President Biden’s surprise visit to Ukraine was gutsy, considering it’s a real war zone and he wasn’t surrounded by U.S. troops. I hope some good comes of it. But I want to talk more about the reactions.
The disloyal opposition is singing its usual song about “America first” and “blank checks.” They are also complaining that because Biden visited Ukraine that means he’s turned his back on East Palestine, Ohio. See, for example, DeSantis says Biden ‘neglecting’ domestic problems with Ukraine trip. Somebody might want to explain to DeSantis that real presidents often do have to handle both foreign and domestic crises at the same time.
In fact, the Biden Administration dispatched all kinds of help to East Palestine. But he didn’t actually go there, see, so the relief doesn’t count. See As Biden Dispatches Disaster Relief to East Palestine, Trump Takes Credit at Mother Jones. In brief, Trump is claiming that Biden wasn’t going to send help to East Palestine until he, Trump, announced Friday night he was going sometime this week. The White House had already gotten several federal agencies involved in East Palestine before that, although I take it there was a delay in sending FEMA. (But if you go, Donald, be sure to take a lot of deep breaths and drink the water!)
See also Will Bunch’s column from yesterday’s Philadelphia Inquirer.
In fact, if residents of East Palestine — a modern news desert of downsized or disappeared news sources, which allows misinformation to fester — truly knew the reality, a delegation of townsfolk would likely greet Trump with Tiki torches and pitchforks bought from the Fuller’s hardware store.
Because the truth is that handed the awesome power of the presidency to actually do something for “forgotten Americans,” Trump’s Oval Office actions protected the rich and the powerful — none more so than the nation’s wildly profitable railroads — over the “ignored, neglected and abandoned” everyday people of places like Columbiana County. Any visit wouldn’t be a victory lap, but more like the tendency of a criminal to return to the scene of his crime.
Trump acted specifically to sabotage a nascent government effort to protect citizens from the growing threat posed by derailments of outdated, poorly equipped and undermanned freight trains that were increasingly shipping both highly flammable crude oil from the U.S. fracking boom as well as toxic chemicals like the ones that would derail in East Palestine.
Maybe it was Trump’s bitter spite toward the man who tried to launch that regulatory drive — Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president. Maybe it was the more than $6 million that the railroad industry, including Norfolk Southern, donated to GOP candidates in 2016, plus millions more spent on lobbying.
Whatever the reason, Trump had been in office for less than a year when he moved to kill the 2015 rule change initiated by the Obama administration that would have required freight trains to upgrade the current braking technology that was developed in the 19th century for state-of-the-art electronic systems. In killing the rule, Trump bought the argument from lobbyists for Norfolk Southern and the rail industry that the upgrade would have cost them $3 billion — six times what the Obama administration found it would cost.
We don’t yet know if the Obama rules would have prevented the accident. But if it’s found that it might have, this needs to make headlines.
And then there’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, who now is allowed to serve on House committees and has already established a pattern of making a complete fool of herself in them. Here is her reaction.
This is incredibly insulting.
Today on our President’s Day, Joe Biden, the President of the United States chose Ukraine over America, while forcing the American people to pay for Ukraine’s government and war.
I can not express how much Americans hate Joe Biden. pic.twitter.com/nHXzG67YOL
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene?? (@RepMTG) February 20, 2023
Greene is so “America First” that some of America isn’t First enough for her. She’s been calling for a national divorce.
We need a national divorce.
We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government.
Everyone I talk to says this.
From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are… https://t.co/Azn8YF1UUy
— Marjorie Taylor Greene ?? (@mtgreenee) February 20, 2023
She seems unaware that most of the red states would sink into abject poverty if they didn’t have blue state money coming in to bail them out. Also keep in mind that Greene is on the bleeping House Homeland Security Committee while calling for the fracturing of the homeland.
In other news: James O’Keefe has been ousted from Project Veritas by its board of directors. Basically, O’Keefe is an asshole who can’t get along with anybody.
MJT is the biggest waste of Oxygen in a RelubliKKKLAN House full of wastes of Oxygen!
WHAT A PANTLOAD!!!
A treasonous pantload!
Hey Stupid… I mean MJT, you swore an oath to uphold the US Constitution.
There's no "Right to a Divorce," or a "Separation Claus"!
I'm glad your husband was able to divorce you without too much trouble.
But hoping that your dark, inbred corner of GA can file for divorce from the US of A makes you potentially guilty of of treason.
How can someone that feckin' bone stupid and ignorant get electe…
Oh yeah:
Her voters are even MORE feckn' stupid and ignorant.
Their stupidity and ignorance run marrow deep!
Is Biden playing Rope-a-Dope again with Republicans? Last time I looked, about 70% of US citizens want to support Ukraine in their opposition to the invasion by Russia. It's no big gamble to predict Trump will win the GOP nomination. It's bordering on certain that the Trump peace plan cuts all military support to Ukraine from the US (and NATO countries) and cedes the territory Russia has annexed to Russia – even if Russia does not currently have boots on the ground in parts of the territory they've annexed.
It's my opinion that Biden wants the debate in 23-24 to be about giving Ukraine to Russia by depriving Ukraine of the means to resist. That's gonna be the Trump plan f Biden can force the discussion to go there. Biden is the president. By doing things like visiting Ukraine or hosting Zelenskyy in DC, Biden can force the discussion to be about what Biden wants the pubic to consider.
MTG wants a divorce but she still wants a (shrunken) federal government. She's all for preserving the federal goodies that MAGAs expect (Social Security and Medicare top of the list) but she wants to cut Medicaid, except in red states the depend on Medicaid. End Obamacare except in red states where her constituents are dependent on Obamacare subsidies to have the coverage that keeps them alive. (See the problem?) There's no way to make MTG's vision of goodies for her people but exclude the same goodies to people of a dark complexion work. No courts are gonna grant arbitrary application of the law as the MAGAs think the benefits should be divided.
Remember, we're talking about federal goodies and the division of those goodies and the definition of entitlement would be settled in federal court. Biden is on pace to get more federal judges confirmed in his first term than Trump. The federal courts are not where MAGAs want to go – even Trump appointees are usually upholding the law. So MTG is showboating – she has no more expectation that any states will secede than I expect to go to the moon.
McCarthy granted Carlson exclusive access to thousands of hours of video from J6. I take exception to just one word of that – exclusive. On what basis can McCarthy decide to exclude most of the media – particularly the responsible media (in light of statements made public of internal statements by Carlson and others in Fox.) I see a suit by the rest of the media over this.
"MTG wants a divorce" me thinks the only thing MTG really wants is attention! She's a troll.
Also it needs to be noted that no one from the Feds is allowed to just go in to a State without being invited. It was up to DeWine to ask for assistance if he could not or would not provide it himself. Turns out he did neither, ask or provide. But I believe it was the decision of the State government to burn off the chemicals thereby escalating the danger and poisoning of the town exponentially. For him it was all about getting it over with fast and getting the railroad company back in business and to hell with the people of Palestine.
"everyone I talk to says this"
especially the little leprechaun living in my head..
O'Keefe probably has an offer in hand from Fox, to come help edit their trove of 1/6 footage.
Recognize MTG's call for a divorce for the good news that it is:
She knows that her tribe of extremists can't win at the polls – extreme right-wing policies are unpopular. Even the state she's from – Georgia – went for Biden (by 11,780 votes, thank you Donald Trump). And I suspect after a year or so in the House, she realizes she's totally outclassed by most of the people there.
And so if she can't rule – she has no interest in representing people – she wants to leave.
Beau of the Fifth Column explains it well, especially what an economic disaster it would be for red states. He hails from the Florida panhandle, so he’s very familiar with her tribe.
Thrilled about O’Keefe getting the boot – apparently a band of employees filed an 11-page complaint about him. And completely thrilled by President Biden’s surprise visit. He’s really at the top of his game lately.
Joe Biden is is the most anti American president ever, his priorities are backwards sure he went to the southern border but only after it was cleared up and staged, he could have visited East Pakistan Ohio, to show support for the people affected by the environmental train derailment crisis.
You forgot the "/s" denoting sarcasm.
Small stuff and just the usual stupid right-wing theatrics/noise. Understand: the fight going on in Ukraine, and all the support Biden is helping to orchestrate against Putin, means this war is contained overseas, and so far won't reach America's shores. Local disasters like East Pakistan Ohio are being handled. Right-wingers can never get past appearances, the rest of us just roll our eyes and laugh.
Wingnuts like Roman wouldn’t recognize “American” if it smacked them in the face.
I think he's right about one thing; Biden won't be going to visit East Pakistan Ohio, since it doesn't seem to exist (I couldn't resist checking Google maps to be sure). And I accidentally gave him a thumbs up when I was aiming for the reply button. But at least he seems to have concern for the environment.
Good that Liz Cheney called MTG on her treason, though not as good as the Gulag. Liz will have quite a job on her hands trying to smack some discipline into the party. Right now the wack-job wing is in control in some red states, but not nearly enough to pass a constitutional amendment.
I would think MTG should write one up and send it to the States for ratification. She will get the turn down service, but not the one she gets at the fancy hotels. MTG wants to lead, the only problem she has is finding anyone close to normal who wants to follow. As one of my past partners used to say, everyone needs to visit la-la-land once in a while but not one should try to be a permanent resident there.
"We don’t yet know if the Obama rules would have prevented the accident. But if it’s found that it might have, this needs to make headlines"
Agreed and of course the GQP will exploit any situation to troll President Biden. That said however the only people making any noise on this situation are the GQP crazies. The fact that lil-donnie killed the better brake rule is not out in the mainstream media. The right wing (FOX, house republicans, Trumpland, etc.) has been building this event on right wing media for weeks. It started spilling into mainstream media sources just last week and to be honest I heard hardly a peep from democrats. MTG called for civil war and I've yet to see a counter response that got even a tenth of the coverage. The GQP is completely nuts and most rational people understand that, but this country is full of morons (80 million of them at least) and without any counter messaging FOX, the republican house et-al are making more everyday. I don't see any energy from the democrats; I also don't see members of the house or senate out there really defending the president. They need to get off their asses.
Oh, how they lay awake nights how to exploit the crazed and feeble- minded. That is their base which they cannot control. Without their votes they would need to cater to all but the uber rich. When America was great the republicans knew how to do that. But that was then.
Nothing gets them angrier, causing their fountains of hate like MTG to spew their treasonous bile, than Biden showing them up being a respected, successful and effective President. Biden’s very existence exposes them as useless and divisive, and they know it.