Jencompetent

 I will apologize in advance.  I have been watching the impeachment circus and I am particularly ornery.  Gird your loins.  

My, my, aren’t we living in a world of delicious contrasts?  I was watching yet another dull performance by the entirely lackluster Biden press secretary, Jen Psaki, when it suddenly occurred to me that she was reading her responses to questions from the press.  So much for spontaneity.

But for starters, who exactly is Jen Psaki? Well, of course, if you read the Biden Administration propaganda, she would be “leading the first all-female senior White House communications team in US history.”  First this, first that……so what.  You do recall that Trump had in his senior advisory staff more women, and women with children, than any previous administration.  No?  Well, that doesn’t surprise me.  So Biden had to resort to the one-upmanship game and have an “all female” team.  Bravo.  I wouldn’t expect a democrat administration to actually tout their qualifications.  And at the risk of wading into the most obvious of one-liners: perhaps they just had to pass the Biden sniff test.  Sorry.  So back to Jen: After graduating from the College of William and Mary she joined John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign as deputy press secretary.  She then served a short time as spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee before joining the 2008 Obama-Biden campaign as traveling press secretary, riding that horse through the 2012 reelection.  She served as deputy press secretary, then deputy communications director under Obama.  That’s more deputies than a season of Bonanza.  Google it, kids.  In 2011 she was senior vice-president and managing director at a Washington PR firm before returning to the Obama team.  She then served as spokesperson for the State Department under John Kerry then returned to the Obama White House as communications director for his final two years in office.  During those unfortunate years when Trump was in the White House actually accomplishing something, Jen made the predictable democrat leap to CNN as a political commentator and was vice-president for communications and strategy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace before leaving for the Biden –Harris transition team.  Deputy this, spokesperson that, vice-president of this, that and the other propaganda machine.  It’s all so fascinating.  Basically a whole lot of propagandizing at a podium, speaking policy for somebody else with little in the way of substance or education.  And about that turn at the podium, where it certainly appears to me that she is reading her responses to questions from the press.  Turns out: she is.  Apparently the Biden White House Press Office has, according to the New York Post, “come under fire for reaching out to Capitol reporters to quiz them about the questions they’ll ask during scheduled briefings.”  Now that would explain things.  It is glaringly obvious that after fielding a question, the appallingly unspontaneous redhead looks down at the podium and appears to be reading her response.  And she is not paraphrasing, nor is she consulting notes……Jen is actually reading the answer verbatim.  Didn’t Obama try this trick with the teleprompter?  Not cool.  After four long years of being subjected to the likes of Jim Accosta and “gotcha” journalism, we are now going to allow a democrat White House to tilt the playing field?  Of course we will, it’s a democrat in the White House. And when left to her own devices Jen, like her boss, has made it a habit of sticking her foot in her mouth.  She famously tweeted a reference to then Judiciary Committee chairman, Lindsay Graham as “LadyG”, an obvious homophobic slur, and disparagingly made reference to Trump’s Space Force, in levels of snark that a Republican spokesperson would never survive.  Her demeanor is haughty, dismissive, and largely unimpressive and her press conferences are for the most part uninformative as the fawning press serves her up softballs in the in this honeymoon period after the inauguration, a honeymoon Trump never experienced.  She also attacked “conservative Twitter”, as if there is such a thing, for pointing out the obvious fact that she repeatedly fails to answer reporter’s questions.  Townhall.com astutely pointed out that she repeatedly makes claims that she intends to “circle back” and eventually answer the question.  In one of the most convoluted attempts to explain incompetence ever, she stated: “I often note I’m going to circle back.  I hate to disappoint conservative Twitter, but I’m going to circle back on a number of things, as we often do directly.” Huh? A brief perusal of her press conference video, offered up by the Internet in this young Administration, yielded over 16 “circle back” references and, of course, she never does.   In Jenspeak this may simply be code for “I have absolutely no idea,” something McEnany and Huckabee would never have been allowed to get away with. 

Now back to my contrasts.  You do recall Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s press secretary?  The accomplished woman who the leftie lunatics are trying to cancel, trying to assure that she cannot find employment.  Ever.  Because she did her job and did it well. She faced the most aggressive, partisan, hostile reporters in the history of the White House Press Corps.  McEnany attended the Academy of the Holy Names, a college prep school for girls in Tampa, Florida.  She graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and studied abroad at Oxford.  She spent three years as a producer on the Mike Huckabee Show before matriculating into the University of Miami School of Law.  She then transferred to, and earned her law degree at Harvard Law School.  She interned for a few politicians, most notably George W. Bush in his 2004 campaign.   She also appeared on CNN where she was initially critical of Trump as being an “inauthentic” Republican before changing her opinion, a change the left leaning news outlets attributed to her seeing an opportunity to advance her career.  Regardless, the woman is accomplished.  In her position as press secretary, she was glib, poised, she parried attacks, and if she didn’t know the answer, she sifted through her notes and found it.  She never “circled back”.  Yet Yahoo News correspondent (I know, I laughed when I typed it) Brittany Shepherd called Jen Psaki “a refreshing change of pace” likening McEnany to “having a really bad ex-boyfriend”.  “We were getting essentially abused by Kayleigh for so long…. calling us fake news and inciting her followers and followers of the president to not only harass us online but obviously go to deadly ends from some people with that threat.”  Obviously? Deadly? Oh, boo-hoo.  So when a Trump administration representative stands up to your partisan attacks you claim you are being abused?  Suck it up.  You might be more concerned with your phenomenal lack of self-awareness in not recognizing the absurd double standard.  Simultaneously, while fending off the “deadly” name calling from the Trump White House, the press was busy lobbing the hard questions at then candidate Biden like: “What flavor milkshake did you get?” Conservative columnist Gavin Wax, meanwhile, was lambasted as being sexist when he compared McEnany to Psaki side-by-side stating: Stunning and smart press secretary Kayleigh vs. ugly to the bone Jen Psaki.  Kayleigh was TV ready every morning.  Psaki can’t bother to prep or do her makeup”.  Unfortunately the “ugly” comment overshadowed the fact that Psaki indeed does seem either unprepared or is clearly not smart enough to handle the position. Even the Daily Dot, as anti-Trump as any of these no-name leftist “news” outlets, called Psaki’s briefings “a rather staid affair”.  Staid, now that’s being kind.  

But why should Jen Psaki be forced to think on her feet, try to be captivating, or even to have a command of the subject matter when they’re gaming the system? The Biden Administration checked the box, and appearance is all that really matters, qualifications be damned.  And so the charade continues, this bizarre dance the democrats do with their complicit press, all the while pretending the game isn’t rigged in their favor, when in actuality the fix is in.  But what you should be most concerned with, is not that the game is fixed, but their arrogance in thinking we don’t know it’s fixed. 

First Amendment

 I surmise we all are reasonably familiar with our Constitution’s First Amendment-, the free speech amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. As, I’m sure some of us are, although less familiar with the Fourth Amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. My point, if you are aware of these rights, and you should be, how sensitive are you to the fact they are being violated by our government on a regular basis. Attempted censorship of its citizens and unfavored media; it’s journalist, by a number of threatening actions including law suits and imprisonment. And, we have NSA unfettered and unbeknownst to us, having access to all our electronic communications. Don’t you find that scary, I do! Yes, I know these actions of theirs are masked in confusing, manipulative political subterfuge, but know they are censoring and invading our privacy-, counting on our seeing it for other than what it is. Are we really all that naïve, twisting in the wind of complacency in not knowing where all this is going? Our founding forefathers did! I can only hope in my impotence history will look back on this time and upon those who opposed this government tyranny and ushered in a renewal of our founding principles, as just another crises we Americans surmounted to preserve the integrity of our precious Democracy. Hope springs eternal.

Election Irregularities

 Where did they go?  Where are all the people who, under oath and under threat of perjury, filed affidavits attesting to election irregularities in the 2020 election?  I heard their testimony and they were credible.  They weren’t conspiracy theorists or right wing radicals, nor were they insurrectionists or seditionists, as the mainstream media would brand them.  What about their treasure trove of information regarding changes in state voter laws, violations of established laws, accounts of computer glitches, the counting of ballots that arrived after deadlines, the video of suitcases of ballots that emerged from under desks, the pallets of ballots shipped across state lines, the destruction of envelopes that provided signature matches, the ballots that contained the same birthdates, the ballots submitted from non-residents, the ballots submitted by the deceased, the ballots without legible postmarks, the military ballots that were “mistakenly” destroyed, the 10000 ballots mailed out unsolicited in New York City, the voters turned away at the polls because they had already voted by mail, the removal of election observers to positions where they couldn’t observe, the closing down of polling places and removal of workers before counting was complete…..to name but a few.  Was any of this ever investigated?  With half the public, and a majority of Republicans suspecting election fraud, why were these issues not addressed?  Wouldn’t it have actually been “a balm for a wounded nation” to provide evidence that this was indeed “the most secure election in American history” as trumpeted by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.  Who exactly are these government drones anyway?  They can’t even keep the Pentagon from getting hacked, let alone your Macy’s card.  And as usual, our democrat friends across the aisle apparently have no capacity for long-term memory.  They were calling for impeachment within hours of Trumps inauguration and continued to bang that drum for four years effectively sabotaging his presidency from the start. As the National Review reported, in 2016, in another example of unbridled hypocrisy, Hillary Clinton used failed Green-Party candidate Jill Stein as a surrogate to sue Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania in an attempt to overturn the election results. The charge: voting machine irregularities.  You have to be kidding. This is particularly entertaining in light of the recent $2.7 Billion lawsuit filed by Smartmatics against FOX News for what CNN legal analyst Laura Coates called “the definition of defamation” stating that “there is real teeth to this”.  FOX has already responded by firing Lou Dobbs, a longtime Trump supporter and rigged voting machine theorist, in a move that appears to be partly appeasement in offering him up as a sacrificial lamb.  But if Lou had to go for dinging Smartmatics reputation, then surely Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro would be on the chopping block as well, and that does not appear to be the case.  Mr. Dobbs was an ardent supporter of election fraud claims and defended Trump protesters on the day of the “siege”, positions that appear to be politically inconvenient given the way the current DC winds are blowing.  But I digress.  It remains interesting that voting machine irregularities is a charge warranting an attack on FOX News today, when in 2016 we heard nary a peep when the democrats engaged in similar tactics, with significantly less evidence.  And by significantly less, I mean none.  Deeper pockets at FOX?  An attempt to silence more conservative opposition?  Or is this a case where offense is the best defense to cover something that might actually be there?  

And when the democrats failed in their first attempt to discredit the election results, they resorted to the Russian collusion theory that, based on a phony dossier produced by a foreign agent and paid for by the Clintons (sorry lefties, but that is fact, regardless of what you think of Hannity), produced the 22-month, $40 million Mueller investigation.  And by investigation, I mean sideshow.  With so little evidence, and evidence that in the end turned out to be illegally obtained and falsified, how were the democrats able to muster a costly investigation in 2016 when with mountains of evidence pointing to voting irregularities in 2020 the Republican charges have been met with disdain.  Rather than address the complaints, we have been subjected to cancel-culture tactics of suppression, ridicule and repeated claims by our government that the election was secure.  How exactly a mail in campaign by the democrats amounted to “most secure” remains a mystery of definition in that once the chain of custody is lost, so is the security.  Signature verification is realistically fanciful at best; so then how exactly can you precisely determine who filled out the ballot? Show me how the evidence is unfounded.  Explain to me how the video of suitcases appearing out of nowhere is not what it appears to be.  Tell me how stacks of ballots had the same birthdate, and how the birthdate could be in the year 1900.  If unity is your goal, Mr. Biden, then appease the 75 million Americans who think they were disenfranchised by explaining to them how these reports of irregularities have vanished without a trace.  And above all, with the claims of “most secure election in American history”, especially after the democrats railing about voting irregularities in the 2016 election, how is it that in 2020 Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania could not provide us with transparent election results. 

A Quickie

The left loves to hurl epithets at conservatives like “racist”, “Nazis”, and “fascists” when in actuality an objective observer would be alarmed at the suppression of free speech, censorship of printed opinion, corporations in bed with big government to monitor citizens and track their data, installing 20000 troops in the Capitol to watch over 2000 elitists, conservatives purged from the workplace based on their opinions......Tell me again who are the fascists?

Biden and the Executive Order

 Apparently the democrats have co-opted more words in the English language since the inauguration.  Not content with having hijacked words like “patriot” and “nationalist” and turning them into negatives, they have now changed the definitions of “unity” and “bipartisanship” to better serve up their progressive agenda.  Whereas unity once meant “the state or quality of being one, or united into a whole”, the definition has now morphed into being united and becoming one, but only when you ascribe to the proposals and ideology of the radical democrat party.  Similarly, bipartisanship used to mean “cooperation between competing political parties”.  But no.  That’s so Clinton Administration.  The new scorched-earth definition is when the other side gives up and caves in to the democrat party’s socialist wish list.  Fall in line comrade, or else.  An exaggeration?  Hardly.  Witness the mumbler-in-chief, none other than President Joe Biden, slaving over a stack of executive orders signed with a flourish in his first week in the Oval Office.  Surely he must be getting writer’s cramp.  In an inauguration speech fawned over by the mainstream media with such platitudes as “a balm for a wounded nation”, Mr. Biden used the word “democracy” eleven times, ranking ahead of both Truman and FDR, and used the word “unity” nine times, and even poured a heaping spoonful of God and Bible verse into the mix.  But that’s an awful lot of democracy and unity from a guy who spent his first 10 days in office signing 25 executive orders and directives that were anything but unifying and democratic.   That’s correct: twenty-five executive orders, which is essentially an end-around Congress rather than having to push your agenda through that dysfunctional morass, surpassing Trump (6), Obama (5) and Bush (2) in what simply amounts to ruling by executive fiat.  That’s not the working definition of democracy, Joe. 

To wit: In keeping with his party’s green-deal initiatives, Mr. Biden effectively canceled the Keystone XL pipeline on Day One, handing 11000 workers their pink slips in the midst of a pandemic-induced recession.   Cynical democrats suggested that these workers could merely retool for a job in the renewable energy sector. And for those of you still swooning from Biden’s inaugural address, that pipeline would have carried crude oil from the sands of Alberta, Canada to Nebraska where it would link up with existing oil infrastructure to transport the oil to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico.  This project would not only provide jobs to American refineries, but would benefit the American consumer with low fuel prices while providing, for a change, an oil import source from a non-hostile trading partner.  Opposition to the pipeline has been largely political, the pipeline would course through Native American lands, but it is also largely unfounded.  In contrast to outrageous claims of environmental calamity, know that Canada has ratified their Paris agreement and has significantly reduced greenhouse gas emissions associated with tar-sands production by up to 30% according to the National Review.  Further, the Obama administration found in five separate analyses that the pipeline would have “no material impact on greenhouse gas emissions”.  The alternative, shipping tar sand product by rail or tanker would result in a 28% to 42% increase in C02 emissions and more leaks according to the Wall Street Journal.  As with any petroleum extraction process, there has to be some trade-off between environmental impact and the benefit of an inexpensive energy source, particularly when it has profound economic benefits, but remind me of the downside in this case. And to compound the pain inflicted on the energy sector, Biden placed a 60-day freeze on new leases on federal lands and permitting, a pause that the WSJ suggests “may soon become a long-term ban”.  The Journal reports that federal lands account for 22% of oil production, 12% of natural gas, and 40% of coal. Under Obama era restrictions, much of the drilling and exploration shifted to private lands, a fact that he overlooked when he ironically pointed to the increase in shale oil production during his tenure, taking credit for the boom when industry had effectively adapted to his restrictions. But shale fracking, according to the same Journal article, occurs most often on federal lands in western states where new permitting and exploration is required.   Again, quoting the WSJ (Biden’s Fossil Fuel Freeze, January 23-24, 2021): “Federal land accounts for 51.9% of New Mexico’s oil production and 66.8% of it’s natural gas” and nearby Colorado requires federal lands for 41.6% of it’s gas extraction, Utah 63.2% and Wyoming 92.1%. This translates to “18000 jobs in Colorado, 33000 in Wyoming and 62000 in New Mexico according to the American Petroleum Institute”.  Yikes.  Think you’re business is safe because you’re fracking on private land?  Guess again.  Biden has also frozen the ability of officials currently in office to approve “easements, right of ways, environmental reviews, and resource management plans for 60 days” on private land to stall further development until he can install his own political appointees into those positions, radical environmentalists who don’t require Senate confirmation, who will etch these green democrat policies in stone and effectively cripple the industry.  Recall, these western states derive a significant income from oil and gas exploration in the form of royalties and reap the economic benefits of employment.  Oil and gas revenue has been projected to account for 20% of New Mexico’s budget according to the Wall Street Journal with some Internet sources claiming that figure is as high as one-third. Can New Mexico afford to lose a third of its revenue in addition to the loss of 62000 high paying jobs? Our pre-pandemic economy was booming under Trump’s policy of deregulation, unbridling the energy sector, creating energy independence from foreign oil, making the US a net exporter of energy, and keeping Putin in check, preventing Russia from extorting western Europe with control over their natural gas spigot.  Will a return to burdensome regulation and oil dependence allow our economy to emerge from the pandemic-induced recession and make the world a safer place?  With the improvements in oil sand extraction and net zero emissions from pipeline production, can we not balance the economic benefit of oil and gas extraction with the environmental impact? According to the early signs from the Biden Administration, in the interest of unity, bipartisanship and under the new definition, the answer is a resounding no.  Or as the National Review succinctly put it: The Biden Administration is “at war with American energy, which is to say at war with American prosperity.”

Biden also rescinded the Mexico City policy, a Reagan era proclamation that requires foreign groups receiving aid from the US government to agree not to provide or promote abortion services.  This policy has been a yo-yo since introduced by Reagan with successive Democrats canceling the policy, whilst the next Republican administration reinstated it.  So in other words, after having invoked God and reciting biblical passages in his inaugural address, Mr. Biden has signaled he is not merely content with promoting abortions in this country, but he wants to use US taxpayers to support baby-killing in foreign countries as well.  And we are well aware of the left’s parameters for abortion which, based on Virginia’s Governor Northam’s widely accepted beliefs, can be summed up as anytime, anywhere, and sometimes after birth. No compromise there.  And how exactly is this unifying? Perhaps the definition of hypocrisy has changed as well.   

Also on Day One, Biden halted the US withdrawal from the World Health Organization.  His rationale is, apparently recognizing that WHO is at the very least grossly mismanaged although more likely thoroughly corrupt, that it is easier to reform international institutions from within.  Sure it is.  WHO director general Tedros Ghebreyesus has repeatedly praised China’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, calling it “very impressive, and beyond words”.  Beyond words seems to be more accurate, but not in the way Tedros implied.  The Chinese government has punished whistleblowers, destroyed virus samples, spread outrageous conspiracy theories, and impeded WHO investigators.  Research on the origins of Covid-19 cannot be published in China without the approval of the Communist Party according to the WSJ, lending a new meaning to the term “refereed” journal in medical research publications. And how exactly does China wield so much influence over WHO?  Are they paying for it?  Not even close.  The US and China are the top two contributors to the World Health Organization.  But according to a Fox News Report, the US contributes $893 million, over 10 times the $86 million that China contributes.  The payments consist of both a membership assessment as well as “voluntary contributions”. Theoretically the membership assessment is based on a combination of GDP and population.  The US and China have comparable GDP but China has four times the population.  How then are China’s assessments one half that of the United States?  And whilst condemning “growing xenophobia” Biden has issued yet another executive order which effectively directs federal agencies to “ensure” that any “official actions, documents, and statements including those that pertain to the COVID-19 pandemic, do not exhibit or contribute to racism….against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.”  So in other words, stop referring to Covid-19 as the “China Virus”, even though it obviously came from China.  Duh. Expect a wave of protest about the obviously xenophobic terms “Spanish Flu”, “German Measles”, “Middle East Respiratory Syndrome”, and “Rift Valley Fever”, wherever the heck the Rift Valley is.  But wait, the WHO already issued an edict way back in May of 2015 calling on scientists to minimize the “unnecessary negative effects on nations, economies and people” caused by this wanton naming of disease entities.  And we obviously take our marching orders from the WHO, so fall in line, people.  Even “Swine Flu” is mentioned as it presumably is insensitive to…….uh, swine?  And “Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease”, a rare degenerative brain disorder, has been targeted as insensitive although it is named, after and presumably in honor of, the discovering neurologists.  How exactly is that oppressive?  Is anyone heckling their descendants? And I suppose even the beleaguered residents of Cocksackie, NY deserve a break from being associated with the “Cocksackie Virus”, a leading cause of aseptic meningitis, that was first discovered in fecal samples from the small town on the Hudson River.  It’s a fine line between fame and infamy, especially when it’s related to fecal samples.  Based on this low bar for intolerance I would imagine that “Kung Flu” is definitely out of the question.  

“To decrease incarceration levels”, he proclaimed, we will be “phasing out the federal government’s reliance on privately operated criminal detention facilities”.  So with another sweeping application of pen to paper, Biden directed the attorney general not to renew contracts with private prisons.  In speaking with David Fathi, the ACLU’s director of he National Prison Project, NPR reported that this would affect 14000 federal inmates, although there are reportedly over 120000 inmates in public federal prisons.  Mr. Fathi claims that this is the first step in curbing an industry that “profits from” and therefore “perpetuates mass incarceration”.  That’s funny; I always thought it was crime that perpetuated mass incarceration. He goes on to suggest that this is a “first step” but laments that it does not apply to immigration detention where he reports that 80% of detainees are kept in privately run facilities.  “Extending this order to ICE (immigrations and customs enforcement) is an obvious next step and an urgent next step that needs to happen”.  Well Biden sure as hell isn’t planning on building any federal facilities, so where exactly are these inmates and illegal aliens going to go?  Back on the streets, most likely, where they will benefit from more warped catch-and-release policies under the guise of immigration reform and even worse, bail reform policies already put in place by idiots like Andy Cuomo.  If, as Mr. Fathi claims, “our criminal justice policy should be driven by what’s best for public safety” then how exactly is releasing criminals and illegal aliens onto our streets going to benefit public safety? I fear this is more racially based policy directed at the discrepancy in minority incarceration despite the fact that data suggests there exists disproportionately more crime in minority communities.  And of course coupled with “Defund the Police” policies, crime will inevitably fill the void as evidenced by New York City’s 97% increase in shootings.  The NYPD blamed the state’s bail reform overhaul on this year’s spike in crime. Recent changes to New York’s bail reform, a wrong-headed piece of legislation intended to reduce pre-trial incarceration, may indicate that both the initial broad definition of “releasable” offenses coupled with removing the power of the court to tailor release to the individual criminal, may have produced disastrous results.  Crimes such as sex trafficking, money laundering in support of terrorism, possession of a weapon on school grounds, vehicular assault and any crime that proves fatal have again been deemed “qualifying offenses” that are ineligible for release.  And how exactly was releasing these miscreants previously back into the world thought to be increasing public safety? Arson, stalking, burglary, racially motivated attacks, robbery and assault without “serious” injury are among a list of offenses that presumably the public is willing to tolerate by releasing the perpetrator back onto the streets, where statistically they are likely to become repeat offenders, sometimes within hours. Judges have also been given discretion to keep “persistent felony offenders” behind bars. Even though hailed by Republicans as significant changes to “botched bail reform adopted by the governor with one-party rule”, democrats such as Assemblywoman Latrice Walker from Brooklyn called the rollbacks “unfair….when we knew in our hearts it was wrong”. How exactly Latrice knew it was wrong when statistics show that 483 people arrested for “non-bail eligible felonies” were rearrested, some more than once, for 846 new crimes is beyond me.  Despite the Supreme Court Decision that pre-trial detention on public safety grounds is constitutionally permissible, New York is unique in that public safety cannot be considered in any aspect of pre-trial release.  Read that again so it sinks in: New York is unique in that public safety cannot be considered in any aspect of pre-trial release.  And that’s where we’re headed folks.  With the democrats behaving like rampaging beasts in Ionesco’s play Rhinoceros, they are running amok over the rights of the law-abiding public, trampling on our safety, our property rights and our constitutional freedoms.  Coincidentally, Ionesco’s play is considered to be an example of the theater of the absurd where the rhinoceros represents fascism and the message was that there is no hope for human beings in a world dominated by beasts.  Theater of the absurd.  That’s about where we are. 

 Lastly, I bring you the Paris Climate Accord.  Day One saw Uncle Joe enthusiastically re-enlist for this devastating, economy-busting nonsense that even fanatical greens called “nothing but words”.  Even USA Today, not habitually critical of leftist policy, called the Accord “poorly negotiated” imposing “unfair and unrealistic targets on the United States for reducing carbon emissions”.  The same article quotes the National Economic Research Associates who concluded “it would cost the American economy $3 trillion and 6.5 million industrial sector jobs by 2040.” Meanwhile, the Accord gives developing countries a free pass to continue polluting for a decade.  That’s right: ten years. Falling into the developing nations category?  You guessed it: China. With low-cost coal reserves, both China and India would have a huge manufacturing advantage over their carbon-hobbled American manufacturing counterparts.  And this is after the United States has led the world in reducing combustion-related carbon emissions since 2005.  A brief analysis of 2018 C02 emissions reveals that China produced 27.8% of C02 emissions worldwide, ranking first, with the second place US producing nearly half at 15.2% of the total.  India, a distant third produced only 7.3% of the world total.  But more telling is the direction in which these trends are headed.  Since the Kyoto protocol in 1998, the US reduced their greenhouse emissions by 12.1%.  In that same time frame, China increased their emissions by 54.6% while India increased their emissions by a whopping 105.8%.  The largest driver in reducing emissions in the US has ironically been the shale gas boom, according to Forbes, whereby cheap natural gas displaced coal consumption.  Under Biden’s assault on the energy sector, what will take the place of shale gas?  Certainly not a return to coal.  

Although the US must take responsibility for historically emitting the most C02 into the atmosphere, given the trends and with no restrictions directed at China, the Chinese will surpass the US as the largest historical emitter of C02 into the atmosphere within that restriction-free decade.  And please note: this will occur, disturbingly, not during a time when the US was virtually the sole large scale emitter, but in an era where India, South Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia are combining to dump additional billions of metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere at double digit rates of increasing percentage.  But it is the US that will bear the burden.  Of course.   It would appear that the Biden Administration, in an effort to appease the far left, Green New Deal wing of the democrat party, is willing to sacrifice our economy, our manufacturing, our jobs and most of all, our standing in the world.  China has made it plain that they intend to usurp the dollar as the global currency standard.  It is only the strength of our economy and the US financial influence that has kept both China and Russia from seeking to pressure the world into accepting alternatives to the dollar. How long will that strength and influence last under the weight of Biden Administration regulation?  Andrew Sheng of the South China Morning Post put it succinctly: “How the US President steers the exorbitant privilege of the US dollar is critical to the long overdue reforms the global financial system needs to stop penalizing the poor and emerging economies”.  So in essence, China, a self-declared emerging nation itself, will be poised to reform the global financial system of privilege in the name of equality. Sounds like a perfect marriage of Biden Administration policy and the goals of our global competitors.  But has the Biden Empire ever sought to further their financial ambitions at the expense of Americans?  To answer that question, you have to ask what’s in it for them, then follow the money. Hardly recipes for unity and bipartisanship.  At least not for America. 

Biden's Wealth

 Joe Biden, once the self-proclaimed poorest member of Congress. Middle Class Joe, a 47-year public servant who averaged no more than $100000 a year in his career in politics.  A man whose humble beginnings and hardscrabble life on the mean streets of Scranton, not to mention his face-off with Cornpop, is the stuff of legend.  In 2009, while serving as vice-president, CBS described Biden as “the least wealthy administrative figure” with an estimated net worth of only $27012.  But what attracted Mr. Swift to today’s topic was an article in the Bloomberg Report that praised Mr. Biden for his selection of……wristwatches, particularly the Rolex Datejust he wore at the inauguration.  The article glowingly goes on to state, “Biden has been known for wearing larger-sized steel sports watches.  He’s been seen, most famously, in his blue-dial Omega Seamaster Professional 300m with its distinctive bracelet.  He’s also worn a Seiko 7T32-6M90 Chronograph on the campaign trail as well as a 42mm Omega Speedmaster Professional “Moonwatch”.   Even GQ magazine, perhaps the most liberal leaning waste of trees imaginable, praised Biden as “an adroit watch collector”, praising his choice of the inexpensive Seiko as well as the pricier Omegas and a vintage Vulcain Cricket in his collection.  Yes, the Seiko is indeed inexpensive and despite its high bling quotient it is merely an affordable wristwatch that can be had for just over $100, perhaps purposely used on the campaign trail to further the Middle Class Joe narrative.  But wait a minute.  That Rolex he wore at the inauguration retails for $6300, and the Omega selections check in at $3600 for the Seamaster and $5400 for the Speedy.  Even the Vulcain, a vintage timepiece, costs $2400.  So good old Joe, the man of the people, has a watch collection that prices out in the range of $18000, and those are the timepieces we know of, hardly a collection affordable for the masses he claims to represent.  But let’s be clear, I don’t begrudge Mr. Biden his indulgence in haute horologie.  On the contrary, I praise him for his investment and interest in classic timepieces.  Where I’m going to ding him, however, is the hypocrisy in sporting such indulgence, and being praised for it in the media, when we just spent four years attacking Donald Trump for his wealth and extravagancies, seeking to dissect every component of his empire and attempting to release and scrutinize his tax returns.  Even on their way out the door, the media took a parting shot at Melania Trump for her selection of a pricey designer handbag. 

So in the interest of fairness let’s dive a little deeper into Joe’s empire.  Eric Trump infamously tweeted out “The salary of US Senator is $174000 per year.  This is Joe Biden’s house….seems legit (eye roll emoji).  This was accompanied by a photograph of the 10000 square foot DuPont mansion, an estate purchase by Biden in the mid-1970s supposedly for $185000.  Biden reportedly used the home as a base of operations for his 1988 presidential campaign referring to it as “The Station”.  But the media, particularly USA Today leapt to his defense claiming the home was scheduled for demolition and Biden purchased it and renovated it, and besides, he no longer owns it.  Some defense.  So this was indeed when Biden was still a Senator, scratching out a meager existence on his public servant salary and yet he was able to purchase what appears to be quite the extravagant property for only $185000 and he still had the funds to be able to renovate it.  Uh-huh.  Mr. Biden must be particularly handy.  If that 10000 square foot monstrosity was in such a state that it was scheduled for demolition and sold for a mere $185000, to anyone who has ever engaged in a home improvement project, I ask you how exactly was he able to afford that renovation?  I smell a rat. And as far as the defense that he doesn’t own the property anymore, that is indeed the case.  After living in the home for some 20 years, he sold it for $1.2 Million to none other than John Cochran III, the vice-chairman of MBNA, the largest employer in Delaware.  You know MBNA, the credit card company that retained then 21-year old Hunter Biden as a consultant for an undisclosed sum during the same period of time that Senator Joe Biden supported legislation promoted by the credit card industry and opposed by consumer groups, according to CBS News. Yeah, that MBNA.  And as reported by BPR Business and Politics, shortly after the home sale MBNA executives “contributed generously to Biden’s campaign in a series of coordinated donations that sidestepped the contribution limits by the company’s PAC.”   MBNA employees “poured more than $200000 into Biden’s senate campaigns over two decades making the credit card company Biden’s largest source of campaign money.”  Further defense by USA Today’s fact checkers went on to declare that the Internet attacks on Mr. Biden, stating that he owns four properties, are not true.  As you may recall, Trump repeated the accusation in the presidential debates.  But, according to USA Today, he only owns two.  And what two properties are those? According to the Daily Times, his primary estate in “pricey Greenville and his 6-bedroom vacation house near Cape Henlopen State Park”.  Well that seems reasonable doesn’t it?  But let’s be more specific.  The four-acre lakefront Greenville property outside of Wilmington, was reportedly purchased in 1996 for an “estimated” $350000.  Biden then built a 6500 square foot residence now estimated to be worth $3 million. Once again, don’t let the media blur the timeline.  Biden purchased this property and built a luxurious residence on it in 1996 when he was still a Senator making $133600 per year.  And the beach house, with “ocean views and multiple outdoor decks, that backs up to Henlopen State Park,” coincidentally land that Joe Biden helped return to federal status, was acquired in 2017 and was purchased for $2.75 million, although USA Today defends the accusations of the pricey land acquisition as now only estimated to be worth $1.9 million. Only. Additionally, Joe also rented a $5 million 12000 square foot home in the upscale neighborhood of McLean, Virginia after his vice-presidency for $20000 per month. Disturbingly, this tony neighborhood is called home by many of our elected officials.  Allow me to digress but how exactly does that work on their $174000 a year salaries?  McLean obviously must have low-income housing. But USA Today and multiple mainstream media outlets go on to rationalize this extravagant lifestyle by stating that Joe no longer earns a Senator’s salary and in fact hasn’t since assuming the office of the Vice-president in 2009 when his salary jumped to $10 million from speaking engagements and book deals, leaving him with a current net worth estimated to be $9 million.  That’s correct.  Joe Biden, who can barely string a sentence together, was reportedly paid $10 million for speaking. 

So aside from the mathematically impaired and those prone to believe the nonsense spewed out by the mainstream media, this all sounds just a tad sketchy.  And what dated house basement was Joe sitting in for his presidential campaign that was repeatedly described by the media as a “modest A-frame? How exactly did Joe Biden purchase and renovate a 10000 square foot mansion in the 1970s on his meager Senator’s salary? And how was he worth an estimated $27012 in 2009 and yet in 1996 he was able to purchase 4 acres of lakefront property and build a residence worth an estimated $3 million? And let’s not forget the swarmy MBNA dealings when Hunter was paid as a consultant while Senator Joe was supporting legislation to prevent consumers from declaring bankruptcy when crippled with credit card debt.  That legislation, with the support of Obama, eventually passed.  According to Politico, in 2006, the day the Bidens took over Paradigm Global Investors, Hunter and Joe’s younger brother James, “laid out [their] vision for the fund’s future”: “Don’t worry about investors….we’ve got people all around the world who want to invest in Joe Biden. At the time, the senator was just months away from both assuming the chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and launching his second presidential bid.  James Biden made it clear he viewed the fund as a way to take money from rich foreigners who could not legally give money to his older brother or his campaign account.  We’ve got investors lined up in a line of 747s filled with cash ready to invest in this company”.  Does any of this pay to play scheme sound at all familiar?  And the timeline seems particularly interesting in that it coincides with Joe Biden’s sudden increase in net worth.  So with all the focus on Trump’s finances and tax returns, it would appear that the hypocritical media needs to take a closer look at the Biden Family empire and their business dealings in both real estate and finance.  Recall the adage: trust a man who made a fortune, then went into politics more than a man who went into politics to make a fortune. 

Inauguration No Show

 So where were they?  Where were the hoards of White supremacists, Neo-Nazis and armed militias that were set to storm the capitol and disrupt the inauguration?  And not just the Capitol.  Wasn’t there “credible” Internet chatter that signaled a coordinated attack was to take place not just in Washington, DC, but in state capitals across the country? Where were the Proud Boys, whose messages suggest, according to the Wall Street Journal, that “the far-right group interpreted the President’s words as a call to action”?  So let me get this straight: they interpreted the president’s words? And what words were those?  Mr. Trump tweeted, prior to his January 6 rally: “be there, will be wild”.  And in the first presidential debate, when Trump debated both Mr. Biden and the moderator Chris Wallace, when he was asked repeatedly to denounce White Supremacists, part of his response was to tell the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.”  After his speech at the January 6 rally, Mr. Trump said “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore”.  Apparently those were interpreted as “cryptic” calls to action. Interpreted by whom?  Georgia Wells, Rebecca Balhaus and Keach Hagey, three writers for the WSJ, and some disgruntled Parler users posting on breaks from playing Call of Duty on their Playstations?  Seriously? Even the leader of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, was, according to text messages to the Journal, not even present at the rally and “said he ordered his members not to storm the Capitol and would denounce any who did”. Apparently Mr. Tarrio needs to reassess his leadership role in the organization.  And about that organization, again quoting the WSJ article: “estimates from researchers vary…from a few hundred to up to 10000 men.” Uh-huh. So are these members engaging in Internet machismo, or are they assembling regularly to train with weapons and tactics?  I suspect the former.  So essentially we turned Washington DC over to martial law, a Beirut look-alike based on the internet chatter from a bunch of knuckleheads who interpreted “fight like hell”, be there, will be wild” and stand back and stand by” as a call to arms?  How embarrassing.  And all the posturing in the fawning media by our elected officials, feigning bravery in their “41 minutes of Terror”, and convincing a gullible public that our sacred democracy was under attack.  Even going so far as to suggest that our own National Guard, brought in to protect their sorry backsides, had to be vetted due to their predominantly male and Caucasian makeup.  Disgusting.

Yet here we are in the new dawn of the Biden-Harris debacle-to-come, when the only assault that took place yesterday was on the Democrat Party Headquarters in Portland, Oregon by none other than Antifa protesters.  Hilarious. You just can’t make this stuff up. Apparently 150 antifa protesters vandalized the Democrat office before moving on to attack an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement facility (ICE) just hours after Biden was inaugurated.  You just can’t make these people happy. The buildings were vandalized and the “activists” sprayed graffiti on the ICE building. The protesters reportedly marched to the democrat Headquarters chanting “F*** Joe Biden” brandishing “pepper ball guns, shields, rocks, batons, irritant spray, knives, crowbars and Molotov cocktails” according to Newsweek.  Really.  Peaceful protesters, no doubt.  But definitely not seditionists or insurrectionists. I wonder if the FBI will mount an investigation and employ facial recognition and Internet scouring to hunt down these far-left extremists? Sure they will.

But this was a win-win tactic by the Democrats all along.  They got away with painting Republicans with a broad brush, labeling us all as insurrectionists intent on disrupting our democratic process.  They used it to harass Senators Cruz and Hawley and continue relentless attacks on Trump.  All plainly obvious tactics to eliminate opposition to their leftist agenda.  Prevent Trump from ever running for office again and remove the threat of those that would take his place, the up and coming Republican stars. If the predicted attacks had actually occurred, then we would have been branded permanently as domestic terrorists. But the fact that no attacks occurred will be trumpeted as a win for democracy and our preparedness in thwarting the evils of White Supremacy and Racism.  Successful mostly because we already arrested all the White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis after the Capitol riot: all eight of them.  It’s all a stretch of course, but so far with the support of the propaganda arm of the democrat party, the mainstream media, they have been able to connect the dots.  So let the fawning resume, as Biden assumes the office of the Presidency and lets loose with a flurry of executive orders to undo the Trump policies that gave us unparalleled economic growth.  Biden’s economy will initially benefit from pent up demand as we emerge from under coronavirus lockdowns, and will benefit from the vaccine as it becomes more widely and effectively distributed.  But soon gone will be energy independence and, as we re-enter the Paris Climate Accord and rejoin the WHO, as we add $1.9 trillion to the $900 billion last month to the $2.9 trillion from the spring to our national debt, as we dole out unemployment benefits that will cause half of unemployed Americans to stay on the sidelines, as we increase the minimum wage, as we “equitably” distribute small business loans based on race, as we open our borders to waves of immigrant caravans, we are destined for economic disaster.  China and Russia are poised to eat our lunch.  We can only hope the Senate has an epiphany and holds the line against what is essentially a massive redistribution of wealth, an abdication of our position as leaders of the free world and an end to America as we know it.