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First mistake right there haha! Most TV news gives you brain worms very fast.

@Biff_T dude NGL you have a weird and consistent obsession with trans people and their issues. Has someone who is trans hurt you in some way or what are we talking about? You have brought this up in damn near every post recently even when seemingly unrelated things are being discussed just prior, and it’s strange. I’m legit not trying to bash you but I don’t understand this aspect of your posts.

Yet many “extremists MAGA republicans” lost winnable senate and House races in the midterms. Seems like it was more believable in that direction this time around! The same line that doesn’t have any impact on Susan Collins works pretty well against Hershel Walker for instance. Calling Biden an extremist won’t work and it’s not the best line of attack Republicans could use against him. But by all means…please try if you’re ok with losing again.

I'm not ignorant about Democratic Party politics or policy, I'm not sure why you would believe that. There is some batshit crazy stuff on the left, yep, congrats on identifying that! I will again point out that the only people talking about (wishcasting?) a civil war are those on the right. WTF is with y'all and all this civil war talk, seriously? I'd like our country to continue on for many more prosperous, harmonious years as a multi-party, multi-racial capitalist democracy that's the leader of the free world - feel free to join me in that. DiAngelo sucks and I strongly dislike her entire worldview. Kendi is a somewhat radical academic, but hey, it's a free country. Have you read any of his work? I can see from his point of view why he believes what he believes, even if I don't necessarily agree. Same with Crenshaw, although I'm even less familiar with her or her work. I don't find any of the above have a particularly strong influence over Joe Biden or even a connection in almost any way to his administration. I promise you that conservatives think about and worry about things like CRT 1,000x more than your average normie Democratic voter does. I don't particularly think about or care about that stuff at all. Economic growth, national defense, clean energy transition, healthcare costs & effectiveness...those are the big drivers for my vote. How sure of this statement are you? And I'm not even including people like Steve Bannon or Sebastian Gorka, who have both said some absolutely batshit crazy stuff and affiliate frequently with the most far-right radicals out there. They both were appointed to very high-level White House positions in the Trump admin. Look, I'm willing to agree in general that Trump isn't necessarily responsible for or in agreement with everyone crazy right-wing person, but I think it's fair to say the same for Biden and every person on the left you hate. Is that not fair? Amy Klobuchar is a close ally of Biden and his administration, and somewhat famously dropped out of the 2020 Presidential primary and endorsed Biden as a way to consolidate mainstream Dem support behind him and to block Bernie from winning. If you like her and her policies, there's really no reason why you should think Biden and his admin are the devil. She spoke at his inauguration! Ro Khanna is very progressive, more than me by far, and was a big Bernie endorser in 2020...I'm surprised you like him and then also think Biden is super radical left or whatever. BL: you seem to have some very interesting political views!

Whether you believe it or not, people like Joe Biden are the mainstream of the party and have been for a while. More liberal in many ways than in the past, even Clinton 90s past, but parties change and evolve all the time. More conservative in other ways than, say, FDR or LBJ. The GOP has certainly changed quite a bit in my lifetime, especially in the last ~10 years from Romney/Ryan 2012 to MAGA & Trump today. There’s a very broad swath of ideology between those two camps just within the Republican Party! There is a large part of the Dem party to the left of Biden, like Bernie et al, and there are some to the right like Manchin, Eric Adams, etc. It also varies by issue and region and there’s not a smooth alignment of ideology or policy along any one axis as I’m sure you know. You don’t have to like it or agree with current admin policies, but calling Biden a radical is not a winning strategy and not believable to the American public. In fact, it’s such a bad strategy that I really hope all my Republicans friends go for it full bore!

🤷‍♂️ not really. The ask was for reasons why I support the Biden admin, not what my critiques were. Hell, I even provided a few of those free of charge! Look, there are tons of conservative opinions around here to choose from in several different flavors...if folks want a thread to confirm their beliefs about how Biden sucks, they've largely come to the right place! I'm happy to provide a liberal critique of the Biden admin if folks want to hear that, but you have to understand it's going to be milder because A) I disagree with the premise of many conservative critiques and, B) I think the pluses are far outweighing the minusus, which is why I would vote for Biden again in 2024 if he runs or for another mainstream Dem if they run on a similar policy platform. There's absolutely no "anything to retain power;" that was the previous guy. I would not, for instance, storm the Capitol building to try to stop the certification of the Presidential vote, and I would strongly condemn any Dem or liberal or whomever who called for anything even approaching that. If Biden loses in 2024 or decides not to run, so be it. Let's make the best of what's next, whether it's a successor Dem admin or a new GOP one. Yep, I like him a lot! I was ready to vote for him in the TN primary last time around and even went to his rally downtown, but he dropped out literally two days before Super Tuesday and endorsed Biden, so I voted for Biden. It was actually incredible and surprising coordinated consolidation around Biden to block Bernie, and overall that made sense to me and earned my primary vote. Klobuchar was my second choice, but she was in the same exact boat as Mayor Pete.

Not really, no, sorry 🍻

Nuclear power is great and we should build way, way more! Never should have stopped building. Put a small modular reactor on every mil base and near every major city. Also if/when we figure out fusion it’s game over for everything else and we can usher in a future of incredible energy abundance. In the meantime, and because the HOA prohibits nuclear reactors on neighborhood lots, have solar on my roof and it’s awesome!

I mean…disagree. One former president and his legal troubles shall pass, and we’ll all move on. Actual shit-shows and national tragedies depicted for reference.

Inflation seemed to have peaked in June 2022 at 9.1%, the IRA was passed in August 2022, now the latest data from February 2023 it’s at 6% and continuing to trend down. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf 😂 This is all said in jest. The IRA had little to do with inflation and was named by San. Joe Manchin. In exchange for his vote, I would have let him name or whatever he wanted! It is a clean energy and healthcare costs law, and a good one at that IMHO.

You too buddy 😂🍺

For specifics on why I support the Biden admin in general: Passed the Inflation Reduction Act Massive investments into clean energy, including tax credits and point-of-sale rebates on things like EVs, solar & battery systems, induction stoves, heat pumps, etc. Strongly incentivizes clean energy manufacturing and mining to take place in the US or allied nations Allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, capping out-of-pocket prescription prices for seniors on Medicare, driving down insulin prices for everyone, strengthening ACA subsidies which make those plans more affordable, etc. Passed the CHIPS & Science Act - bipartisan accomplishment Onshores critical semiconductor manufacturing & greatly boosts R&D and workforce training, strengthening national security and long-term lessening the impact of a China-Taiwan conflict Passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act - bipartisan accomplishment Big investments into mental health services and some modest gun safety measures like red flag laws and enhancing background checks to keep guns out of the hands of folks who probably shouldn't have them Supporting Ukraine in their effort to repel the Russian invasion - bipartisan accomplishment Hobbling the conventional military forces of one of our biggest geopolitical foes for pennies on the dollar. Zero american military lives lost (RIP to that one MQ-9 haha) Uniting Europe against Putin and his aggressive, expansionist ambitions, adding new valuable allies to NATO, punishing Russia economically for Putin's bad behavior, and replacing Russia as Europe's biggest source of energy Those are my top 4 on policy at least. Additionally: Appointing a younger liberal SCOTUS justice to replace a retiring liberal was good if you are liberally-minded...we have messed this one up before. The American Rescue Plan was expensive and probably contributed some to the high inflation last summer, but I think it also helped us come out the back end better than anywhere else in the world - we're stronger & have better growth and less inflation than Europe or Japan/ROK/Aus/NZ/etc. TBH also just basic stuff like not tweeting insane shit all the time, not pissing off all of our allies constantly, not doing crimes like trying to overturn an election, etc. - I appreciate that in a President! Biden also led his party to a very strong mid-term showing compared to what happens historically during a President's first midterm. Dems gained a seat in the Senate and only lost a handful of House seats when the norm is getting blasted (see Obama 2010 and Trump 2018 as examples). I appreciate winning so we can do more of the above in the future. I don't worship Biden or think he's perfect. As I've said before, he's about 15-30 years older than I would like, picking Harris as VP was a mistake in hindsight because she is not a viable successor, and I don't agree with everything he's ever said or done (90s crime bill, wanting to partition Iraq, opposing the bin Laden raid, etc.). BUT, he's an effective incumbent who has help sheppard through a lot of things I support, so he's got my vote if he is going to run again in 2024. If there's a Dem primary, I'd love to support someone like Buttigieg, Polis, Klobuchar, Shapiro, Warnock, Whitmer, Beshear, Kelley, Pritzker etc. in roughly that order. I'm not a conservative, but if the GOP ran someone like Larry Hogan or Phil Scott I'd be open to hearing their pitch, and I appreciate the need for a reasonable party in opposition to the one I usually support. States with long-standing one-party rule don't tend to be run as well as those with real political competition IMHO.

Ok you recovered from the rapid descent here and if this is truly how you feel, I'm willing to engage. Just keep in mind if you call people cowards and an unpatriotic useful idiots, they are not likely to engage with you in good faith!

In that case you have to understand that your are a bit odd politically. That's fine, but just as a frame of reference, nearly every voter has voted for either Trump or Biden, and have good reasons to do so one way or the other. Saying you don't support either is not bad, but it's not necessarily good either; it's not some high-minded place where you can sit and people who voted for one or the other of those two flawed Presidents. Sorry but I don't agree with that assessment, especially when you roped in the entire Cabinet and Congress. As with any group of people there are strong swimmers and morons, and everyone has flaws, but again, it's not some kind of high-minded stance to just say, "They all suck, throw the bums out!" Ok cool story...back here in the real world I'm trying to do the best we can and see the policies I want enacted and the values I share reflected, and people who have different policy priorities and values from me are also doing the same. We can't just give up and say they all suck and live in a bunker. This is where you lost me. Do you want a maybe-helpful back-and-forth or do you want to call me a coward and a useful idiot? Because you shouldn't expect to have both. I'm an active commission officer who's dedicated my professional life to military service and I've spent about 6,900% too much time on these boards debating on politics with a relatively detailed and consistent point of view. So I don't really appreciate being called a coward who's hurting the country who has also failed to be specific on my political views. Shit, somewhere in the way-back machine on BO.net you can read probably a literal book's worth of argument about why Obama's economic policies were better than those Romney was proposing circa 2011-2012!

Great point!

Overall Biden is older than is ideal and I’d rather have someone 15-30 years younger, but that’s neither here nor there. I personally wanted a 1-term handoff to the VP, but Harris sucks big time and so given that as the most possible option, I’d rather Joe just try to stick it out…shit I’d be a fan of dropping Harris somehow and picking a new VP for a second term and then strongly consider resigning if his health fails. I also support a max age limit for holding political office just like there are min ages, and it probably should be 75. Both Trump and Biden are too old frankly. My bet is the GOP will nominate Trump again, who is more or less the same age as Biden and also shows clear evidence of losing a step compared to his former self. This is rather than someone like DeSantis or Haley or even Pence who are younger and appropriately experienced. Y’all are gonna have a full-up primary with no sitting incumbent and I am about 90% sure I know what many of y’all’s choices will be, and it won’t particularly prioritize age or mental sharpness. God bless if you support a non-Trump 2024 candidate, I hope your guy/gal will win the primary. If I could vote today in a primary and Biden wasn’t an incumbent, I would vote for someone younger - please consider doing the same in the 2024 GOP primary. Hell, if there is a Dem primary for some reason, I will support someone younger, will you? I imagine many of y’all will vote for Trump regardless, and therefore I rest my case that age is a factor, but not the primary factor in choosing a political leader.

Joe Biden is the parent of a service member who died, and also lost his daughter and first wife in a horrible car accident. I’m sure views on him are not 100% positive when polling gold star families, but I give him high marks on the grief counseling role that every POTUS inevitably has to do. I’m also a mainstream Democrat and support his mainstream Dem-priority policy accomplishments. If you’re a conservative I imagine you don’t, but it shouldn’t be hard to understand why a Democrat likely would.

Numbers seem low 😂 I’d ballpark it at close to 100%, other than maybe the brand new LTs who legit aren’t broken or old yet.

Biff, I love ya man but this is you rn…and it’ll probably be me in another 30 years or so! The only people I hear constantly harping about trans issues are old cranky GOP men and state legislators, and that Venn diagram has a lot of overlap 😅 Look I don’t fully get the issues trans people are dealing with, and parents should obviously have a say in their children’s medical care, but it’s like such a 0.1% issue I have a hard time caring at all. Adults can do whatever they want frankly. p.s. - if you want to nearly homelessness, stop holding up permitting reform and stop doing NIMBY historical character preservation nonsense and let developers build a ton of new apartments in whatever town you live in. And FWIW I am 100% walking this talk in suburban/exurban Nashville. Build build build.

Would you support Tennessee expanding Medicaid? I live here and I do. That would put a ton of resources into mental health for those at or near the poverty line, and it’s a very good deal given that the federal rather than state government pays the bulk of the added costs. But the Republican leaders here who control almost every aspect of the state government have not and do not. Tennessee is below average in almost every way when it comes to caring for people with mental illnesses. Dems here would 1000% be on board for more mental health spending and expanding access…submit the bill you’d like to see GOP TNLEG folks, we’re in the minority and cannot control the floor. OTOH this mental health argument is always made when there is a mass shooting (ie all the time unfortunately!) and I always ask why does the US have so many more mass shootings and suicides by firearm when our mental illness numbers largely track with other counties? Like, we’re not a massive outlier in mental health problems, although mental health is a very serious issue I want to deal either, but we are a massive outlier in mass shootings in particular. Why do you think that is?

So here is the actual full video (~28 minutes) of Biden’s remarks at the Women’s Business Summit at the White House. https://www.c-span.org/video/?526980-1/president-biden-calls-congress-pass-assault-weapons-ban-nashville-school-shooting 10:14-12:24 includes his opening comments about the shooting in Nashville. Feel free to judge him by those comments; I think they were very appropriate. Of literally all the things in the entire world Joe Biden can speak about well and compassionately, it would be having a child die cruelty too soon. Before 10:14 he was introduced and warmed up the visiting crowd at the White House, which included kids, and after 12:24, he have his actual remarks about women and their businesses. Even the joking comment about Jenni’s Ice Cream highlighted in bad faith above makes sense given that it’s not only a personal fav of his and an ongoing meme about him, but it’s also an ice cream business started by a woman that’s now wildly successful. So given full context instead of the dickhead edit you see above, I have basically zero critiques.

Wait, most of the time you have to pay if they do suck. Which is it mister??

Fair enough. More evidence that I won’t be making general anytime soon 🫡😅

Ok but where are we now? Trump tore up the Iran deal, reimposed sanctions and…what? Continue the narrative to today. They continued/accelerated progress toward nuclear weapons and have continued/accelerated other nefarious activities including attacking American positions and killing people. So…lot of good that “diplomacy” did. I would argue we were better off under an imperfect JCPOA than today where we have nothing but belligerence to offer. Nothing about Iranian behavior today seems cowed in any way by Trump’s big talk, his tearing up of the deal, or killing QS, which I will admit, was a good move in hindsight given there was IMHO surprisingly very little direct response. I agree Iran sucks and they were skirting the JCPOA, but what we have today is worse - open hostility with no avenue for a better outcome. They can’t and shouldn’t trust us and so I guess we’ll just trade blows until eventually we “totally fuck them up” as one strategic genius proposed above 🙄 No Nobel peace prize in your future @Standby 🤣 I would legit love to see a 3-COA presentation where the median COA (designed to bracket in the decision maker toward the staff’s preferred option) is titled “totally fuck them up.”