https://twitter.com/londonvinjamuri/status/1728246510989824241

Obama got in trouble for being photographed carrying the book The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria. Zakaria isn’t the most insightful analyst, but (the book’s title notwithstanding) it’s probably good for US presidents to realize that we aren’t the global hegemon some leaders thought we were 20 or 30 years ago.

The book Chavez gave to Obama was Eduardo Galeano’s The Open Veins of Latin America. 5 years after that Galeano said that he should have learned more about economics when he wrote the book, which was taken as a recantation. He later had to backtrack his criticism and stand by his book. It was indeed something of a Marxist screed. The original translator, Cedric Belfrage, has since been identified as a Soviet agent.

IMO, Democrats are the party of evil, and US voters are suckers, ignorati, or fools—lapping up the taste-good dreck the Dem-run MSM dishes out to them.

Seems like a good way to invite Democrats to help you start with a face plant, not that they needed any such invitation.

…Numerous recent reports produced by activist NGOs and think-tanks have concluded that rural England is racist and requires decolonisation. The priceless jewel of England’s cultivated landscape, the very environment that inspired the Shire, is under assault both from industrial-scale farming and environmental activists, neither of whom (for different reasons) sees any value in the ancient human patterns of settlement and maintenance…. So vigorous is the barrage that Tolkien himself has been identified as a radicalising influence by the UK’s anti-terrorist Prevent programme, a state of affairs that ought to discredit the entire exercise but is somehow merely emblematic of the moral and intellectual poverty at the heart of the State…. [Emphasis mine; Barry M.]

How about the second Saturday after Thanksgiving (because of course Art Deco is right on that), which would give the outgoing admin about 5 weeks less time to scramble things up. And shred incriminating documents.

@ Art Deco > “What catastrophe persuaded legislators to enact the 20th Amendment?”

It took two.
Wikipedia: “The long lame-duck period might have been a practical necessity at the end of the 18th century, when any newly elected official might require several months to put his affairs in order and then undertake an arduous journey from his home to the national capital, but it eventually had the effect of impeding the functioning of government in the modern age. From the early 19th century, it also meant a lame-duck Congress and presidential administration would fail to adequately respond to a significant national crisis in a timely manner. Each institution could do this on the theory that, at best, a lame-duck Congress or administration had neither the time nor the mandate to tackle problems, whereas the incoming administration or Congress would have both the time and a fresh electoral mandate, to examine and address the problems the nation faced. These problems very likely would have been at the center of the debate of the just-completed election cycle.

This dilemma was seen most notably in 1861 and 1933, after the elections of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt, respectively, plus the newly elected senators and representatives. Under the Constitution at the time, these presidents had to wait four months [to March 4] before they and the incoming Congresses could deal with the secession of Southern states and the Great Depression respectively.”

And on the current date of choice, also Wikipedia:
“By 1792, federal law permitted each state legislature to choose Presidential electors any time within a 34-day period[3] before the first Wednesday in December.[4] A November election was convenient because the harvest would have been completed but the most severe winter weather, impeding transportation, would not yet have arrived, while the new election results also would roughly conform to a new year. Tuesday was chosen as Election Day so that voters could attend church on Sunday, travel to the polling location, usually in the county seat, on Monday, and vote before Wednesday, which was usually when farmers would sell their produce at the market.[5] Originally, states varied considerably in the method of choosing electors. Gradually, states converged on selection by some form of popular vote.[citation needed]

Development of the Morse electric telegraph, funded by Congress in 1843 and successfully tested in 1844, was a technological change that clearly augured an imminent future of instant communication nationwide.[6] To prevent information from one state from influencing Presidential electoral outcomes in another, Congress responded in 1845 by mandating a uniform national date for choosing Presidential electors.[1] Congress chose the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November to harmonize current electoral practice with the existing 34-day window in federal law, as the span between Election Day and the first Wednesday in December is always 29 days.[7]”