Gearing up for a farewell to Joe Biden

by philg

We are informed that Joe Biden is too senile to run for reelection, but also more than capable of serving as Commander in Chief of the $1 trillion/year U.S. military (so he’ll do that job for another half year). We’ll soon be reminded, no doubt, by government-sponsored media (NPR) and government-affiliated media (most of the rest) of Joe Biden’s tremendous achievements between 2021 and 2024. Perhaps we could also fit in a brief moment of thanks to the person who made Joe Biden’s magnificent largesse, such as student loan forgiveness, possible: the taxpayer. This humble soul, attired in threadbare garments, is featured in an 1877 oil painting, The Tax Payer, by Hugo Oehmichen. Note the comparatively rich outfit worn by the government employee:

I was fortunate to see this work of art yesterday at a “museum of work”, the Grohmann Museum, within the Milwaukee School of Engineering. (Google has a version that might be better for zooming in.)

A biography of the artist from the Royal Collection Trust:

Hugo Oehmichen (1843-1932) studied under Julius Hubner and Adolf Ehrhardt at the Academy in Dresden, from 1858 to 1864. In 1866 and 1867 he visited Italy, and in 1869 he visited Düsseldorf, the banks of the Rhine and Moselle, Westphalia, Hesse and Swabia, returning with numerous studies. These travels in small-town Germany, and home life with his children, inspired many of the genre scenes for which he is best known. From 1862 he exhibited at the Academy in Dresden, and he also exhibited in Berlin, London and Antwerp.

Readers: Which progressive hero (or heroine) will Democrat elites select next to stave off the end of our democracy? How long will it take peasants to respond to the updated propaganda and transfer their enthusiasm to the new candidate for whom none of them previously voted (at least not for this role)?

Personally, I would like to see a Kamala Harris and Hunter Biden combo. Speaking of Hunter, the museum holds one of his works:

Title: Hosing Down the Coke.

26 thoughts on “Gearing up for a farewell to Joe Biden”

    • What can be dreamed up in drug-induced hallucinations, without being burdened by hard earned cumulative knowledge and by God-given morals – isn’t it US Democrat party and neo-liberal position for the past half of century or so?

    • “believe in what can be, unburdened by what has been” reminds me of the beginning of the The Gulag Archipelago, where Solzhenitsyn is brought to police, or some other officials, and they try to talk him out of writing about Gulag. They tell him about old saying: “The one who dwells on the past, loses one eye”. Solzhenitsyn writes that the quote is correct, but incomplete, and they do not mention it’s second part: “The one who forgets the past, loses both eyes”.

  2. The Calif* way of life gets another 4 years closer to being the national way of life under Kamals. Wonder how our $200 electric bill for 400 sq ft is going to scale to Greenspun’s mansion, but it’s for the environment.

    • Lion: we’re paying about $450/month at Florida rates to keep 10 tons of AC and a pool going!

    • You load 16 tons, and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt! (It had not occurred to me that this song was about air conditioning)

    • I should! Supposedly, Tiger Mom (Amy Chua) convinced him to write it. That’s enough motivation for me!

  4. I’m looking forward to 2025’s New York Times Bestseller: _Veggie Tales: My Presidential Memoir_ by Joseph R. Biden.

  5. “We are informed that Joe Biden is too senile to run for reelection” – you were not. You are lying.

  6. Which progressive hero (or heroine) will Democrat elites select next to stave off the end of our democracy? Karmala Harris
    How long will it take peasants to respond to the updated propaganda and transfer their enthusiasm to the new candidate for whom none of them previously voted (at least not for this role)? about a week.

  7. After the debate, Kamala was quoted as saying that President Biden had a “slow start” but a “strong finish.” Reporters indicated that Kamala presented an impassioned defense of the president after his shaky performance. See: https://www.axios.com/2024/06/28/kamala-harris-joe-biden-defends-debate

    I trust Kamala will therefore now be of the position that Biden has necessarily sold-out on America and has put his last-minute and entirely personal decision to retire over the needs of our country, given that she just recently confirmed his 100% capability to run and continue as our president.

  8. There is no guarantee that Harris will become president. To that end, I propose Bidden resign now so that Harris becomes president and we have a first woman, a first Black American, and a first South Asian American as president of USA.

  9. Gotta admit — This is the best coke-related Hunter pic we’ve seen in a while.

  10. Those of us who have worked for Uncle know that whoever is on top doesn’t make a lot of difference except as to agency focus – when the new guy comes in he says let’s focus on this issue rather than that & the bureaucrats kind of implement or drag their feet if they do not agree. The bureaucracy knows or thinks it knows what is best since the politicos come and go while the career bureaucrats are there for the long haul and have seen lots of administrations come and go. I mean Biden has probably been out of it for most of his presidency yet the country continues on a course that about half the voters think is the right course.

    • @ perplexed My most favorite topic. The content moderation policy! In my experience most comments make it past the comment moderation policy unless they use one forbidden word that refers to black people and rhymes with digger!

  12. I live in Europe and don’t know much about American politicians. But from what I gather from European newspapers, there are some reservations with respect to Kamala Harris. The leading German newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, listed Harris, Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer as potential candidates. I skimmed Newsom’s biography on Wikipedia and he seems a solid candidate. He has the right age, the right experience, governs the biggest state of the USA and seems very well connected. Where could he be vulnerable to attacks? There were some hints to alcohol problems in his private life and a past sexual scandal but it is a decade ago. Don’t get me wrong, I am no fan of his — because of covid/masks/lockdowns: all politicians who ordered or endorsed such measure deserve only utter contempt and electoral defeats — it’s just a game with myself to test my intuitions.

    • Newsom has already paid Obeissance to Kamala, thereby self-destructong as a possible candidate. in the current cycle.

    • Seems that Gavin Newsom has an open marriage, with his wife playing almost porn star role during Harvey Weinstein’s California trial, and solicited donations to Newsom’s campaign after her sexual encounter with Weinstein. Safe to say it makes him unelectable in most of US states. Also he acts dorky which probably won’t go well with core Democrats outside of California and Vermont.

    • Gavin needs to own the decline of California.

      If one ran against Gavin, it would be non-stop “Do you want the US to go the way of Califonia?”

      I don’t see how he could do it.

      Re: having already endorsed Kamala. I don’t think that’s the big deal that people think. He’s been running a shadow campaign to raise his standing in the party while saying he’s really out there to support Joe (and now Kamala).

      But if there were bad poll numbers for Kamala and any sign of a strong “Draft Gavin” moment under way, he’d knock his mother over to start his own campaign.

      Maybe I’m being overly cynical, but I don’t think so.

      I have the same vibe as when Nikki said she’d never run against Trump, then later said something along the lines of “Things have changed, and now I’m answering our nation’s call”.

      It was all just part of the plan: Saying what needs to be said to look good today, while keeping future optionality intact.

    • David: Can’t Gavin just fall back on how rich California is? California is actually pretty rich compared to the typical state (household income; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_income ). Gavin can just say “I am responsible for this high income” or “California government is responsible for this high income”, no? Americans in general think that we’re richer than Europeans because we work harder/smarter, not because had more resources per capita (stole a huge piece of land and, until recently, didn’t have a huge population among which to divide the resources). By the same token, nobody will be able to say that California is rich for some reason having little to do with Califorians.

    • Philip — California’s problems are unrelated to high wealth (except maybe that it creates a higher amount of guilt).

      Someone running against Gavin would have great material with these 4:

      – Out of control homelessness. There are many streets in our cities that look like they come straight out of the third world. Great material for TV ads.

      – Out of control drug use. This is related to the homelessness. People come here and use drugs with little fear of prosecution. SF had more deaths from drugs than covid.

      – Out of control shoplifting. It’s somewhat common to be in a CVS and see someone just walking out with stuff. There is also video online of flash mobs clearing out high-end stores. One can argue that this doesn’t effect you directly, but it feels like society has broken down when you see this.

      This happened in Oakland 2 weeks ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rboCIPiZsek

      – Trans stuff: https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/california-schools-trans-lgbtq-students-forcibly-out-parents-rcna162183

      So parents need to fear far-left teachers teaching their kids they can be any gender they want, and there’s now a law that allows school to hide it from parents. This was just signed by Gavin last week.

      If I were Gavin, I could not imagine going on a debate stage and defending this.

  13. Kamala:
    ‘I just love Venn diagrams. I really do, I love Venn diagrams. There’s just something about those three circles and the analysis of that, where there’s the intersection, right?
    ‘This is why Kamala Harris is looking forward to the future of the future which is a long way off in the distance, especially compared to the past that is behind us, and even the present where we are currently, and other people are as well, while not forgetting that if we see things as they could be, even if we hadn’t thought about seeing them in the past, or even in the present, doesn’t mean that we can’t, with our own eyes, see or at least sketch them out on a Venn diagram so that we create a pathway to follow from the present to the future„

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