Cont: The Biden Presidency (3)

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I don't like the idea of our government assassinating enemy leaders. However, it's better than the alternatives of all-out wars/battles or just giving up. Republicans questioning the timing or motives is just par for the course. Remember, if a Democrat does something, it is always wrong.

Also, Biden said that he authorized the strike.


If Trump did the same, Trump would be on the podium with camouflage make-up on claiming that he lead the mission...
 
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A smoking crater ringed by terrorist body parts: love it. Don't care who dunnit. Glad it was Joe Biden. The Afghans in power know how closely we can watch them, and now they know what that means.

Some of them are probably glad as hell.
 
And I suspect the main topic in today's national security meeting it what Xi might do in response to Pelosi's visit to Taiwan.
I don't hink they will do an outright military action but they are gonna do something.
 
slyjoe said:
We know why Trump didn't pull the trigger in 2020. He didn't recognize the name. Now bin Laden's son, that's who HE wanted to go after.
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I guess we should be happy he didn't order a drone strike on Hunter Biden.

"I want you to go after his son."
"Who's son?"
"Bin ladel? Bindy? Biden? Yeah that's the one"
 
sackett said:
A smoking crater ringed by terrorist body parts: love it. Don't care who dunnit. Glad it was Joe Biden. The Afghans in power know how closely we can watch them, and now they know what that means.
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There are reports that the Hellfire missiles were armed with "ginsu" warheads: not explosives, but whirling blades that take apart the target without any collateral damage.
The weapon—officially called an R9X Hellfire missile—seems straight out of a James Bond brainstorming session. The missile does not carry a warhead or explosives, and instead uses kinetic energy and six devastating blades to take out its target, according to a Bellingcat review of the weapon.
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https://www.thedailybeast.com/did-u...awahri-with-flying-ginsu-r9x-hellfire-missile
 
thaiboxerken said:
I don't like the idea of our government assassinating enemy leaders. However, it's better than the alternatives of all-out wars/battles or just giving up. Republicans questioning the timing or motives is just par for the course. Remember, if a Democrat does something, it is always wrong.
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Well, he wasn't really a "leader" in the sense of prime minister or head of state. He wasn't a government official. He was just running a murderous gang. Decapitating the enemy is a pretty basic military strategy.
 
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slyjoe said:
theprestige said:
Okay, but why did Biden pick now? Is now really the exact moment the target was in the sights, and an immediate presidential order was needed?
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We know why Trump didn't pull the trigger in 2020. He didn't recognize the name. Now bin Laden's son, that's who HE wanted to go after.

https://news.yahoo.com/trump-had-chance-kill-al-123256147.html
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To poke at my thoughts on the subjects here a bit...

I'm not giddy about this "win" for Biden. This is stuff that I consider to be normal responsibility stuff for the US President. That Trump failed to do so in the manner he did just continues to show how utterly unfit he was for the job, but that should have been manifestly obvious since before he was elected, in my opinion. With all that said, that if I understand the situation correctly, Biden didn't take the opportunity the moment that he could is notable, instead making a point to wait until the guy could be taken down without bystanders being taken out at the same time. I have mixed feelings about that - very pleasantly surprised that bystanders weren't murdered for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, which the US has a pretty bad track record with (to the point where I would not be surprised at all if Biden were lying about the lack of harmed bystanders, but it will be a good step in a better direction if true), and also somewhat concerned about both the delays during which the guy could have gotten away again or done more harm and that other targets might decide to keep bystanders around them as a deterrent and be rewarded for that. Similar principle to being unhappy with rewarding war crimes with success, there, and thus encouraging further use. As for the possibility that Biden was trying to score political points? I don't care at all without an actual reasonable argument beyond the usual bad faith denigration. It's nigh completely pointless to automatically go in that direction and only serves to play into the hands of those who are hellbent on burying Biden no matter how insanely unreasonable the pretexts are.

All in all, though, I'm going to rate this at "It's great to have a reasonably competent President again!" I quite admit that Trump's sheer incompetence is raising my overall judgement here, though.
 
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Hmm.

Payrolls increased 528,000 in July, much better than expected in a sign of strength for jobs market

Nonfarm payrolls rose 528,000 for the month and the unemployment rate was 3.5%, easily topping the Dow Jones estimates of 258,000 and 3.6%, respectively. The unemployment rate is now back to its pre-pandemic level and tied for the lowest since 1969, though the rate for Blacks rose 0.2 percentage point to 6%.

Wage growth also surged higher, as average hourly earnings jumped 0.5% for the month and 5.2% from the same time a year ago. Those numbers add fuel to an inflation picture that already has consumer prices rising at their fastest rate since the early 1980s. The Dow Jones estimate was for a 0.3% monthly gain and 4.9% annual increase.
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Economy!
 
Segnosaur said:
...If republicans are going to cheat to assign false responsibilities, I see no reason the Democrats can't play the same game.
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Doing what liars, cheats, and criminals do, demonstrates the error and crimes of their actions how?!

Personally, I see more benefit from exposure, prosecution and serious consequence as better means of addressing such issues, regardless of which side of the aisle the misbehaving political actors are sitting on!
 
pgwenthold said:
This is why there has been pushback on the claims that we are in a recession. Yes, there may have been 2 straight quarters of GDP contraction, but businesses are still hiring like mad and wages are going up. Is that really an economy in recession? And, even if it is, so what? People are working and making money...
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Overall, it is less people, working longer hours with less protections and job security than previous generations. This is hardly the dawn of a glorious labor reinvigoration.
 
How's that again?

Trakar said:
Overall, it is less people, working longer hours with less protections and job security than previous generations. This is hardly the dawn of a glorious labor reinvigoration.
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Fewer people are working when there are more jobs?

If this isn't a glorious dawn, does that mean Biden's a failure?

But be a comforted conservative: union membership is down. That tends to happen in good times, I think because the bosses have worked so hard to create one of history's strangest anomalies here in the USA: a right-wing working class.
 
sackett said:
Fewer people are working when there are more jobs?
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Demographics dictate this, the Boomers like myself and many if not most here, are the largest demographic group in our economic history and most Boomers have already retired (or in the process of doing so), gen-Xers are a very small demographic, and gen-Yers are the second largest demographic who may temporarily improve our national economics a bit, though it looks to be more due to their spending of inherited Boomer wealth than to any actual earning or creating of wealth. In addition to the climate issues, democracy issues, civil rights issues and all the other existential issues that have escaped our capacity and willingness to even recognize, yet alone address, we have a crushing demographics issue roaring toward us over the current decade that may spell the economic end of our nation long before these other factors become much more than exasperating factors in our nation's collapse.

sackett said:
If this isn't a glorious dawn, does that mean Biden's a failure?
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Biden was a failure decades before he became the infinitesimally lessor evil vote against a Trump final term.

sackett said:
But be a comforted conservative: union membership is down. That tends to happen in good times, I think because the bosses have worked so hard to create one of history's strangest anomalies here in the USA: a right-wing working class.
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There is nothing Conservidiot about me, or my politics. I love strong, Progressive, and politically active Unions. The working class is focused on working conditions and pay, as they always have been, too bad the Dimocraps rejected them over the ease of soliciting donations and favors from Capital investment instead of strong assertive Unions and workers who might shun and punish the "bosses" who abuse the sweat and trust of their laborers.
 
dudalb said:
And I suspect the main topic in today's national security meeting it what Xi might do in response to Pelosi's visit to Taiwan.
I don't hink they will do an outright military action but they are gonna do something.
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The smartest thing they could do is to temporarily offer all American shoppers free shipping and a 3 month 20% discount on all online product purchases, and call it a price gouging Capitalist rebate program.
 
Trakar said:
Overall, it is less people, working longer hours with less protections and job security than previous generations. This is hardly the dawn of a glorious labor reinvigoration.
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My employer just gave out a very generous salary increase, across the board, after two years of lackluster increases, and growing issues with pay dissatisfaction and failures to retain talent. So payroll is up! But I'm pretty sure the company has been less productive the last few quarters, not more.
 
I read an article (can't remember where, sorry) shortly after the lockdowns ended, when there was a big shortage of staff, saying that a lot of people who were furloughed during them simply seem to have decided not to go back to work, or at least to work far fewer hours. Couples, particularly, discovered they didn't actually need two full salaries, especially when their living costs were reduced by working from home.
 
pgwenthold said:
This is why there has been pushback on the claims that we are in a recession. Yes, there may have been 2 straight quarters of GDP contraction, but businesses are still hiring like mad and wages are going up. Is that really an economy in recession? And, even if it is, so what? People are working and making money. Thanks, Brandon.
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No, but how are the facts you mentioned helpful to the republican narrative?
 
pgwenthold said:
This is why there has been pushback on the claims that we are in a recession. Yes, there may have been 2 straight quarters of GDP contraction, but businesses are still hiring like mad and wages are going up. Is that really an economy in recession? And, even if it is, so what? People are working and making money. Thanks, Brandon.
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GDP is down. Productivity, literally, is down. So it kinda sounds like businesses are struggling to attract and retain a labor force sufficient to actually bring their productivity back up. This may be the first recession powered by apathy in the labor force.
 
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