Biden's (shortened) overseas trip is underway. Aides traveling with him to Japan include Jake Sullivan, Jen O’Malley Dillon, Bruce Reed, Karine Jean-Pierre, Ben LaBolt, Rufus Gifford, Mike Pyle, Kurt Campbell, Curtis Ried, John Kirby, Amos Hochstein, Edgard Kagan, Carlyn Reichel. https://t.co/dFGqEvnc3h
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) May 17, 2023
It’s what my (Irish-American, Manhattan lifer) Nana would call a shonda for the neighbors: President Biden has to curtail a foreign tour that means a great deal to our Asian-Pacific allies because the American Republican Party wants to throw tantrums in public.
Still on the agenda, though:
Years ago, 4-year-old Eiji Kishida was killed in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Among his relatives alive today are actor George Takei and Japan's Fumio Kishida, who is set to meet G-7 leaders to push for progress on nuclear disarmament. https://t.co/E6bifb5G0f
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) May 17, 2023
… Mr. Kishida said he decided that this year’s summit of leaders of the Group of Seven industrialized nations would take place in his family’s hometown, to push for progress on nuclear disarmament.
The leaders are gathering in Hiroshima as the push is losing ground. Russia has repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons in its invasion of Ukraine, and North Korea is adding to its nuclear arsenal outside of international controls. The plight of Ukraine, which gave up its nuclear weapons in the 1990s, is teaching countries, if anything, the value of a nuclear deterrent…
Yet nuclear disarmament sits uneasily alongside Mr. Kishida’s efforts to bolster Japan’s defenses and strengthen its alliance with the world’s leading nuclear-armed power, the U.S. He has pledged to nearly double Japan’s military spending while buying powerful nonnuclear weapons such as American Tomahawk missiles.
The Japanese public is likewise torn. Polls suggest many people appreciate the threat from nuclear powers North Korea and China, while wanting to preserve the pacifist legacy left by the lessons of Hiroshima as they are understood in Japan.
Under a treaty with Tokyo, the U.S. has promised to defend Japan if it is attacked, implicitly putting its ally under America’s nuclear umbrella.
Still, Mr. Kishida, 65, said in a group interview with The Wall Street Journal and other foreign news organizations that he wanted to continue spreading the message of nuclear abolition.
“I feel that with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the path toward a world without nuclear weapons has become even tougher,” he said. “But precisely because we are in such times, I feel that it is Japan’s responsibility to human civilization, as the only nation to suffer an atomic attack in war, to continue carrying high the banner of idealism toward achieving a world without nuclear weapons.”…
Meanwhile:
@VP briefing on preventing default tomorrow pic.twitter.com/FCsI3nFJbg
— Nandita Bose (@nanditab1) May 17, 2023
I predict a spate of angry Repubs (and their pundit enablers) whining that the Uppity Black Vice President Lady is not the person who should be leading this discussion. If one or more of them should choke on their own bile, it would not sadden me.
Jerzy Russian
I hope the President can sleep on planes. I would be exhausted if I had his travel schedule.
geg6
As a wise man once said, fuck ‘em.
jonas
Funny none of the other G-7 leaders have to cut out to head home early because one of their major parties are a bunch of insane WATBs threatening to derail the world economy if they can’t ram through massive and hugely unpopular budget cuts. The rest of the world is continually asking itself why the most powerful country on the globe is also perpetually its biggest ass-clown.
Baud
I hope she weats a gold necklace with a “14th” pendant.
Baud
@geg6:
Still miss him.
Mai Naem mobile
Biden’s out repairing the damage the GOP’s Orange Wrecking Ball did to American alliances and he’s forced to come back to babysit the same GOP who couldn’t negotiate themselves out of a brown paper bag. The same GOP who can’t stop talking about China! China! China! Arghhh! Ugh, I’ll never forgive Sean Patrick Maloney for being such a selfish POS.
NotMax
Posted on wrong thread below. Migrating it up here.
Lombrum will have to wait a little longer.
Mai Naem mobile
@Baud: i hope she wears a necklace with a trillion dollar coin pendant with 14 on it . Maybe even Flavor flav style.
Mai Naem mobile
@NotMax: how long before Marge asks why Biden wants to help Guinea Pigs in a furrin country and not American pigs in Iowa?
Baud
@Mai Naem mobile:
MTG is from Georgia, not Iowa.
dc
¡Aplaudiría con las orejas!
[I would applaud with my ears!]
Eolirin
@Mai Naem mobile: Our issues in NY can hardly be laid at his feet. There were a bunch of things going on, the most decisive of which were that our voters didn’t turn out and theirs did.
Schumer won by historically low margins ffs.
At a certain point we need to take collective responsibility for bad outcomes. If we don’t vote we lose. If we, and not our politicians, can’t get our own community members to turn out we lose.
The maps were relatively fair, and slightly better turnout for us with slightly worse turnout for them would’ve given us the same sweep that the gerrymandered maps would have. (and we may end up with something closer to those maps anyway, if the court case throwing them back to the redistricting committee goes our way)
If we need to rely on politicians selling an uneducated and uninterested electorate on voting, we’re doomed as a society. Voters have obligations if they want to keep a democracy. Participation is the least of them.
bbleh
This whole debt-limit fiasco was SO totally
predictablepredicted that I just can’t imagine the Biden people don’t have it gamed out at least another few steps.Sigh. I hope I’m right..
ANYway, no reason to interrupt that drama with something trivial like preventing nuclear holocaust.
Eolirin
@bbleh: There are no good options in this fight except for near complete capitulation on the part of the house. And McCarthy probably can’t deliver that without losing his speakership.
eclare
@Jerzy Russian:
I know! And I’m decades younger. The numerous time changes would kill me.
eclare
@Mai Naem mobile:
That works for me!
BruceFromOhio
Sorry, that was what the voice in my head was reading and I just went with it.
eclare
@bbleh:
I agree with you, I assume Biden et al have a plan, they are too experienced not to.
bbleh
@Mai Naem mobile: Lol and talks up consol bonds. “Do you know anything about them? They sound like a good investment! Doug is very interested…” Just to fk with their heads.
Baud
You fools! It’s clear Biden is leaving the country and not coming back!
I for one don’t blame him.
Geminid
@bbleh: Biden and company have been gaming this out since the election. He called the Democratic Comgressuonal leaders over to the White Hiuse in late January for a strategy session. That was a few days before his first meeting with McCarthy February 1. So they are working with a plan which I expect is being updated according to circumstance. They’re not going to tell us what it is though. To fomd out, we’ll just have to hang on and watch.
bbleh
@Baud: Lol. “Hah, you morons! Give up Phuket for Rehoboth? Gimme a break, jack! Sayonara!”
@Geminid: it would be very disappointing if they hadn’t. But even assuming they have, I don’t think the outcome is going to be something that’ll make Dems torch off the fireworks. I expect it will be unsatisfying at best, and it will give the Republicans more than enough excuses to declare Total Victory and caper like drunk orangutans. But this is the age we live in.
M31
and I’d get a big chuckle out of it if at least some of them choked on each other’s bile
Geminid
@Eolirin: My informal survey of New York Democratic blamecasting found that 900% of the responsibility for last year’s poor showing was attributed to 7 different persons and institutions.
NotMax
@bbleh
“Phuket.”
– efgoldmanibombol
//
Old Dan and Little Ann
If I had a nickel for every time I read a comment mentioning a trillion dollar coin I might have several thousand dollars.
NotMax
@Old Dan and Little Ann
A trillion here, a trillion there; pretty soon you’re talking real money.
//
Old School
I see we are going to eventually expel everyone from Congress.
RaflW
Joe Biden has been a pretty good clutch player so far, so I do hope he has a plan, updated as needed. The whole g.d. thing is making me dyspeptic, though.
Well, mentally dyspeptic (my friend John calls it “dark ages dyspepsia”). My physical appetites are fine. In fact the first fresh-cut rhubarb-strawberry crumble is in the oven now! I’m a little shocked at how much rhubarb we have.
The recipe calls for 1# of the stalky stuff, I used 21 ozs (and, per the original cook, I made sure to keep the veg-fruit ratio intact at 2:1) and the large handle bag of rhubarb in the fridge looks undented.
Probably gonna make a big pot of freezable rhubarb sauce tomorrow.
Geminid
@bbleh: I suspect that Democrats will come out of this process more unified than the Republicans.
There may not be a clean debt ceiling raise, and some people on the left will be hollering about that like it was another Pearl Harbor. But a lot of those people aren’t Democrats anyway, and if they didn’t have this to holler about they would find something else.
RaflW
@Old School: It worked great for Tennessee Republicans.
Redshift
Even more so because it would wipe out the Squeaker’s one vote margin in favor of the atrocious debt ceiling bill!
bbleh
@Geminid: concur, not least because they/we are more unified going in. 😄
Dopey-o
If Biden forestops a default, life, the markets and the banks will chirp merrily along.
But the toxic MAGAs in Congress will not go quietly. I dread what rat-f*kkery they will produce?
AlaskaReader
Focus on the Family – James Dobson
I was told on these pages that the Christofascists associated with Focus on the Family aren’t all they used to be, …that somehow or other, they’re supposed to be less of what they once were.
That’s dangerously naive thinking.
Today, Alliance Defending Freedom are one of the extremely effective forces of evil compelling Republican both state and federal policies which are taking rights and lives from women and minorities.
They are wielding the power they have attained.
Alliance Defending Freedom
Some of you may have read MisterDancer’s post this morning
The heading was : It’s all connected.
Interesting feature which headlines this Alliance’s website.
Alliance Defending Freedom – James Dobson
Pride of place, so to speak, on their Introductory page. Second hit on a Google Search.
This is a news release from June of 2022 from Focus on the Family, calling attention to their partnership with Alliance Defending Freedom.
Should anyone think the Christofascists are any less of a force for evil now than at any moment in the recent past, well, those who think like that aren’t registering just how effective these Christofascists are in this day and age.
They may not be capturing headlines as much as some time in the past, but they sure are more of an effective threat today than ever.
It’s 2023 and the Christofascists are firmly in control of the Republicans and the Supreme Court.
And evil is being done to our fellow citizens.
The Christofascists have regained this power at the same time some folks think they’re somehow less effective than they once were.
Christofascists have openly declared war, and they’ve made unprecedented gains towards winning that war.
Take the threat seriously and start fighting back,
…before you no longer have the opportunity to fight back.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Old School: turning Schiff into a MAGAt target probably will lead to his leaving the House… for the Senate
Rebels Dad
@AlaskaReader: Your concern is noted and appreciated. I’m a gay guy who grew up Baptist so I (unfortunately) speak fluent Dobson. I’ve been fighting these assholes since I came out in 1997, and I won’t let up until one second after I draw my last breath.
Jackie
@Mai Naem mobile: Ooooh! And a discreet “47” charm necklace to tease the 2028 elections 😉
Redshift
@Old School:
We can definitely believe the ‘female George Santos,” right?
Geminid
@Dopey-o: The fiscal year ends September 30, and Congress will have to pass a new budget or a continuing resolution by then, or else there will be a government shut down. Now there’s a cheerful thought!
There may also be a critical vote on additional military aid to Ukraine this summer. Congressional leaders made sure to include $44 billion of aid in the Omnibus Bill passed right before Christmas, but that money will not last but so long.
AlaskaReader
@Old School: Who would ever think they’d one day find Luna calling someone a liar.
Reference
Dangerman
I support negotiating with the Republicans. My opening offer is fuck you.
ETA: Curiously, that’s my closing offer, too.
Rebels Dad
@Dangerman: Pretty close to my opening offer, which is “fuck all y’all”.
Rebels Dad
@Redshift: El estupido, me quema!
AlaskaReader
@Rebels Dad: …way too many have already lost their right to fight back.
Michael Bersin
אַ שאַנדע פֿאַר די גוים
A shanda fur die goyim or A schande far di goyim.
Yiddish. An embarrassment/shame before/in front of the world [plural – non-Jews]. You didn’t keep it in the family, you had to do it in front of the whole world.
Ksmiami
@geg6: just invoke the 14th at this point. Fuck the Republicans. The GOP needs to be destroyed
AlaskaReader
@Michael Bersin: I know nothing about Yiddish, I have no understanding of the reference
Did find this.
Rebels Dad
@AlaskaReader: https://www.washingtonpost.com/gene-weingarten-defines-shanda-for-the-goyim/2011/05/17/AFaOBn5G_story.html
AlaskaReader
@Rebels Dad: thx
Another Scott
@bbleh:
Relatedly, … Dean Baker at CEPR:
(Emphasis added.)
I haven’t seen it put that plainly before; I think that cuts to the chase.
(I haven’t read the FYFNYT links he points to.)
All that said, I think that Biden’s right that there will be no default. And I don’t think that there will be huge cuts or giant work requirements or any of the other stuff that the GQPers are screaming about. He knows how this stuff works, and he has a strong hand.
“You know, Qevin, the 14th Amendment says that the debt shall not be questioned. We can talk about the budget. But give me a clean bill or I’ll tell the Treasury to keep paying the bills as the Constitution demands…”
Will the GQPers get some cuts on something? Probably. They do have some power in the process…
But it’s not over until it’s over.
Cheers,
Scott.
strange visitor (from another planet)
it’s amazing how the durham report doesn’t say ANYTHING they say it says.
doesn’t show schiff lying about ANYTHING.
it’s not even like they’re PRETENDING to have read it.. just vomiting out lies as usual.
…and they’ve COMPLETELY memory-holed the gop-controlled SSCI report that laid out the russian ratfucking conclusively, to say nothing about the mueller report.
the constant, CONSTANT gaslighting is really setting my teeth on edge.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Another Scott: you know, the law about the head of ways and means getting to view the tax returns of any american was also a “shall” law…
and we saw how that turned out. the order granting the committee the right to see the files was slow-walked for years by fascist-friendly judges and then smothered dozing beneath a pillow by comer
eta- just saying my faith in the inviolability of black-letter law is a LOT shakier these days.
NotMax
@strange visitor (from another planet)
Assiduously treating 1984 as an instruction manual.
eversor
@jonas:
Most of them don’t have as Christian as a society as we have or the economic power. Keep the economy, ditch the Christianity. Always look to remove Christianity at each chance you get.
Rebels Dad
@eversor: Christianity isn’t the problem. Fascists and authoritarians appear in every religion, and also in atheistic societies. The problem is the defects in their nature. These defects are not caused by any religion or ideology, rather, a religion or ideology is the vessel used to accomplish their goal, which is the accumulation and concentration of power.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@NotMax: i figure they’ve expanded the two minute hate a wee bit.
….also, SO many goldsteins.
we, outside their fascist cult, are all emmanuel now.
Another Scott
@strange visitor (from another planet): Indeed.
Still, it’s much easier, and more deniable, for the 6 GQPers on the SCOTUS to break the government by little nicks here and there than to take a chainsaw to it all at once. They can’t claim that nobody told them what dire things would happen if they said that Biden’s Treasury couldn’t pay the bills…
I suspect, if it somehow ever got to the SCOTUS, that they would find a way to punt (“political question…”).
We’ll see!
Cheers,
Scott.
jonas
@Another Scott:
IANAConstitutionalL or anything, but my understanding of the situation is that there are two possible ways to approach the 14th amendment thing, which is why I think Biden is a little wary of invoking it right now. The clear meaning of the text renders defaulting on US government debt unconstitutional. But the question is whether it thereby implicitly authorizes continued borrowing, or merely requires the government to then prioritize redeeming debt/paying interest above all other obligations. That would take a while to litigate and in the meantime, the US economy goes to shit and takes the world with it.
mrmoshpotato
@Jerzy Russian: I imagine his bedroom in
EdAir Force One is comfy as fuck.mrmoshpotato
Just click it and enjoy the laugh.
Jager
@Baud: Plenty of pigs in Georgia
eclare
@mrmoshpotato:
That is perfect!
Omnes Omnibus
@AlaskaReader: No, the commenter stated that Focus on the Family had taken a step back from what it had been doing. That was it. The rest is what you read into it.
Frankensteinbeck
@Rebels Dad:
Hoooo, boy, don’t they. We haven’t had a lot of atheist countries, but Mao, for example, deliberately destroyed his entire middle class, and repeatedly caused famines on the level of a hundred million deaths, for his fucked up but completely non-religious beliefs. Murderous narcissistic assholes find a justification.
AlaskaReader
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, nope:
I’m about had it with people here telling me what I’m reading.
Here’s just one of the quotes that will speak to you jumping in.
No longer quite the force for evil it once was.
And, in reference to last time you all wanted to tell me what I’m reading, I’ve provided my receipts,
More than one of you have attempted in one way or another to demean or belittle me, up to now I’ve not responded in kind.
… I’ll check back if any other of your lunch room pals want to jump in, …feel free, I’m a gonna be right here.
JWR
@strange visitor (from another planet):
Maybe they’re saying that Schiff lied to get the ball rolling on the investigation itself? Or, you know, something else really really stupid.
Mai Naem mobile
@Eolirin: ofcourse it always comes down to turnout but from what I read Maloney could have sacrificed himself and we might have been able to hang onto the house. Obviously 99.9% of politicians aren’t going to sacrifice themselves for anything. The Dems have just had shitty luck and/or poor planning for the census years.
Mai Naem mobile
@Baud: Yes, I know MTG is from Dalton, Jawjah. Having known some people from Dalton(the carpet capital of the US), I’m not surprised MTG was elected there. I said pigs in Iowa because of Iowa GOP reps complaining about the California law mandating minimum pigpen sizes for raising pigs.
Balconesfault
If Biden says he’s going to invoke the 14th amendment right now, that lets the Republicans off the hook. They then have absolutely no responsibility to try to moderate in any way and the media will parrot their talking points about fiscal responsibility and continuing to pile up debt etc.
Biden’s going to continue to make it clear to the public that the Republicans are nihilists, so that when he finally announces invoking the 14th amendment the leaders of American corporations and the financial sectors will be begging him publicly to do it.
AlaskaReader
@Omnes Omnibus:
No longer the force for evil they were.
And you claim I’m what did you say?,
I’m …’reading that in’.
AlaskaReader
@Tony Jay:
Didn’t want you to miss a response I left for you.
JWR
Some bizzaro Catholic groups decided it was time they become “offended”, and the Dodger’s caved to their demands. Shame on the Dodger’s, my lifelong home team. (From Los Angeles Daily News)
Poor Marco! It’s a shame his humor gene never kicked in.
Omnes Omnibus
@AlaskaReader:
Okay, it is pretty clear that most other people read that statement as being limited to the specific group Focus on the Family and you are reading it is Christian Nationalists in general. I will leave it there.
AlaskaReader
@Omnes Omnibus: Uh, no again.
I’m not ‘reading in’ anything.
Anything other than the printed words on these pages.
I brought the receipts to show that Focus on the Family is alive and well and not diminished in any stretch of the imagination.
Do I associate Dobson’s fascist followers with other religious Christofascists? Yeah, mainly because they all have pledged their fealty to one another and joined together to wage war on my family and friends.
They are not less of a threat today, they are more of a threat.
Do you want to maybe reread their press releases where they clearly state those intentions or are you going to try to tell me I’m ‘reading that in’ too?
For fucks sake.
AlaskaReader
@JWR: …very few parody their faith better than Marco Rubio.
Ruckus
@Jerzy Russian:
His plane is outfitted just a bit different than the ones we all fly on. He doesn’t have to sleep in a public airliner seat. He has a chef rather than boxed food like objects. He doesn’t have to wait for an hour to pick up his own bag(s). I’ve been in a prior presidential airplane at a airplane museum. His is bigger than that one. Roomier.
Ruckus
@jonas:
A lot of people want to be best at something. Even ass-clowns….
NotMax
@Ruckus
When does the House begin an investigation into why fuel prices suspiciously went down right before Biden’s flight?
//
AlaskaReader
@Ruckus: …it seems I remember the ass-clowns once had a spokeswoman urging them on to ‘be best’…
YY_Sima Qian
Nearly a decade ago, debt ceiling drama instigated by the GOP forced then President Obama to skip the APEC & the East Asian Summits, much to the disappointment of most Asia Pacific countries. This was to be the 1st a US president attended the ASEAN led East Asian Summit. The signal further raised doubt in the region on the sustainability of Obama Administration’s “Pivot to Asia”.
History is rhyming, as greater farce.
Countries of the Asia Pacific want 3 things from the US:
Even under Biden Administration, regional countries have had reasons to be concerned (to varying extents & w/ varying vocality) on all 3 accounts: the US has made it clear that further trade negotiations are off the table; domestic political disfunction has cast doubt on whether the US will remain engaged in Asia for the long term; rhetoric wrt China is increasingly unhinged in DC & sanctions/ trade restrictions applied w/ increasing abandon. The deranged actions of the Congressional GOP throws these concerns in even sharper relief.
Everyone will understand why Biden had to skip the visits, just like they understood when Obama cancelled. However, foreign countries & populations will not so easily distinguish GOP behavior from “US” behavior, especially since the GOP can recapture the WH & the Senate in the next election.
Tony Jay
@AlaskaReader:
Yeah, that’s a no from me. Monumentally uninterested in your belated flourishing of dog-eaten homework.
Omnes pointed out your error in yesterday’s thread far more succinctly than I could. If you have a problem with your mistakes being pointed out – and from the way you’re intent in spreading self-righteous dickery across every thread you’re on, you clearly do – that’s something for you and your conscience to work out in the privacy of your own mind.
You have a nice day now.
Princess
@Old School: isn’t Luna the rep. Who has almost as many lies about his career as Santos?
PaulB
Ditto. Althought I found it mildly amusing that his “receipts” don’t prove anything, other than his lack of reading comprehension.
And this is literally all the time I care to spend on this “controversy.” Should that individual choose to try to continue his crusade, it will be pie-eating time.
AlaskaReader
@Tony Jay: You’re even more of a pompous ass than I thought.
Omnes pointed out no errors,
..and besides, Omnes isn’t your keeper. but I can see why trying to hide behind Omnes appeals to you.
You fuck right off again.
AlaskaReader
@Princess: Her career, but yes to the lying.
AlaskaReader
@PaulB: …receipts prove nothing?
..only if you ignore evident reality, …but I see that’s a favored sanctuary for many of the pie eaters.
PaulB
Oh, the irony….
Yup, pie it is.
Anne Laurie
You know that, and I know that, but my Nana was not Yiddish, although many of her neighbors were. Since the concept is (also) very Irish, she was fond of the phrase even though she didn’t get the language quite correctly!