For the Plus 70 Crowd

     Joseph "Joe" Biden, a semi-retired politician, wants a go at the presidency.  Once he got back into the news media spotlight this year by announcing his candidacy, he was aided by those in mainstream journalism who apparently breathed in relief at the prospect of a regular, familiar, all-American, trustworthy, up front smiling fellow who says cute words like "malarkey."
     I heard one Biden supporter, a man of about thirty, say that Biden's use of the word "malarkey" was a selling point for him.  I guess this voter wants a politician who will say that word and really mean it!
     Malarkey, of unknown origin but dating from the 1920s (the decade some of Biden's supporters were born in), means "nonsense," and "meaningless talk."  Malarkey can mean what comes from the mouths of politicians when they're campaigning, the policies they promise to enact but don't follow up on.
     Donald Trump, for instance, with all of his campaign talk about working on America's deteriorating and dangerous infrastructure--roads and bridges especially--used malarkey when boasting of his prowess in addressing this vital issue dealt with competently by Franklin Roosevelt's WPA program.  Infrastructure work requires government spending, Donald.  Government spending is made possible through taxes, Donald.  If the wealthy and mega-corporations aren't taxed sensibly, and much of the rest of available funds go to a military enormous enough to at least attempt to conquer the planet, where does infrastructure spending come from?
     "How are you gonna pay for that?" big government skeptics ask, whether it's about Medicare For All, free college, or infrastructure revitalization.
     The answer is, these programs would be paid for just as ordinary Americans have to pay to grow Jeff Bezos's treasure pile, as he, and his Amazon corporation, are chronically undertaxed or not taxed at all.  This insane arrangement is encouraged and supported by Republicans and establishment Democrats, all of them rich, all of them benefitting from Trump's tax cuts for billionaires and millionaires.  Curiously, among this group is Joe Biden, warrior of the status quo.
     Mainstream news media do not address these important issues; rather, they spend too much time practicing malarkey, including the malarkey that Biden could win the presidency in spite of his "gaffes," which are looking more like a rapidly advancing case of "senioritis."
     If you want to vote for someone because he reminds you of the old man who lives down the hallway in your nursing home, that's your business, but these times call for an alert, intelligent, and compassionate leader, not someone vainly checking a box on his bucket list.
     Biden, addressing a group somewhere, holding a microphone, hesitated when referring to Barack Obama, saying, "President...my boss."  Is it wrong of me to suggest he's suffering from age-related cognitive difficulties because of this, and other instances of verbal stumbling?  Do you have a boss?  If I ask you what your boss's name is, do you just tell me his or her name without thinking about it?  In this instance with Biden, the boss in question is also one of the most famous people on the planet over the last twelve or so years.  One shouldn't even have to work for Obama to know who the fuck he is.
     Sellout talk show host Stephen Colbert (who used to "stick it to the man" until CBS offered him a fuck-ton of money to stop being controversial) hosted Biden on his late night program.  The former vice president and pal of the late warmonger John McCain and racist Strom Thurmond, the man who just last year awarded the Liberty Medal to war criminal George W. Bush, told Colbert and his easy to please audience that "this is a great country."  He made reference to Donald Trump's unfitness for office, the president's trashing of NATO allies, lack of decorum, all the shit people with no actual problems obsess over when they contemplate the current Oval Office occupant.  Biden rides on the idea, supported by Democratic establishment-approved news media, that once Trump is beaten in next year's election, everything will go back to normal.  A restoration of decency, kindness, diplomacy, but the same coercion of less powerful nations, the same war (approaching its eighteenth birthday next week), and the same economy built to destroy the middle class and the poor so the rich can further prosper.
     Trump is a terrible president.  Biden would also be terrible in that job.  And senile.  That's just what we need, right?  Considering how much MSNBC pushes Biden as the best candidate to defeat Trump, one would think that network would have more to offer as proof if that truly is the case, rather than pushing the much more popular and sane Bernie Sanders, who gets bashed and misrepresented on their programs regularly.  Sanders shows no signs of suffering cognitive difficulties and, unlike Biden, he cares about ordinary people and their very real economic problems.
     Still, MSNBC host and millionaire Joe Scarborough, whose friendliness with Trump could be heard practically every weekday morning in 2015 and early 2016 when that billionaire candidate called Scarborough's show, filling segments with self-congratulatory bluster, now defends Biden's verbal fuck-ups even as he gripes about Trump's.
     For Scarborough and his network it's all about ratings.  They really don't give a shit about the American people.  How else to explain MSNBC's promotion these past several weeks of an out of touch career politician with the sucking chest wound appeal of Hillary Clinton?  Biden, the kind of candidate no one under the age of seventy will vote for, but rather will be used to vote against the incumbent, would bring about the loss of the White House to someone the Democratic establishment can then use to fundraise against and gripe about some more in a political-entertainment-news industry built on maintaining the stardom of cash cows like Donald Trump.
     I wish this post consisted of malarkey, but it doesn't.

                                                                               Vic Neptune