- In Pakistan, the Taliban opposed the polio vaccine and has shot those administering it.
- In Alabama, MAGA follower Marjorie Taylor Greene has suggested shooting those trying to administer the Covid vaccine.
- I wish I was making this stuff up.
- Jimmy Carter celebrates 95th Birthday with ‘Quiet Day at Home’ Before Habitat for Humanity Trip.
- Barack Obama celebrates 60th Birthday at multimillion dollar vacation home on Martha’s Vineyard, inviting 475 guests, including celebrities Oprah Winfrey and George Clooney
- I wish I was making this stuff up.
Please share widely!
Multiple media sources reported yesterday that Barack and Michelle Obama cancelled Mr. Obama’s contemplated birthday bash (https://www.wbrz.com/news/barack-and-michelle-obama-cancel-former-president-s-elaborate-birthday-bash/)
I wish that our elected officials were actually protecting the rule of law and defending us against the white supremacists who are actively seeking to end representative democracy in America.
I still wish the diarist had not implied an equivalence between presidential birthday celebration choices and those who would shoot those administering the vaccines. Even if Obama had gone forward with Plan A it’s not nearly as egregious as shooting vaccinators and sounds like yet another excuse to bash a prominent Democrat.
I am bashing excessive wealth that exists in the face of poverty. More than 20,000 people on the Cape are living at or below the federal poverty level. To me, the political affiliation of the mansion owners is not an excuse to ignore their complicity in this matter.
If you have reason to believe that the wealth of the mansion owner was ill-gotten, please produce evidence.
The mansion owners make the rules that define what is “ill gotten” and what is not. That’s how Bezos can fly into outer space while his workers pee in bottles for fear of slowing production. If you have reason to support a former president living in heights of luxury while 20,000 citizens live nearby in poverty, I’d be interested in reading it.
When it comes to wealthy, your comparison of Barack Obama and Jeff Bezos is long on passion and short on numbers.
The 2021 combined net worth of Barack and Michelle Obama is about $110M, according to various web sources (cf https://afrotech.com/former-president-barack-obama-net-worth-2021). The 2021 net worth of Jeff Bezos is $194.4 B.
Just to make the numbers a bit easier to understand, you are conflating someone with a net worth of $194,400 M with a married couple whose combined net worth is $000,110 M (I added the leading zeros for clarity).
Mr. Bezos has accumulated almost TWO THOUSAND TIMES (1,767x) as much wealth as the Obamas. Nor is Mr. Bezos that much wealthier than anybody else — the 2021 net worth of Elon Musk is $184.4 B, Bill Gates is $132 B, and MacKenzie Scott (the ex-wife of Mr. Bezos) is $56.6 B.
Here’s an exercise for you. Divide your net worth (whatever it is) by 1,767. Just to pick a round number, suppose you and your wife retired to the Cape with a nest egg of $2M (including the value of the house you sold in Franklin). Then divide that $2M by 1,767 — I got $1,131.69
Now please consider somebody whose net worth is $1,100. Suppose they’re writing informed commentary on a blog. Do you consider it accurate and fair for them to describe you as “wealthy”? Do you accept their conflation of you with Barack Obama? How about you with Jeff Bezos?
I think you too quickly jump past the ASTOUNDING ratios of the numbers we’re talking about. Your conflation of Barack Obama and Jeff Bezos reveals that you haven’t looked at their respective wealth.
Mackenzie Scott got FIVE HUNDRED TIMES the wealth of the Obama’s by divorcing Jeff Bezos. How does that fit into your world view?
It is certainly true that hundreds of thousands of families live at or near poverty in Massachusetts. Your focus on Barack Obama distracts from the real issue.
Allowing ANYBODY to accumulate tens of billions of dollars while Americans starve is the obscenity. Barack and Michelle Obama did more to address that obscenity than any of the wealthy people I’ve mentioned here, more than you, and more than me.
It isn’t clear to me why your retirement to Cape Cod is any different from theirs to Martha’s Vineyard, at least from the perspective of any of those 20,000 Cape residents you mentioned. I’m willing to bet that most of those 20,000 living in poverty don’t see a distinction. I’m willing to bet that if they go to the barricades in revolution, they’ll cut your throat and mine just as quickly as Barack Obama’s.
You’re not wealthy. I’m not wealthy. By the standards we should be talking about, the Obama’s are not wealthy. They might be in the top 5%. You and I are probably in the top 20% (net worth above $500,000 in 2021). The Obamas are not in the top 0.1% or top 0.01% — the “Ultrawealthy” that Elizabeth Warren speaks of.
I’d like us to keep our focus on the actual problem, and not get distracted by snide cheap-shots.
Indeed. 194 Billion is more than $110 Million. Bezos is a private businessman. Obama was president of the USA and more to my point, the leader of the Democratic Party.
If you can’t see the problem with the leader of the Democratic Party residing in a multi-million dollar vacation home at a time when the working class in the USA continues to loss ground politically and vote Republican, well, that’s part of the problem and why we are struggling to win in traditional Democratic areas.
….more to the point, Tom:
Assume I am a blue collar worker in Ohio. I drive a Dodge Ram Pickup. I’m making half of what my dad made when he worked at the factory that is now closed down, so the only job I could find is assistant manager at auto parts store.
The business that ran the factory is now operating in Chihuahua Mexico.
I have no pension. My health insurance does not cover much and my kid’s meds cost me a day’s pay each month. My wife works nights cleaning offices. We have less than $500 in cash for emergencies.
As I sit in my living room and watch President Barack Obama celebrate his birthday at his multi-million dollar vacation home on the Vineyard, what connection do I feel with the Democratic Party?
For every blue collar worker in Ohio driving a Dodge Ram pickup, there are 10 or 100 or 1000 men and women scrabbling for every dime — including many of those 20,000 people on Cape Cod. Most of America’s poor envy you and me as much or more than Mr. Obama. You are cherry-picking the people you feel sorry for, and using that to distract from the real issue.
Most of America’s most poor are just as jealous about you sitting in your Cape Cod getaway typing on your computer as they are about the Obamas enjoying their vacation home.
In fact, because most of those who are most poor are also black — and still love and admire Barack and Michelle Obama — my guess is that they harbor more hostility towards you and your white privilege. A good many black Americans are happy to see a black ex-President and his family enjoying the privileges that have so often been the exclusive province of the white.
If your Ohio auto worker is too stupid, too ignorant, too racist, or too selfish to see how the GOP is destroying him, then nothing any government does is going to make a difference.
More importantly, your commentary and your examples drive home the underlying reality of the civil war that the Seditionists are waging this very moment.
The Seditionists are appealing to those who angry at losing their white (and usually male) privilege. That’s the real dynamic going on here. The demographics of America have permanently changed, and they aren’t going to change back.
White male privilege of the 1970s is GONE. Changing demographics have stripped that political power, and those who enjoyed that political power (even if unknowingly) are fighting to replace that lost political power with gains in actual bullets-to-the-head physical power.
This is a real insurrection. It is happening now. It is being fought well beyond the ballot box.
Each of us is choosing sides right now.
“f your Ohio auto worker is too stupid, too ignorant, too racist, or too selfish to see how the GOP is destroying him, then nothing any government does is going to make a difference.”
As if we had to go to Ohio for stupidity and ignorance.
Welcome to Blue Mass Group, where $110 million isn’t that much.
Welcome to Blue Mass Group, where some refuse to consider actual numbers and actual data.
We certainly do not need to “go to Ohio for stupidity and ignorance“.
No. No. No.
This is not “Cherry Picking”. We are talking about the former leader of the Democratic Party and president of the USA.
What are you offering the guy in the Ram Pickup other than insults and your own bigotry?
California’s Governor Gavin Newsom dines at the French Laundry with lobbyists at a time when he tells the citizens of California to refrain from family get togethers.
Now Obama schedules a massive start studded birthday celebration at his multi-million dollar vacation home.
And you can’t see why average working class voters see little or no connection to the Democratic Party?
We need more Jimmy Carters and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. She’s pledged that her aides will all make more than $52,000 and no one will make more than $80,000. Right now, her highest-earning staffers will take in about $65,000 this year.
Rep. Katie Porter, a freshman Democrat representing California’s 45th District commutes to work in a used minivan, not a new Escalade.
Excuse me, but that is the very essence of cherry-picking.
I’m not offering the guy in the Ram Pickup anything. He’s already been plundering poor blacks and poor women for generations.
When you and I look at “average working class voters”, we see different people. It appears to me that poor blacks, poor women, and poor black women remain invisible to you.
I share your appreciation for Katie Porter and AOC. I strongly suspect that each of them will strongly reject the commentary you offer here given the opportunity.
..yes, let’s run a campaign that appeals to poor black women and one that insinuates that all white working class men are racists, bigots, and the cause for the problems facing poor black women.
Divide and conquer? Nope. Divide and watch Scott Brown become a US Senator. Donald Trump become president…yeah, good call.
There you go again. I did not say all white working class men. I’m talking about those who today still support the GOP (and by implication, Donald Trump).
I’m saying that those who are murdering blacks and murdering those who stand up for blacks should be treated as terrorists and terrorist supporters.
I respect working class men and women of all skin colors enough to believe that most of them reject the Seditionist lies. I hope that enough of those show up to resist the white supremacist threat that the threat will be repulsed.
You’re talking about a different group. You’re talking about the kind of thugs who drive cars into crowds.
You continue to promote pandering to those thugs. I reject that approach.
There’s the rub.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Where do you draw the line of who is super rich? The arbitrary 1%, no matter how much you take away there will always be a top 1%. For those living on the Cape in poverty anyone who owns a home in Mass, let alone has a two family is rich. If you own a house in a couple different states you’re in the JayZ, Rhianna, Oprah rich category to them.
So where is the line? I would give Warren more credit if she drew the line at half of her own wealth, which would then be applied to everyone, and then when the wealth was spread around so many many more people would be helped. Wouldn’t that still give everyone a great standard of living.
Maybe we could just make an edict, give everyone a hundred Ethers or Bitcoins and see what happens in a year. Some will buy gold, some will get a new tattoo and then complain the government should have given them Tezos.
There is no need to draw any lines.
There is instead a need to collect a certain amount in tax revenue and to decide who is most responsible for paying those taxes.
The right wing never really forgave FDR for imposing a federal income tax, and they never even pretended to tolerate those who made that income tax progressive.
That has never had anything to do with how much income anybody does or doesn’t have, and has never had anything to do with any sort of fiscal or economic policy. If it did, then those who bleat the most about “fiscal discipline” would be just as aggressive towards GOP administrations as they are towards Democratic administrations.
That isn’t what happens, though. What happens is that Democrats manage the nation and the economy responsibly and hand each incoming GOP administration a reasonably well-balanced budget with deficits shrinking and the economy growing.
Each incoming GOP administration hands tax cuts to the wealthy and then — as the deficit explodes — blames the Democrats. That happened with Ronald Reagan, with George W. Bush, and with Donald J. Trump.
The current need is to apply a progressive tax to wealth just as we have applied a progressive tax to income for nearly 100 years. Those who have little or no wealth will pay little or no wealth tax. Those who have enormous wealth will pay an enormous wealth tax.
My main criticism of Ms. Warren is that her proposed wealth tax is not nearly steep enough. The wealth tax on households with a combined non-home (exclude the value of the principal residence) net worth of $10M or so should be on the order of about 1%. The wealth tax on households with a combined non-home net worth in excess of $100M should be on the order of 10%. The wealth tax on households with a combined non-home net worth in excess of $1B should be about 75%. Yes, I understand that that leaves “only” $250M for other things. Nobody is going to be sleeping in the streets if they have only a two hundred fifty million in the bank.
I agree with you that every American should be given an equity portfolio representing their piece of the national wealth to manage as they see fit.
If every American were on the same side of the financial table as Jeff Bezos, then we all might behave differently.
“ I’m willing to bet that if they go to the barricades in revolution, they’ll cut your throat and mine just as quickly as Barack Obama’s.” I have to say I don’t see this combination of elitism and paranoia in the same comment very much. And combined with the following.
“It appears to me that poor blacks, poor women, and poor black women remain invisible to you.”
Gratuitous paternalism, presuming to speak for groups of people you are not part of. What’s the point of this? Are you suggesting that poor blacks, poor women, and poor black women share your delusion that $110 Million isn’t all that much money? Or are they getting ready to cuy your throat?
I’m suggesting that poor blacks, poor women, and poor black women do not share your view that Barack Obama is no different from Jeff Bezos.
The only people I see advocating violent revolution at the moment are angry whites. The key word you apparently missed in my comment was “if”.
Surely you know the history of violent revolutions as well as me. It is neither patronizing nor paranoid to observe that the French revolution, the February revolution in Russia, the October revolution in Russia, and countless other revolutions have not shown nuance in their choice of targets. “To the barricades” is an allusion to the long and inglorious history of violent revolution. It ends badly far more often than any other outcome.
I did not say that $110 M is not all that much money. I said, instead, that it is nearly 2,000 times LESS money than Mr. Bezos.
If the time ever comes that heavily-armed right wing extremists come looking for liberals to kill, I’m quite confident that every participant in this thread will be fair game to them.
Would Presidents living less lavishly lift a single person out of poverty? You’re making it sound like a Marie Antoinette situation where their lifestyle is being funded by overtaxed peasants. Yes, Presidents get a pension as I believe they should, but that does not make them obnoxiously wealthy. In this particular diary my bigger objection is your outrageous comparison of living well to shooting vaccinators.
The problem that get discussed at the right wing meetings isn’t one ex- President living lavishly, it’s all the politicians who retire and get pensions, exempt themselves from Medicare and Social Security, get no-show jobs for their kids, etc, etc. Trump not taking a salary was part of the allure, a symbolic gesture which caused more paperwork and man-hours than it was worth but to the driver of a Ram pick-up it was the first politician in years who was outside the dirty system.
Why shouldn’t politicians use 401k’s like most workers in this country now?
I actually don’t like it when officials don’t take their salary. I don’t want people growing accustomed to electing only those who can afford to do that. I know Trump doesn’t need the 400K per annum, but IMO he absolutely should have taken it. The whole point of compensating elected officials well is that they don’t need other income, which itself could produce a conflict and means that public service isn’t limited to those who can volunteer their time.
Yes! The guy in the Ram Pickup noticed that Trump did not take a salary. That’s the point. Republicans are much better at sending populist messages and yes, you and I and all of us at BMG know those messages are a crock, but that does not win an election. Again, Scott Brown drives his old pickup truck instead of his Volvo and wears a barn jacket instead of a suit, while Martha Coakley goes on a tropical island vacation during the campaign.
This does not make the pickup truck guy a racist or a misogynist if he wants to vote for Trump or Brown.
Democrats can’t run with a populist message if they continue to divide the electorate into silos with a different message for each defined subset.
White men in the rural areas and burbs are in the working class with LGBTQ black women and the families of Cuban immigrants in Miami and Mexican immigrants in Zapata county in Texas, the first Republican presidential candidate to win Zapata County’s vote in a hundred years.
A posh birthday celebration with Hollywood guests on ones multimillion dollar vacation home on the Vineyard is simply bad optics, even if one thinks that Obama “deserves it”.
Yes, I am aware of the change in plans.
We have previously suggested that philanthropy combines genuine pity with the display of power and that the latter element explains why the powerful are more inclined to be generous than to grant social justice.
Reinhold Niebuhr
I’ve been watching the readers comments on news media sites. Democrats continue to fawn over the former president as much as Patriots fans fawn over Tom Brady and his mansions. On the other hand, Republicans look at the carbon footprint of his mansion, the number of private jets arriving with their celebrity guests, and point out the hypocrisy. What is the difference between Trump Tower and the Obama Vineyard Mansion? Trump and his followers make no bones about American capitalism and celebrate it. Obama and his followers wring their hands and offer charity while sipping a glass of Louis Latour Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru. .
The problem with these parties like the Obamas throw isn’t just that they look bad, but that they follow a pattern. Here’s a report on Hillary Clinton’s fundraiser down at Osterville a few years ago.Slumlords to Host Hillary Clinton Fundraiser (freebeacon.com) Sorry to use a right wing source, but the facts are all there. You can google “Diego Beekman” and you’ll find a lot more. (Just don’t waste your time looking for the Globe’s coverage–there wasn’t any).
Not many white guys in RAM trucks at the Diego Beekman. But the Dem’s seem to have the same attitude toward all poor people. Gerald Schuster was my landlord and as the headline suggests, a slumlord. But the list of Democrats who sucked up to him is long and nauseating.
I don’t know how much less the late Gerald Schuster was worth than Jeff Bezos. Maybe someone can run the numbers.
Yes, the Republican base criticizes Democrats for being the liberal elite with no connection to the working class, and our elected Democrats give them ample opportunity to illustrate that point. The Texas Democrats that left the state for D.C. in protest of the pending legislation that restricts voting had their heart in the right place, but doing so in private planes was just more grist for the mill.
Fifty state representatives had less than 48 hours to plan an exodus to Washington DC with their respective staff members.
The two charters they chose were FAR less expensive than had they attempted to book seats for that many people on public carriers.
You’re reading too many right-wing sources and looking at what they themselves said when asked about their choice.
Tom, yes, I have no doubt that what you posted in correct, but that’s not the world we live in. It’s all headlines and tweets. All the ordinary voters hear or reads is “left for DC on a private jet”. Sure, it would be great if everyone had the time and resources to fact check, but that’s not living in reality. The GMC pickup that Scott Brown drove was never his primary vehicle when he was a state senator. It was a prop and it worked. Sure, the careful voter could have done research to discover that Scott drove a European Import and yes, that same voter could do research to see that the charter flights on private jets was cheaper, but again, that’s not the world we live in. I see that this angers you. Sorry about that.
I hear you, John. I suspect that if we ever get a chance to meet face to face — and I hope we do! — then you and I will have a very enjoyable time. We agree on far more than we disagree about.
I agree with you about the distortions that result from blind reliance on media sources.
I do not intend to direct whatever anger I feel towards you. The future that I see unnerves me, and I don’t see us doing what I think we need to do to head off that future.
I think that pandering to the ignorance and prejudice of those who eat up this rubbish only increases their appetite for it.
My view is that those fifty state representatives were and are absolutely desperate. I think they got themselves to DC the fastest and most affordable way they could.
I think right-wing media sources would have crucified them whatever they did, and I think that the Seditionist segment of those Dodge Ram voters would have happily drunk whatever Kool Aid the Seditionist leaders and Fox offered them.
The irony of this anti-Vax rubbish is that is the Seditionist base that is already dying the most as a result of their lies. They, of course, try to blame the resulting suffering on Democrats and Joe Biden.
It appears to me that the Delta variant is killing their base faster than they can expand it.
Image is Everything—Andre Agassi’s infamous ad.
Yup, it’s true. The Texas Democrats (all Democrats in office) need to sharpen their public relations skills. They did not wear masks on the flight, another huge mistake both in image and as it turned out, their own health.
I’m sure there were empty seats on the flight. Someone should have reached out to civic organizations and see if there were any children who wanted to see DC with their parents! Make it a charity ride for poor kids. Yes, that’s more window dressing, but it works.
I know a local state rep who, whenever he is at a picnic or party and someone wants a selfie with him, always puts his drink down. No he’s not a big drinker at all, but he knows how the system works.
Wegmans Food Market was founded by Bob Wegman and I would visit their headquarters often in Rochester NY. Bob drove himself to work each day and parked his Lincoln Continental out front. One day his son, Danny, drove up in his new Ferrari. Bob came out and told Danny to take the car home and return with an American car. Image it everything.
I was at the Toyota forklift manufacturing plant in Indiana a few years ago. There is always a member of the Toyoda family at a Toyota facility. There, I met one of the cousins, “Sonny” Toyoda. Sonny drove to work each day in a Camry, ate lunch in the employee cafeteria (there was no executive cafeteria) and lived in a modest ranch house not too far from the plant.
Posh birthday parties on the Vineyard, lunch at the French Laundry, private jets…..all bit mistakes that the Democratic Party makes time and time again.
“In Pakistan, the Taliban opposed the polio vaccine and has shot those administering it.”
In Pakistan, the USAmerican military used people canvassing for the polio vaccine to locate Osama bin Laden. Using vaccine efforts to do such things is a well-known mistake that makes later vaccine efforts more difficult if not impossible. The Obama administration almost certainly knew that before they did it.
We gave the Taliban an excuse to reject the polio vaccine and, even, to shoot the vaccinators. Played right into their hands.
Yes. That is a complete disgrace that a former president actually had a birthday party with a lot of guests whose cost allegedly went over an arbitrary amount that apparently offends people on this website. Totally appalling that he thought of having a birthday party. Terrible.
I always thought he had made a Mother Theresa vow of poverty, pledging never to offend anyone. Oh, yeah, that’s right, he never did.
In fact, I think this birthday party is not only the major crisis of our time, it certainly merits being on a list with Marjorie Taylor Greene suggesting shooting those trying to administer the Covid vaccine.
Seriously? This birthday party offends you THAT much?
Yes. It offends me. It offends me when Bezos flies into outer space to inflate his ego when his workers lack basic health care. It offends me that Joel Osteen has a net worth of $40 million and pays no taxes because he is a “religion”. It offends me when poor kids are victimized by colleges offering “free college” in return for providing the school with their athletic talent on the gridiron, risk their lives and safety while the schools rake in a fortune with their “amateur” team sports. It offends me that CEO : Average worker pay ratio has gone from 20:1 to 250:1 in the USA. It offends me that the middle class it shrinking. it offends sme
You changed the subject, John. Answer the question. Does President Obama’s celebration of his 60th birthday REALLY offend you that much ?
Yes. It should offend any Democrat. We need our former presidents to be more like Jimmy Carter and less like an episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians.
Maybe some of you admire the likes of Joe Osteen and agree with Trump’s spiritual adviser Pastor Paula White who preaches the Gospel of Prosperity….me? I’m more in line with Pope Francis who shuns the opulent papal apartments for a modest room in his residence, carrying his own briefcase and traveling in a simple Ford Fiesta.
There is a middle ground between the extremes you paint.
The Vatican is among the worst possible examples of you can offer in support of the point you’re trying to make. The Vatican has been the epitome of exploitative plundering by the enormous wealthy of those who have nothing.
Pope Francis is just another figurehead. The wealth of the Vatican is staggering, and nearly all of it is dirty or dirtier than any wealth acquired by anybody you mention here.
I love Jimmy Carter and the example he sets. I also love Barack and Michelle Obama. Unlike you, I admire what Bill and Hillary Clinton have done after his presidency.
I reject your contention that Barack Obama’s celebration “should offend any Democrat”. The fact that you offer Pope Francis completely destroys whatever case you were attempting to make.
By the way, even on MSNBC this morning, they are wringing their hands about the image of the “cut back” birthday celebration that was reported still be in the hundreds of people. It was also reported on MSBNC that “several high level Democrats” are upset that this event was held and the “message it sends to the American people”.
It looks bad because it is bad. It looks like the Dem’s care more about wealthy donors and celebrities than regular people. That’s because they care about wealthy donors and celebrities than regular people.
Indeed. At the same time that President Biden tells the nation that the Delta variant is a looming threat and Americans need to work together to defeat this virus, a former Democratic president holds a star studded birthday bash at his multi-million dollar vacation home inviting hundreds of people from around the world who fly in on their private jets.
The two are unrelated.
A former Republican president is touring the nation raising hundreds of millions of dollars from his lies. So far, published reports from credible sources show that ALL of those contributions have gone to various Trump family members and organizations. NONE of those contributions have been distributed to any person or organization addressing the substance of the GOP complaints. The Democrats are not the bad guys here. That doesn’t make them perfect.
The activities of the former Republican president in Florida merit far more attention than whatever happened on Martha’s Vineyard.
I have to say, defending President Obama’s actions on the grounds that they are not as offensive as Donald Trump’s actions is a pretty low bar to clear.
We clearly have different values and priorities.
I have little to no tolerance for anybody who has the resources and prosperity to own a Dodge Ram and remains unvaccinated. You have little to no tolerance for any former president who acquires more wealth after leaving office than you deem acceptable.
You find my attacks on Dodge Ram Trump supporters offensive. I find your attacks on the Obama’s offensive.
Sounds to me like an example of diversity of views.
True enough, but pure whataboutism.
Barack Obama is presumably done running for anything, right? This has nothing to do with public policy.
Jimmy Carter is done running for anything. Barack Obama is done running for anything. What America do we want to live in, an America where former presidents live humble lives and continue to be public servants of the common people or one where the former presidents reach celebrity status and hob nob with the 1%?
I want to live in an America where my black brothers and sisters do not live in fear of being beaten or murdered by uniformed police. I want to live in an America where most Americans rely on science rather than superstition and blind prejudice to make crucial decisions.
I want to live in an America where brazenly corrupt officials are investigated, prosecuted, and jailed.
I want to live in an America where access to quality health care is a right of every American. I want to live in an America where our health care system is the envy of the world.
I want to live in an America where our public education system — from pre-school to post-graduate — is the envy of the world.
I want to live in an America where our transportation network — especially rail transportation — is the envy of the world.
I want to live in an America where our leadership in managing the climate emergency is the envy of the world.
I want to live in an America where I can genuinely trust that the combination of Social Security, Medicare, and the modest sum of my lifelong savings and investments is enough to assure me that I can live in reasonable and modest comfort.
I want to live an America where I can go to sleep at night secure in the feeling that my children and grandchildren have an opportunity to enjoy the benefits of living in a first-world nation.
I frankly don’t give a spit about what Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, or any other former president does after they leave office — with the sole exception of Donald Trump, who I believe should be incarcerated in GITMO or worse where he can live out the rest of his days in disgrace, in poverty, and in solitary. I believe that Donald Trump should thank his lucky stars that he is not executed by firing squad the way most of the authoritarian tyrants he so emulates met their respective ends.
I’ve lived in Massachusetts for nearly fifty years. I’ve never set foot on Martha’s Vineyard and have no desire to do so.
I don’t know how many years I have left on this planet. I do know that I do not want to waste even an hour fretting about what Michelle and Barack Obama do.
I’m sorry to see the suffering that this obviously causes you. You deserve better.
I for one could go either way. No doubt Carter has been an out standing human being and in many ways better President Emeritus than sitting President, but Obama is also continuing to promote service and his circle of friends is hurting exactly nobody. So much of your concern trolling is nothing more than class envy.
I don’t like any of those any more than you do, but those are policy matters, not a birthday party. My guess is the Obamas themselves would even be OK paying a higher tax rate on their current wealth or income if that’s really the issue here, but a birthday party is NOT even close to the offense of suggesting vaccinators be shot!
The damage is already done. All across the USA, anyone objecting to mask mandates or restrictions on large group gatherings is pointing to the Obama birthday bash.
All across the USA, willfully ignorant sociopaths are finding any and every excuse to rationalize their offensive fantasies and prejudices.
I think they deserve about as much attention as any white-hooded clansman deserves while marching around a burning cross.
If there are lots of them, then that is an indictment of America and the culture that produced them.
Just because some engage in whataboutism doesn’t make it right. I suspect all of Obama’s friends are vaccinated so they can get together maskless as much as they darn well please. If others want to party like it’s 2019 they shouldn’t gripe; they should JUST FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GET THEIR SHOTS!
Most of the objections to masks/mandates I hear are from people who point out the unsecured southern border. 188,000 illegal / undocumented encountered in June, a 21 year high. They don’t see that helping stem the spread of the virus.
Lollapalooza in Chicago wasn’t the best idea either. Fake vaccine passports are already easily available on-line. I know someone who went and they didn’t check vaccination status.
The conflation of immigration and COVID is typical racist rubbish. The explosion of COVID cases in Florida is the direct and predicted result of the Governor’s steadfast opposition to vaccinations coupled with his criminally negligent threats to prosecute school officials who attempt to impose masking in schools.
There are more than 330 MILLION people living in America. The trickle of immigrants across the southern border is a tiny blip — 10 times a tiny number is still a tiny number.
The answer to fake vaccine passports is surely to improve the ability to get real vaccine passports.
I agree that the emphasis on mandatory masking and social distancing is bad public policy. It is bad because the correct answer is mandatory COVID vaccinations. In the presence of widespread COVID vaccinations (even among children), masking and social distancing is far less important.
The cause of COVID is a virus. The appropriate response to that cause is a vaccination against that virus. Immigration has nothing AT ALL to do with it.
The race to the moon initiated by JFK came at the height of the cold war. American workers lacked basic health care then as well. The benefits to society and in particular American society — including the technology that we use each time we read or write commentary on this blog — all follow directly from that “waste of money”.
Private entrepreneurs funding hopefully commercially successful space technology has been the explicitly stated goal of the US space program literally since its inception. Of COURSE those entrepreneurs are wealthy — the costs involved are staggering.
I share most of your other complaints.
It offends me that the federal government is handing trillions of dollars in tax cuts and benefits to a handful of already-wealthy corporate titans while spending next to nothing on ANY sort of basic scientific research. Past government research spending has done to enrich the lives of every American — including every working-class American — than pretty much any other federal programs.
Perhaps not immediately, in the way that unemployment benefits are immediate, but instead in creating for many decades an America that was and aspired to be a shining city on a hill — for more of its population than any nation that preceded it in human history.
We turned our back on all that driven by the self-centered greed and anti-science ignorance of the GOP starting with Ronald Reagan. Right-wing America didn’t like what science discovered about cigarettes and then about burning fossil fuels, and so right-wing America turned science into “fake news” and “liberal hoaxes”.
If federal and state governments were taxing this economy appropriately and in particular taxing wealth appropriately than people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk would never had acquired so much wealth in the first place and would never dream of spending it on space exploration technology because the NASA or its equivalent would be light-years ahead of whatever they did.
It offends me that Donald Trump and the Congress handed an ENORMOUS tax cut to the very wealthy while basic science languished in America for lack of funds.
Were there more people at Obama’s party trying to figure out a way to extend the eviction band, or trying to figure out a way to get unlimited SALT deductions?