REPORT: Unhappy Biden Had A Talking To With Top Officials Who Were Pushing For A Ukrainian Win DIANA GLEBOVA ASSOCIATE EDITOR June 16, 2022 10:27 AM ET
President Joe Biden reportedly told two top officials to tone down their rhetoric about Ukraine in the Russia-Ukraine war, saying the U.S. should not publicly announce they wanted a Ukrainian win.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Ukraine in April, and Austin publicly stated the Biden administration wanted Ukraine to win, not just defend themselves from the Russian invasion. Blinken appeared to agree with the remarks.
Biden called the pair after the comments were made and expressed concern that they had said too much, NBC reported Thursday, citing multiple unnamed administration officials. The president was worried the rhetoric condoning an explicit win over Russia could set unrealistic expectations and push the U.S. into the conflict, according to the outlet.
“Biden was not happy when Blinken and Austin talked about winning in Ukraine,” one of the administration officials reportedly said. “He was not happy with the rhetoric.”
The secretaries told Biden their comments had been misunderstood, a different administration official reportedly told the outlet.
U.S. officials are talking about whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s position — to not cede any territory to Russia — is possible if he wants to end the war, NBC reported, citing seven current and former U.S. officials and European officials. (RELATED: In Reversal, Western Leaders Suddenly Fret Over Potential Ukraine Victory Over Russia)
French President Emanuel Macron said Wednesday that Ukraine must be willing to negotiate with Russia.
“We are not pressuring them to make concessions, as some Europeans are. We would never ask them to cede territory,” one U.S. official reportedly told the outlet. “We are planning for a long war. We intend to prepare the American people for that, and we are prepared to ask Congress for more money.”
Cackling Kamala to Head New Task Force to Address Online Harassment and Abuse AMERICAN NEWS Jun 16, 2022 2:43 PM EST Vice President Harris to head new Task Force to Address Online Harassment and Abuse The task force's launch this afternoon will center around Vice President Harris hosting a "survivor and expert" roundtable.
Today, Vice President Kamala Harris will convene the first meeting of a new federal task force called the "White House Task Force to Address Online Harassment and Abuse." According to an official White House "fact sheet," the task force will respond "to the need for government leadership to address online harms, which disproportionately affect women, girls, people of color, and LGBTQI+ individuals."
This task force's goal and intention has similarities to the failed Department of Homeland Security's Disinformation Governance Board which was eponymously called the "Ministry of Truth." The historically unpopular Vice President Harris is adding leadership of the task force to her growing list of assignments from the White House, which has included finding ways to fix illegal immigration. The task force's launch this afternoon will center around Vice President Harris hosting a "survivor and expert" roundtable. According to The Hill, some of those attendees include Attorney General Merrick Garland, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, and Sloane Stephens, a tennis player who received mean-spirited messages on social media after she exited the US Open. According to the official White House memorandum on the task force, The Director of the White House Gender Policy Council and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs will be the task force's co-chairs. The articulation of the task force's goals include "enhancing and expanding data collection and research across the Federal Government to measure the costs, prevalence, exposure to, and impact of technology-facilitated gender-based violence." Expanding the government's ability to collect reservoirs of data on its citizens was one of the former Disinformation Board's goals as well. Another intention of the task force is "developing programs and policies to address the disproportionate impact of online harassment, abuse, and disinformation campaigns targeting women and LGBTQI+ individuals who are public and political figures." They did not clarify the measuring principle for "disproportionate impact." The task force cited "the tragic events in Buffalo and Uvalde" as reasons for the task forces creation because "the internet can fuel hate, misogyny, and abuse with spillover effects that threaten our communities and safety offline." The task force has been given 180 days to provide recommendations for how America, from the federal government down to individual citizens, can better comply with their standards of behavior. They didn't specify any one platform they were analyzing but rather that they were just looking at all types of online "illegal conduct."
Global economic collapse may now be underway, Wall Street sounds alarm, $3 trillion in retirement wiped out, Consumer spending running out of steam, Housing Market teetering Ricky Scaparo Jun 16, 2022
Analysts increasingly see a recession looming in the US following the Federal Reserve’s biggest increase in interest rates since 1994 and signs of weaker consumer spending. The Fed hiked its policy rate by 75 basis points Wednesday to a range of 1.5% to 1.75%, as officials intensified their battle against inflation that’s remained stubbornly high.
According to Yahoo, Wells Fargo & Co. now forecasts a “mild recession” starting in mid-2023, as inflation becomes more entrenched in the economy and eats into consumer spending power — and as the Fed takes more aggressive steps to address it. Meanwhile, Moody’s Analytics said that chances of a soft landing are lower.
“The Federal Reserve is going to hike interest rates until policymakers break inflation, but the risk is that they also break the economy,” Ryan Sweet, Moody’s Analytics head of monetary policy research, said in a research note. “Growth is slowing and the effect of the tightening in financial market conditions and removal of monetary policy have yet to hit the economy.”
US retail sales fell for the first time in five months in May as higher prices hit consumer pocketbooks. Also on Wednesday, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta cut its estimate for second-quarter growth to 0%. And Guggenheim Chief Investment Officer Scott Minerd said the US may already be in a recession, given the slowdown in consumer spending.
A growing number of economists have recently said a contraction next year would be difficult to avoid. In his note Wednesday, Wells Fargo’s Jay Bryson said he was expecting a soft landing just a week or so ago — but now his base scenario is for a mild recession.
A key source of US economic growth this year — consumer spending — is showing signs of losing steam, even before Wednesday’s round of Federal Reserve rate hikes kick in. Credit card data show that spending in May was just 10% higher from the same month last year, according to a Barclays report this week. For the rest of 2021, that monthly spending growth has averaged more like 20%.
That slowing growth, combined with weakening home sales and declines in wage growth, would mean that monetary tightening is already hitting the economy hard. The Fed may be able to tighten less aggressively in July, according to Barclays, which is forecasting just a half percentage point rate hike next month. Rates markets indicate a strong chance of a three-quarter percentage point hike.
The stock and corporate bond markets don’t reflect the risk of a weakening consumer, wrote Barclays strategists including Ajay Rajadhyaksha, Ryan Preclaw, and Hale Holden, in a separate Tuesday note. The slowing growth of consumer spending underscores how difficult the Fed’s job is now as it looks to contain inflation that’s running at a four-decade high, while trying to avoid tipping the economy into recession.
The softening only started in the last four to six weeks, but it was visible among both high- and low-income consumers, the strategists said, based on a sampling of Barclays credit card data. And it’s consistent with a report on Wednesday that showed retail purchases fell 0.3% in May from the month before, the first decline this year.
Amid surging layoffs in the real estate market, slumping homebuilder sentiment, soaring rates, and plunging mortgage applications, it is no surprise that analysts expected a drop in Housing Starts and Permits in May (-1.8% MoM and -2.5% MoM respectively). According to Zero Hedge,
Those numbers were destroyed as Housing Starts crashed 14.4% MoM and Permits plunged 7.0% MoM… This is the biggest drop in housing starts since the economy was shutdown by the government in April 2020. Starts have fallen to their lowest since April 2021 and Permits to their lowest since Sept 2021.
Meanwhile, The U.S. stock market rout that has put U.S. equities in a bear market isn’t just reducing the net worth of billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. It’s also taking a toll on Americans’ retirement savings, wiping out trillions of dollars in value.
The selloff has erased nearly $3 trillion from U.S. retirement accounts, according to Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. By her calculations, 401(k) plan participants have lost about $1.4 trillion from their accounts since the end of 2021. People with IRAs — most of which are 401(k) rollovers — have lost $2 trillion this year.
This year’s stock slump is the most severe market downturn since March of 2020, when COVID-19 erupted in the U.S. Historically, 401(k) investments take about two years after a market decline of this size to regain their previous value.
“Anybody who has to retire when the market is down is in a bad position,” Munnell said. “Younger people, you can kind of wait it out — these things have come back time and time again,” she added. “But people who use their retirement money to support themselves really suffer in this kind of event.”
According to CBS News, Retirement accounts are the main channel through which most Americans are exposed to the ups and downs of the stock market. Nearly three-quarters of all 401(k) money is held in stocks, according to a Vanguard report from 2021. This year it’s been mostly down: The S&P 500 has sunk 22%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has lost nearly 13% and the Nasdaq Composite has fallen more than 30%.
To be sure, many Wall Street professionals viewed last year’s run-up in stocks as a bubble fueled by speculators looking for a place to park new money. But that doesn’t make the loss any easier to swallow for most workers, who lack the time, skill, or interest to try to time the markets.
“One could argue that these recent losses are simply wiping out the extraordinary gains that occurred from mid-2020 to the end of 2021, so that people are not actually worse off than before the pandemic,” Munnell wrote in a blog post, shared first with CBS MoneyWatch. But human nature being what it is, “the prior gains were permanent, so the recent losses are no less painful.
Meanwhile, overseas, China’s holdings of U.S Treasuries tumbled in April to their lowest since May 2010, data showed on Wednesday, with Chinese investors likely cutting losses as Treasury prices fell after Federal Reserve officials signaled sizable rate hikes to temper soaring inflation.
Chinese holdings dropped to $1.003 trillion in April, down $36.2 billion from $1.039 trillion the previous month, according to U.S. Treasury Department figures. China’s stock of Treasuries in May 2010 was $843.7 billion, data showed. The reduction in Treasury holdings may also have been aimed at diversifying China’s foreign exchange holdings, analysts said.
The Chinese sales contributed to a drop in overall foreign holdings of Treasuries in April that helped propel yields higher. U.S. benchmark 10-year Treasury yields started April with a yield of 2.3895% and surged roughly 55 basis points to 2.9375% by the end of the month.
Japan’s holdings of U.S. Treasuries fell further in April to their lowest since January 2020, amid a persistent decline in the yen versus the dollar, which may have prompted Japanese investors to sell U.S. assets to benefit from the exchange rate.
According to Yahoo News, Japanese holdings fell to $1.218 trillion in April, from $1.232 trillion in March. Japan remained the largest non-U.S. holder of Treasuries. Overall, foreign holdings of Treasuries slid to 7.455 trillion, the lowest since April 2021, from $7.613 trillion in March.
On a transaction basis, U.S. Treasuries saw net foreign outflows of $1.152 billion in April, from net new foreign inflows of $48.795 billion in March. This was the first outflow since October 2021. The Federal Reserve, at its policy meeting in March, raised benchmark interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point.
Braindead Biden to CEO of Jo-Ann Stores: “My Sympathies to the Family of Your CFO Who Dropped Dead Very Unexpectedly” By J.D. Rucker • Jun. 16, 2022
You really cannot make this up.
“My sympathies to the family of your… uh… CFO who dropped dead very unexpectedly,” Biden said to the CEO of Jo-Ann Stores.
Biden to a guest at his speech:
"My sympathies to the family of your… uhhh… CFO who dropped dead very unexpectedly."
If you think things couldn’t get worse, remember who’s in the White House. Perhaps more importantly, remember that millions of Americans thought putting him there was a good idea. It may not have been 81 million as they claim, but there are still a lot of absolute morons among us.
Biden Now Claims Shipping Companies Are 'Price Gouging' but the Facts Say Differently By Nick Arama | Jun 16, 2022 8:45 PM ET
There’s a tendency to ask, “What is the government doing?” when things are messed up. But as Ronald Reagan schooled us, the nine worst words in the English language are: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Beyond that, this is not the nature of our government. We’re not a dictatorship. We don’t have a king who operates by fiat. At least we’re not supposed to. The government isn’t our daddy who tells us what to do. But the more power we allow the government to have, the more those in government will take.
We already have Biden exceeding what he’s supposed to be doing with executive power provisions and the Defense Production Act. For example, he’s used the Defense Production Act to increase the production of solar panels, claiming that’s related to energy concerns. What does that have to do with the rising gas prices? But that was his excuse for the improper use of this act, to pump solar panels to fit his political agenda. Is someone making bank as a result?
In the effort to deflect from his failures when it comes to inflation and gas prices, Biden has also been going after private companies, like the oil companies, threatening them and blaming their “greed” for the rise in prices–when it’s his bad and inconsistent policies that have decimated the energy industry. Instead of letting loose private industry, thus encouraging their growth in a way that’s better for Americans, Biden is always trying to restrict it with heavy regulation, which discourages industry and growth.
Now Biden has moved on to attacking the shipping companies. Here he was on June 10 threatening to “pop ’em” — meaning, punch the people running the shipping companies.
Joe Biden threatens violence on those he disagrees with: “Every once in a while something you learn makes you viscerally angry. Like if you had the person in front of you, you’d want to pop ’em.”pic.twitter.com/AZ823lL4r7
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) June 10, 2022
This is the guy we have in charge, with access to nuclear codes? Yeesh.
Biden just signed a bipartisan bill imposing restrictions on shipping companies, claiming there were “nine companies”–who controlled everything–that are price gouging.
But just like with the oil companies, what Biden is saying isn’t true. We’re supposed to believe that all these individual entities suddenly got greedy? Why weren’t they as greedy under President Donald Trump? The story of course is that it’s other than what Biden says–and the World Shipping Council (rightly) let Biden have it.
The World Shipping Council, whose members include Hapag-Lloyd, Maersk, destroyed Biden’s characterizations of the industry in a statement they issued on Thursday.
The Federal Maritime Commission has found that “ocean carrier competition is ‘vigorous’ and that while ocean freight prices are high, they are ‘exacerbated by the pandemic, an unexpected and unprecedent surge in consumer spending particularly in the United States, and supply chain congestion, and are the product of the market forces of supply and demand,’ ” the shipping group said.
“The worn-out talking point that ‘there’s only nine major ocean shipping lines who ship from Asia to the United States’ is also untrue. While nine lines in and of itself is evidence of competition and not concentration, there are an additional thirteen ocean liner companies that operated over 30% of the sailings from Asia to the U.S so far this year.”
In other words, what Biden has said is wrong. They have increased costs with having to deal with all the issues of the supply chain congestion, a problem Biden simply seems to dismiss. He thinks he can just regulate them or beat it out of them.
As Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey observes, the shipping company is not exactly making out hand over fist, contrary to what Biden claims. Ed explains that the industry had an operating loss of more than $3 billion in 2021. He also has another great observation — assuming this were true, the supply chain problems have been going on since Biden came into office, so why is he only addressing this now?
The purpose of this is to make it appear to his left-wing base that he’s turning the screws on those evil greedy corporations because a lot of the left-wing base has seen Biden as largely ineffective on everything, just like the right has. But at a time when the problem is that the companies have had to deal with too many problems and regulations, Biden is going to add more regulation into the bargain–maybe, with a side of threats?
Christine McDaniel, an international trade economist who is also a Senior Research Fellow at George Mason University, knocked down Biden’s claims about price gouging and monopoly. She notes it was supply and demand, as a result of the problems of the pandemic.
In fact, the final report found that the current market for ocean liners in the trans-Pacific is not concentrated, and that trans-Atlantic trade is only minimally concentrated. The market for ocean services remains highly contestable.
— Christine McDaniel (@christinemcdan) June 15, 2022
On top of that, McDaniel explains that Biden is going to drop these regulations on the industry just as the congestion seems to be abating, so suddenly inserting this on to the situation could make things worse.
But hey, at least Biden can then say he “did something,” right? And when things get worse, just as with everything else he touches, the refrain from the WH podium will be: “Not my fault, blame Putin.”
Epic: The Daily Wire Produces A Savage Montage Of CNN Spreading Fake News by Hailey Sanibel June 17, 2022
Ben Shapiro’s The Daily Wire is just a few years old, but they have already carved out a huge space in the conservative news niche for their powerful assault on corporate media outlets of all kinds. Fox News has repeatedly proven itself to be a shill for Big Pharma and leftist causes, and Newsmax has even sold out on Ukraine.
Thankfully, and perhaps recognizing this void in real truth telling, The Daily Wire has stepped up to the plate. They produce narrative-shifting documentaries – going after Fauci, George Floyd, and the idea of womanhood – and have a stellar lineup both in the podcast space and online print news.
They also do a great job at shorts, which is where this video comes in. The faltering house of pedos and deviants at CNN is in a freefall, aided largely by the fact that it can’t tell the truth. They are the opposite of the mythical George Washington, who could tell no lies.
As Donald, Jr. says, this video is an epic, must-watch:
Tater Stelter sets up the video by noting: “This brand research by Gallup says American trust in the mass media is at its lowest point since 2016 and near a record low overall.”
From there, the short clips come together with the perfectly-overlaid score to produce a truly remarkable summary of CNN’s specific, and corporate media’s general, collapse. They simply cannot report fairly, accurately, or honestly.
Setting aside Zucker’s affair, Toobin’s self-pleasuring, and the firing of pedophiliac monsters, the real reason for CNN’s abysmal ratings is tied directly to their inability to serve the public interest. When a lineup of Don Lemon, Chris Cuomo, Brian Stelter, and so many other hosts of primetime slots can’t hide their elitist and intellectual snobbery at regular Americans, and pass along hoaxes as real news, abject failure is the only possible result.
Chris Cuomo has since been fired, and it remains to be seen what will happen to Don Lemon and Brian Stelter. Both are awful, but Stelter especially so because he possesses no apparent talents. How did he get hired in the first place, let alone become the focal point of a major media company? It defies logic and biggles the mind. As much as he offers moments of hilarity and comedic relief, his days are sadly numbered. It’s as if CNN is trying to get viewers again.
Fox News previously reported:
“A CNN “insider” is reportedly calling for the firing of the network’s left-wing media correspondent Brian Stelter for not exposing CNN president Jeff Zucker’s romantic relationship with another high-ranking colleague, something that’s been dubbed an “open secret” by critics.
Stelter, who has emerged as CNN’s lackey whenever the network was swept up in controversy, has been all over CNN’s airwaves on Wednesday to report on the sudden resignation of his boss, who admitted he failed to disclose a consensual relationship he had with another CNN executive.”
For Pride month, the CCP celebrated the launch of its third aircraft carrier, the first to rival our own and the first built entirely in China Joel Abbott Jun 17th, 2022 10:47 am
Check it out:
Here's some specs on this bad boy from NPR:
Beijing launched a new-generation aircraft carrier Friday, the first such ship to be both designed and built in China, in a milestone as it seeks to extend the range and power of its navy.
The Type 003 carrier christened Fujian left its drydock at a shipyard outside Shanghai in the morning and tied up at a nearby pier, state media reports said.
That's right. China now has the capacity to totally design and build their own aircraft carriers without outside countries.
Equipped with the latest weaponry and aircraft-launch technology, the Type 003 ship's capabilities are thought to rival those of Western carriers, as Beijing seeks to turn its navy, already the world's largest, into a multi-carrier force.
I remember some guy warning the U.S. about its aging navy and the need to invest quickly in ships to keep China from controlling the oceans over the next century, but he was too orange so we sent him away.
It's okay though! Diversity is our strength.
And Pride is back in the White House!
Meanwhile, the Fujian can carry 26 jets, 22 helicopters, 54 surface-to-air missiles, an array of 30mm guns, has a crew of 2,500, and weighs 65,000 tons with a full load.
In just a matter of years, China has gone from repurposing an old Soviet carrier to this next-gen beast built entirely by their own hands. At the same time, they are building artificial islands all over the place to extend their territory around the South China Sea.
The U.S. Navy has sailed warships past artificial islands China has built in the sea that are equipped with airstrips and other military facilities. China insists its territory extends to those islands, while the U.S. Navy says it conducts the missions there to ensure the free flow of international trade.
Because I've read a history book, I have a bad feeling about this.
Despite all the hullaballoo about Putin and right-wing grandmas these days from the White House, there's only one nation on the planet that poses an actual threat to the stability of the 21st century.
China's People Liberation Army Navy, or PLAN, has been modernizing for more than a decade to become more of a "blue water" force — one capable of operating globally rather than being restricted to remaining closer to the Chinese mainland.
Whoever controls the oceans controls trade. Whoever controls trade controls the world!
Jill Has to Rescue Joe From Gaggle of Reporters Before They Leave for Yet Another Vacation By Nick Arama | Jun 17, 2022 3:15 PM ET
Joe Biden has spent the week assigning blame for inflation and skyrocketing gas prices. He had been trying to put it on Vladimir Putin, but this week, he also went all in blaming the oil and shipping companies.
He threatened the oil companies for not producing enough gas, without acknowledging that he’s been anti-energy and fossil fuels since he ran, contributing to the problem by stopping drilling, canceling leases, and imposing restrictions ever since he came in. He claimed the oil and shipping companies were doing this for greed and profit, without explaining why they suddenly ‘turned so greedy’ on his watch. This was nonsense, as we noted — an effort to shift away from his failures.
Biden also blamed the American people for being upset with him. He claimed they were “really, really done” because they had mental health issues as a result of the COVID pandemic. No, sir, they are upset because of your bad policies. That’s very sound thought about very bad policies.
But now that he’s blamed everyone else and taken no responsibility himself, he’s grabbed Jill and the cat, and headed out the door to the beach before noon on Friday for yet another vacation at his house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Monday is a federal holiday so he’ll have a long weekend.
I suppose there are a couple of different ways of looking at how much vacation time he takes. One, he doesn’t give a darn about the mess he leaves behind, and two, maybe when he’s on vacation, he’s being a little less harmful to us than normal. But it just shows, once again, where his priorities are.
He couldn’t quite get away without the media trying to nail him and ask him some questions first. He stopped and was talking with them for a few moments, then Jill came to rescue him and try to pull him away before he said anything silly, yet again.
From NY Post:
“It should not be this high,” the president told reporters on the lawn. “They’re making exorbitant profits, number one. Number two, I’ve contacted them, my team has, to ask what their plans are and to give any suggestions they have.”
He added: “There are 9,000 leases — 9,000 — that they can drill … but they’re not doing it.”
Biden went on, “Number three, I think we’re going to be in a position where we’re gonna —.”
Now that might have been interesting to see if he continued with his thoughts, likely expanding on his threats against the oil companies, but his wife managed to stop him and ultimately pull him away after he told an Indian reporter that he would visit India in the future.
So they made it to Delaware, where they don’t have to report who they’re meeting with–and there aren’t records of his gaffes.
Joe had earlier tried to wiggle out of the claim that he was going back on his declaration that Saudi Arabia be made a pariah over the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who was not an American citizen. But he’s planning to go to convince Saudi Arabia to help with gas prices.
That didn’t go over well with some of his leftist base. So, he also tried to evade responsibility even for his actions, saying he wasn’t going to meet with Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. “I’m not going to meet with MBS. I’m going to international meeting and he’s going to be part of it.” Translation: I’m not going to meet with him, I’m just going to meet with him while I’m there. It seems like a difference without a distinction.
SB, can you explain to the board why you hate the LGBT so much?
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
There Are No “Putin Price Hikes” in America, But Soon There Could Be By J.D. Rucker • Jun. 17, 2022
The feckless leadership of the Biden regime combined with idiotic legislation from Congress since the beginning of the pandemic take most of the blame for the economic woes this nation faces. Add in lingering effects from the lockdowns and self-defacing sanctions we’ve imposed on Russia and you have the lion’s share of what’s causing our fiscal woes.
Nowhere on the current list is Vladimir Putin despite the fact that Democrats keep calling our inflation problems the “Putin Price Hikes.” Their invasion of Ukraine in and of itself did not spike inflation, a fact that is blatant prima facie when we see that price hikes began well before the first Russian tank entered Ukraine. But now that we’re on the verge of recession, it’s very possible for Russia to play some cards they have been holding for a while, cards that could easily exacerbate the problems we’re facing already.
According to Washington Times:
Russia itself has seen foreign investment dry up, hundreds of Western companies pull out, and the domestic GDP set to shrink by 10% or more this year. But the pain hasn’t been all one-sided since President Vladimir Putin gave a green light for the invasion of his neighbor Feb. 24.
Economics specialists and foreign policy observers say the Kremlin still has “some cards” left to play in the global marketplace, particularly in the fuel and food sectors, and could soon decide to pull those levers in order to maximize its leverage in any future peace negotiations with Kyiv. Such Russian tactics, if employed, would likely drive gas, grain and wheat prices even higher than today’s record levels.
Recent days have brought fresh warning signs of just how much sway Moscow holds over key sectors, despite its relatively meager economy — Russia’s GDP is slightly smaller than that of Italy or South Korea — which boasts nowhere near the financial power and influence over global markets of the U.S. or China. Russian officials said Thursday that they were cutting natural gas supplies to Europe even further, bringing the current operating level of the major Nord Stream 1 pipeline down to just 40%, according to Reuters.
***Support The Liberty Daily and Mike Lindell -- use code TLD at MyPillow.com and get up to 66% off!*** The Kremlin blamed the slowdown on delays in planned repairs to the pipeline and said that Western economic sanctions — instituted in direct response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year — have made it difficult to acquire the necessary parts and equipment. But European officials aren’t buying that rationale.
Germany’s chief power regulator, Klaus Mueller, called the explanation “unfounded” and said the decision by Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom appears designed to drive fuel prices higher. The move comes at a crucial moment for Germany and for Europe as a whole, which is trying to quickly move away from dependence on Russian oil and gas but will still rely on that fuel for the coming winter months.
If you love the news, check out The Liberty Daily's homepage. “We could perhaps get through the summer as the heating season is over. But it is imperative that we fill the storage facilities to get through the winter,” Mr. Mueller told the Germany news outlet Rheinische Post.
Shortly after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, Europe pledged to wind down its dependence on Russian oil and gas. But it’s likely to take years before Europe can fully free itself from Russian fuel, and in the interim Mr. Putin could further reduce supplies in a bid to crack Europe’s solidarity and perhaps even convince the West to ease economic sanctions on Moscow.
Amid rapidly rising food and fuel prices, there are already signs that public opinion in Europe is shifting away from a hard-line anti-Russia stance and toward peace, perhaps in the hopes that a cease-fire in Ukraine may bring economic relief.
A major study by the European Council on Foreign Relations published this week found that a plurality of Europeans, about 35%, favor “peace now even at the cost of Ukrainian concessions to Russia.” Researchers believe that number could rise further if the economic fallout from the Russia-Ukraine war grows and drives already out-of-control inflation even higher.
Frustration also is rising in the U.S., where average nationwide gas prices hit $5 per gallon this month for the first time in history.
With the United States so heavily dependent on foreign imports to keep our massive economy going, we’re a few geopolitical moves away from being on the brink of economic collapse. The dollar is terrifying and Fed Chair Jerome Powell hinted today that the world is shifting away from using it as the World Reserve Currency. He didn’t say those words explicitly, but it was implied as he pushed toward the globalist dream of Central Bank Digital Currencies.
Powell: “Rapid changes are taking place in the global monetary system that may affect the international role of the dollar.” A US central bank digital currency is being examined to “help the US dollar’s international standing.”
NEW – Powell: "Rapid changes are taking place in the global monetary system that may affect the international role of the dollar."
A US central bank digital currency is being examined to "help the US dollar's international standing." pic.twitter.com/htP6r1brNz
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) June 17, 2022
Joe Biden is begging for more oil. Cows and chickens are dying at massive rates. Grain is quickly becoming scarce. If ever there was a time to and move your wealth or retirement to precious metals, it’s now.
Good luck on a response, bro. I think he has almost all of us on ignore. I think at this point he just posts all these articles so he can have one place to store them and check on 40 from time to time.
Blue ostriches on crack float on milkshakes between the sidewalk titans of gurglefitz. --YTown
Good luck on a response, bro. I think he has almost all of us on ignore. I think at this point he just posts all these articles so he can have one place to store them and check on 40 from time to time.
A quick tip, I'm sharing with you: It works! Just do what I do- I open his thread, and scroll 'til it's dead Just to clear his thread count from my view.
Time's too precious to waste even a minute of it on sophomoronic ish like his.
Joe Biden, Man of the People In my sister’s world, Joe Biden has served with distinction during his 48 years in Washington Published 17 hours ago on June 17, 2022 By Jeff Davidson
As Joe Biden’s administration continues to crumble and his grasp on realty seems ever more distant, it’s a revelation to know that some people think he’s doing a fine job as leader of the U.S. and, by extension, the free world.
Consider my sister. She has a Ph.D. in psychology and is a counselor with offices in New York and New Haven. She can discuss at length literature, sociology, human relations, movies, and so on. As is typical with those on the Left, her political blind spots are beyond glaring.
Sagacious and Sparkling In my sister’s world, Joe Biden has served with distinction during his 48 years in Washington. He never took money for pay-to-play schemes from China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Romania, or Ukraine and certainly did not take bribes over at the last two decades. According to my sister, the thoroughly corrupt Biden family has never profited by even one dime – not Hunter, not James – as a result of Joe’s position as vice president and, before that as a senator.
Trending on PolitiCrossing.com: Multi-tasking: More Harm than Good
Keep in mind, many of the alleged 81,000,000 or so ‘voters’ for Biden are like my sister. Inextricably ensconced in the liberal media bubble, they are steadfast in ‘what they know.’ They could easily visit alternative news sites for greater perspective, but they never do, thus creating a self-imposed information iron curtain.
In my sister’s world, Joe Biden never cheated in college, and didn’t plagiarize. He didn’t support the 1994 crime bill which essentially made black males walking targets. In her world, Joe Biden never uttered a racial comment that was less than desirable, and certainly never said things such as:
“I tell you if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black,” (May, 2020); “Poor kids are just as bright and talented as white kids,” (August, 2019); “We’ve got to recognize that the kid wearing a hoodie may very well be the next poet laureate and not a gangbanger,” (June, 2019); “They’re gonna put y’all back in chains.” (August, 2012); Obama is “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean,” (February, 2007); and so many other such statements.
Not in Partnership With Obama In my sister’s world Joe Biden had no part in Obama’s countless scandals or Obama’s self-professed ignorance of them. The Obama/Biden administration claimed to have no knowledge of the ‘Fast and Furious’ scandal; Black Panther voter intimidation; Veterans Administration scandals; NSA spying on German, French, and Japanese heads of state; and NSA spying on reporters and U.S. citizens.
In my sister’s world, Joe Biden was innocent and unaware of the IRS ploy to destroy tens of thousands of emails sought by the House Oversight Committee; the 21.5 million social security numbers hacked from OPM; and the EPA and other agencies paying poor performers not to work, for years, as their cases winded through respective federal bureaucracies.
In my sister’s world, however, anything that Donald Trump did, even somewhat on par with that of Joe Biden, is a crime, punishable by life in prison, if not death. Meanwhile, she is completely oblivious to Trump’s accomplishment, like, say, the lowest unemployment in 35 years, the lowest minority unemployment in history, the lowest minority youth unemployment in history, the lowest female unemployment in 75 years, an across-the-broad increase in wages, tax cuts for middle class, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, and other trade deals.
Also the Abraham Accords, other Middle East peace agreements, increased military strength, no wars, the U.S Space Force, a restored VA, reduced danger of conflict with North Korea, China tariffs, 400 miles of new and restored border wall, a secure border, decreased illegal immigration, no domestic terror attacks, prison reform, the ‘Right To Try’, lowering the cost of insulin, low gas prices, energy independence, growing the U.S. economy, and bringing back manufacturing, to cite a tiny fraction of his accomplishments.
The Hair Sniffer-in-Chief Biden’s major missteps in the Middle East and de facto approval of FBI and DOJ corruption sails right over her head. She has no clue about how Biden enabled China to wreak havoc on U.S. power and influence worldwide. In my sister’s world, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are as pure as the driven snow. They are ideologically correct, or close enough, and that’s all that really counts.
In my sister’s world, Joe Biden does not invade the space of girls or women, does not go around sniffing their hair, and does not touch them inappropriately, and he did not take showers with his 5-year old daughter. He is merely a sweet, old ‘Uncle Joe’ kind of guy.
Tara Reade doesn’t exist in my sister’s world and Joe Biden never tried to rape her. Reade is a liar and a glory seeker. While Biden himself said, “believe the woman,” my sister, every time, succumbs to the New York Times, Washington Post, and Atlantic Monthly view of realty. After all, they retain only trusted reporters who dig for the facts, and objectively present them. The Times amazingly found “no pattern of abuse” related to Biden and the women he has abused.
Likewise, to my sister, Rachel Maddow and all the rest of the MSNBC staff, and Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, Jake Tapper, and the entire CNN staff are dedicated professionals who seek the truth no matter where the chips fall.
Lucid and Focused In my sister’s world, Joe Biden is lucid and coherent. His exceedingly few, highly scripted press conferences are the model of competence and credibility. To my sister, Biden makes sense every time he speaks. He is no presidential puppet controlled by handlers. He is his own man.
Indeed, Biden knew that he was the man America wanted. Biden didn’t campaign heavily because he didn’t want to spread Covid-19 to his hundreds of followers. Also, because he had the election locked up, why bother to challenge President Trump, who consistently drew crowds of 30,000 or more?
In my sister’s world, Biden would never cause inflation or supply chain shortages. His weakness did not encourage Putin to invade Ukraine. Biden would never prompt a major crisis on our southern border. He wouldn’t think of tearing down the wall and allowing all manner of immigrants to flood into our land, sinking us financially, medically, economically, morally, and spiritually.
And, well, Joe’s just a good guy, a true American, and you need to realize that.
Feeble Joe Biden Falls Off Bike in Delaware By J.D. Rucker • Jun. 18, 2022
While biking with his entourage of Secret Service agents and wife Jill on Saturday, Joe Biden fell off his bicycle in front of onlookers in Delaware. He got up, seemingly unhurt, but the elderly leader of the free world has to realize how feeble this made him look.
Then again, maybe he doesn’t realize much anymore.
Some initially reported he experienced a medical collapse of some sort, but it appeared his right foot got stuck in the pedal strap. Imagine if this happened to Donald Trump.
Hypocrite: Obama Installs Massive Propane Tanks at Swanky Mansion While Pushing Green Policies Sarah Arnold | Posted: Jun 18, 2022 11:30 AM
For someone who often boasts about being a climate fighter, former President Obama has done little, in fact he has done just the opposite, of combatting the so-called problem of “global warming.”
Obama has been approved to install three massive propane tanks totaling 2,500 gallons, despite pushing for Democrat-backed green initiatives.
The $75,000 propane tank will sit on Obama’s swanky Martha’s Vineyard property along the “rising” seashore.
The office of the select board of Edgartown, Massachusetts told The Daily Caller that the tanks will be used for “residential purposes,” saying they were shocked at the size of the tanks.
Solar panels and windmills would have made more sense for someone who is highly concerned about the importance of combatting climate change, yet Obama is still set to install the underground tanks.
During Obama’s time in office, he hypocritically advocated for limiting the use of fossil fuel emissions, claiming that “enough has not been done.”
“No challenge poses a greater threat to our children, our planet, and future generations than climate change,” a memo from his office read, adding “that’s why under President Obama’s leadership, the United States has done more to combat climate change than ever before, while growing the economy.”
Meanwhile, national gas prices averaged $5 a gallon and is expected to go even higher as the summer months roll through, while the U.S. Energy Information Administration is warning households they can expect to pay 54 percent more due to rising energy prices.
Critics of the former Democrat president were not amused at his actions while his party continues to push for green energy down American’s throats.
The Engineered Stagflationary Collapse Has Arrived – Here’s What Happens Next BY BRANDON SMITH June 18, 2022 in Cross-Posted, Opinions
In my 16 years as an alternative economist and political writer I have spent around half that time warning that the ultimate outcome of the Federal Reserve’s stimulus model would be a stagflationary collapse. Not a deflationary collapse, or an inflationary collapse, but a stagflationary collapse. The reasons for this were very specific – Mass debt creation was being countered with MORE debt creation while many central banks have been simultaneously devaluing their currencies through QE measures. On top of that, the US is in the unique position of relying on the world reserve status of the dollar and that status is diminishing.
It was only a matter of time before the forces of deflation and inflation met in the middle to create stagflation. In my article ‘Infrastructure Bills Do Not Lead To Recovery, Only Increased Federal Control’, published in April of 2021, I stated that:
“Production of fiat money is not the same as real production within the economy… Trillions of dollars in public works programs might create more jobs, but it will also inflate prices as the dollar goes into decline. So, unless wages are adjusted constantly according to price increases, people will have jobs, but still won’t be able to afford a comfortable standard of living. This leads to stagflation, in which prices continue to rise while wages and consumption stagnate.
Another Catch-22 to consider is that if inflation becomes rampant, the Federal Reserve may be compelled (or claim they are compelled) to raise interest rates significantly in a short span of time. This means an immediate slowdown in the flow of overnight loans to major banks, an immediate slowdown in loans to large and small businesses, an immediate crash in credit options for consumers, and an overall crash in consumer spending. You might recognize this as the recipe that created the 1981-1982 recession, the third-worst in the 20th century.
In other words, the choice is stagflation, or deflationary depression.”
It’s clear today what the Fed has chosen. It’s important to remember that throughout 2020 and 2021 the mainstream media, the central bank and most government officials were telling the public that inflation was “transitory.” Suddenly in the past few months this has changed and now even Janet Yellen has admitted that she was “wrong” on inflation. This is a misdirection, however, because the Fed knows exactly what it is doing and always has. Yellen denied reality, but she knew she was denying reality. In other words, she was not mistaken about the economic crisis, she lied about it.
As I outlined last December in my article ‘The Fed’s Catch-22 Taper Is A Weapon, Not A Policy Error’:
‘First and foremost, no, the Fed is not motivated by profits, at least not primarily. The Fed is able to print wealth at will, they don’t care about profits – They care about power and centralization. Would they sacrifice “the golden goose” of US markets in order to gain more power and full bore globalism? Absolutely. Would central bankers sacrifice the dollar and blow up the Fed as an institution in order to force a global currency system on the masses? There is no doubt; they’ve put the US economy at risk in the past in order to get more centralization.’
The Fed has known for years that the current path would lead to inflation and then market destruction, and here’s the proof – Fed Chairman Jerome Powell actually warned about this exact outcome in October of 2012:
“I have concerns about more purchases. As others have pointed out, the dealer community is now assuming close to a $4 trillion balance sheet and purchases through the first quarter of 2014. I admit that is a much stronger reaction than I anticipated, and I am uncomfortable with it for a couple of reasons. First, the question, why stop at $4 trillion? The market in most cases will cheer us for doing more. It will never be enough for the market. Our models will always tell us that we are helping the economy, and I will probably always feel that those benefits are overestimated. And we will be able to tell ourselves that market function is not impaired and that inflation expectations are under control. What is to stop us, other than much faster economic growth, which it is probably not in our power to produce?
When it is time for us to sell, or even to stop buying, the response could be quite strong; there is every reason to expect a strong response. So there are a couple of ways to look at it. It is about $1.2 trillion in sales; you take 60 months, you get about $20 billion a month. That is a very doable thing, it sounds like, in a market where the norm by the middle of next year is $80 billion a month. Another way to look at it, though, is that it’s not so much the sale, the duration; it’s also unloading our short volatility position.”
As we all now know, the Fed waited until their balance sheet was far larger and until the economy was MUCH weaker than it was in 2012 to unleash tightening measures. They KNEW the whole time exactly what was going to happen.
It is no coincidence that the culmination of the Fed’s stimulus bonanza has arrived right after the incredible damage done to the economy and the global supply chain by the covid lockdowns. It is no coincidence that these two events work together to create the perfect stagflationary scenario. And, it’s no coincidence that the only people who benefit from these conditions are proponents of the “Great Reset” ideology at the World Economic Forum and other globalist institutions. This is an engineered collapse that has been in the works for many years.
The goal is to “reset” the world, to erase what’s left of free market systems, and to establish what they call the “Shared Economy” system. This system is one in which the people who survive the crash will be made utterly dependent on government through Universal Basic Income and one that will restrict all resource usage in the name of “carbon reduction.” According to the WEF, you will own nothing and you will like it.
The collapse is engineered to create crisis conditions so frightening that they expect the majority of the public to submit to a collectivist hive mind lifestyle with greatly reduced standards. This would be accomplished through UBI, digital currency models, carbon taxation, population reduction, rationing of all commodities and a social credit system. The goal, in other words, is complete control through technocratic authoritarianism.
All of this is dependent on the exploitation of crisis events to create fear in the population. Now that economic destabilization has arrived, what happens next? Here are my predictions…
The Fed Will Hike Interest Rates More Than Expected, But Not Enough To Stop Inflation Today, we are witnessing the poisonous fruits of a decade-plus of massive fiat money creation and we are now at the stage where the Fed will reveal its true plan. Hiking interest rates fast, or hiking them slow. Fast hikes will mean an almost immediate crash in markets (beyond what we have already seen), slow hikes will mean a drawn out process of price inflation and general uncertainty.
I believe the Fed will hike more than expected, but not enough to actually slow inflation in necessities. There will be an overall decline in luxury items, recreation commerce and non-essentials, but most other goods will continue to climb in cost. It is to the advantage of globalists to keep the inflation train running for another year or longer.
In the end, though, the central bank WILL declare that the pace of interest rates is not enough to stop inflation and they will revert to a Volcker-like strategy, pushing rates up so high that the economy simply stops functioning altogether.
Markets Will Crash And Unemployment Will Abruptly Spike Stock markets are utterly dependent on Fed stimulus and easy money through low interest rate loans – This is a fact. Without low rates and QE, corporations cannot engage in stock buybacks. Meaning, the tools for artificially inflating equities are disappearing. We are already seeing the effects of this now with markets dropping 20% or more.
The Fed will not capitulate. They will continue to hike regardless of the market reaction.
As far as jobs are concerned, Biden and many mainstream economists constantly applaud the low unemployment rate as proof that the American economy is “strong,” but this is an illusion. Covid stimulus measures temporarily created a dynamic in which businesses needed increased staff to deal with excess retail spending. Now, the covid checks have stopped and Americans have maxed out their credit cards. There is nothing left to keep the system afloat.
Businesses will start making large job cuts throughout the last half of 2022.
Price Controls I have no doubt that Joe Biden and Democrats will seek to enforce price controls on many goods as inflation continues, and there will be a handful of Republicans that will support the tactic. Price controls actually lead to a reduction in supply because they remove all profits and thus all incentive for manufacturers to keep producing goods. What usually happens at that point is government steps in to nationalize manufacturing, but this will be substandard production and at a much lower yield.
In the end, supplies are reduced even further and prices go even higher on the black market because no one can get their hands on most goods anyway.
Rationing Yes, rationing at the manufacturing and distribution level is going to happen, so be sure to buy what you need now before it does. Rationing occurs in the wake of price controls or supply chain disruptions, and usually this coincides with a government propaganda campaign against “hoarders.”
They will hold up a few exaggerated examples of people who buy truckloads of merchandise to scalp prices on the black market. Then, not long after, they will accuse preppers and anyone who bought goods BEFORE the crisis of “hoarding” simply because they planned ahead.
Rationing is not only about controlling the supply of necessities and thus controlling the population by proxy; it is also about creating an atmosphere of blame and suspicion within the public and getting them to snitch on or attack anyone that is prepared. Prepared people represent a threat to the establishment, so expect to be demonized in the media and organize with other prepared people to protect yourself.
Be Ready, It Only Gets Worse From Here On It might sound like I am predicting success of the Great Reset program, but I actually believe the globalists will fail in the end. That’s not going to stop them from making the attempt. Also, the above scenarios are only predictions for the near term (within the next couple of years). There will be many other problems that stem from these situations.
Naturally, food riots and other mob actions will become more commonplace, perhaps not this year, but by the end of 2023 they will definitely be a problem. This will coincide with the return of political unrest in the US as leftist factions, encouraged by globalist foundations, demand more government intervention in poverty. At the same time, conservatives will demand less government interference and less tyranny.
At bottom, the people who are prepared might be called a lot of mean names, but as long as we organize and work together, we will survive. Many unprepared people will NOT survive. Understand that the economic conditions ahead of us are historically destructive; there is no way that serious consequences can be avoided for a large part of the population, if only because they refuse to listen and to take proper steps to protect themselves.
The denial is over. The crash is here. Time to take action if you have not done so already.
Cackling Kamala: “There’s Nothing About [Abortion] That Will Require Anyone to Abandon Their Faith” By J.D. Rucker • Jun. 18, 2022
Nobody has accused Kamala Harris of being a great orator or having the ability to answer questions appropriately. She’s the queen of word salads and has demonstrated a certain appeal for those of low intelligence.
Recently, she did her best to sound intellectual again regarding abortion and faith. Reactions on social media were predictable with pro-lifers ranging from being outraged to confused while pro-abortionists cheered on her use of buzzwords. But it doesn’t take deep analysis to appreciate how nonsensical her words really are. Watch:
Man, this couldn't have come at a better time. Imagine trying to fight a war with a bunch of pent up depression because people keep forgetting to call you "they".
You know I don't like this new norm either, mostly because I struggle to understand it too. But our lack of understanding is part of their issue. So there is that to consider.
My wife just had a school-age kid tell her that two students in her school identify one as a cat, the other as a dog... what? I don't get it, but if they want to sniff butts as a greeting who am I to say they can't?
Oh happy day!!!!!!! Oh happy day!!!!!! Since 1973 babies have been murdered!!!! Many generations of lives, loves, contributions to society LOST FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just like Donald Trump: AQUITTED!!!!!!!!!!!
******************Is this enough conversation referees??????????????????????***********************
Trump Overrules Biden: ‘The Biggest Win for Life in a Generation’ Was ‘Only Made Possible Because I Delivered’ David Hawkins June 24, 20222 Comments
President Donald Trump overruled President Biden and took a victory lap after the judges he appointed, after beating both corrupt political parties in the most consequential election (2016) in modern history, overturned Roe v Wade.
Trump said: “Today’s decision which is the biggest win for life in a generation, along with other decisions that have been announced recently were only made possible because I delivered everything as promised including nominating and getting three highly respected and strong constitutionalist confirmed to the United States Supreme Court.
“It was my great honor to do so. I did not cave to the radical left Democrats, their partners in the fake news media, or the RINOs.”
Biden said today, despite supporting a constitutional amendment that would overturn Roe v. Wade and allow states to choose their own policies on abortion in 1982:
“Today, the Supreme Court of the United States expressly took away a constitutional right from the American people that it had already recognized. They didn’t limit it. They simply took away.
“This is not over.
“It was three justices named by one president, Donald Trump, who were the core of today’s decision to upend the scales of justice and eliminate a fundamental right for women in this country.
“Make no mistake — this decision is a culmination of a deliberate effort over decades to upset the balance of our law. It’s a realization of an extreme ideology and a tragic error by the Supreme Court, in my view.
“It concerns me a great deal that, after 50 years, we’re going to decide that a woman doesn’t have the right to choose.
“But even more equally profound is the rationale used — and it would mean that every other decision relating to the notion of privacy is thrown into question.
“This fall, Roe is on the ballot.
“Personal freedoms are on the ballot. The right to privacy, liberty, equality, they’re all on the ballot.
“Until then, I will do all in my power to protect a woman’s right in states where they will face the consequences of today’s decision.”
“My administration will remain vigilant as the implications of this decision play out.
“I’ve warned about how this decision risks the broader right to privacy for everyone. That’s because Roe recognized the fundamental right to privacy that has served as the basis for so many more rights that — we’ve come to take for granted that are engrained in the fabric of this country — the right to make the best decisions for your health, the right to use birth control, the right to privacy of a couple in their bedroom, for God’s sake, the right to marry the person you love.
“Justice Thomas said as much today, he explicitly called to reconsider the right of marriage equality, the right of couples to make their choices on contraception.
“This is an extreme and dangerous path that the court is now taking us on.”
Here is a report on your fearless leader. Surely you all agree...??
Biden At 500 Days On virtually every point of domestic and foreign policy, Joe Biden's administration has been a flop. JUNE 27, 2022|12:01 AM PETER VAN BUREN
Joe Biden at about 500 days in office is testing the limits of those who claimed 501 days ago that “anybody” would be better than Donald Trump. With the threat of nuclear war now well alive, Biden presides over the highest gas prices, the worst inflation, and the saddest stock market in generations. It is not morning in America anymore. It’s late on Sunday afternoon, and it’s raining.
Start with his record-breaking vacation time. It became a meme during the Trump years to criticize him for weekends at Mar-a-Lago, and to point out how much the Secret Service paid him for their accommodations. Yet as he marks Day 500, Biden is preparing for another weekend scram, and is on track to take more vacation than any of his predecessors. Since taking office, Biden has spent 191 days away from the White House vacationing in either of his two Delaware properties, at Camp David, or on Nantucket. Trump spent 381 days away from the White House over four years.
And as for those Secret Service room bills, the Service pays them for every president. Members of the Service are prohibited from accepting “gifts,” even the free accommodations necessary to protect the president. At Biden’s home in Delaware he charged the Secret Service $2,200 a month in rent for a cottage on his property when he was vice president. He made $66,000 in total off of the Service in 2013, and while contemporary figures are not available, they are certainly tallying up as they did under Trump and the others. Hillary bought a second house in upstate New York just for the Secret Service, anticipating her victory in 2016.
But what of the time Joe Biden has spent actually in the White House? How have the 500 days gone so far? Biden succeeded primarily in engineering a new form of war in Ukraine—not quite cold and not quite hot. American special forces may soon be on the ground in Kiev and American ships in the Black Sea. The Ukrainians have boasted how American intelligence and targeting information have been used to kill Russian ships, tanks, and generals.With no regard for what leakage into the global black-arms market might mean, Biden is sending billions of top-notch weapons into the nation with the avowed aim of bleeding out Russia. When something like this was tried in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the U.S. had the common courtesy to do it through the CIA and keep at least some of it secret. No more.
Vladimir Putin in return has reminded the world several times that he has nuclear weapons he is not all that opposed to using. Joe Biden has succeeded where presidents since 1989 have failed: He sends Americans to bed at night worrying about nuclear holocaust. That is his greatest foreign-policy accomplishment absent the disastrous evacuation from Afghanistan and a soon-to-really-happen trip to forgive the Saudis for their sins and become the first president since the 1970s to overtly beg for more oil.
For the record, Trump was the only president in some 20 years who did not start a new war during his term and the only one in that same period who made an effort to seek peace with North Korea, a country Joe Biden continues to ignore as official policy. When asked in Seoul if he had a message for Kim Jong Un, Biden said, “Hello. Period.”
In other Leader of the Free World accomplishments, Biden has been snubbed by Mexico, which refused to attend the Summit of the Americas because Biden would not also invite Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, all Cold War hissy-fits Joe is keeping alive for a new millennium. “There cannot be a summit if all countries are not invited,” Mexico’s president said at a press conference. “Or there can be one but that is to continue with all politics of interventionism.” It really is 1980 again.
Additional leadership has been shown in Europe, where Germany and France agreed to U.S. demands to stop buying Russian energy—but just not for a couple more months, okay? They have stopped buying energy delivered by ship as a face-saving gesture, just as they keep lapping up the massive pipeline-delivered materials. But Biden did travel twice to Europe and declared “America is back,” so there’s that.
As for domestic achievements, everyone in America knows about Joe’s gas pains. Biden apparently sees no connection between his restrictions on domestic production and sanctions against Russian energy, cutting supply at a time when demand is rising, and inflationary prices. The good news is, we imposed sanctions on Russia—well, no, it’s not good news; Russia is still fighting away in Ukraine, which means the sanctions have failed in their primary function. Biden will give them more time, apparently, as the U.S. is not seeking negotiations to otherwise curtail or end the fight.
Of course, Joe did finally pass a $1.2 trillion infrastructure spending bill, which in no way could have contributed to inflation by dumping money into an economy still chasing goods scarce from supply-chain issues. He also signed that $1.9 trillion Covid-relief bill which also could not have contributed to inflation by dumping money into an economy still chasing goods scarce from supply-chain issues. At least wages are up, which pours more money into an already inflationary economy.
The media actually listed Joe’s Biggest Achievements for us in case they were hard to pick, including appointing a boatload of judges, 80 percent of whom are women and 53 percent are people of color (“judges that reflect our nation”).
Biden has also strategically secured America by overturning the Trump ban on transgender people serving in the military.
In fact, the White House brags it has the first majority non-white Cabinet in history, with the most women of any Cabinet, including the first woman Treasury Secretary, the first LGBTQ and Native American Cabinet officials, and the first woman Director of National Intelligence.
But it is always best to go to the source, and the White House has kept its own list of “record firsts” in Joe’s presidency. You can read them yourself, but you’ll run into the same problem everyone else does: it is all boasting with no links, sources, or details attached. So we hear, for instance, that Joe was the “most significant by economic impact of any first-year president,” but nothing more. Um, okay.
A lot of the rest of the stuff—e.g., unemployment and child poverty—really did get better by the numbers, but there is not a word about how anything Joe did caused those things to improve. It is kind of like taking credit for a comet that passed overhead on your watch, especially given how much “not our fault” garbage this administration tosses around when someone brings up a topic like inflation.
As for issues important to Democrats like gun control, abortion, and climate change, Biden rates a zero. The EPA continues to recommend Flint, Michigan, residents use filters in their homes to remove lead from public water. Joe has driven home the idea that unless a president has a super-majority in both houses and the Supreme Court, you better not expect much from him. Indeed, Biden can’t even wrangle his own party, with two key Democratic senators, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, stymieing much of his legislative agenda.
On the other side of the aisle, Biden predicted that Republicans would have an “epiphany” after Trump left office, but that has not yet materialized. The Democratic midterm loss scheduled for November 2022 will not help. And we haven’t even talked about Biden’s dead-man-walking lifestyle and walk-it-back gaffes.
So it has only been 500 days. There’s plenty of time still left.
Or you have a bunch or people who want to vote in Republican primaries that have to declare of Republican. I wouldn't trust that as an indicator of any wave.
![[Linked Image]](http://www.dawgtalkers.net/uploads/PortlandDawg/banner.jpg)
![[Linked Image from thebluestateconservative.com]](https://thebluestateconservative.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Screen-Shot-2022-06-17-at-9.14.30-AM.jpg)
![[Linked Image from media.notthebee.com]](https://media.notthebee.com/articles/62ac93e15a6bf62ac93e15a6c0.jpg)
![[Linked Image from media.notthebee.com]](https://media.notthebee.com/articles/article-62ac9212b0ac1.jpg)
![[Linked Image from media.notthebee.com]](https://media.notthebee.com/articles/article-62ac921a6d563.jpg)
![[Linked Image from media.townhall.com]](https://media.townhall.com/townhall/reu/o/2021/214/1ee60794-1519-4fb5-9d37-773fe01ee0bd-860x475.jpg)
![[Linked Image from thelibertydaily.com]](https://thelibertydaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Putin-Gold-1200x630.jpg)
![[Linked Image from politicrossing.com]](https://politicrossing.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Capfgture.jpg)
![[Linked Image from thelibertydaily.com]](https://thelibertydaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Biden-Bike-1200x630.jpg)
![[Linked Image from media.townhall.com]](https://media.townhall.com/townhall/reu/ha/2022/95/e9f15ba3-075d-4e3a-8780-4db11a567296.jpg)
![[Linked Image from americafirstreport.com]](https://americafirstreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Stagflation-750x375.jpg)
![[Linked Image from thelibertydaily.com]](https://thelibertydaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Kamala-Harris-Stuck-Face.png)
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/9CSWeNf.gif)
![[Linked Image from theamericanconservative.com]](https://www.theamericanconservative.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/shutterstock_2143377227-scaled.jpg)
