There’s a neat trick to this…
Tag: joe biden
The Ukraine war response is fast becoming Biden’s second blunder
The precipitous and chaotic American abandonment of Afghanistan, without proper consultation and support for allies, less than a year ago was a great shock to the NATO alliance, raising grave doubts about the judgment, stability and reliability of the U.S. as leader of the free world. The resulting cracks in the alliance were only papered over by the blunt truth that our allies had nowhere to go outside the security umbrella provided by the U.S. under Article 5.
Now, in the rapidly changing landscape of the Ukraine war, we are seeing ominous signs that the U.S. may be leading NATO in the direction of an even worse strategic humiliation — one that can result in a dramatic reconfiguration of the world’s geopolitical structure.
The New York Times reported recently on a June 16 visit to Kyiv by leaders of four NATO countries — France, Germany, Italy and Romania — during which they delivered a dual message to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. At the more public and cosmetic level, the Western leaders demonstrated their support against Russian aggression by offering Ukraine a path to European Union membership but they “did not promise the country additional heavy weapons on the scale it says it needs to repel a bloody Russian advance in the East.”
The European leaders carefully adhered to the Biden administration’s policy by insisting “they were not pressing Mr. Zelensky to accept a peace deal with Moscow,” according to the Times. But, as reflected in the palpable disappointment of the Ukrainians, the EU’s key leaders were clearly signaling the limits of their own support.
This new European stance now places the Biden administration on the horns of a possibly insoluble dilemma, as David Goldman reported in a recent Asia Times article. With the war having reached a critical stage and the world economy reeling from supply shocks in energy and food previously supplied by Russia and Ukraine, Goldman asserts that America’s boasts of “driving Putin from power, destroying Russia’s capacity to make war, and halving the size of Russia’s economy look ridiculous in retrospect.”
Biden paid Taliban more than $1 billion over last year
In the aftermath of Joe Biden’s report that he ordered a military drone strike that killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in downtown Kabul, Afghanistan, a report has emerged that Biden has paid, over the last year, about $1 billion to the Taliban.
That would be the extremist Islamist organization that took over Afghanistan when Biden last year abruptly pulled American soldiers out.
Biden left behind hundreds of Americans, thousands of America-supporting nationals who likely would be targeted by assassination squads for their work, as well as some $80 billion in American war machinery.
Now a report from Foreign Desk News explains that Biden has been sending, and plans to send more, money to the Taliban.
A columnist also pointed out that it is unlikely that an al-Qaida operative could have set up shop and be working in Kabul without the Taliban knowing that.
The report said American foreign aid might be going to the “wrong places,” including Afghanistan.
“Annually, the U.S. allocates over $51 billion in economic aid and military assistance. $25 billion comes from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), while the Department of Defense and Department of State are close behind. Over 20 percent of this aid is divided among four countries: Israel, Jordan, Afghanistan, and Egypt. While well intentioned, corruption, failing infrastructure, or even cultural misunderstandings can mean that U.S. aid causes more harm than good,” the report explained.
Regarding the Taliban, the report explained, “The U.S. has pledged an additional $55 million in aid to Afghanistan. Over the past fiscal year, this totals to over $1 billion to humanitarian, economic, and military assistance aid to Afghanistan. Foreign aid always comes with criticism, but especially so when the recipient is an enemy of the U.S. and a corrupt, extremist and repressive regime.
Al Qaeda Leader Ayman al-Zawahiri Is Dead…for at Least the 4th Time
Notorious Al Qaeda terror group leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was reported to have died in a drone strike over the weekend in Kabul, Afghanistan. President Biden announced the news from the balcony of the White House. But you’ll forgive some people if they fall into the “trust but verify camp” on al-Zawahiri-is-dead news.
You see, the world was also told that al-Zawahiri died before. Task and Purpose inserted natural skepticism about Monday’s news in a story headlined, “Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda deputy is totally dead for real this time.” The military website acknowledged that “after mistakenly being declared dead several times in the past, Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri’s death has been officially announced – presumably for the final time – by President Joe Biden on Monday.”
Zawahiri was also thought to be dead in 2020. Democrat think tank The Brookings Institution said, “al-Zawahri may be dead or at least appears to be ‘completely off the grid,’ according to journalist and veteran jihadi-watcher Hassan Hassan. These reports come at the same time as the killing of another very senior al-Qaida leader, Abu Muhammad al-Masri, in Tehran, reportedly by Israeli agents at the behest of the United States.”
It wasn’t until the following year that the world learned that reports of his demise were premature. Zawahiri appeared in a video to commemorate the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that killed 2,977 Americans in three airplane attacks.
In 2008, Zawahiri was reported dead by Pakistani intelligence — making the story immediately suspect to western sources. Longwar Journal’s Bill Roggio reported at the time that “rumors of Zawahiri’s death or wounding began four days after what appears to be a US Predator unmanned aerial vehicle strike on a madrassa in the village of Zeralita in the Azam Warsak region of South Waziristan.” Roggio recounted that “six people, including three Arabs, were reported killed in the attack. The madrassa was said to be a safe house and meeting place for senior al Qaeda commanders.” CBS later reported that Zawahiri was gravely wounded in the attack. Yet, Zawahiri miraculously rose from the dead or hospital bed.
It’s Worse Than Anyone Wants to Admit
The news on July 28 was entirely consumed in the throes of another definition change. What everyone understood is that what it means to be in a recession has been suddenly changed by government edict. It’s not a recession, they say.
Everything is going just great, they say, unless you are among the troglodytes who desire plentiful and low-priced energy, food, housing, and overall human thriving. Once you understand the beautiful world on the other side of the “transition”—to use the favorite word of the White House—you would see this suffering as actually beneficial in the long run.
These broken eggs are making omelets.
We can argue all day about the definition of recession, but it doesn’t take us to the intellectual place we need to be. The bottom line is that what we are experiencing now includes anomalies from previous downturns precisely because it is much worse. Only a few months ago, many worried that we were going back to the 1970s. That box has been checked. Then, we worried we were going back to the 1930s. My fear is that we might wish that were true.
The White House talks about the low technical rate of unemployment without referencing the falling labor participation rates that never recovered from lockdowns because so many people just left the workforce. Millions of previously employed Americans are living off legacy largesse from families or tapping plentiful unemployment benefits just to get by month to month. Real wages and salaries have been slammed, savings rates are sinking, and credit card debt is exploding.
It’s all hard to put in a picture but we can try, nowhere more saliently expressed than the change in real wages and savings, versus savings as a percent of personal income. The stable public data here go back to 1960 and here we see just how shocking these times truly are. Personal savings is half what it typically was from the 1960s through the 1990s, and even as recently as 2012. Real disposable personal income is falling dramatically.
You get a picture of a once-thriving nation being pummeled by pillaging public managers.
Former security chief ‘skeptical’ on timing of al Qaeda leader’s death: ‘Let me throw some cold water on this’
Fred Fleitz, who is the former chief of staff of Trump’s National Security Council and a 19-year veteran of the CIA, is not convinced that President Biden actually succeeded in killing al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a drone strike in Afghanistan.
Fleitz claims he is “skeptical” that a CIA drone strike took out the terrorist a year after the botched Afghanistan withdrawal. There has been no proof of death yet. Only the bragging over the dispatching of the monster by an administration that has reportedly had to walk back a number of similar claims.
In a strike that appeared to Fleitz to be far too convenient, Zawahiri was said to have been taken out on a balcony outside of Taliban-controlled Kabul by the CIA using a drone, according to multiple reports. Although the Taliban confirmed there was a drone strike, they notably did not confirm that Zawahiri was killed.
When interviewing Fleitz on “Special Report,” Fox News host Bret Baier commented that U.S. intelligence officials have been hunting for Zawahiri for years and have never been able to pin him down. He asked Fleitz what he thought of the claim that Zawahiri was no more.
Zelensky Thanks Biden For Fresh $550M In Military Aid, Claiming Ukraine “Closer To Victory”
Another Monday, and another massive military aid package for Ukraine approved by the Biden administration – this time with a price tag just over half-a-billion dollars.
“The United States is greenlighting another military assistance package to Ukraine, sending $550 million in ammunition for advanced rocket systems and other equipment to the country to fight the Russian invasion,” The Hill reports of the approved transfer. Ukraine’s President Zelensky was quick to thank the White House, curiously adding this brings the Ukrainian forces “closer to victory”.
Thank you @POTUS for your leadership, robust support of 🇺🇦 and understanding that 🇷🇺 is a threat to entire civilized world. Together we are defending values of freedom common to both 🇺🇦 & 🇺🇸. New defense assistance package is bringing us closer to victory
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) August 1, 2022
The package is expected to include more ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, as well as mortar resupplies, including an estimated 75,000 rounds for 155 mm artillery.
For those keeping count, that’s north of $8 billion in total US assistance to Ukraine spread over the course of 17 packages so far since the February 24 Russian invasion.
Zelensky and his top officials have continued to press for more, and longer-range systems, even as Russia has claimed to have taken out multiple HIMARS systems and rockets in strikes on depots. Kiev has disputes this, and currently it’s believed at least a dozen to 16 HIMARS are active near the front lines based on the latest known Pentagon transfers.
Joe Biden set to double the size of the IRS
At a time of soaring inflation, falling earnings, and shriveling 401(k)s, what should Joe Biden and his Senate Democrats come up with for the beleaguered public in their “Inflation Reduction Act” besides this:
Start with the spending explosion for the Internal Revenue Service that Biden demanded from the start. That is $80 billion to deploy 87,000 new IRS agents. Enough to fill every seat in Nationals Park twice. Enough to fill the Roman Colosseum 1.7 times.
That’s more new IRS agents than the entire combined personnel of all U.S. aircraft carriers.
The bill also gives taxpayer money to the IRS to buy new cars, and more money for IRS “office rent.”
The official IRS watchdog — the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration — reports that the IRS already has more cars than it needs. And that the IRS cannot show that its employees are limiting their use of those cars to official business.
That’s from a Daily Caller op-ed written by tax maven Grover Norquist, and the details of it are appalling — an incompetent agency that cannot manage its affairs, has a history of political activity and union cash thrown at Democrats, and now gets more, way more, billions, in a shrinking economy with fewer than 1,000 billionaires for those 87,000 agents to supposedly target as tax cheats.
Anyone believe them when they say they just want billionaires to pay their “fair share”? We all know what they really have in mind: going after small business, the actual engine of economic growth, to ensure that everyone has nothing, and everyone will enjoy it.
Reuters Runs Cover for Dementia Joe and ‘Fact-Checks’ Funny Meme Showing Biden Being Distracted by Ice Cream Truck Music
Reuters actually ‘fact-checked’ a funny meme of Joe Biden getting distracted by ice cream truck music.
Last September Joe and Jill Biden pushed Covid vaccines at Brookland Middle School in Washington DC.
At one point Dementia Joe got distracted by a shiny button and wandered off as Jill Biden was speaking.
Biden shuffled away then made his way back as Jill Biden addressed the school officials.
Twitter users made fun of Joe Biden by adding ice cream truck music to the video of dummy Joe wandering around.
COVID reinfection rate with treatment Biden is taking is more than 40% – and not 2% as marketed: Paxlovid is thought to suppress immune response meaning body can’t fight off new infection
Joe Biden has been re-infected with COVID after taking an anti-viral drug that leaves patients running a 40 per cent risk of flare-up of the virus shortly afterwards.
Taking Paxlovid leaves COVID sufferers in danger of testing positive for the virus again very quickly after clearing their initial infection.
When Paxlovid came to market in December 2021, studies from Pfizer indicated that only 1-2 percent of patients who took the drug tested positive for Covid again shortly after finishing their dosage.
But other experts say the rapid reinfection rate is closer to 40 per cent, and that Paxlovid can cause this issue by suppressing patients’ immune systems too early, meaning their own bodies are unable to get a handle on COVID.
Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a prominent cardiologist and professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University Hospital tweeted: ‘I think this was predictable.’
He continued: ‘The prior data suggesting ‘rebound’ Paxlovid positivity in the low single digits is outdates and with BA.5 is likely 20-40% or even higher.’
In a memo released by the White House, Dr. Kevin O’Connor said that the president will continue to isolate, just like he did when he first tested positive on July 21.
Dr. O’Connor also said that the president would not be prescribed Paxlovid again. The president’s doctor earlier noted that it was likely that the president was infected with the BA.5 variant.
Hellbound and Down 
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