Will the public ever recognize instantly who the initials JRB stands for?

 Will the public ever recognize instantly who the initials JRB stands for?

By Hal Brown

Look up FDR and you will find...

 247,000,000 results on Google. The initials LBJ and JFK are readily associated with the two presidents.

Look up JRB on Google and while there are 8,820,000 results none, at least on the first page, refer to Joseph Robinette Biden.

Click above to enlarge

The text I used for the illustration on this blog is from this Salon article by historian Robert S. McElvaine's article ... 

Of course some presidents no matter where history ever ranks them end up being referred to by three initials even when their middle names were fairly well known. Harry S. Truman never became HST, for example.

The reference to President Biden as JRB, who is usually referred to as Joe Biden rather than Joseph Biden, jumped out at me. I think using the three initials was an attempt by the author to equate him with FDR and LBJ.

I agree with the author's assessment. 

I think that Biden's (JRB's if you prefer) accomplishments have been drowned out in the GOP noice machine. He's been like Pablo Casals or Jascha Heifetz playing a solo during  a shit-throwing battle between screeching monkeys.

After describing the accomplishments that he uses to justify why FDR and LBJ were great presidents the author explains why he thinks Biden's two-year record stacks up well against "the very high bars set" by FDR and LBJ. Here are bullet points:

• The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan to stimulate the economy.
• The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to provide for repairs and extensions to the nation's roads, bridges, railroads, water systems and broadband. 
• The PACT Act, expanding health care and benefits for those who were exposed to toxic substances during their military service. 
• The CHIPS and Science Act, funding advanced scientific research and investing $53 billion to manufacture silicone microchips in the U.S. 
• The Inflation Reduction Act, which does more than any previous legislation to mitigate climate change, allows Medicare to negotiate with Big Pharma to cut prescription drug prices, begins to crack down on tax evasion by corporations and the very rich and much more. 
• The Respect for Marriage Act, protecting both same-sex and interracial marriage.
• A reform of the Electoral Count Act, making it more difficult to overturn an election, and reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.
• Biden has also excelled on the international stage far more than Roosevelt did in his first two years — and more than Johnson ever did. Biden rallied the forces of democracy to oppose Vladimir Putin's authoritarian aggression and aid Ukraine and revived NATO, which Trump had on the verge of collapse.

The future not only for JRB, for American democracy itself, depends on how well Democrats are able to, one, get enough voters to know about these accomplishments, and two and perhaps just as or more importantly, to care about how these benefit them personally.

Those who prefer to have a fascist authoritarian America where minority groups are marginalized (or worse) are a lost cause.  In their MAGA slogan "again" is a yearning for a pre-Civil War Confederacy. 

Those with even a rudimentary grasp of history wouldn't be bothered by the similarities between the rise of Hitler in the 1930's and what is happening in the United States today. To the contrary, they would applaud it.

--------- Addendum---------

Other articles by Robert S. McElvaine:

WHATTAYA THINK OF “SLEEPY JOE” & “DYSFUNCTIONAL” DEMOCRATS NOW, AMERICA? Aug. 2022

 

Seven days in July: America's moment of political climate change Aug. 2022

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Coincidentally, as I was finishing up this story the Cincinnati mayor was being interviewed on "Morning Joe" about how Biden's infrastructure bill was helping his city from improving transportation to increasing funding to the police in order to enable them to hire community resource officers to deal with mental health calls.

Postscripts:

Jennifer Rubin in a Washington Post Q&A answers this question: Will Republican lunacy ever cost them any significant number of voters?

There are multiple groups of voters who continue to support GOP candidates. The first is the hardcore cultists, who are beyond reason and persuasion. The second includes business interests, which go along for the tax cuts and anti-regulation policies. Those people are more reachable if they fear House Republcians are inviting economic chaos.

The final group includes habitual Republicans with an inordinate fear of Democrats. They can also be swayed. These are the voters who at some level understand that Biden is not a raving socialist; that our economy is recovering; that our international standing has improved; and that the side that is radical is the GOP. Biden's appeal to bipartisanship, good faith efforts to address the border and popular economic measures (e.g., infrastructure investments) are effective in persuading this group. Overall, the best thing going for Democrats is the unhinged, irresponsible conduct of the MAGA House.

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I posted links to this on Facebook, Tribel, Mastodon, and Twitter. On the latter I included the most popular hashtags with Biden including the one with the highest number, BidenWorstPresdientInHistory. I'll add replies to this tweet here if I get any.

Here's my tweet:

New Zealand PM resigns, gives Tucker Carlson excuse to insult her looks and to make outlandish claims

 New Zealand PM resigns, gives Tucker Carlson an excuse to insult her looks and to make outlandish claims

By Hal Brown

By DonkeyHotey

 

I follow even minor New Zealand news because I have friends who live there and I often send them stories which end up being reported in the American media.

When I looked at The New York Times this morning I saw this on their website:

On MSNBC (click image to enlarge)

It was the top story on HUFFPOST:

Meanwhile on a major New Zealand news website the stories about the resignation appeared under an article about a wild kiwi egg:

The resignation gave Tucker "Tucking" Carlson an opportunity to demonstrate once again that he resides in a dark odiferous world of toxicity somewhere below pond slime.

I didn't know anything about her until today. From my reading today it became more than evident that  she has empathy. Carlson has antipathy to empathy and democracy and truth.

Tucker Carlson Announces Jacinda Ardern's Resignation By Mocking Her Appearance, HUFFPOST The giddy Fox News host made over-the-top claims about the outgoing prime minister.

HUFFPOST emphasized Carlson's mocking Ardern as "the lady with the big teeth" in the title, but this isn't his most disgusting comment.

He called her “an appalling abuser of human rights of her own people” who’s the “most authoritarian leader that country has ever had.”

What was the horrendous abuse of human rights? 

It was her taking stringent measures to stop the spread of Covid-19. Unmentioned of course is the fact that they were extraordinarily successful:

Click above for story

Then Carlson went a step further, you really have to watch his delivery to get the flavor of how he said these words:

“What are the chances she was a puppet of the Chinese government?We don’t have enough evidence to prove that, but we would rate that as about 100% likely.”

Click above

Tucker Carlson towers over also-rans like Alex Jones for the title of the most egregious and influential lying far-right propaganda purveyors. 

He would, and should, be seen as a caricature like the DonkeyHotey depiction I used to illustrate this blog story. 

He should be the blundering clown stumbling like a two-sheets to the wind drunk onto the the circus arena.  

Comment below or on Facebook or on Mastodon. You can make a reply on Twitter too.

Addendum:

Click above to read ABC News article

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This is what well-known Australian actor Sam Neal tweeted:

 

Will Manhattan DA's case against Trump have deadly tentacles

 Will Manhattan DA's case against Trump have deadly tentacles

By Hal Brown

I read this article in RAWSTORY and the phrase shown above leaped off the page and sent me to DuckDuckGo Images to find man-of-war jellyfish.

The article begins:

Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg may finally have changed his mind about indicting former president Donald Trump.

The recent conviction of the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg gave a glimpse of evidence that could tie the ex-president directly to the tax fraud scheme, such as a memo he signed approving chief operating officer Matthew Calamari’s illegal request to reduce his taxed salary to cover the cost of his untaxed corporate apartment, reported The Daily Beast.

Here's the portion about the tentacles:

“This case has tentacles,” said Duncan Levin, a former prosecutor who now represents Jennifer Weisselberg and has been communicating with investigators.

The district attorney's office declined to comment on what Bragg meant about another chapter, but former prosecutors from that office say their experience leads them to believe prosecutors will go after Trump.

“For people who want a certain outcome — to go after Trump — it gives hope," said Catherine A. Christian, a former assistant district attorney who investigated financial fraud. "They’re going to be thorough. I’m doubtful he would have said ‘next chapter’ if they weren’t looking."

To tell the unvarnished truth I don't have anything particularly original to say about this. I just wanted an excuse to make a couple of illustrations. I leave it to readers to indulge in fantasies about the Teflon don Don falling into a jellyfish swarm.

I think he might a need a full immersion wetsuit rather than a coating of Teflon to protect him from the jellyfish swarming around him not only in New York (cue music video) but also in Georgia (cue video two).

Update:

Irrelevant to today's story, items to share:

Funniest puniest of the week:

More seriously, everyone should share this image.

This hopefully will be the final straw to break for Santos and humiliate McCarthy. It would be truly great if McCarthy has to take steps to remove him from the House, and at least to immediately kick him off his committee assignments. There are a number of Republicans who shoot their dogs because they can't hunt anymore, but far more are dog lovers. I just wish more articles shared this photo:

More people should see the video in this article. It is of a former Santos roommate describing how he used the Jewish sounding name Zebrosky on his GoFundMe pages because Jews give more money. 

"He would say, 'oh well, that Jew will give more if you're a Jew," Morey-Parker quoted his former roommate.

I wouldn't say that you can make a firm judgement of how smart someone is by how they look, but then again.... (article)

.....Comment below or on Facebook or on Mastodon. You can make a reply on Twitter too.