual governance. Under Trump, partisanship was about personal identity, class resentment, religious affiliation, racial prejudice and cultural animosity.

Biden is a genius at separating politics from the culture wars. He’s been a genius at sidestepping the Trump circus, including the hullabaloo it arouses on the left. We have endured an age of affective polarization, when we didn’t disagree more, we just hated each other more. Under Biden, the emotional temperature will go down. People believe lies because of motivated reasoning. Under Biden the motivation will go down. Frankly, we need more political apathy in this country.

Biden has the right agenda, the redistribution of dignity. A politician can tell the people who have been left behind that he hears them, and that’s words. But Biden wants to present them with a $1,400 check they wouldn’t have otherwise gotten, increase the child tax credit to $3,000 and create infrastructure jobs. That’s material proof that somebody in Washington understands what you are going through and is doing something real.

Will he be able to pass this sort of sweeping legislation? I have far from given up hope. Everyday, I read that Republicans will never go for these spending plans, and I always want to ask the writer: Have you noticed that Republicans have already voted for roughly $3 trillion in new spending over the last 10 months? Do not underestimate how divided and confused their party is right now. Do not underestimate how much Republicans trust Biden personally.

Do not underestimate how many congressional Republicans would like to send checks to their people. Recently, I was on a call with the bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus and a similar group of senators. I was struck by how passionately these Republicans and Democrats are committed to one another across party lines, how deftly they used the evenly divided Congress to restart the Covid-19 relief effort in December, how fervently they want to break the partisan logjam.

If this doesn’t work and Republicans go into full obstruction mode, Democrats should absolutely kill the filibuster.

The salient divisions in the Biden era won’t just be left versus right. They will be between the performers, the people who run for office to get on TV, and the builders, the people who want to achieve something. They will be between the fantasists, the people who lie and fabricate, and the realists, the people who are attached to reality. They will be between the narcissists (Ted Cruz) and the institutionalists (Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell).

I was shocked by how moved I was by the Biden inaugural. We’ve been through an emotional hailstorm over four years. Suddenly the sky has cleared. It’s possible America may emerge from this trauma more transformed than we can imagine."

[Typical Lax Dad]

Have heard many a catholic tell someone to phukoff back in the early 60s (probably before that too) and that's going back to the church you were raised in. Way too much of a generalization going on there. Catholics are no different than the rest of the population, you've got a percentage of all kinds in your church. Look no further than your priests and alter boys....been going on since before you were born.

One of the fathers at a catholic school on LI disciplined boys by making them sit on his lap and press down hard to get their anger out...all kinds of people everywhere.

[RedFromMI]

Getting the electricity may at this time still involve a large amount of burning of fossil fuels, but that is changing, and can change quite rapidly. Start investing in more solar/wind/nuclear and you can get the CO_2 problem in a lot better place.

And the amount of oil for lubrication is TINY compared to what is necessary to burn for power.

And those lost jobs to the shrinking of oil production/fossil fuel generation can certainly be replaced by jobs dealing with the change to better sources of energy.

You still will always need oil, and you still will always need a lot of it. I am all on board for increasing nuclear power, probably the most green source of energy available. Why are the powers that be in the environmental movement so dead set against it? Does the term nuclear power send them into a tizzy? Solar/wind are great resources for providing power. There will always be downfalls with both. Solar power requires enough sunshine and wind power requires an abundance of wind. When there is no wind what powers these wind turbines... gasoline engines.

Nope - batteries/other storage mechanisms, plus better transmission. Very small scale nuclear power generators - can be put quite locally. You might not be able to convert in a couple of years, but certainly quite rapidly.

Also distributed solar to individual homes/buildings with local storage would be a good idea.

I don't disagree with you. I am an advocate of all sources of energy that keeps our nation energy Independent. Why is nuclear power kicked to the curb?. It should be a viable part of any equation that is a part of how this nation generates power to the nation.

If they could figure out how to actually turn the waste into harmless...but until then, there's going to be a heavy bias away.

Fission waste is not harmless, but there are proven methods of rendering it encapsulated within glass/ceramic materials so it can be stored away without a lot of concern. Just like the operation of a mini-reactor, it really is not a technical problem, but a political one of getting enough of the public to buy in to the concept as quite safe enough.

[DMac]

Have heard many a catholic tell someone to phukoff back in the early 60s (probably before that too) and that's going back to the church you were raised in. Way too much of a generalization going on there. Catholics are no different than the rest of the population, you've got a percentage of all kinds in your church. Look no further than your priests and alter boys....been going on since before you were born.

One of the fathers at a catholic school on LI disciplined boys by making them sit on his lap and press down hard to get their anger out...all kinds of people everywhere.

Never in a million years will I ever understand some of the goings on in Catholic schools/churches. I wouldn't have made it a week in a Catholic school. Wouldn't have started well when making me pick up my pencil right handed and would've ended quickly with a phukoff when the Priest told me to sit on his lap. I wasn't a good fit for a Catholic school.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Have heard many a catholic tell someone to phukoff back in the early 60s (probably before that too) and that's going back to the church you were raised in. Way too much of a generalization going on there. Catholics are no different than the rest of the population, you've got a percentage of all kinds in your church. Look no further than your priests and alter boys....been going on since before you were born.

One of the fathers at a catholic school on LI disciplined boys by making them sit on his lap and press down hard to get their anger out...all kinds of people everywhere.

Never in a million years will I ever understand some of the goings on in Catholic schools/churches. I wouldn't have made it a week in a Catholic school. Wouldn't have started well when making me pick up my pencil right handed and would've ended quickly with a phukoff when the Priest told me to sit on his lap. I wasn't a good fit for a Catholic school.

Yep. My 7th grade basketball coach turned out to be a pedophile. We knew he was suspect and would laugh about it....a teammate caught a cramp and coach had to rub it out....I almost peed my pants laughing.....teammate threw a chocolate milk at me because he knew why I was laughing.......years later I was at home from college and saw him arrested on TV.

[youthathletics]

Have heard many a catholic tell someone to phukoff back in the early 60s (probably before that too) and that's going back to the church you were raised in. Way too much of a generalization going on there. Catholics are no different than the rest of the population, you've got a percentage of all kinds in your church. Look no further than your priests and alter boys....been going on since before you were born.

One of the fathers at a catholic school on LI disciplined boys by making them sit on his lap and press down hard to get their anger out...all kinds of people everywhere.

Never in a million years will I ever understand some of the goings on in Catholic schools/churches. I wouldn't have made it a week in a Catholic school. Wouldn't have started well when making me pick up my pencil right handed and would've ended quickly with a phukoff when the Priest told me to sit on his lap. I wasn't a good fit for a Catholic school.

Yep. My 7th grade basketball coach turned out to be a pedophile. We knew he was suspect and would laugh about it....a teammate caught a cramp and coach had to rub it out....I almost peed my pants laughing.....teammate threw a chocolate milk at me because he knew why I was laughing.......years later I was at home from college and saw him arrested on TV.

Your buddy from Clinton MD, likely is aware of the same things going on at St.John's. Many of my friends that I grew up were alter boys and attended that church/school. A few of them were part of the first of many cases starting with Rev. Thomas S. Schaefer.

[cradleandshoot]

Have heard many a catholic tell someone to phukoff back in the early 60s (probably before that too) and that's going back to the church you were raised in. Way too much of a generalization going on there. Catholics are no different than the rest of the population, you've got a percentage of all kinds in your church. Look no further than your priests and alter boys....been going on since before you were born.

Use the f bomb around my mom she would slap your face so hard your head would have spun for a week

[foreverlax]

Why is nuclear power kicked to the curb?. It should be a viable part of any equation that is a part of how this nation generates power to the nation.

NIMBY....no one wants the nuclear waste in their back yard.

Because of hypocritical lefties who don't know the first thing about environmental sustainability. And yes, NIMBY.

Check out The Biggest Little Farm on Netflix. Compelling concept....does little for the Ag Industry Complex.

[a fan]

Have heard many a catholic tell someone to phukoff back in the early 60s (probably before that too) and that's going back to the church you were raised in. Way too much of a generalization going on there. Catholics are no different than the rest of the population, you've got a percentage of all kinds in your church. Look no further than your priests and alter boys....been going on since before you were born.

Use the f bomb around my mom she would slap your face so hard your head would have spun for a week

Can't imagine what would have happened to me if I used that word around my mom.

We got the Christmas Story treatment for either sass or swearing.

I can tell you this much: that method sure worked well on me!

[cradleandshoot]

Have heard many a catholic tell someone to phukoff back in the early 60s (probably before that too) and that's going back to the church you were raised in. Way too much of a generalization going on there. Catholics are no different than the rest of the population, you've got a percentage of all kinds in your church. Look no further than your priests and alter boys....been going on since before you were born.

Use the f bomb around my mom she would slap your face so hard your head would have spun for a week

Can't imagine what would have happened to me if I used that word around my mom.

We got the Christmas Story treatment for either sass or swearing.

I can tell you this much: that method sure worked well on me!

My mom use to use the term putting the fear of God in us. When it was needed she did so. It was many years later when i wondered why anybody should be afraid of god?

[DMac]

The thought of using the word in front of my mom, anyone else's mom, or any woman/girl wasn't even a consideration, I still don't use the f word in mixed company however commonplace it's become for gals to use it. If I ever spoke to my mother like that there would have been a search party looking for me as I wouldn't have been in that house when my old man came home and heard all about it. Outside with the boys, whole different ballgame though.

[DocBarrister]

Have heard many a catholic tell someone to phukoff back in the early 60s (probably before that too) and that's going back to the church you were raised in. Way too much of a generalization going on there. Catholics are no different than the rest of the population, you've got a percentage of all kinds in your church. Look no further than your priests and alter boys....been going on since before you were born.

Use the f bomb around my mom she would slap your face so hard your head would have spun for a week

Concussion-induced traumatic brain injury ... this explains a lot.

DocBarrister

[CU77]

Check out The Biggest Little Farm on Netflix. Compelling concept....does little for the Ag Industry Complex.

+1
Great film, highly recommended!

The marauding ducks scene alone is worth the price of admission.

[CU77]

Concussion-induced traumatic brain injury ... this explains a lot.

[cradleandshoot]

Have heard many a catholic tell someone to phukoff back in the early 60s (probably before that too) and that's going back to the church you were raised in. Way too much of a generalization going on there. Catholics are no different than the rest of the population, you've got a percentage of all kinds in your church. Look no further than your priests and alter boys....been going on since before you were born.

Use the f bomb around my mom she would slap your face so hard your head would have spun for a week

Concussion-induced traumatic brain injury ... this explains a lot.

DocBarrister

That must be it. It was a common phenome among young Catlick kids who dropped bombs in front of their moms.

[cradleandshoot]

Concussion-induced traumatic brain injury ... this explains a lot.

So traumatic brain injuries are funny? Peace be with you and have quick enough reflexes so you know when to duck. The fear of god often came with a hard smack to the back of the head. I forgot, did I say peace be with you? Those traumatic brain injuries take a toll. Sometimes the symptoms get so bad you can talk like a liberal. It sounds to me that you took a few smacks to the back of your head.

[CU88]

First meaningful negative impact on the job market caused by Biden-Harris, hundreds of Fact Checkers fired after new Press Secretary fails to LIE at first briefing...

[cradleandshoot]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... d=msedgntp

Hole shamolies, Joltin Joe has no sense of fashion at all. Way too much blue and the gaudiest most ugly effing curtains I have ever seen in my life. His office looks like there should be someone laid out where his desk is. Come on maaaaaaaaan who the hell sold you on that interior decorating idea.

[njbill]

At least Joe put a picture of his wife behind his desk on day one. It took Donnie the Playa four years to do that.