I believe that Joe Biden was a very good President and a very good man. And yet I would like him to resign in less than two weeks. Here’s why.
One of the most affecting stories I read (or heard, I don’t recall) in the days leading up to the election involved a little girl who was very interested in the history of Presidents. (I’m going to paraphrase this from memory for now, and perhaps correct it later if I can find it again.) She had one of those sets with the plastic figures of the Presidents from Washington (if it was like the one I used to have, he was wearing yellow breeches) to whomever. She took her father over to the set and asked him: “where are all of the woman Presidents?”
And he told her that we had never had a woman serving as President. She was confused, then aghast. And then, one can suppose, dispirited, diminished, and less ambitious to serve as men’s equal.
Many of us thought that we were going to get one this time around, but we didn’t. But we can still get one if Biden steps aside and let’s her take over this job, much like she did the last one. It’s all on him, because it may be a long time before a party nominates a woman again (and when one does, it will probably be the Republicans, who can afford to traduce traditions when it helps them.)
If Biden steps aside, and Justice Ketanji Brown is there to swear Harris in, she should immediately appoint him as her Vice-President (giving him the record for longest service in that position, if anyone but us geeks cares), and the still-Democratic-led Congress should approve him. It will then be Biden’s, rather than Harris’s, solemn duty to preside over the Electoral Count on January 6, 2025. He would handle it with dignity and grace.
Why November 20, 2024, at 11 a.m.? Because it is exactly 61 days and one hour before January 20, 2025, at noon, when Trump again is inaugurated. And that, in turn, is exactly — to the minute! — twice the time that the President with the shortest ever tenure in Presidential office. (We don’t count “Acting Presidents” serving during colonoscopies and such against the reign of the current President. Our 9th President, William Henry Harrison, spoke for way too long in inclement weather without protection from it — and he got sick and died 30 days, 12 hours, and 30 minutes after he was sworn into office. So this is as good a time as any.
Either as Harris’s Vice-President or as her Presidential enjoy, Biden should then go to Palestine, hopefully not getting killed in the process, and talk real sense into the Israeli people, without whose Prime Minister’s interventions Harris would likely have won, and talk to Palestinian leaders and citizens in the West Bank as well, going wherever he damn well chooses. If they refuse to take him somewhere, he can flat out demand it and make a stink — and if requires parking an American warship in a Gaza dock then so be it. He needs to demonstrate that while our relationship with Israel may change for the better under Trump — although, frankly, they shouldn’t count on it — it will definitely change for the worst under the next Democratic President if they try to block Harris’s enjoy from getting the facts in the region. He can do this from around Thanksgiving until it’s time to get back home in time for the January 6 count.
I trust Biden to work through the details. And I trust the makers of those plastic halls of Presidents to show future children and adults alike that the two President in between Trump’s first term and his last look chaotic because this was a chaotic time — and that Biden and Harris were willing to act, in wholly legal ways, as “disrupters” at a time we needed to document the havoc that was underway as the United States of America reached its 250th anniversary.
Thus we would have our woman President — at least for two months — and anyone who doesn’t like it can just piss off.
I dunno, Greg. The first female President shouldn’t be the result of a technicality.
Oh, boo-hoo. It’s within the rules. And it’s message to the future about the times we’re in.
Yeah, that we’ll give you want we want to give you even if you don’t want it.
Y’all just got wrecked because of that attitude.
Learn, evolve, or embrace irrelevance.
Oh, you think that the public would be in an uproar if Harris spent two months as President?
I do not think that you have tightened your screws recently. It’s all up to Biden.
Yes. The public, or at least a questionably stable portion of it, would be in an uproar.
See Jan 6, 2021.
Please cite your facts in response.
Are you fucking kidding me? WHY? ON WHAT BASIS? Biden can resign anytime he wants to — and then Harris takes over until Inauguration Day.
Are you fundamentally misunderstanding something here? Do you somehow think I’m saying that she could take over Trump’s term?
That’s zero facts, sir.
I don’t think you’re appreciating the rabidity of the mob.
If you seriously think that a mob would rise up and start murdering others in response to Biden resigning and Harris — legally and in due course — then you are on the wrong side of the gun control issue.
That seems like a good reason to go into gun scores and alter guns so that they’ll blow up in their owners’ hands, if they are actually that deluded. Would you join me in that? Or are you fundamentally, after all is said and done, 100% in favor of mob rule?
Greg,
Seriously . . . Jan 6. I put nothin past those people.
Really think you’re arguing with yourself on this one.
Snowflakes unite. Barring unforeseen circumstances, you have to win that office. She couldn’t even win a primary. Enough already. Next!
Btw, it’s Gustavo Arellano’s fault, she didn’t win.
Do the rules allow it, Counselor? They do — so “you have to win that office” is pulled out of your ass.
And of course — if you happen to read closely — it’s not Harris’s choice; it’s Biden’s.
Hasn’t Biden done enough.
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
Joe Biden, who is funding an ongoing genocide, is a “very good man?” It’s that sort of delusional observation that, among other things, reflects why the Democrats just lost so badly. Joe Biden believes in the goal of this genocide. He wants to see Palestine erased and greater Israel expanded in its place. He doesn’t care about children being blown to pieces and being buried in small bags or left to rot under rubble. A good man, or a good woman, would immediately halt arms shipments to Israel. Evil is as evil does.
Handing Kamala Harris a participation trophy isn’t going to inspire anyone, particularly a young girl who will learn that a woman can only win when a man gives her a handout.
Yes, he was a very good President.
Have you ever voted for the Presidential candidate who’s won an election? Have you voted for more legislative candidates that have won than you had fingers? You’re really not the person I’d look to for advice on the compromises candidates make to win elections. Point to the candidates who took positions far enough left for you who won this year. You don’t give a fuck about that, because you’re all about personal purity — not realizing that you just helped elect the person who will greenlight a much more active phase of Palestinian genocide. But you don’t care, because you’re childish and narcissistic. Time spent listening to you is wasted.
Wealthy interests — including AIPAC — bought this election for Trump and they could have done even more along those lines had they wished. Going against the broad consensus of money people (and most voters, it seems) in favor of what Israel’s doing would have meant losing by twenty points — literally no chance to win — because even if either Biden or Harris had gone along with cutting the military aid (which may not have even been legal given its appropriation), the demands would simply grow to build on that little victory. Palestinians weren’t campaigning on “just cut the military aid”; they were pushing for going back to 1947 and getting a do-over, with no Jewish state. Maybe you’d campaign on that –it’s easy to do when you really don’t give a shit about only getting 4% of the vote.
May not have been legal to stop the arms transfers?? Are you serious? It is illegal NOW to be sending them arms based on existing laws forbidding doing so for countries committing war crimes. But “good man” Biden ignores U.S. law and sends the weapons anyway.
Wow, do you mean that two potentially applicable laws can conflict? Well, I never! (Nah, I knew that; actually you never.)
I consider Israel to be committing war crimes, although for technical reasons they have viable defenses. (One is: if attacked, when is a country legally required to cease pursuit of the attackers? It’s not yet clear, though it is clear that they haven’t fully fulfilled their “self-defense” aim of destroying Hamas, which could well allow them to survive a case alleging war crimes.) The proposed rule that “Whatever Fullerton Rag decides is thereby true” has been rejected by the courts.
The most important point is that they have not been found in a competent court (whatever that might be, given the judiciary’s reluctance to weight in on foreign policy matters) to have been committing war crimes, so that law does not yet apply — even if you and I think that it should.
Yes, if Congress appropriates money, the President is not supposed to sequester it.
We now send things back to you for another edition of “A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing.”
Your dipshit party helped to elect Trump by not using an alternative platform, at least, not a sincere one. And if a person can’t take a stand against genocide, where is the red line?
This is wishful thinking. My dipshit party could not even elect any of the Senators, aside from Bernie, who took your advice even halfway seriously. YOU would apparently not even have voted for them because of their association with Harris, and therefore with supporting genocide, because your own pristine hands are the most important thing in your entire world.
I wish that what you (and countless other leftists) say is true, but I don’t see even a smattering of evidence for it. I’d love to see polls seeing how many people would have voted for Bernie over Trump; maybe you can get together all of the Green Party big donors and commission one. Oh, wait…
What ARE you writing about? A court does not need to find a country guilty of war crimes for US funding to be halted. Our government itself can make that determination, and, indeed, the State Dept. staff did so, but were overruled by the detestable and utterly ineffective Anthony Blinken, leading to resignations from principled employees.
You are talking out of your ass. Here’s how it works.
1. Your Alterna-Biden says that he finds that Israel is guilty of war crimes and he is therefore required by law to stop supporting them.
2. Any fucking interest group in the country — let’s say it’d be AIPAC — could challenge Biden’s intention in federal court.
3. First, AIPAC would go to Amarillo Texas and get that biased judge to issue a stay on the Alterna-Biden Administration’s actions. If they got one, they could have waited it out for the rest of his administration while it slowly wended its way through the process.
4. If that judge killed himself after being visited by three ghosts showing him the future, so that AIPAC could not get a stay of Alterna-Biden’s actions (and let’s say that Alterna-Congress could not get a stay either, given its bipartisan supermajority in favor of Israeli security at any cost), then the decision would absolutely hurtle through the judicial system, probably with the Alterna-Supreme Court reaching out to snatch it before it got to a lower Alterna-Circuit Court of Appeals, and they would overturn it — most likely 9-0, possible as little as 7-2.
5. The Alterna-House would immediately impeach Alterna-Biden.
6. The Alterna-Senate, after 30 minutes of hearings by both sides, would remove Alterna-Biden from office.
7. Alterna-Harris would become President, and perhaps not even you would fail to see why she would “get the message” and refuse to throw herself on that same grenade.
There is appetite among elites of both parties for beseeching Israel to slow down on and limit its excesses. There is almost no appetite beyond Zogby (and Sanders on a good day, and a smattering of House Reps) for taking actions that would likely lead to the deaths of even a tiny number of Israeli residents because they failed to give them the bombs they needed to — as the inevitable lie from Netanyahu would go — “wipe out Hamas for good, which we are on the very verge of doing, and which would already be done if Biden was not so weak-kneed.”
One would think that, after as many years as you’ve put in as part of a relatively small third party, you would recognize that you are part of a small tendency in American politics and you cannot solve problems merely by positing an electorate more to your liking. We live in a country that is in the real world, and it and the rest of the world are highly morally compromised. You can wash your hands of it all, but all that does is waste our precious water resources. Do you want that on your precious conscience?
Zionist blaming Zionists for a Trump win. Now that’s ironic yeretz israel.
Sorry Greg, gotta agree with Fullerton. Ivanka is a better bet for your sad dream.
And how exactly would Biden’s resigning make Ivanka President, Steve?
This is a wild idea for sure, but it would certainly get in the history books (if we even have books after I’m dead — so luckily I won’t know that we have completely given in to the forces of darkness).
As I’m thinking about it, I find myself liking it. Why not? I can’t think of many good reasons why we shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy this tiny moment of historic one-upwomanship! It will probably be the last time for a while.
Sadly, though, no time for an inauguration ball and a feature on the President’s ball dress! As my grandmother would say, Oh sugar and fudge!
Thanks, Sharon. Sadly, the other men here have deemed it unseemly.
It’s all up to Biden — and I hope he does it.
You lost me at “talk real sense” in reference to our drooling,dementia-riddled leader.
Would that I had lost you! Biden’s not demented, though he has slowed down a bit and he had a terrible debate. Now post one link to any photo of his drooling, freak, then get lost for good!
The Guardian reports on former Harris aide proposing Greg’s far fangled idea.
https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/11/biden-resign-kamala-harris-president
Sleepy one barely campaigned for her, and there has been tension between them throughout his presidency so Greg’s paper airplane is aimed for the circular file.
No one wants her to be president. That includes the one most sleepy.
“Nobody wants her to be president?” I did, and so did over 71 million Americans.
Well that’s disingenuous. We didn’t want the Rotten Yam.
I’d buy you a beer Zenger.
I voted for her too. A lot of people voted for Jimmy Carter too in 1980.
CNN reports too. Did Greg start a thing??
https://youtu.be/MWoO5oxWlzY
Wouldn’t be the first time Greg started a thing. During the Senate primary, when Schiff was trying to keep Katie Porter out of the primary by focusing all his attacks on Steve Garvey, thereby raising Garvey’s profile, Greg said that Katie should start attacking Republican Eric Early. And soon enough Katie started doing that! (Not Early enough though.)
You don’t “start a thing” and when people object, go ape shit. That’s just weird.
If you’re talking about Ryan’s objections, it’s not the disagreement that drives me apeshit. It’s the notion that we must not disturb the calm of the armed populace lest they shoot us all for no good reason. I’d think that you’d agree with me about that notion being weird.
Not what I said, Greg.
However, in the current world, not making yourself a target isn’t the worst idea.
You know, Ryan, I sort of like the idea of “owning” the MAGAnauts when they realize the US government isn’t a bright, red rubber ball.
Yes, there is that.
Thanks for that, Vern. I’ve always sort of liked that tune.
I first heard it done by some obscure punk band in 1980 or so; I wish I could find that. I don’t even remember their name.
Ah, it was the Diodes, from Canada! I love this version:
Ryan, if you think that proposing that suggesting that Biden resign for a month or two of a Kamala Presidency is endangering myself (and calling upon others to do so as well) because some fucking psychos may start shooting for no good reason, then you are much more of a “better to live on one’s knees than die on one’s feet” type than I have ever taken you for.
And if you think I’m misinterpreting you after this many tries, perhaps you simply have not stated your position sufficiently clearly. I’m reconciled to the prospect of being shot during the coming Administration, and only hope that I can gather the miscreants into a nice circular firing squad before I go. But then, I’m an *actual* patriot, unlike those who misappropriate that term, much as they do “Christian.” (No aspersion intentionally cast directly at you there, buddy.)
The Diodes rub out the pitch variations that I like.
Come live in the south for a few years, then we’ll talk.
I absolutely favor arming all Blacks in the South, including with grenades. And tanks! Happy now?
P.S. I did live in Arkansas for a year, as a visiting professor under at a Protestant college with what I now realize was a neo-Confederate college President. Fantastic graduation ceremony, tiki torches and all!
Vern, she is toxic.
This is just an appetizer before the main course of making Don Bacon Speaker of the House!
I sort of like that both Eric and Symone Sanders are crying over this. “ONOZ, a stunt!”
Ironic, Trump won without recruiting any of her former staffers to trash her. But they are out there. She on the other hand gave a platform to anyone who would trash him and got no traction. Au contraire, she chased Biden votes away. Where did all the Biden votes go??
Word on the street is she can’t run a campaign let alone an office. In other news; Ada must have gone on vacation.
“Word on the street.” Such a petty little gossip you are.
Female politicians routinely get attacked for being awful to their staffers, largely because it’s so striking when they’re not “demure.”
I hate it when you make me defend Ada, but: huh? And to think that you just called someone else toxic!
The chatter continues.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/13/biden-step-down-harris-president/