February 13, 2024

Tuesday, February 13, 2024. Annette’s News Roundup.

I think the Roundup makes people feel not so alone.

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Joe is always busy.

Why President Biden is a Superhero.

This op-ed from the Los Angeles Times offers interesting insights on why Joe does so much.

Opinion: Age matters. Which is why Biden’s age is his superpower.

Joe Biden is old. Like each of us, he comes from a particular place in history, in his case the LBJ years. And that’s one big reason why his first term has been so full of accomplishment: His age, often cited as the greatest obstacle to his reelection, is actually his superpower.

There was never much question that Third Act, the progressive organizing group for people over 60 that I helped found, would end up endorsing President Biden for reelection. We campaign to protect our climate and our democracy, and so the chances we would back Donald Trump — who pulled us out of the Paris climate accords and helped mount the Jan. 6 insurrection — were nil. (Nikki Haley, another no-go, strenuously backed Trump’s Paris pullout.)

Biden, on the other hand, is a scrupulous small-d democrat. His record on climate isn’t perfect, but he has helped jump-start renewable energy development, and just last month he showed real bravery in standing up to Big Oil and pausing new permits for LNG — liquid natural gas — export.

Still, individual policy decisions don’t explain why my organization’s members are drawn to Biden. It’s not that we reflexively like older politicians; we take seriously the need to pass the torch to a new generation. But we also don’t unthinkingly dismiss anyone just because they can collect Social Security. Obviously you lose a step physically as you age, but the presidency doesn’t require carrying sofas up the White House stairs. And science increasingly finds that aging brains make more connections, perhaps because they have more history to work with.

It’s the specifics of that history that really draw us in.

The first presidential election in which Joe Biden was eligible to vote featured Lyndon Johnson beating Barry Goldwater. History remembers LBJ’s presidency as chaotic because of his tragic adventuring in Vietnam, but in other respects it was remarkable. His Great Society echoed Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal (FDR was Biden’s childhood president). Under Johnson, the federal government took ambitious steps to advance civil rights, to rein in poverty, attack disease, beautify human landscapes and conserve wild ones, and to further science — these were the Apollo space program years. Not every project worked, but lots have lasted: Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps, for instance.

So Biden was socialized in an era when government took on big causes, and you can see it reflected in his first-term commitment to rebuilding infrastructure on a grand scale, boosting a new sustainable energy economy with billions of dollars for solar panels and battery factories, dramatically increasing the number of people with healthcare, and standing up for gun control, voting rights and reproductive rights.

This propensity to go big is different from his immediate predecessors.

Barack Obama first got to vote in the Carter-Reagan election of 1980, a landslide for Reagan that repudiated an active role for Washington in domestic policy, replacing it with the idea that government was the problem, and that the free market solves all problems. Reagan’s triumph was so complete that it altered for a long while the boundaries of our political life: When Obama, at the end of his time in office, was asked why even with 60 Democratic senators at his inauguration his policy achievements — Obamacare excepted — had been relatively modest, he cited a “residual willingness to accept the political constraints that we’d inherited from the post-Reagan era. ... Probably there was an embrace of market solutions to a whole host of problems that wasn’t entirely justified.”

Biden simply doesn’t have that residual Reaganism; his political makeup was formed before the Reagan revolution. He watched a booming economy in the Johnson years that narrowed the gap between poor and rich. Reagan’s economic boom benefited the rich. Now Biden is back in LBJ mode, and the gap has — for the first time in decades — begun to narrow again.

What are Trump’s political influences? What presidency might be his model? He first got to vote in 1968’s tilt between Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon. He didn’t inherit any of Nixon’s few good qualities (he founded the Environmental Protection Agency, for instance). Trump mainly seems to have adopted Nixon’s endless sense of victimization, not to mention his willingness to break the law on his own behalf.

The commitment to the principles of the New Deal and the Great Society — to the idea of America as a group project, not a series of isolated and individual efforts at personal advancement — are what we desperately need. Turning over all important decisions to “the market” has left us on a planet with melting poles and cartoonish levels of inequality.

Johnson, of course, wasn’t reelected; with the war in Vietnam raging, he didn’t even run. Biden appears to have remembered that too, with his forthright decision to finally get us out of Afghanistan. Now Gaza may be the kind of inhuman quagmire that could still bring him down.

That would be a shame, because given another four years Biden might well be able to restore confidence in an America that has so destructively turned on itself.

Age matters. My cohort agrees. Why did Biden believe he could do what he did in his first term? Because he’d seen it done. Let’s hope the politicians of the future are watching his successes closely.

Bill McKibben is Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Policy at Middlebury College and founder of Third Act. (Los Angeles Times)

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Unhinged, the President called Trump unhinged.

The “sick F#ck” is “unhinged.” Did you know?

Only joking -the President is known to call Trump a “sick F#ck” in private, and “unhinged” publicly this weekend, but to my knowledge, he has never called him both terms in one sentence.

President Biden went after former President Trump on Sunday for his comments admitting he once threatened NATO allies he would “encourage” Russian aggression, calling the remarks “appalling and dangerous.”

Trump recounted the remarks during a campaign rally Saturday, saying he “would encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to countries that are “delinquent” on NATO financial and military contributions.

Biden warned Sunday that a second Trump term would destroy American relations abroad and embolden the country’s enemies.

“If my opponent, Donald Trump, is able to regain power, he is making it clear as day that he will abandon our NATO allies if Russia attacks and allow Russia to ‘do whatever the hell they want’ with them,” he said in a statement.

“Serving as Commander-in-Chief is the ultimate responsibility and one that should weigh heavily on the individuals that hold this office,” he continued. “Donald Trump’s admission that he intends to give Putin a greenlight for more war and violence, to continue his brutal assault against a free Ukraine, and to expand his aggression to the people of Poland and the Baltic States are appalling and dangerous.”

“Sadly, they are also predictable coming from a man who is promising to rule as a dictator like the ones he praises on day one if he returns to the oval office,” he added.

Biden’s comments come after the White House denounced Trump on Saturday night, calling him “unhinged.” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) also joked that Russian President Vladimir Putin “must be absolutely thrilled” about Trump’s words.

GOP rival Nikki Haley also hit Trump for the comments, warning the former president to not “take the side of a thug,” referring to Putin. (The Hill)

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Sample comments on Trump’s shocking words.

Trump’s treasonous words:

One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, Well, sir, if we don't pay and were attacked by Russia, will you protect us? I said.. No I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.

Congressman Dan Goldman. NYS. Democrat.

After Trump antagonized them, President Biden masterfully rallied our NATO allies to support Ukraine in its existential battle for freedom against fascism. And to date, the EU has given more than twice as much money as the U.S. to Ukraine.

“It’s just Trump” is not an excuse.

Former Congresswoman Liz Cheney. Wyoming. Republican.

NATO is the most successful military alliance in history. It’s essential to deterring war & defending American security.

No sane American President would encourage Putin to attack our NATO allies. No honorable American leaders would excuse or endorse this.

Former Congressman Adam Kinzinger. Republican.

Trump is a war monger.

Senator Tom Kaine. Virginia. Democrat.

Anne Applebaum. Naturalized-Polish journalist and historian. Staff writer, The Atlantic.

Don't let Republicans, or anyone else, turn Trump's remarks about NATO into an argument about levels of spending. The news story is this: Trump told Russia to invade U.S. allies, to do "whatever the hell they want." This invitation to violence makes the world more dangerous.

Historian Heather Cox Richardson. Faculty, Boston College.

When he was in office, Trump did, in fact, try to weaken NATO—as well as other international organizations like the World Health Organization—and promised he would pull the U.S. out of NATO in a second term, effectively killing it.

Congressman Jason Crow. Colorado. Democrat.

Trump just encouraged Russia to attack our allies where U.S. troops are stationed. He has maligned veterans. This is a man who doesn't understand the nature of service, he has no interest in anyone but himself.

Jaime Harrison, Head. Democratic National Committee.

I’m sure this sent shivers down the spines of our European and NATO allies and the fact that the press is failing to adequately cover it and Republicans are not outright condemning it and Trump is a testament to how dangerously close we are to losing it all.

John Bolton, Former Trump national security adviser.

“I just think people need to take Donald Trump very seriously…When he says he wants to get out of NATO, I think it's a very real threat, and it will have dramatically negative implications for the United States.”

CNN reporter Andrew Kaczynski.

Trump's NATO comments remind me of when he praised Putin invading Crimea in 2014: "So smart. When you see the riots in a country because they’re hurting the Russians, okay, ‘We’ll go and take it over.’ And he really goes step by step by step, and you have to give him a lot of credit."

H.R. McMaster, Trump’s second national security adviser and a retired Army lieutenant general.

A one-word assessment of Mr. Trump’s comments: “Irresponsible.”

Retired Adm. James G. Stavridis, former supreme allied commander of NATO.

“An American withdrawal from the alliance would be a geopolitical mistake of epic proportion. Even discussing the idea of leaving NATO — let alone actually doing so — would be the gift of the century for Putin.”

Charles Michal, European Council President.

“Reckless statements on NATO’s security and Art 5 solidarity serve only Putin’s interest. They do not bring more security or peace to the world,” European Council President Charles Michel said in a post on X. “The Transatlantic Alliance has underpinned the security and the prosperity of Americans, Canadians and Europeans for 75 years.”

Then, came Trump’s allies. All Republican.

Senator Lindsey Graham. South Carolina. Republican.

(Posted on X by Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine).

“Give me a break — I mean, it’s Trump,” Mr. Graham said. “All I can say is while Trump was president nobody invaded anybody. I think the point here is to, in his way, to get people to pay.”

Senator Marco Rubio. Florida. Republican.

Rubio on CNN’ State of the Union on Sunday on why he was not bothered in the least.

“He told the story about how he used leverage to get people to step up to the plate and become more active in NATO. I have zero concern, because he’s been president before. I know exactly what he has done and will do with the NATO alliance. But there has to be an alliance. It’s not America’s defense with a bunch of small junior partners.”

Senator Tommy Tuberville. Alabama. Republican.

After a reporter asked him if he thought it was correct for Trump to encourage Russia to attack a NATO country, Tuberville said he was “not getting in that conversation.”

Senator Thom Tillis. North Carolina. Republican.


“He used a little flourish that I would not have used, but he’s not wrong about having far too many members not paying the minimum 2 percent for NATO,” Tillis said, adding that it was a “foot fault” on behalf of Trump’s staff for “even allowing” the idea of Russia attacking a NATO member “to get out there.”

Washington Post. Among Republican lawmakers, . . . the remarks were met with a mixture of pushback, defensiveness and silence.

Some Republicans stayed mute on Trump’s words.

Key Republican leaders in the Capitol, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), remained mum.


Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also did not respond to reporters’ questions on Sunday on Trump’s remarks. However, on the Senate floor ahead of the vote to advance the Ukraine and Israel funding package, McConnell delivered a passionate speech on the importance of the United States’ commitments to its allies. ( Washington Post).

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Trump is a threat to National Security.

Listening to Republican lawmakers since Trump spoke about NATO on Saturday, I have been rethinking the truism that many of us know - Trump Is a threat to national security. But maybe the silence as well as the remarks by prominent Republicans on Trump’s threat to NATO show us that maybe we should be saying - Trump and the Republican Party are a threat to National Security.

For example, you just read Rubio above, pooh-poohing what Trump said about encouraging Russia to do whatever they like to our NATO allies. In December, Rubio was one of the Republicans who co-sponsored the Senate’s bipartisan law, which prevents presidents from leaving NATO.

The vote to pass this bill in December was 87-13. Members of both parties, including Rubio, know we needed this bill. Where is that Rubio now? Where are the other Republicans who supported this bill now?

One more thing.

Let’s drill down a bit more on Trump’s now re-stated position on Russia.

Did you know that Donald Trump first went to Moscow in 1986? He went on business. Russia was then part of the USSR, led by Gorbachev. Trump’s first wife Ivana, who accompanied him, spoke Russian.

In 1987, when Trump came back, he spent $130,000 for ads, including for a full page ad in The New York Times on Sept. 2, 1987 in which he began his now familiar complaint that for decades other nations have been mooching, taking advantage of the United States.

Apparently, in 1987, Trump was already considering running for the Presidency. He had no understanding of why the United States needs international alliances. Then he was particularly citing Japan.(source. Buzz Feed)

Since then, Trump has changed his focus. For him, NATO now and since at least 2018, has been the worst culprit, or at least the culprit that he can point to, costing America money.

On January 14, 2014, the Times reported that when Trump was the occupant of the White House, . . .[in 2018], President Trump suggested a move tantamount to destroying NATO: the withdrawal of the United States.

In 2019, senior Trump officials told The New York Times that several times over the course of 2018, Mr. Trump privately said he wanted to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

In the days around a tumultuous NATO summit meeting last summer, they said, Mr. Trump told his top national security officials that he did not see the point of the military alliance, which he presented as a drain on the United States.

When Trump left the White House, his admiration for Putin (as well as other authoritarian leaders) did not diminish, especially on the occasions of Putin invading both Crimea and Ukraine. In 2018, Donald Trump told G7 leaders that Crimea is Russian because everyone who lives there speaks Russian, according to two diplomatic sources.Trump described the invasion of Ukraine as the work of a “genius.”

As Maya Angelou said, when someone tells you who he is, believe him. I believe Trump. I believe the lawmakers who are members of his cult too.

Trump and the Republican Party are a threat to National Security.

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Enthusiasm by the social media numbers.

Biden’s first Tik Tock video

Activate it with your digit!

Holy cow. In 12 hours, the Biden campaign’s first TikTok video received 4.7 MILLION views & more than 468,000 likes. The account also went from 0 followers to 46,000 followers in 12 hours. Huge numbers. Gen Z is energized & fired up. This is why we will win. Amazing.

Let’s take a look at metrics from his Dark Brandon post last night. In under 12 hours, 429K people have liked it on Twitter and more than 118 MILLION people have viewed it on Twitter. Again, massive numbers. Lots of eyeballs. That’s 1/3 of the country there. (@Victorshi2020)

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Blue Wit and Wisdom.

@SandiegoMayer - executive director, VotersTomorrow … a Gen Z org. - The last time the Chiefs beat the 49ers at a Super Bowl, Joe Biden beat Donald Trump at the election.

Hillary - Congratulations to Taylor's boyfriend—and the entire Kansas City Chiefs community! 💕

Vaccinated players win the Super Bowl.

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The Kansas City Chiefs are coming back to the White House

Touch to activate

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In honor of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Feb. 12th, let’s think of Seneca Village in NYC.

Unfortunately it is all too easy to uncover racial discrimination and damages in America, on any day.

Before Central Park, There Was Seneca Village — How The Largest Community of Black Property Owners in NY Was Lost.

https://www.westsiderag.com/2024/02/12/before-central-park-there-was-seneca-village-how-the-largest-community-of-black-property-owners-in-ny-was-lost

In the 1950s, multiple communities of color on the Upper West Side were razed under either the mechanism of eminent domain (government seizure) to construct urban renewal projects, or separately justified development initiatives. San Juan Hill, a bustling Puerto Rican community that was also one of the city’s largest Black communities at the turn of the 20th century was reduced to rubble as part of Robert Moses Lincoln Square Development plan, resulting in Lincoln Center. Slightly farther uptown, during the same decade, the “Old Community” on West 98th and 99th streets was knocked down as part of a “slum clearance” initiative that saw its 2,000-4,000 Black residents forced to relocate without help from the government.

However, before either of those Upper West Side communities, there was Seneca Village — the largest community of free African-American property owners in pre-Civil War New York.

In the mid-19th century, Seneca Village was a thriving community of predominantly Black landowners who lived in the area that is now Central Park between West 82nd and 89th streets. The community began in 1825 when Andrew Williams, a 25-year-old Black shoeshiner, bought the first three lots in the area for $125.

A crucial element of the Seneca Village story is the ability to own land. During that time period, New York State required that African-American men own at least $250 in property and have at least three years of residency to be allowed to vote. In 1845, of the 100 Black New Yorkers who were eligible to vote, 10 of them lived in Seneca Village.

By 1855, Seneca Village was home to approximately 225 residents, about two-thirds of whom were Black New Yorkers.

The community would not survive much longer, though.

During that decade, city planners faced with an unhealthy urban sprawl wanted to build a public space where New Yorkers — of all economic backgrounds — could breathe fresh air.

The state enacted a law in 1853 that set aside 775 acres of land to create the nation’s first massive public park, and allowed officials to claim the land beneath Seneca Village.

While the city did pay the Seneca Village landowners for their property, many contested that their land was undervalued. The last of the residents had to leave by the end of 1857.

Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux then famously led the construction of Central Park starting in 1858.

Now, during Black History Month, the Central Park Conservancy is conducting three tours of Seneca Village on February 17, 19, and 25, for those interested in learning more about the history of the community. There will also be tours during April.

“On this tour, visitors will read the physical landscape of Seneca Village to understand the particular value it provided to Black New Yorkers seeking refuge from the crowded conditions and racial discrimination prevalent in early 19th Century NYC,” a description of the tour reads.

The 90-minute tour will cost you $25, and sets off from the Mariner’s Gate at West 85th Street and Central Park West.

You can find out more about the Seneca Village tour — HERE.

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Finally, Today is Election Day in Congressional District 3 in NYS (Parts of Nassau County and Queens).

This was the Congressional District of the notorious George Santos, who lied and cheated the people of his district, until even Republicans joined Democrats in expelling him from the Congress. The vote on November 29, 2023 was 311-114.

Tom Suozzi, Democratic Candidate in Congressional District 3. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 2016 and reelected in 2018 and 2020. He retired from Congress to run again for the Democratic nomination for governor of New York in 2022.

Tom Suozzi must win this election, and add another Democratic seat to the House.

Vote! Get out the vote! Today is Election Day.

Vote or call anyone you know to vote!

There may be up to 8 inches of snow in CD 3 tomorrow.

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Yesterday, Trump filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court on his Immunity Claim.

Yesterday, Trump had a private meeting with his favorite Judge, Aileen Cannon. That continues today.

Thursday, the Trump criminal trial, which is focused on his payoff to Stormy Daniels as part of a coverup to fool voters, will resume.

Tomorrow, the Roundup will focus on Trump in court and other legal matters. I promise.

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