Listening to Obama

Listening to Obama’s speech yesterday in Pennsylvania. Great speech. “We literally left this White House a pandemic playbook,” Obama said. “They probably used it to prop up a wobbly table somewhere.” More good bits.

“Korea identified its first case at the same time that the United States did. At the same time, their per capita death toll is just 1.3% of what ours is.”

“We know that he continues to do business with China because he’s got a secret Chinese bank account. How is that possible? How is that possible? A secret Chinese bank account. Listen, can you imagine if I had had a secret Chinese bank account when I was running for reelection. You think Fox News might have been a little concerned about that?”

“Donald Trump likes to claim he built this economy but America created 1.5 million more jobs in the last three years of the Obama-Biden administration than in the first three years of the Trump-Pence administration. How you figure that? And that was before he could blame the pandemic. Now, he did inherit the longest streak of job growth in American history but just like everything else he inherited, he messed it up.”

“Joe’s got a plan to create 10 million good clean energy jobs as part of a historic $2 trillion investment to fight climate change, to secure environmental justice. And he’ll pay for it by rolling back that tax cut for billionaires.”

“Where is this great plan to replace Obamacare? They’ve had 10 years to do it. There is no plan. They’ve never had one. Instead they’ve attacked the Affordable Care Act at every turn, driving up costs, driving up the uninsured.”

“The Environmental Protection Agency that’s supposed to protect our air and our water is right now run by an energy lobbyist that gives polluters free reign to dump unlimited poison into our air and water. The Labor Department that’s supposed to protect workers and their rights, right now it’s run by a corporate lobbyist who’s declared war on workers, guts protections to keep essential folks safe during a pandemic, makes it easier for big corporations to shortchange them on their wages. The Interior Department, that’s supposed to protect our public lands and wild spaces, our wildlife and our wilderness. And right now that’s run by an oil lobbyist who’s determined to sell them to the highest bidder.

“You’ve got the Education Department that’s supposed to give every kid a chance, and that’s run by a billionaire who guts rules designed to protect students from getting ripped off by for profit colleges and stiffs arm students looking for loan relief in the middle of an economic collapse. I mean, the person who runs Medicaid right now is doing their best to kick people off of Medicaid instead of sign them up for Medicaid.”

There are too many good bits! It’s a half an hour. Listen to the whole thing. And now I give you balloons. Some graffiti I passed by yesterday. It was just luminous.

Stacy Horn

I've written six non-fiction books, the most recent is Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad, and Criminal in 19th-Century New York.

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