Ted Rall for February 05, 2021

Ted, you’ll have to work your way up to lame on this one.

Don’t let the impossible dreams stop you from reaching for what’s possible and good. It may actually be that if you stay within shouting distance of moderate Republicans (is there such a thing?) they won’t undo everything when they get back in power. Maybe.

Theodore, Theodore, Theodore

It’s a reality dialog, guys. Half Full vs Half Empty. Reality.If you have a problem with reality, you have a problem.

I used to enjoy Rall most of the time but don’t read him anymore because he’s devolved into an unthinking, repetitive Biden basher, as looney on the left as the MAGA idiots are on the right, but I do check back in to the comments section on occasion to remind those of you who are also critical of his ridiculous takes that the only way to really send a message to him is to stop clicking on his page everyday.

So, no matter what Biden does Rall will disapprove it. Biden’s approval rating after 2 weeks on the job is 61%. That’s about 20 points higher than the last 4 years out of the White House. The higher his approval goes the more power he has to bring Republicans to actually help this Nation.

WRT Panel #3, the President can only pardon Federal crimes.

IINM, misdemeanors are strictly state or local.

fusilier

James 2:24

Why take a tiny step towards progress when you can complain about it in a comic much more efficiently?

Totally off the mark TR.

So, so very true.

sorry; doesn’t meet the ‘Lame’ bar-Tramp and family set the Lame standard so low you’ll need diving equipment to find it, and if you do, Marjorie Greene’salready guarding it. Besides, ‘lame’ has degenerated into just plain silly.

Sigh. There are things he can do quickly and unilaterally, and there are things he can’t.

1. Biden ALSO has a Green plan inspired by the Green New Deal (e.g., ending new oil and gas leases, getting farmers to enact green-friendly practices, promoting greentech). The Paris Accord was easy to do unilaterally, and is also a symbolic gesture to show we are back in the community of nations. Doing more will require Congress.

2. He can raise the minimum wage on federal workers unilaterally, and he did it. Biden is strongly pro-labor (note new Secretary of Labor); doing more will require Congress.

3. The pardon idea is interesting. But not enough. FIRST you end the system that encouraged jailing people (especially people of color) for minor offenses, THEN you start pardoning. The other way around does nothing to solve the problem. But pardoning folks in prison for, say, minor drug crimes, for example, is a good idea. It’ll be a process, however, since he can’t just wave his hand and issue a single pardon for everyone. A million pardons will take a while!

As I have said repeatedly, Biden isn’t as progressive as I prefer, either. But he has moved farther left than he was, and he is taking quick action where he can do it on his own. The real enemy here is still the GOP bloc, which will prevent even lame actions from being implemented.

4 panels? That’s all? They’ve done so much more Maybe do a step like this everyday for the next week featuring additional “meaningless” steps. I vote to include one highlighting ending support for the Saudi war in Yemen.

Ted Rall is functioning under the delusion that simply ordering an action will make it happen, and, if it doesn’t happen, people can be forced to make it happen. He is also functioning under the delusion that he knows the only true way to proceed on any path forward. I guess he’s the brave new world alpha and the rest of us are the gammas and deltas…

Excellent discussions today!

This is so weird. The woman on the right reminds me of the ex-wife of a friend of mine (even a similar hairstyle). She was an insufferable person too.

I get that Ted is presenting two sides, but one gets the impression that he is firmly on the side of the nat-sayer. I’m afraid what Ted wants is a left wing version of Trump. Trump thought he could just snap his fingers, and the world would jump to do his bidding. Biden is doing a lot — and far more than most expected. Remembering that he has been in office just over two weeks, to expect him to fix everything all at once is absurd. To expect him to fix everything in general is unrealistic. His job is to move us in a positive direction, ideally bringing a few from the right along with us. He’s doing that pretty darn well.

WHAT !! Biden hasn’t change the world in a week. Something is WRONG !!

OMG! He’s been in office for two weeks and the entire world hasn’t changed to Ted’s liking yet! What are we going to do?!

There is a serious left critique of the relatively moderate program put forward by Biden. Rall does not offer that critique.

In earlier times, Rall think-alikes supported the purifications by Robespierre and Lenin. “The NEW requires the murder of the OLD!”

Pretty soon, they were old, and also murdered.

So if Biden’s policies are so lame and affect so little of the population, why get your panties all up in a wad over them?

Frog Applause is no longer the lamest comic.

Re:Acting Lame

But Ted does it daily without any effort.

So the Paris climate accord is weak with no enforcement? So we should mount up an army and threaten to invade any country that doesn’t comply? That’s the problem with international agreements. Now, if they had oil and would not sell it to us at a cheap price, congress would say that justifies invading them (excuse me, I mean “liberating” them).

Another Republikkkan meme — if one single action isn’t the complete solution to a problem (that they don’t want addressed anyway), then better to do nothing and let the problem continue.

He has a point about the million plus prisoners who are in jails for minor crimes at great expense to the community.

Lot of stuff here about what ’can’t happen. But not much on other ideas. What do you offer?

One final comment to Ted Rall. You are correct about the existential threat of climate change, but you seem not to grasp what would be required to approach the problem. No one nation by itself can have a significant effect by itself. This must be a global effort, and the Paris Accords are so far a close as we, as a species, have come to recognizing this fact. In the past 4 years, the US has been one of the major players refusing to work for global agreements on climate, and the failure to maintain working relationships with those nations with whom we could work constructively on the problem has been trashed (wait for it) by the Republican establishment, not by Democratic cowardice as you seem to imply. Our leadership cannot by itself make all well with the world, but with rational leadership as already displayed by the Biden administration, we have a chance to turn things around—-or at least ameliorate the effects so that we do not disappear as a species. I do know people who would say that we deserve to go extinct (and someday we will), but most of us would rather not be the the cause of the the 6th major extinction, including ourselves.

Get a job Rall. If you can find one.

Biden is doing what the law allows. Should he do more, Ted?