Cont: The Biden Presidency Part II

[TurkeysGhost]

President Biden's Presidential Inaugural Committee will mark his first anniversary in office by blanketing today's airwaves — from breakfast to evening news to prime time — with a video promoting a recovering, resilient America.

The video is narrated by Tom Hanks, who was part of Biden inaugural festivities, and features cameos by everyday Americans — a UPS driver, a Teamster from Michigan and a bed-and-breakfast owner in Wisconsin.

https://www.axios.com/biden-one-year-inaugural-committee-ad-3c7597b5-490c-4f23-b919-5b97e10785db.html

Cribbing from the Simpson's movie:

Hello, I'm Tom Hanks. The U.S. government has lost its credibility, so it’s borrowing some of mine.”

 

[bruto]

I said getting legislation passed would be easy. I expressed no other position.

True enough, if medals were given out for legislation this would get more medals, but if legislation actually had meaning owing to its content the proposal would be worse than useless. However, sure enough, a point was made. Clap clap.

 

[theprestige]

Biden just completed an hour and 45 minute press conference. Nobody who watched could have any reasonable doubt about his cognitive abilities.
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/joe-biden-press-conference-01-19-22/index.html

I'm reading the transcripts, and I don't think his cognitive ability is as well established as you seem to believe. For example:

I am hoping that Vladimir Putin understands that he is — short of a full-blown nuclear war, he’s not in a very good position to dominate the world. And so, I don’t think he thinks that, but it is a concern. And that’s why we have to be very careful about how we move forward and make it clear to him that there are prices to pay that could, in fact, cost his country an awful lot. But I — of course, you have to be concerned when you have, you know, a nuclear power invade — this has — if he invades — it hasn’t happened since World War Two. This will be the most consequential thing that’s happened in the world, in terms of war and peace, since World War Two.​

There's a lot to unpack here, but for the moment I'll just focus on the absurd red herring, "he’s not in a very good position to dominate the world."

Russia is in a fantastic position, militarily, socially, and geopolitically, to dominate Ukraine. That's the issue. That's his current goal. Nobody in their right mind thinks world domination is on Putin's to-do list at the moment.

The whole passage reads like Biden has no clear grasp of the Ukraine situation, Russian interests, MAD, the role of NATO, warfare, or Eastern Europe.

 

[Aridas]

I would believe that they weren't prepared for such intransigence from within their own party, neutering their own majority though.

I guess this is an attempt to blame the GOP for the dysfunction of the Biden admin caused by Manchin and Sinema.

I think that it's worth being clear that the Republican political games/sabotage really is a much bigger problem than Manchin/Sinema, though.

 

[thaiboxerken]

I think that it's worth being clear that the Republican political games/sabotage really is a much bigger problem than Manchin/Sinema, though.

Exactly. Those two ass-hats wouldn't be an issue if the GOP was not so obstructionist that they won't allow any legislation to pass without 60 votes.

 

[Aridas]

Mitch McConnell says Black people vote just as much as 'Americans'

Freudian slip?

 

[dudalb]

Biden didn ot help himself much with his Ukraine s6tatment yesterday.

 

[Checkmite]

Mitch McConnell says Black people vote just as much as 'Americans'

Freudian slip?

Whoops! Something definitely slipped.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Mitch McConnell says Black people vote just as much as 'Americans'

Freudian slip?

If we apply the same standards that some are applying to Biden, we'd have to conclude it's just another mundane indicator of cognitive ability.

 

[bruto]

If we apply the same standards that some are applying to Biden, we'd have to conclude it's just another mundane indicator of cognitive ability.

But given his history it might be challenging to see evidence of loss.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Mitch McConnell says Black people vote just as much as 'Americans'

Freudian slip?

To be fair, he was thinking "real Americans" so.....

 

[theprestige]

German Chancellor declines Biden's invitation to discuss the Ukraine situation. (Der Spiegel, via Reuters)

French President pushes for separate EU negotiations with Russia. (VOA News, whatever that is)

 

[W.D.Clinger]

German Chancellor declines Biden's invitation to discuss the Ukraine situation. (Der Spiegel, via Reuters)

French President pushes for separate EU negotiations with Russia. (VOA News, whatever that is)

Created in 1942, "Voice of America (VOA) is the largest U.S. international broadcaster, providing news and information in more than 40 languages to an estimated weekly audience of more than 311 million people."

An essential guarantee of the journalistic credibility of Voice of America content is the “firewall” enshrined in the 1994 U.S. International Broadcasting Act. The firewall prohibits interference by any U.S. government official in the objective, independent reporting of news, thereby safeguarding the ability of our journalists to develop content that reflects the highest professional standards of journalism, free of political interference.

VOA's independent reporting of truthful news irritated Donald J Trump, of course. In 2020, Trump retaliated against VOA by appointing Michael Pack as CEO of the US Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA.

Pack's short tenure as head of USAGM was characterized by NPR as a series of "crises."^[5][6] Pack fired the heads of the news outlets under USAGM's purview and installed Trump loyalists in the positions. He disbanded a bipartisan board that oversees the USAGM and spent millions of taxpayer dollars on law firms to investigate journalists for purported bias against Trump. He rescinded rules at USAGM that protected journalists at Voice of America and other affiliates from political interference.

On 20 November 2020, US District Judge Beryl Howell issued a ruling that concluded by saying:

For the reasons explained, plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction is denied as to defendants' alleged violations of the IBA, the APA, and Pack's fiduciary duties to USAGM and their alleged activities in excess of Pack's statutory authority. Plaintiffs' motion is granted as to defendants' alleged violations of the First Amendment, insofar as those violations relate to defendants' taking or influencing personnel actions against individual journalists or editors, attempting to influence content through communications with individual journalists or editors, and investigating purported breaches of journalistic ethics. Defendants will be preliminarily enjoined from continuing these activities.

In June 2020, presidential candidate Joe Biden promised he would fire Pack if Biden were elected. At Biden's request, Pack resigned two hours after Biden took office on 20 January 2021.

Wikipedia's article on the Voice of America includes a more extensive survey of the Trump administration's shenanigans.

 

[Tero]

Biden doing badly with black voters. It could result in low turnout in 2024. "It's too hard to vote now. And voting made no difference in 2022..."

Do we have anybody but Biden or Harris to run?

 

[Tero]

I have a book on American politics. Some academics got a chance to ask the people to explain their responses. It turned out that presidential approval or congress approval was based on about a week's worth of news. So Obama's brown suit, gas prices or Biden failing with voting rights would all figure in. If they happened that week. A month ago was forgotten. A year ago was a vague memory. The major factor besides the past week was who they had voted for. That they would not forget.

 

[ZiprHead]

Economy soars while press plays jobs “expectations” game

The U.S. economy just set the record for the most jobs created in one year, but you’d never know it from the continuing doomsday economic coverage under President Joe Biden.

The new jobs report, released Friday, offered the latest evidence of the purposeful disconnect the media maintain, and specifically how journalists rely on consistently unreliable “expectations” for job report numbers in order to portray the results as “disappointing,” and to paint a picture of a faltering U.S. economy even as it shatters growth records.

The U.S. economy just posted 199,000 new jobs in December, during a pandemic surge. That sounds like a good thing, right? Especially considering that in December 2020, under Trump and during another wintertime pandemic surge, the U.S. lost 140,000 jobs. Instead, the press was uniformly pessimistic about Friday’s news.

It was a “major disappointment,” CNN announced, despite the fact employee wages hit record heights and the unemployment rate tumbled to 3.9 percent. (Last winter, the CBO predicted it would take five years for the U.S. to reach an unemployment rate that low.) NPR stressed the US added “only” 199,000 jobs. Hiring had “faltered” the New York Times reported. All because the key number failed to meet estimates.

“During one of the most volatile periods in recent memory, private and public-sector economists have a less firm grasp of what the labor market is doing,” the Wall Street Journal recently conceded. During 2021, economists cumulatively missed the jobs mark by well over 1 million jobs. And that’s in a year when the U.S. created more than 6 million jobs, the most since records began in 1939.

The expectations model often produces dubious journalism. When last November’s job report was released, NPR quickly announced it was a “bust” because just 210,000 jobs had been created. But back in January of 2020, NPR cheered that the U.S. economy was “revved up” because 225,000 positions had been added.

Why the drastically different NPR spin for the Biden and Trump years? Expectations. Trump’s 225,000 job gains surpassed that month’s modest expectations, while Biden’s 210,000 fell short of estimates.

Another key hurdle is that the government has shown for the last year that it chronically undercounts, by large margins, the job gains data that are released to the public, and when it goes back and quietly post revisions they’re mostly ignored by the media.

August was a perfect example. That month’s initial jobs report claimed 235,000 jobs were added, which prompted lots of “disappointing” news coverage based on the established expectations. That total was soon revised all the way up to 483,000 new jobs, a development that received little press attention. Look at last September. The initial report announced 194,000 jobs. (“Lackluster,” announced NBC News.) After two revisions, the job total nearly doubled to 379,000.

There’s also the lingering suspicion that the press simply likes to tell bad economic news — and hide upbeat newsflashes — during the Biden years. Just look at this pretzel-logic headline from the Washington Post yesterday, “2021 Shattered Job Market Records, But It’s Not as Good as it Looks.”

When last summer’s blockbuster July jobs report showed a jaw-dropping gain of nearly one million jobs, “NBC Nightly News” completely ignored the development. NBC did the same thing for the October survey, which announced a robust 531,000 jobs. It certainly feels like there’s a preferred media narrative in play.

The current approach for how the press handles monthly jobs reports isn’t functioning as it should. So why do journalists stick to the broken model?

With a media like this, who wouldn't expect poor approval numbers.

 

[Aridas]

Economy soars while press plays jobs “expectations” game






With a media like this, who wouldn't expect poor approval numbers.

With that said, here's a slight tangent to that.

Katie Porter explained Biden’s economic success better than any other Democrat

"I think it's important to remember where we were one year ago when president Biden was sworn in," Katie Porter said. Families were struggling to put food on the table. We were still continuing to have a lot of job losses. You know many schools were closed."

She then told the pointed out where we are today, a much-improved situation all around.

"We are in a much much better situation today," Porter continued. "In fact, where our economy is today is quite remarkable. And we now have, in fact, the fastest growing economy in this country that we've had in decades. So the American Rescue Plan which Congress passed into law very quickly upon President Biden's election actually has resulted in really fast economic growth. So the United States today is experiencing about 5.5% growth in GDP now. When you compare this to other nations the G-7, the 7 most advanced economies in the world, our global competitors, none of them are even yet having positive GDP growth, a measure of our economy. We're seeing the same story with unemployment. Unemployment today is down to 3.9% unemployment."

"We've hit this 3.9 percent unemployment number two years faster than if we had not elected President Biden and we had not passed the big room," Katie Porter said. "And most directly, most immediately for families, they have more money to spend each month. The average American family has 354 more dollars each month accounting for inflation. So even taking it taking into account the global disruption in the supply chain, the fact that some big corporations are price gouging consumers, even adjusting for inflation the average American has an extra 354 dollars a month and I'll tell you that money makes a real difference to American family."

After giving a lot more numbers that all can understand, Porter described the cost of inaction.

"I want to talk about what the costs are of not acting," Porter said. "What the cost is of having Joe Manchin or others block action in the Senate. For example, if we do not pass legislation to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices, we are losing eight billion dollars a year. This is what it costs taxpayers because Medicare cannot negotiate drug prices. We have to pass this legislation to get this done. This is a problem even in the strongest economy because essentially we allow drug companies to hold American taxpayers hostage. Similarly on climate, if we do not pass meaningful legislation to address climate change we are spending right now 145 billion dollars a year. Cleaning up and dealing with the consequences of climate-related disasters, wildfires floods, 145 billion dollars. This price tag, the price tag of not acting makes the cost of passing this legislation look cheap. And this one is my favorite. One trillion dollars. This is the cost of not fully funding the IRS. This is the lost money"

 

[Aridas]

Not long ago, Biden asked what Republicans were actually standing for, and McConnell gave no actual answer when asked.

Personally, I find this list to be a reasonably decent start when it comes to what their politicians stand for, though.

1. Climate change is not caused by humans and can’t be fixed by humans, so ignore it and allow oil and gas companies to continue exhaling methane and carbon.

2. Science is wrong. Covid isn’t as serious as they say, masks don’t work well against it, and vaccines can cause more illness than the disease itself.

3. Women who don’t have the means to raise a child, don’t have a supportive partner, are in physical danger from childbirth, are underage, or have been raped should be forced to give birth. Society has no obligation to help their child once it’s born.

4. It’s the right of all citizens to carry guns without common sense gun laws. The Constitutional reference to militias, which have become our National Guard, still means that everybody can have a gun, regardless of the murder rate.

5. Freedom of speech should have no limits even if it’s destructive lies or hate speech.

6. Government regulations limit the freedom of individuals and corporations, which is more important than public safety, accountability, or keeping the peace.

7. Laws are only to be observed if the individual finds them palatable and the republican Congress must continue to say no to any laws from the democrats.

8. Corporations should continue to be allowed to collect hundreds of billions in federal subsidies, bailouts, loan guarantees, and sole-source contracts.

9. Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Tech, Big Ag, politically charged religions, and the biggest corporations may continue to get tax breaks from the government.

10. CEOs should be allowed to continue to make hundreds of times more income than their workers.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

5. Freedom of speech should have no limits even if it’s destructive lies or hate speech.

this is absolutley wrong.

Republicans HATE Free Speech from anyone but themeselves.

 

[Aridas]

this is absolutley wrong.

Republicans HATE Free Speech from anyone but themeselves.

Fair enough. Modification -

5. Freedom of speech for "us" should have no limits even if it’s destructive lies or hate speech. However, we're more than happy to act to silence those who disagree, if we can.