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I began reading Schreckinger's book last night and this passage jumped out at me.

Biden lost his wife and daughter and then...

"Joe went through severe depression. The title of his memoir, Promises to Keep, is an allusion to Robert Frost’s 1923 poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”

In it, the narrator pauses his journey on a cold winter’s night to entertain a temptation to wander off into a frozen forest.

It ends: The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

The poem is widely interpreted to be about the contemplation of suicide. In the aftermath of the accident, Joe did consider killing himself.

“Suicide wasn’t just an option, but a rational option,” he wrote in the memoir. Instead, he decided he owed it to his sons to keep going."

All of these broken people in leadership in our nation, traumetized, handled by the media, and their personal tragedies splayed on tv... milked for maximum effect.

I am all for Biden choosing to live for his sons.

But did the nation have to suffer all of the deep and dark dysfunction along with the grifters known as the Biden family?

Do we not have healthy and whole men and women in America who can step up and serve a few terms and then quietly go back home to their communities?

My prayer is that as Bidens crimes are more fully exposed, we will comfortable move away from career politicians to term limits and citizen representatives in state and national government.

The government we have now is the one the founders feared and wrote the United States Constitution to prevent.

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Did you know that Biden lied about the manner of his wife's death when he blamed a drunk driver who was not drunk at all? Biden's lies brought a great deal of pain to the man's family as he repeatedly used the lie for his own political gain. His lie's also took the speeches of others and claimed them as his own, and of course more then anything his lies killed and displaced millions as he  lied us into the Iraq war using  his position as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to rally his fellow democrats support. I feel no empathy for this man or the many others who abuse their position of power. Biden's character is deeply flawed, but has not evolved from the tragedies in his life, if anything he opportunistically used them to empower himself. 

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Yes, I read an article quoting the truck drivers daughter.

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This is a very insightful comment and touches on something I've been thinking about too. That being: the kind of people who desire to be in these positions of power and are willing to sacrifice everything for even the chance to get there are not the kind of people who society would want to be in leadership positions. I don't know of a realistic, good solution though.

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I believe if we went back to the state legislatures choosing the Senators instead of the popular vote, the inevitable reform at the state level would be immediately recognized by everyone.

Most US citizens do not know that the founders believed it was important for legislatures to pick serious, thoughtful people for the Senate, NOT the people.

It was designed to prevent long term corruption and generational monarchical rule.

As we restore that simple remedy to the Constitution we could add that no children, grandchildren, relatives, etc of politicians be allowed to run for national office.

The wingnuts calling for Ivanka and Don jr to run are just old timey royalty worshippers. They should immigrate to England if they want heredity title.

We could also legislate that anyone like Ted Cruz or Barack Obama who state their intentions to be President publicly before the age of thirty-five should immediately be disqualified from running, especially if their status as freeborn American citizens is in question.

I am highly skeptical of any child who sets that particular goal and then spends their whole life doing whatever it takes to achieve it.

We want business people, esp small business owners, running the government.

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Side-note: I also think it would be helpful if we re-instated the Constitution's policy of the person who got second place in the presidential election become the vice-president. One last change to the Constitution that was for the worse: putting a max on the number of representatives. Originally, the number of people in the House of Representatives was proportional to the population. We'd have thousands of reps instead of 435--and that'd be for the better.

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Are you kidding? Trump was a f-ing disaster of a president, and such a tyrant that he wouldn't even step down from the post. Trump wasn't a "career politician" but that didn't make him an honest and competent president.

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Love these audio formats. Listen to them on my daily walks. Thanks. -dc

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I think the take away from this piece is that influence peddling among friends and family of powerful US politicians is commonplace. While the Bidens may be particularly aggressive in trying to profit on the "the big guy's" coattails, they are not a one off. Inside the beltway, the political game would be unfamiliar to most Americans. Money, power, and career are the priorities. The American people are just a minor annoyance to be dealt with each election cycle.

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"Giuliani ended up in his post-mayoral life supporting himself by doing what many American ex-politicians stoop to: whoring himself out to wealthy foreigners with legal problems or lobbying needs." NICE!

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Where can we get a TK news cap that Matt wears during the UI pod?

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Who wouldn't be corrupted by a social system that worships wealth and celebrity. The Bidens not unlike Trump and his brood are a product of never paying consequences for his/her actions. This comes down to accountability and a manufacture belief within the hearts and mind of people of position and privilege that they are above everything - especially, basic human decency and the law that the rank and file are held to account. When you and yours keep getting anyway with things over and over again without even a hint of pay a real consequence, the message starts to come clear that you are untouchable and for some it's as cynical as believing it's providence - God must've cleared me to be a piece of shit just like King David in the bible.

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This is the funniest thing I've listened to in a long time :))

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We have Joe Biden to thank for Clarence Thomas, the War in Iraq, and the various compromises he has managed, or participated in, with the dis-functional GOP since since the Reagan Administration. Only the emergence of the "far worse Trump" can allow Biden and his ilk to be considered an acceptable political leader. Compromises to Extinction: coming to your neighborhood soon -- The Joe Manchin Show is next on the bill.

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Is there any plan to expand the podcasts version to services other than apple?

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nvm found it!

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Thank you. In a probably inaccurate paraphrase of Jane Goodall, "We are not passengers on this earth, we are the crew." I guess if we want to change this mess, we had better take up our tasks.

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Love the format, thank you!!!!

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