Andrew Cuomo
I am not sure why I haven’t heard anyone else saying this, but the stuff happening with Andrew Cuomo is, in my opinion, very clear power consolidation. Andrew Cuomo served a purpose for the DNC. He is the governor of New York, he is a Democrat, and he has that sort of “Italian tough guy” thing going on. He was a great figurehead to represent the struggle between Trump and the state governors, and the media exalted him to fill this role. It was apparent early on, to anyone paying attention, that Cuomo made some pretty severe mistakes, but the media continued to exalt him anyway. It got to the point that people were ruminating that he might run for President, and to many that wasn’t such a distasteful idea. So, what happens if the media does nothing? Andrew Cuomo stays as the sensible “Italian tough guy” hero who “resisted Trump and saved thousands of New Yorkers lives”. In 2024, what is to stop him from running for President on such a story.
Almost as soon as Biden took office, the narrative began to shift on Andrew Cuomo. Allegations of sexual assault began to pop up and the media began to examine his poor decisions surrounding nursing homes. I don’t believe that is a coincidence. I think the DNC identified Cuomo as useful during the height of the pandemic and built him up, but now they must destroy him because he is not one of them. That’s my suspicion. (I am not saying that any allegations are untrue, rather that they are being used as weapons for his destruction)
What Joe Biden Ran On
I have been following a Twitter account called “Biden Voters Posting L’s” which posts screenshots of tweets from disappointed Biden voters. It was satisfying for about 2 seconds, and I am probably going to unfollow it, however, I have noticed an annoying trend in the highlighted tweets. People are complaining that they have been misled by Biden. I saw a news article that said that Biden ran on a platform of ending “forever” wars. Bullshit. I paid close attention to his campaign and the only thing that he truly ran on was a “return to normalcy” and not being Trump. Sure, he had a campaign page with policies, but he rarely spoke about such policies. If he was actually going to do all the things his campaign page promised, he should have never shut up about it. Biden did not fool you. You allowed yourself to believe that you were voting for something more than just a remove-Trump president, and that is on you.
I can appreciate that I may be too biased to be writing this, because I do not think much of Joe Biden. I saw early on that he was a liar (this does not make him unique among politicians). I watched the debate between him and Bernie Sanders, and he blatantly lied numerous times. That was where Bernie Sanders’ line “Go to the Youtube now” comes from. Bernie was trying to encourage people to watch videos of all the things Joe Biden lied about during the debate. Joe Biden and the democratic strategists wagered that they could lie and get away with it and they were 100% correct. So now the media is spinning a new narrative that Joe Biden promised all of these things and is now reneging. Maybe he technically promised, but the media is responsible for never pressing him on any of his shortcomings, never calling him out on his lying. (This all lends itself to my guess that they will remove Joe Biden as president after he has served 2 years and have Kamala take over)
Let’s say you have a really crappy TV at home, and you go to the store and a salesman begins to help you find a new TV. You walk by all these shiny, large, flatscreen, fairly-priced TVs and you say “Ooh I like those” and the salesman responds by telling you those TVs are unreliable because they are newer brands. He whisks you past them and takes you to the back area with a bunch of dusty old TVs. He assures you that they are tried and true and certainly better than your TV at home. You trust the salesman, because you believe he has your best interests at heart. You take one of these crappy TVs home and you find out it is as shitty as it looks, and it is debatably not even better than the TV you were replacing. You then find out that the company that makes your “new” TV has a deal with the salesman, so he sells their TVs. Who is at fault in this scenario? Everyone really. The manufacturer (the DNC), the salesman (the media), and you (you). Make sure everyone gets proper blame and don’t pin it on Biden’s broken promises alone.
The End of Fact-Checking, Coronavirus, and Cages
A lot of things seemed to correspond with the beginning of the Biden presidency. For one, Rising reported that Daniel Dale, a prominent CNN “fact-checker” who rose to fame during Trump’s presidency has all but disappeared from the network since the inauguration of President Biden.
Also, Coronavirus cases seem to be steadily decreasing under Biden. One might point out that it is a continuation of the trend following the spike on January 8th, and that is fair to say. Also, there are vaccines out now, so perhaps that is helping. However, before the peak on January 8th there was a distinct pattern of peaks and valleys (3 of them to be precise) with each peak exceeding the last. This pattern ended with the Biden presidency. It could be and most likely is coincidence, but for our conservative friends out there who have been very suspicious of the statistics surrounding the pandemic, the corruption is as clear as day. The point is not whether they are wrong, but that they believe corruption took place. It is a belief that must be reckoned with, and brow beating them will not work.
Who remembers those migrant children that were apparently in cages? Who remembers how this was declared as a crisis and you were categorized as the devil himself if you sought to add any nuance to the outrage? Who remembers when AOC referred to ICE facilities as concentration camps? Guess what they are called now!!! Overflow facilities for migrant children. “It’s only bad when you do it. When I do it, it is fine.”
I have seen some people express their disappointment in this, including AOC, so that is promising. I have also heard a lot of crickets from those who screamed loud about migrant children being housed in cages during the Trump administration.
Bonus Take: Trials and Tribulations
We have two important trials coming up in the near future. On March 8th, Derek Chauvin will be tried for the murder of George Floyd. The prosecution has been aggressive with their charges of 2nd degree murder and 2nd degree manslaughter. The murder charge is aggressive, because as long as the defense can prove that Chauvin was operating within standard police procedure (it seems as if he may have been), that charge will fall apart. The manslaughter and the murder charge are both aggressive because they rely on the idea that Chauvin was the one who caused the death of Floyd, which is not entirely clear. Floyd’s toxicology reports revealed that he had lethal levels of fentanyl in his system at the time of arrest and was complaining about not being able to breathe before he was even on the ground. It is possible that the prosecution will be unable to prove that it was Chauvin who killed Floyd.
The second trial is that of Kyle Rittenhouse on March 29th, who stands accused of murdering 2 people and injuring another in Kenosha, Wisconsin during the riots after the Jacob Blake shooting. Just like George Floyd, this incident was caught clearly on video and went viral (do people still say that?). Kyle fires two shots and kills two people and fires a third, shooting a third person in the bicep. He then walks away towards police with his hands up(ish), but oddly enough they let him walk away from the scene. The confounding factor is that the three people Rittenhouse shot were part of a crowd of people chasing him down and attacking him because they believed he had shot and killed another man and was trying to flee. Wisconsin State Law (Statute 939.48 Section 2 A) dictates that Rittenhouse was allowed to employ deadly force in self defense provided he had reason to believe he was in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm, and had exhausted all reasonable means of escape. And that section specifically deals with self-defense privileges for those who provoked attacks by engaging in unlawful conduct. In my interpretation of this law, it seems like Kyle will actually walk away from this case with nothing but an illegal weapon possession charge.
I believe that both men will walk free of charges, and half of the country will support the courts’ decisions and half of the country will be outraged. I am not going to make a prediction that there will be riots in response. I believed that would happen when the police who shot Breonna Taylor walked free, but there was no meaningful uptick in rioting. Perhaps these cases will fade away, but I think that since both incidents were clearly caught on video, both trial results might drive the left side of the political spectrum insane. Perhaps, though, instead of rioting there will be incredible pressure on Biden to act, and that scares me almost as much as rioting.
For whom the bell tolls 