Tag: Joe Biden

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crime and punishment ideological culture national politics & policies

Unpresidential but Precedented

Joe Biden, SOTU, State of the Union

President Biden may be doddering, dithering, and cranky, but his writers are mis-educated dolts.

The State of the Union address, last week, was performed before Congress by a man so hopped-up on stimulants that . . . one looks for precedents. Not among the U.S. Presidents, though, but among the Chancellors — the “schkankily clankily” guy, as Norm Macdonald referred to him; the man who is known to have been on drugs.

I bring up precedents because Biden’s writers did — idiotically.

The address began by memorializing President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1941 address before Congress, in which FDR used the word “unprecedented.” Biden’s speech writers take this as an occasion to use the word. “Now it is we who face an unprecedented moment in the history of the Union.”

And then proceed to mention more precedents for the “unprecedentedness” of it all.

It’s almost as if they don’t know the meaning of their keyword.

The biggest precedent is the pure partisan nature of the message, which — instead of performing a sober constitutional duty to give Congress the president’s view of the union of the states — has become, in recent years, a simplistic barrage of invective against the president’s opposing party.

This year’s SOTU address was worse than ever on the partisan divide, with “populist” attacks upon the SCOTUS for allowing Roe v. Wade to fall, and relentless attacks on Republicans. The most interesting and substantive topic was Social Security, with the usual (quite precedented) promise to shore it up with tax increases . . . on the rich. (Reason magazine took the idea seriously and found its fault.)

Thankfully, Biden’s writers avoided the biggest State of the Union cliché of all: the traditional pronouncement that the state of the union “is sound.”

It is not.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Shrinkflation, Shrunk Nation

Joe Biden, inflation, ice cream, economics

In another pathetic pre-recorded speech, played before Sunday’s Super Bowl, President Joe Biden lambasted America’s corporations for “shrinkflation.” 

“As an ice cream lover,” he explained in the vid, “what makes me the most angry is that ice cream cartons have actually shrunk in size but not in price.”

The Guardian expands upon the president’s gripe: “Inflation dropped to 3.1% in December but some companies are thought to have responded to rising costs by marginally shrinking the size of products — shrinkflation — as well as changing recipes to reduce the amount of more expensive ingredients — sometimes known as ‘skimpflation.’”

My, oh my, so businesses must adjust to inflationary pressures as well. 

When the costs of their inputs go up, they do not automatically become charities. Knowing that consumers do not sport infinite incomes and demand schedules utterly “inelastic” — buying the same goods in the same quantities even at higher prices — they often adjust by reducing quality or quantity.

It is one of many ways that inflation hurts us.

Inflation has even been referred to as the sneakiest of all taxes, taking from the masses and giving to the insider class, those closest to government (those who receive newly-created money first).

Biden calls “shrinkflation” a “rip-off” and insists that “the American public is tired of being played as suckers.”

Well, that will prove true only if the American public rejects those politicians who push the policies that led to the inflation — politicians like those in the 116th and 117th Congresses, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden himself.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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deficits and debt national politics & policies political economy

The Economy Is Great-ish

Joe Biden, economy, inflation, Bidenomics

“We have the highest share of working-age Americans in the workforce in 20 years,” Biden recently told reporters. “It’s no accident. It’s Bidenomics.”

Bidenomics being that old standby, tax-and-spend-omics.

So why do so many Americans think the economy is getting worse? Why do 84 percent say that their costs have gone up?

Well, says President Biden, the media mislead them. “You all are not the happiest people in the world [in] what you report,” is his view. “You get more legs when you’re reporting something that’s negative.”

The media do often mislead us; the negative news bias is real.

But I don’t think that our left-leaning, in-the-tank-for-Biden media can be blamed for the impression so many of us have that it’s harder to make ends meet.

Biden isn’t the only one professing puzzlement. Breitbart Business Digest observes that a “small army of establishment media types and economists” are intent on “unraveling what they take to be the great mysteries of our time.” As described by a recent Brookings Institution paper, this mystery is the “disconnect between consumer sentiment and the state of the macroeconomy.”

As BBD points out, the Brookings researchers simply start by assuming that everybody is wrong, then try to figure out why.

“A simpler explanation would be that the economy is falling short of the public’s expectations” because of things like high inflation, higher interest rates, and greater difficulty paying for groceries, Christmas presents, vacations. And rent, and medical bills, and tuition.

Saying it’s all in our heads won’t make tough times go away.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Twelve-Point Play

Joe Biden, old, elderly, election

How popular is President Joe Biden? 

Better to ask how unpopular; a substitute Democrat to be named later is more popular. 

Twelve points more popular.

“An unnamed ‘Democratic candidate’ shifts the race by 12 points on the margins,” Aaron Blake reports in The Washington Post, “turning a four-point Democratic deficit against Trump into an eight-point lead, 48 percent to 40 percent.”

Democrats are mulling all this over because their unpopular president, according to a recent New York Times-Siena College poll, trails former President Donald Trump “in five of the six most competitive battleground states”: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. 

“I am concerned,” offered U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), “by the inexplicable credibility that Donald Trump seems to have despite all of the indictments, the lies, the incredible wrongdoing.”

Or is it, instead, the lack of credibility enjoyed by establishment politicians and media?

“What many missed about the poll is that a generic Democrat isn’t the only one significantly overperforming the actual candidate likely to lead the ticket,” Blake further explains.

“The poll also tested a race without Trump,” discovering that the “GOP’s lead goes from an average of four points with Trump to an average of 16 points without him, 52–36.”

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley polls best against Biden. 

Democrats, however, lack an “available alternative.” Vice-President Kamala Harris polls only a single point better than Biden, which is damning news for Biden. Would another Californian, Gov. Gavin Newsom, fare better? 

Or is the only good Democrat a mythical Democrat?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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insider corruption media and media people national politics & policies

The C-Word

Joe Biden, crime family, corruption

It’s a truism of popular political discourse: corruption in Washington is endemic.

The fact that so many people who serve in Congress come out far richer than when they went in is testament to the corruption, not selfless service. Studies document how it is done, regulatory regimes monitor the money and a line of cases have put some of the easiest-to-nab offenders into the pokey.

Nevertheless, the corruption continues.

Yet, the festering congressional slime may be nothing compared to what’s in the White House.

How the corruption has worked may vary president by president, though. 

Remember that the Clinton clan’s Clinton Foundation was brought out into The Almost Open, in 2015, for all to see (if they wished), which certainly had something to do with the triumph of Donald Trump in 2016. 

The response of the insiders against Trump, however, showed corruption going much deeper. He was attacked throughout his term in office by “his own” agencies, for corruption. And now we know for certain that many of these attacks were without foundation. Just made up.

It is not with the billionaire who left office less wealthy than he entered that official corruption is revealed, but with the ghastly Biden family.

“Sen. Chuck Grassley has accused the FBI of trying to keep quiet,” explains a recent Epoch Times story, about the “information provided by 40 human sources about possible Biden family wrongdoing.”

Though none of this has been proven in a court of law, the brazenness of it all — the corporate board spots, the payments to multiple Biden family members — swamps the senses.  Still, the biggest part of the story remains — elusive. Not because there’s no evidence, but because major media and government agencies simply and continually deny the evidence as it stands, refusing to report or pursue the truth.

Allowing corruption to thrive.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies partisanship political challengers

No Protection, No Duh

Joe Biden

Major candidates for the presidency are usually granted security details. The Biden Administration has so far balked at providing anything like that for Democrat-turned-independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. 

Why?

In an October 16th letter, Senator Ted Cruz (R.-Tex.) challenged Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for 88 days of “failing to respond” to the candidate’s formal request, as well as for ignoring “follow-ups by his campaign.” 

The senator writes that this “represents a stark departure from the standard fourteen-day turnaround for this type of request.”

Cruz also cites an apparent attempt on Kennedy’s life, a man dressed up as a U.S. Marshal caught at one of his Los Angeles campaign events. 

“On Sept. 29, two weeks after the Los Angeles incident,” explains The Epoch Times, “government accountability organization Judicial Watch received 11 pages of Secret Service records that detailed its denial of Mr. Kennedy’s protection request.” The Secret Service acknowledges “that Mr. Kennedy received several threats from ‘known subjects’ and that he is at a higher ‘risk for adverse attention.’”

The report was no doubt placed in the “No Duh” file.

The history of the Kennedys being what it is, one is almost tempted to hazard a guess as to why The Biden has so little interest in protecting the political competition. 

Hasn’t it crossed every American’s mind that this son and nephew of two assassinated political figures might be targeted . . . maybe by the same group of assassins? Which many have wondered might have hailed from within the government.

Wait — is The Biden trying to say . . . no protection necessary . . . don’t worry . . . they have no such plans?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment folly national politics & policies

Don’t Fence Me In?

Joe Biden, border wall, immigration, NIMBY

“The Biden administration on Thursday said it would expand former President Donald Trump’s wall,” informs The Gray Lady, with a stiff upper lip. 

And do it lickety-split: “Biden criticized for waiving 26 laws in Texas to allow border wall construction,” the UK Guardian headlines its report. 

In fiscal 2023, government data shows 245,000 people entered the United States from this Rio Grande Valley sector.

“There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas stated in the federal registry.

“Well, Mexico didn’t pay for the wall,” quipped the American Economic Liberties Project’s Matt Stoller, “Biden did.”

“There will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration,” the president had promised to the contrary during the 2020 campaign. Now Sleepy Joe’s administration has so awakened to the need for action on immigration that it argues for fencing off the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Endangered Species Act from getting in the way . . . 

. . . of building that wall. 

Fast!

The New York Times notes “intensifying” complaints coming from “Democratic leaders in New York, Chicago and elsewhere who say the influx is overwhelming their ability to house and feed the migrants.” 

Want a nimble response to the border crisis? 

Instead, we see a NIMBY response — from big-city politicians, as the buses arrive from down south.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Conservatorships Now!

Joe Biden, senile, old

“Libertarians Want Control Over Joe Biden, Mitch McConnell,” the headline read.

That’s odd. Libertarians don’t usually want control over anyone.

But at issue is whether Sleepy Joe and Motionless Mitch have control over themselves.

“The U.S. Libertarian Party has filed for conservatorships for President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, referring to them as ‘geriatric elites’ mentally unfit to properly serve the American populace,” Newsweek reported on Tuesday.

“Both subjects’ ability to receive and evaluate information effectively, make decisions, and to communicate are impaired to such an extent that they lack the capacity to represent themselves or the interests of Americans,” explained a party news release.

“These men, and others like them (like Diane Feinstein and John Fetterman) are not well enough to be left alone in the house all day,” Libertarian National Committee Chair Angela McArdle argued. “How are they well enough to govern our lives and spend our tax dollars?”

She added: “so we’ve compassionately decided to step in and make those important decisions for them.”

At 80 years of age, Mr. Biden is the oldest president ever. If re-elected in 2024, he would be 86 at the conclusion of his term. Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, 81 years of age, has been in public office in Washington for the last 38 years. 

The problem, of course, is not age as a number, but that both men have exhibited behavior that concerns us for their health and well-being. Mitch has repeatedly frozen in public, to be led away like a zoned-out sleepwalker, while the president, on his recent Vietnam trip, closed a press conference with “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to go to bed.”

Still, their string-pullers persist in milking each to the last drool-drip of inertial power. Their families should step in. 

Until then, the Libertarian Party will have to do.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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In Evidence

Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, Ukraine, corruption

In yesterday’s Washington Post, fact-checker Glenn Kessler explained, per the headline: “How Republicans overhype the findings of their Hunter Biden probe.”

He has a point. For example, the official House committee staff carefully stated that they had “identified over $20 million in payments from foreign sources to the Biden family and their business associates.” But Committee Chairman Comer turned that into: “The Biden family received over $20 million from our enemies around the world.”

The whole $20M+ didn’t go to the Biden Crime Family. Kessler’s analysis puts that number at merely $7.5 million. 

I guess this is why gang members sometimes turn on each other.

But Kessler — like so many other mainstream media mouthpieces — gets something very, very wrong.

“No evidence has emerged that any of these funds can be traced to Joe Biden himself,” the fact-checker asserts before delving into the specifics of his checked facts. Near the close, Kessler reiterates: “No money has been traced to Joe Biden.”

That’s just not true.

In a text that was discovered on the infamous Hunter laptop (now verified even by big media behemoths), Hunter Biden tells his daughter that his father (now President Biden for those following closely at home) makes Hunter kick back roughly 50 percent of his income.

A statement made in confidence to a loved one is commonly referred to as evidence. Strong evidence.

There are additional communications and invoices showing Hunter paid bills for “the Big Guy,” including home repairs and improvements costing thousands of dollars.

No matter how hard “fact checkers” ignore the evidence, it is still there.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights ideological culture too much government

The Way We Censor Now

Joe Biden, social media, China, censorship

In China, the government now sells software to social media companies so they have the best real-time idea of what the government currently does not want people to say. 

The companies then perform such obliging actions as removing posts and banning users.

The software serves as a self-defense system — of the social media companies. You see, if the companies fail to sufficiently prevent government-outlawed speech on their websites, they will be punished. Maybe ruinously. By the Chinese government.

So who is doing the censoring here? 

Obviously, the government.

In the U.S., the intimidatory relationship between government and social media firms is not quite so advanced or nearly so clear. But as we keep learning from documents extracted by litigation and subpoenas, for years now our federal government has been telling firms to censor things, and the firms have complied.

The latest example is that Facebook, which has always said that its content-moderation policies are “independent,” obeyed White House demands to censor posts about the likelihood that the COVID-19 virus originated in a Chinese lab, not in nature.

In a July 2021 email, Nick Clegg, a Facebook executive, asked whether anyone could “remind me why we were removing — rather than demoting/labeling — claims that Covid is man-made.”

To which a VP in charge of content policy replied: “We were under pressure from the [Biden] administration and others to do more. We shouldn’t have done it.”

No matter how White House press secretaries or others try to dress it up, “private” censorship conducted in obedience to governmental requests is governmental censorship.

And is eerily close to the Chinese practice.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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