Tag Archives: Joe Biden

business news, economic news

Bidenomics: It’s working!

How is this going to play out? For the life of me I cannot fathom the current trend.

President Biden’s economy is rocking along. The nation added 199,000 jobs in November; joblessness is now at 3.5%; inflation registered a 3.1% uptick, which is far better the 9% it was registering earlier this year.

And yet …

Republicans keep yammering about the “sagging” economy. How Americans are unhappy with their lives’ economic trajectory.

President Biden and Congress approved the nation’s largest infrastructure bill in history. He got Congress to approve the Inflation Reduction Act. We’re investing in “green energy,” and the GOP calls that a bad thing.

It’s working, man! Yet the GOP keeps lying to us that it isn’t.

I am shaking my noggin. I do not get it!

national news, political news

This guy’s the worst of ’em

OK, I’ve already established that Chris Christie has emerged as my favorite Republican contender for the party’s presidential nomination in 2024.

The former New Jersey governor has shed the gloves and has donned the brass knuckles in taking on Donald J. Trump. For that I give him high marks.

Now … I want to say a few words about the worst Republican running for this nomination. Step up, Vivek Ramaswamy and take your licks.

I am unclear what his credentials are for seeking the presidency. I understand he’s a successful businessman. He has no public service in his background.

However, he is managing to become the most obnoxious, disgusting, disgraceful bunch among the candidates still standing. Good grief — and I can’t believe I am going to say this — this guy might be worse than Trump! I’ll need to avoid being struck by a lightning bolt.

Ramaswamy is brusque, loud, abrasive and mostly incoherent in his rants. What in the world is this guy’s hallmark, his defining issue?

He has managed to make a complete ass of himself during most of the four GOP joint appearances.

Ramaswamy won’t win the nomination. Perhaps he’s vying for a spot on a ticket led by — gulp! — I can’t say his name any longer.

Believe me when I say this: I am trying to give the remaining GOP candidates a careful examination. I detest Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, so he’s out. Meanwhile, former South Carolina Gov. and former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley is a possibility; she’s certainly smarter than Ramaswamy, who insulted her intelligence the other evening.

My interest in the Republican field is predicated somewhat on the bizarre notion — which I hope doesn’t materialize — that President Biden will not be the Democratic nominee for president.

So, there you have it. Chris Christie is my GOP favorite; Vivek Ramaswamy is the GOP pits.

And the frontrunner? Enough about who former secretary of state Rex Tillerson once called a “fu**ing moron.”

International news

Don’t ignore Ukraine … OK?

Pssst … here’s a secret. OK, it’s not really a secret but it just seems like one.

It is that while the world worries how the Israel-Hamas war plays out, another conflict continues to rage on and on and on.

In February 2022, Russian troops, tanks and artillery invaded Ukraine in an attempt to take over a sovereign nation. The Russians were met with ferocious resistance aided by the steadfast support of the United States, NATO and the European Union.

Ukrainian forces have beaten back the invaders. U.S. aid continues to pour into Ukraine, despite resistance to that aid from the MAGA caucus within the congressional Republican conference.

We cannot predict when this war will end. It has become a stalemate, according to sources in the field. Still, the Ukrainian resistance to the supposedly vaunted Russian military machine has been awe-inspiring. The world has witnessed that Russia in fact is a third- or fourth-rate conventional military power. Yes, the Russians have those nuclear weapons. However, they dare not deploy them!

It appears difficult at times for the world to concentrate on multiple crises as they are erupting in real time. The Israeli offensive against Hamas is the real thing and it requires the world’s attention.

So, though, does the Ukrainian effort to defend its sovereignty against a foreign aggressor. Vladimir Putin has delusions of grandeur that he sought to play out against a sovereign nation; he concocted bogus threats against Russia from a country that posed no threat at all. Putin’s adventurism is delivering a heavy price that the Kremlin appears unable to pay.

President Biden’s steadfast resistance to Putin’s aggression has brought NATO and EU together to stand firm against Russia.

Let us not forget what’s at stake in Ukraine. It is the future of a democratic republic that is fighting for its survival.

national news, political news

Waiting for political mojo

Political junkies such as me usually start getting excited about pending presidential campaigns at this time of the year.

We’re on the cusp of welcoming a presidential election season. This should be an invigorating time. Candidates are supposed to be tossing out ideas, principles, policy pronouncements.

What are we getting on the eve of the 2024 presidential election? Hmm. Let’s see: We have an incumbent president seeking re-election with poll numbers reportedly in the crapper; I want the incumbent, Joe Biden, to be re-elected. His leading challenger?

Oh, brother. It’s the guy he defeated in the 2020 election, who then refused to acknowledge that he lost, stormed out of D.C. prior to Biden’s inaugural. Then came the investigations into his theft of classified documents, his role in the assault on our government, his effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election, his business dealings in New York City.

Good grief, man.

Normally, I would be gnashing at the prospect of two candidates getting ready to square off.

Not this year. The prospect of an incumbent president facing a known and demonstrable fraud in the upcoming election sickens me to my core. Why? President Biden is well past his prime and I acknowledge it. The moron who stands poised to be nominated by the Republican Party, though, is nothing more than a dispsh** with bad hair. He has no ideas, no moral compass, no guiding philosophy.

But, by God, he has that cult following consisting of election deniers and morons who believe that it’s time to “make America great again,” ignoring the obvious fact that this nation remains the greatest nation on Earth.

Sigh … maybe my political mojo will get juiced up in time to give a damn. My fear, though, is that it won’t.

national news, political news

Sticking with Biden

Just so you know, I am standing firmly behind President Biden’s effort to win re-election to a second term in office.

Yes, I have read the polling data. I have heard the talking heads worrying their little noggins out over the polls that show the president trailing his Republican opponents. I have heard the concerns about his age.

I acknowledge fully the age issue is a serious one to be sure. He is about to turn 81. Life can go south in a hurry at that age. Believe me when I say that I have felt the crushing pain of watching a loved gone o from healthy to seriously unhealthy virtually overnight … and she was in her early 70s when we lost her.

However, I am not going to accept any arguments about mental acuity or loss of intellectual capacity in the president.

Joe Biden is fit for the job. I want him to stay at his post.

national news, political news

Girding already for … the grind

Make no mistake about this undeniable fact: The next presidential election is likely to drive me to the loony bin.

The Republican Party’s presidential primary field is winnowing down already. Tim Scott is out. So is Mike Pence. Others ought to take a powder as well. Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley got into a beef the other evening when Ramaswamy mentioned Haley’s daughter as a TikTok user, prompting Haley to call the loudmouth pretender “just scum.”

Meanwhile, President Biden is taking hits from within his Democratic Party over whether he ought to seek a second term. He is 80 years of age; the oldest man to occupy the presidency. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has abandoned the Democratic Party and is running for POTUS as an independent. Another guy has decided to run for the presidency too as a Democrat.

If I could manipulate the system, I would much rather see someone other than Donald Trump nominated by the GOP to run against the president. If it’s not meant to be, then we can kiss the Republican Party we’ve all known goodbye.

Trump doesn’t have a single policy principle he can tout as his own. He is pledging a scorched-Earth campaign to “eliminate” everyone who’s ever opposed him.

And … how in this ever-lovin’ world will Biden and Trump fare if we are forced to listen to them debate each other on the world stage? Do you remember the 2020 campaign, when Biden told the blathering Trump to “just shut up, man”?

I am going to offer a prayer to myself that I am able to keep my sanity as this campaign unfolds. While I’m at it, I’ll pray for anyone who’s having the same feelings of anxiety about the future of this great country. So much of that future is going to depend on whether Americans can reject the nonsense touted by the former POTUS.

Here’s hoping for the best.

Joe Biden

Stay the course, Mr. POTUS

You are more than welcome to join me in tossing aside calls from some Democrats want Joe Biden to walk away from his re-election campaign.

For the life of me I cannot grasp the notion being bandied about among Democrats who want President Biden to step aside and allow someone else to carry their partisan banner forward.

The president’s mental acuity is the issue, they contend. Baloney! Bullsh**! It’s nothing more than a tinny echo of Republicans who want to insert the president’s fitness to continue his job into the campaign.

President Biden is a smart, well-educated, seasoned man. He has served in public service for more than 50 years. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972 … before he was old enough to take office; his birthday came that November and placed him at the 30-year minimum age for senators.

I am going to continue to support this president for as long as he wants to run for re-election. President Biden has done a good job governing the world’s most indispensable nation.

He needs to continue.

national news

Wait for the trials … and convictions!

Norm Ornstein is one of those Washington, D.C., gray eminences whom the media turn to for a look at the political landscape and whether it is changing under our feet in real time.

Ornstein believes that Donald Trump’s current standing as the “frontrunner” for the 2024 presidential election is going to change “when and if the convictions” start rolling in from the felony criminal trials that await the former POTUS.

I believe he is correct. At least I hope he is correct. You see, the polling data showing Trump ahead of President Biden in several key battleground states simply baffles me beyond all measure.

Ornstein suggests that Biden could be in serious trouble if he is unable to persuade Americans that the successes he has enjoyed are the real deal. I believe they are, but he continues to underperform among voters who continue to tell pollsters that the country is headed in the “wrong direction.”

Huh? I don’t get it! Unemployment remains below 4%. Jobs keep piling up. Inflation, while still troublesome, is beginning to level off. The Fed appears set to put the brakes on interest rate increases.

Yes, we have war in the Middle East. And in Ukraine. Biden has held our alliances together.

The border crisis? It still is a serious problem, but it’s good to remember that we’re still detaining and deporting thousands of undocumented immigrants weekly.

“One of the things that I think is clear here is that most voters have paid no or little attention to Donald Trump’s legal problems,” Ornstein told MSNBC’s Ali Velshi. “That will change when we get criminal trials. And especially if and when we get convictions.”

It’s good to ask ourselves: Are Americans really and truly so stupid, gullible and ignorant that we want to elect a convicted felon as POTUS?

If we are, then this nation of ours is headed straight into the crapper.

We are much better than that.

International news, Joe Biden, national news

Partisan fight over aid to fight Russia?

You live  long enough and you’re liable to see all kinds of manifestations of principle you once thought were set in steel-enforced concrete.

Take the U.S. position regarding aggression by Russian armed forces … for example.

Russia invaded Ukraine a year-plus ago. President Biden said this country would stand foursquare against the Russian aggressors. He vowed to stitch together a strong alliance of nations to resist the Russians. He succeeded.

We have helped Ukraine turn back the Russians. Ukrainian armed forces launched a counteroffensive. You’d think the Democratic U.S. president would enjoy the support of long-standing anti-Russian pols who belong to the Republican Party. Right? Guess again, pilgrim.

We now have the MAGA crowd resisting efforts to back Ukraine … for reasons that totally escape me! It has to be that their guy, the former POTUS, thinks the sun rises and sets on Russian goon/strongman Vladimir Putin.

The MAGA cult seemingly doesn’t believe as much in democratic principles as their political forebears — the real Republicans who fought the Russians and the Soviet Union with a passion. Then again, I don’t consider the MAGA morons to be real Republicans. They are political perverts who have twisted longstanding U.S. policy into something unrecognizable.

It is an evolution I never envisioned I would see.

International news, military news, national news

Why does GOP ignore Russian aggression?

Some things you never expect to see up close … such as congressional Republicans turning their backs on Russian aggression in Europe.

Think about this for a moment. Republicans from Richard Nixon, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan and two presidents named Bush all considered Russians to be our nation’s foremost adversary. Operating under the guise of the Soviet Union, Russia sought to spread its form of autocracy via armed conflict.

Such action was deemed an existential threat to everyone who didn’t adhere to their policy.

The Russians are doing so at this moment in Ukraine. They invaded that sovereign nation in February 2022. Ukraine has pushed back — hard! — with help from the United States, NATO and other freedom-loving nations.

But not, apparently, from this country’s Republican Party. The GOP congressional caucus has approved temporary spending legislation that suspends he military assistance the United States is providing Ukraine in its effort to repel the Russian aggressors.

Where, though, is the Republican Party led by the MAGA cult that is calling the cadence within GOP headquarters?  Is it insisting on diverting that money to domestic programs to help Americans in need? Is it seeking funds to assist veterans, Social Security recipients? Nope. None of that.

It’s just sticking it in President Biden’s ear because of the president’s stated commitment to help the Ukrainians beat back the Russian invaders … and preserve democracy in Ukraine!

Today’s Republican Party is following a foreign-policy script that would make past GOP leaders cringe.