Is the Biden administration worse than you expected?
I was reading a set of comments somewhere at a blog on the right where a lot of people were saying this administration is worse than they had expected. The topic at hand was the incompetence of the withdrawal from Afghanistan – in particular, the reports that one of the first rules of the military, that one destroys the weaponry one leaves behind rather than have it fall into enemy hands – was being violated and no one seems to quite know why. Then the discussion segued into a general discussion of the administration as a whole, not just Biden but whatever person or persons are in charge.
My opinion? I didn’t anticipate every detail. But I expected every single thing they did to be absolutely terrible and very destructive. And it has pretty much worked out that way so far. It’s a distressing thing to watch, assimilate, and chronicle. I wrote a post on February 3, 2021 about the phenomenon of what the administration is doing, which I called “The Unraveling.”
And a lot has been unraveled since then.
The incompetence of military leadership isn’t helping this Afghanistan situation.
In a sane world there would be mass firings/resignations immediately but I’m sure nothing will happen.
The military leadership isn’t incompetent, it’s politically-driven. If weapons are being left in the field, to be recovered by the enemy, it’s by design.
The answer to the title question is: No. If anything, it is (ever so) slightly better than I expected. My expectations were so low, so pessimistic, so filled with dread, that it is almost impossible for this administration not to exceed them.
The Biden administration is pretty much exactly what I thought it would be. The lack of a real decision maker is particularly noticeable on foreign policy issues like Afghanistan. Nobody is really in charge and the result is reactive chaotic decision making.
At this point, genuine surprise at how awful they are has to be a sign of sweet simple naivety.
I was a company-grade officer half a century ago. Were I in the situation where I had to abandon equipment, I’d be destroying it until I got a written order notarized by twenty-seven archangels to leave it for the enemy.
Thermite grenades have a purpose. So does a quarft of gasoline in the ammo rack. Or sugar in the fuel tank.
So either our guys were not prepared–perhaps the Afghan forces had the stuff. Tanks and choppers? Or they were ordered not to destroy the stuff. Or IT DIDN’T FREAKING OCCUR TO THEM?
Maybe we’ll find later a lot of the equipment was left inoperable. Hope so. If not, it’s hard to visualize the degree of incompetence if not actual treasonable malice.
It is malice. Pure and simple.
I think a lot of the equipment, if not all, is being taken from the Afghan Army, not the U.S. forces. And it is likely the Afghan Army is just defecting with the equipment.
Not sure what I expected. Biden’s always been a sociopath with no real talents, so I expected nothing good.
We’re living at a time when the elites in every sector of society seem godawful and about half the country is content with that. That’s what hits you more than anything else.
Yancy Ward:
See this.
Yes, I expected the the unraveling but not this quickly.
My son drove an MRAP on convoy security in Kandahar Province back in 2012. His former base has already been overrun by the Taliban. I can’t imagine what he’s thinking but I’ll ask him when he comes over for dinner next week.
Well I did not expect much good to come out of it. So I am not disappointed.
In some ways, I expected it to be worse by now. Maybe just a matter of timing.
Or Divine mercy.
Hey, give Dr. Jill’s patient a break, will ya? The Camp David basement dweller may not give a damn about Afghanistan, but by gum, he’s already deputized Samantha Power (Kamala is presumably still dealing with the Mexican border) to handle the response to Haiti’s latest earthquake:
https://www.npr.org/2021/08/14/1027707629/haiti-earthquake-strikes-magnitude
Neo can take bets as to how long it will take the fraud-in-chief to mishandle this crisis too. I suppose we can be grateful he didn’t send Hunter.
Actually, this is just about what I expected, and I expect it to get worse before (or if) it gets better. Even if Congress fully changes hands in 2022 (and that’s assuming a non-fraudulent election, which may be expecting too much) my expectations are still low. Biden and his handlers have the full weight of Congress, the media, and the entrenched state fully behind him (them). I work with these people – State Dept apparatchiks, career DOD officers. They speak openly in front of me, and they will do whatever it takes to achieve their goal of a fully, unrecognizable by traditional standards, transformed USA. Put nothing past them.
Pretty much as bad as I thought. I mean I knew he’s a crook and stupid and a psychopath and has terrible instincts so this wasn’t a surprise. What was a surprise for me is how much the media sticks up for him. With Obama I could understand it because it was historic so I can understand them wanting to do everything to make it a success. However with Joe, he’s just another political PoS so why they’d want to flush what little integrity they still have is beyond me.
Regarding the sh$tstorm in Afghanistan, I have a few friends (well, colleagues is more accurate) there. I never agreed to go to Afghanistan, even with all of the financial incentives the Dept dangled in front of us – doubled salary, 3 paid R&Rs each year, our choice as to a plum follow on assignment – because I wasn’t willing to risk my life on a mission I did not believe in. I started to disagree with the mission there early on. Initially I understood it, but it turned sour for me when it devolved into a nation-building fiasco in a tribal place that doesn’t want to be a nation. The idiots in DC (and that includes Foggy Bottom, the Bush White House, and the Pentagon) couldn’t foresee that democracy in that part of the world means ISIS. Just look at Gaza as an example – elections brought Hamas to power and keeps them there.
Anyway, speaking directly about my diplomatic colleagues, they are all volunteers who knew when they bid on that assignment what they were likely bidding on. Almost to the last dip, they are Dem/Obama/Biden sycophants and are there overwhelmingly for 1) the money and 2) the almost automatic promotions. My ability to feel sympathy for them is weak, very weak. Closing down this Mission of 5000 employees will be good for the US. It gets us out of that rathole, and we can use those 5000 to fill staffing gaps in our understaffed Missions around the world. Or better yet just do a Reduction-in-Force, but that won’t happen under a Dem administration.
We were discussing this at the Embassy Friday morning, and I came so close to saying to everyone, “You voted for this, so just shut up.” But, I have 3 months to go until retirement, and even in that short window of time the Department’s cancel culture under the corrupt Biden regime could ruin me. So, I say nothing and mark the days off my calendar until I see that 1st pension check show up in my checking account.
And for anyone who wants to chastise me for working in the belly of the beast, much of what I’ve done over the career has been frontline immigration issues trying to keep the country from being overrun by the 3rd world and thus ballooning to a population the size of India. With the poverty, overcrowding, and environmental degradation attendant with that demographic change. And under the Dems both of these are coming. Mine may have just a single finger in the dike, but I’m proud to have done what little I could do to slow down this onslaught. And the only administration that even came close to getting this was Trump’s, and he was thwarted at every step by every element of the dominant culture, including most of the entrenched Republican culture of Washington.
If this is true. The entire military command structure should be gutted
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/b-52-bombers-head-to-afghanistan/
Sending bombers to destroy equipment you left behind in your haste to leave is utterly reprehensible.
We are 1/8 of the way through 4 years of this.
If that short period of time should have proven. That relative to Biden. Trump was in fact a “stable genius”. Which is not as much approval of Trump as a description of the utter incompetence, buffoonery, and ideological evil infused on every level.
And beyond even all of those issue which I expected from this administration. They seem to actually believe that “do the opposite of Trump” is a legitimate position to take. Regardless of merit.
@Telemachus:
Much respect and commiserations for what must have been a difficult job.
Would you care to expand more on the career DOD officers part if not too risky? It might yet come as a revelation to some here. State Dept types: Dog Bites Man, of course.
Mythx:
I’m not sure why you say that sending the bombers is reprehensible. Not destroying them in the first place seems to me to be the problem. If you must leave in haste, though – and I’m not sure why it had to be in such haste, except that my suspicion is that they don’t trust their own Afghan allies not to sabotage the leave-taking in some way – but once you’ve left in haste and left the equipment behind, my understanding is that it must be destroyed. And if you’re gone, wouldn’t it have to be destroyed through bombers or drones?
Telemachus:
I hope you manage to retire without further trouble, and enjoy your well-earned leisure time. Sounds like it’s been an uphill battle.
I once was in a social group that had a lot of Foggy Bottom retirees, and they were all highly liberal-left as far as I could tell. In addition, I knew a guy who married a roommate of mine and went on to serve in various positions abroad for the State Department, and he was way to the left even when I knew him.
@Zaphod
The career DODers I see are the Defense Attachés assigned to our embassies. They follow a bit too closely the General Milley school thought, fully bought in to the CRT approach to military readiness. Is it truly in the hearts? I don’t know, but they have to play the same woke game for military promotion that we have to play to get promoted at State. Interestingly, and it may be completely anecdotal, but the few non-woke military retirees I have known who have recently (since Obama) transitioned into diplomacy at State all left the military at the Captain and Major ranks. Maybe some of our former military types who comment here can weigh in, but if the DOD is anything like State, that jump to the LT.Col and Colonel ranks (for us those are the 02 & 01 grades, respectively, positioning one for Senior Foreign Service) is where the woke wheat is separated from the deplorable chaff.
Yes. They are worse than I expected.
More hateful towards traditional America.
More incompetent and greedy.
@Telemachus:
Thank you for that elaboration. Sounds about right and I trust that other readers here will take it straight from your horse’s mouth.
I’ve known a retired Brigadier from one of the Five Eyes nations who spoke glowingly of his year at Command College and how a big part of it was getting-to-know-you field trips and projects and seminars with current and upcoming civil arm movers and shakers. Struck me that the vetting for ‘Our Kind of Person’ must have been pretty intense. Needless to say Brigadier X (ret. but raking it in as a ‘Consultant’) was on message with every current trend when I met him: Climate Change, R2P, etc. I guess LTC must be about where everybody gets to make a choice about final disposition of their Souls.
FOR a political party that spent eight years trying to “transform America”(TM) and the next four years trying methodically and systematically (and criminally) to demonize and thus destroy a political opponent (along with his supporters) that from POV had no business being elected;
FOR a political party that colluded to destroy American cities (under the rubric, of course, of “civil right”(TM) and or “human rights”(TM)—because they believed it would destroy their political opponent in the WH—.and is still trying to destroy them (to the extent that they can);
FOR a political party that fought, tooth and nail—because they believed it would destroy their political opponent in the WH…AND would enable them, if necessary, to more easily steal the upcoming election—policies that would SAVE the lives of tens of thousands of people (if not more) and also keep society and the economy on a relatively even keel;
FOR a political that has consistently trampled the Constitution and subverted government agencies to the point where it planned the elaborately orchestrated defenestration of their political opponent in the WH followed by the even more elaborately orchestrated steal of the 2020 election;
FOR a political party that staged an “insurrection” in the Capitol so as to prepare the ground for further targeting American citizens, trampling (further) the Law, and warping (further) the justice system and the legislature in a transparent effort to hold on to power indefinitely;
FOR a political party that has manipulated racism (or more correctly, “reverse racism”) so as to politicize, fragment and destroy the bonds between American citizen;
FOR a political party that has embraced prevarication and hypocrisy in every sphere and whose adaptation of Orwellian and totalitarian methods to destroy its political opponents while maintaining its own power;
FOR a political party….
…what exactly is there to be surprised about?
Note: The above is rather small sampling…
Telemachus, whatever you do, don’t let Soledad O’Brien find out who you are!
Be sure to remind us to celebrate your retirement when it is finalized.
@BarryMeislin:
You give the Democratic Party too much credit if you give them all the credit.
But yes, they should be the first to hang.
In re the “clueless administration” – per the link Neo gave Yancey.
Written in early July: “Pentagon leaders have said there is “medium” risk that the Afghan government and its security forces collapse within the next two years, if not sooner.”
@ Neo @ 12:27am
Thank you Neo. It has been seriously challenging at times, just knowing when to keep my head down and mouth shut. I am anxious to move on, but not without some mixed emotions. The things I have gotten to do are amazing – sometimes I’ve had to figuratively pinch myself to know that I wasn’t dreaming. Much of what we do is important, but too much has been overtaken by the wokerati (basically many of today’s FSOs are little more than do-gooder NGO types who’ve found a gravy train of taxpayer dollars to force their leftist agendas), and has nothing to do with actual foreign policy.
To my fellow commenters here who would like to see the State Dept abolished, I understand the anger, but believe you are mistaken. State needs to be restructured and gutted, not done away with. It needs a truly ruthless bastard to take a fire hose to about 70% of the Department. But that requires changes in Congress (in both parties) and the White House.
Z., very true.
Certainly, Republicans who supported/support “Biden” (because of…whatever…reason) shouldn’t be left out.
Even if “whatever” includes that they believed all the media lies from 2016-2020 (and beyond), since why/could anyone seriously do that (although, yes, if lies are ALL you hear, then I guess that might serve as some kind of excuse…).
Telemachus, thank you for doing what you could, under the circumstances. One can only do so much, from the heart if the beast. Enjoy your hard earned retirement.
I think it is important to note that while I’m not sure how much the general public is going to care about Afghanistan, it’s going to be a psychological and emotional earthquake in the U.S. foreign/military policy world. It’s the worst “defeat” for America since Vietnam, which happened when most of our expert class were still children. And it comes after four years of preening over how much smarter they were than #OrangeManBad.
Mike
The (unsurprising) perspective of a Churchillian:
https://twitter.com/COLRICHARDKEMP?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
“…a psychological and emotional earthquake…”
But NOT if the “TRUE ENEMY” of the US is the Deplorable, Trump-supporting, “Biden”-despising/despairing half of the country (more than half, actually).
And so the media and info-tech will soon be spinning fast and furiously (if they haven’t already; but they may well have to recalibrate slightly and consider the “best” way to do this—the best angle to take—which may require a bit of time).
In fact, “You ain’t Black…if you don’t vote for me” will likely segue seamlessly into “You ain’t American…if you don’t support ‘me’ “.
The process, of course, has already begun (months ago, years even).
Just how high they can raise the voltage—successfully—remains to be seen.
Neo,
I see your point and I could have worded it much better. And I do tend to agree that the Taliban would have come out of the woodwork in force. Had we made some huge announcement regarding leaving.
That said
It is reprehensible because the military left the equipment there to begin with. It never should have happened.
The administration is trying to simultaneously claim opposite motivations to see which stick
1) That they had to leave in haste to not give away operational details
and
2) That this was all negotiated via Trump and they had no choice well in advance.
If point 1 is true I can understand leaving behind some non-lethal equipment and ground vehicles. But drones and planes? And leaving many either fully or close to fully operational. As is apparent from reports and video coming from the region.
That is negligence of the highest order. Now they are trying to reinsert personal back onto the ground to create an orderly retreat.
The politics of this have been shoddy, confused and morally abhorrent with how we have treated our “allies” in Afghanistan.
Yet I expected more coherence and planning from the supposed military “leadership”. Who seem to be not only doing this entire episode ad-hoc. But are communicating poorly among themselves doing so. I guess they used up all of their cooperation fighting Trump and failing to manage even the most basic functions that a competent military should be able to accomplish
OTOH, you can no longer make the claim that “Biden” ‘s shock troops aren’t concerned with the HEALTH and WELFARE of their fellow citizens.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/antifa-agitators-clash-with-anti-mask-protesters-in-bloody-skirmish-1-stabbed
(Though maybe “Biden” might consider sending them to the southern border…? Or is that Harris’s decision to make….?)
Telemachus says “I started to disagree with the mission there [in Afghanistan] early on. Initially I understood it, but it turned sour for me when it devolved into a nation-building fiasco in a tribal place that doesn’t want to be a nation. The idiots in DC (and that includes Foggy Bottom, the Bush White House, and the Pentagon) couldn’t foresee that democracy in that part of the world means ISIS. Just look at Gaza as an example – elections brought Hamas to power and keeps them there.”
When the next occupation of Afghanistan occurs — and it will — the forcible prohibition of incest marriage is going to be the pre-employment tool to move this deeply entrenched tribal wasteland out of the Middle Ages.
What separated Western Europe from Eastern – and mostly Slavic – Europe’s development was exogamy. Islam just puts bigger barriers and given our post-Cold War times, has merely re-energized this patriarchal power politics pattern, and revived tribalism, making it a tool for True Belief and retroactive dictatorship’s like Iran’s oligarchic dead end.
This has to be done. It’s the only way to pacify this tribal region.
Not even AS BAD as expected, since that expectation included Congress going all in, eliminating the filibuster and passing crap like HR-1, the Green Nude Eel, and every other nonsensical bankrupting crap they could think up.
The actual Biden White House is about as bad as expected.
deadrody:
Biden is as expected, but I agree about Congress. I expected Congress – specifically, Manchin and Sinema – to be worse and to have passed those transformative bills immediately, to be signed by Biden with a celebratory flourish.
In the last stages of our move to Florida, so I end up reading these threads the day after.
I am surprised by the speed of of the descent…OMG it’s only been 7 months! But then, we have a dementia sliding puppet president, so decisions are being made by committee. And after sitting on many faculty committees full of leftist faculty the decisions being made are totally consistent with that mode of operation. These sort of people NEVER consider, even as an intellectual exercise, what could possibly go wrong. They are sooo certain in the their world view and superior intelligence, that they can’t imagine a different outcome. Add in the fact that they never even hear a dissenting opinion and you see what you get. What has been so distressing to me is to have watched, since the arrival of the Wuflu, the explosion of the higher ed leftist faculty culture into the mainstream. What you are all experiencing now in the country in general, those few of us conservative faculty had experienced for the last 15 years in our jobs. Welcome to our world.
And yes, Manchin and Sinema are the only ones holding their fingers in the dike preventing an overall flood of misery.
Precisely so.
To “War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength” can be added “failure is success”.
I expected horrors, but frankly the troops at the Capitol, the ideological purges and rectification of the military, the declaration that the number one terrorist danger is Americans, the threat by the supposedly-elected president that the government has the nukes and F-15s, not that the people have the voting booth — my God.
Well, I must say this comes as a real….SURPRISE!!
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/08/13/team-biden-blaming-donald-trump-for-taliban-takeover-afghanistan/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook#
…as the hysterical attacks on DiSantis continue without letup:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/08/panic-porn-media-buried-key-detail-about-florida-teachers-dying-of-covid/
(Another SURPRISE!)
Could it be that this is precisely where the Democratic Party strategists (in their infinite and impressive wisdom) have the country by the short and curlies?
1. Massive illegal immigration.
2. Massive internal immigration (citizens flee—along with their votes(?)—from blue states to red):
https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/suninternal-migrants-flee-high-tax-blue-states-high-opportunity-red
3. Bankrupt the country
4. Implement policies that spread Covid far and wide and then impose Covid tyranny
5. Metaphorically (or perhaps not?) set fires and then yell “FIRE!”
6. Etc.
Yep, keep those crises ‘acomin’…
Matt Taibbi thinks now is the moment to focus on how this time and the Biden Age is a product of Obama. His account of Zero’s Martha’s Vineyard vanity party is entirely on point, demonstrating a callus and consequential elitist self-entitlement that cannot be detached from the moment.
Taibbi sums it up thusly:
“Obama was set up to be the greatest of American heroes, but proved to be a common swindler and one of the great political liars of all time — he fooled us all. Moreover, his remarkably vacuous post-presidency is proving true everything Trump said in 2016 about the grasping Washington politicians whose only motives are personal enrichment, and who’d do anything, even attend his wedding, for a buck. Trump’s point was that he, Trump, was already swinishly rich, while politicians have only one thing to sell to get the upper class status they crave: us.
“Obama did that. He sold us out, and it’s time to start talking about the role he played in bringing about the hopeless cynical mess that is modern America.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/taibbi-vanishing-legacy-barack-obama
What was the Q again? Oh, yeah—“is the Biden administration worse than you expected?”
No. I expected fully open and federal funding of the Democrat’s militant wing,
the SA, antifa. And what should have followed: widespread rioting and looting, civil war in Texas and Florida.Maybe next week.
“He fooled us all”.
Well, um, good for Taibbi; but he should really speak for himself…
(Though he should certainly be congratulated, once again, for advancing even farther ahead on the “Truth” spectrum; moreover, this time he used the “T” word without the obligatory denigration—at least in the blurb quoted above…. Progress! But one wonders how many more friends he will lose as a result—I assume he had some left.)
Well, the ice has been broken in France:
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/message-france
Key grafs:
‘Last week on the 21st (sic) ALL restaurants, bars, coffee shops, and any leisure activities like sporting events, theaters, cinemas, museums, were closed to anyone without “the pass” and all staff at these places are mandated to get the jab to keep their job.
‘It is now a 6 Month prison sentence if you are caught inside any of these places without the pass (the man who slapped the president in the face got only 3 months prison time). Business owners will get a fine of 45,000 euros and 1 year prison sentence if they do not comply with the use of “the pass” and force all their employees to get the jab….’
Yes, the future has arrived…
(“Biden” and “his” ilk must be panting in anticipation….)
Hunter joins Taliban ! Will advise on opium production and exports,
One may sympathize but this is more than a bit naive:
“McCarthy slams Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal as ’embarrassment to our nation’ ”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mccarthy-slams-biden-afghanistan-withdrawal
As though an administration hell-bent on destroying its own country can be embarrassed.
As though a party that stole a national election can be embarrassed.
As though a party that engineered the deaths of tens of thousands in order to sustain and feed a medical crisis can be embarrassed.
As though a party leadership that orchestrated an elaborate and entirely illegal campaign to have an elected president thrown out of office can be embarrassed.
Um, no. Don’t think so.
People have got to understand that ALL normal assumptions must be thrown out the window.
In fact, all is proceeding to plan, more or less.
The ONLY possible gaffe that the Democrats and their twisted allies have really committed is in ALLOWING any of this information to escape so uncontrollably. (And so quickly.)
But “It’s all Trump’s fault” ought to be able to fix that.
(Right?)
AesopFan: Written in early July: “Pentagon leaders have said there is “medium” risk that the Afghan government and its security forces collapse within the next two years, if not sooner.”
American “Intelligence”, which a couple days ago thought Kabul could fall as soon as 90 days, now estimates 72 hours.
Liz Cheney expresses concern over the unfolding “Trump-Biden calamity”. Not making this up.
“It sure would be nice to wake up to a few mean tweets, a secure Southern Border, cheap gas and a President who knows what day of the week it is.” Congresswoman Boebert
I don’t think that any country is afraid of the U.S. anymore. And that is very dangerous.
I thought Biden, or whoever is running this, would be awful, and I was right. I am a little surprised at the speed they’re using to destroy the county.
My only positive surprise is that — so far — Manchin and Sinema are holding out against the worst excesses. A very negative surprise has been how willing GOP establishment senators have been to play ball with the evil.
I was talking this morning, after church, with a retired USMC Colonel, a Vietnam vet. This really brings back memories for him. And the same for my Vietnamese neighbors, who escaped after the fall of Saigon, in both cases after several years of extreme hardship.
Worse than I expected?
No. But my motto is you can’t be too rich, too thin, or too cynical.
Of course, I am poor and I am fat, so I try extra hard to be more cynical.
Note: Actually, you can be too thin. Kurt Gödel starved himself to death. But in my case, there is no possibility of that happening. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_G%C3%B6del#Later_life_and_death
@Zaphod,
“I guess LTC must be about where everybody gets to make a choice about final disposition of their Souls.”
The same process has been at work in the universities for at least 4 decades, longer in some areas and shorter in others. It takes place when you transition from the 4 year degree to getting a Masters and even more intensely to get that PhD.
They are as bad as I expected. They might be faster than I expected. I didn’t know exactly how the bad would manifest, but it is coming out in so many ways simultaneously.
“…Panting in anticipation…”
And here we go!
“DHS Bulletin Says Opposition To COVID Mandates Is Potential “Domestic Terrorism Threat”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dhs-bulletin-says-opposition-covid-mandates-potential-domestic-terrorism-threat
IOW wrong-think is worse than the Taliban.
(Just kidding. Not worse, merely the same as…)
One might even conjecture that allowing the Taliban to take over Afghanistan is enabling “Biden” take over America—as attention is focused laser-like on the “Graveyard of Nations”(TM)…
A very negative surprise has been how willing GOP establishment senators have been to play ball with the evil.
Addison Mitchell McConnell has been the Republican caucus leader since 2007. Since 1899, the only congressional caucus leaders who have proved more durable have been Sam Rayburn (D, 1937-61), John McCormick (D, 1940-71), Joseph Martin (R, 1939-59), and Palsy Pelosi (D, 2003- ).
1.McConnell went out of his way some years ago to prevent the closure of the Export-Import Bank, a corporate welfare scheme whose mandate would have expired without his intervention. See Ted Cruz floor speech delineating the scamming around McConnell engaged in to make that happen (which included lying in Cruz’ face).
2. And, you’ll recall when the Supreme Court manufactured out of whole cloth a ‘right’ to homosexual pseudogamy, he rolled over and played dead.
3. His wife is a conduit for Chinese influence.
4. And of course, you can consult the performance he put on after the latest shampeachment (which included his wife bailing from the cabinet).
5. From 1967 to the present, he’s been on public payrolls for all but six years, and on the payroll of the United States Congress for 39 years.
6. It’s a reasonable inference that his patron in Congress pulled strings to get him a medical discharge from the military. Partisan Democrats offer lying animadversions about the service records of Republicans as a matter of course, pretending lawful exemptions given out to a six figure population in each cohort and available to anyone similarly situated amount to ‘draft dodging’. There is a subset who took advantage of procedural anomalies or for whom strings have been pulled. Among them have been Bernie Sanders, Bill Clinton, Pat Robertson, and (alas, as he has many assets) Rudolph Giuliani. Both McConnell and Joseph Biden had quite sketchy claims to a medical disqualification, and McConnell’s office has when questioned behaved as if he had something to hide.
This waste of space is who the Republican senators want as their ‘leader’.
Um, should be “Graveyard of empires”…
except the brits pulled out of india, not afghanistan, they tried getting out of the tarpit at 1841, after 1880 and 1919, but that proved not very easy at all, the bin laden analog was the fakir of waziristan, they searched for him for a quarter century, yet he died in his bed in 1941, it’s not unsurprising this happened, of course any party willing to provide transition forces like the kingdom or the uae is pestered by this administration or worse, see how the latter have supported anti islamists in egypt and libya, whereas the turks and qatar back the other side,
“Is the Biden administration worse than you expected?”
As incredible as it seems, yes.
“Is the Biden administration worse than you expected?”
Faster and harder but the trajectory is as I expected.
The short answer to your question is NO.
But I’m still very disappointed. Did he really have to kill the Keystone pipeline on his first day? It sorta sets the tone for the rest of his time in office.
We know for sure what we’re going to get.
I know, blame Trump!
https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2021/08/15/biden-never-saw-what-hit-him-n1469569
Peter Principle and Dunning-Kreuger enabled by the media. Careerists in the GOPe go along as usual and here we are in another fine mess.
Will the CCP use this to move on Taiwan or to establish more facts on the “ground” in the East China Sea? Will the CCP ratchet up things in Hong Kong? (“It’s all America and the west’s fault for my rice bowl being at risk!”) Easter Island is nice this time of the year, Z?
Or will the Cloth Headed Dummy and Kamalla just continue to focus on the real problem of domestic terrorism (aka ordinary Republicans), or systemic racism, or defunding the police, or the governors of FL and TX, and or the WuFlu? With all those existential problems it’s understandable why they cannot seem to concentrate.
This is what it looks like when the Deep State no longer has to stay hidden and feels unrestrained by the Constitution.
Cloward-Piven going worldwide release.
No. About as expected but I agree that HR-1 has been unusually held up. Thanks to Telemachus. I have followed Diplomad for years but he has been quiet this summer and I worry a bit about his health.
I expected that no matter how bad Biden was, the checks and balances built into our system would keep things from going totally off the rails. I was naive.
What has surprised me is the extent to which they seem to actually believe their own bullshit.
I knew they were lefties, and accordingly addicted to poorly-thought-out feel good stuff to sell themselves to voters. And that they will be ruthless in grabbing and using power.
But so much of what they have done, and are doing, is not only practically idiotic but politically idiotic. They have obviously completely alienated the 40% of the electorate that are deplorable; what surprises me is that they seem hell-bent on alienating the 20 percent or so who are “persuadable”.
Like they don’t even care about it. That’s what worries me, and encourages me at the same time. Either the fix is really in, or they are really that tone-deaf. (Yes, both could be true).
The “bulls***” is to keep the People off balance.
You are “surprised” because you it would appear that you believe the Democratic Party to be a more or less of a normal competitive, if ambitious (nothing wrong with that, though) group of politicians. A few quirks, sure. Maybe some giant quirks, but still, willing to play by the rules (more or less) and still a party that loves its country.
(The reason for this “surprise” is very likely because you are basically a decent, or very decent, person.)
The reason they don’t care about “alienating” voters is the same reason why they ran—confidently ran—Joe Biden in 2020. Not exactly a stellar candidate…but then, it didn’t matter, did it (in fact he “won” a “record number” of voters!!! Now how about that!!)?
As the honorable State AG of PA stated in the days before the November election, Trump was NOT going to win in PA. No matter what. The Honorable gentleman might as well as have mentioned several other states while he was at it but that might have raised a few more eyebrows than he already did raise.
As the Woman Who Would Be President warned Trump in the weeks before the election: Even if you’re ahead on election night, don’t you dare announce victory. No matter what. Don’t you DARE!!! (She’s good at that sort of thing….)
So it didn’t matter then. And it probably won’t matter in 2022 or in 2024 (though the reasons for this may be ones most people on this blog will likely not wish to dare imagine).
And so we arrive at…
“Like they don’t even care about it.”
Precisely! Unfortunately so, but there you have it.
As for “Either the fix is really in, or they are really that tone-deaf”, yes the fix is in, though whether it will be as successful as it was in November remains to be seen.
AND YES, they are tone-deaf because they KNOW they are better and smarter and more able than everyone else. (And besides, they KNOW what’s really best for the country. And the world as well.)
And because they are totally and utterly amoral.
Talking to a mush head relation recently about the Whitmer caper. Took twelve feds to get that up and running. “YES!” she said, with a vindictive tone. IOW, she is ceding the government massive power on the unthought assumption that it will only be used against people she dislikes. And all her highly-advertised morality goes down the tubes when she speaks thus.
Has no clue.
Administration is worse at pro-actively laying ground cover for their ignorance. I expected a better, more thought out communication’s game.
Also, more vindictive than I expected. I expected them to be forcing their moronic policies on us out of a true belief that it would do good, but it feels more to me like children railing against their parents’ rules. “Mom and Dad say I have to get a job! I’ll show them!! I’ll run off with Vic in his VW bug and we’ll go live in Haight-Ashbury!”
It’s very different than Bill Clinton’s term in that regard. No real attempt at a grand, overarching philosophy. This just seems like pure emotion and hate. A boot stomping on my face. Forever.
The Biden administration is worse than I thought. I expected inflation and Covid confusion, but hoped that the deep state would at least remain C students in other respects. Didn’t happen.
He has been about what I expected. So far his vindictive and stupid policies haven’t affected me personally except for the inflation (Which I expected.). That won’t last long. More bad stuff coming. Tax increases, a slow down in economic activity (stagflation), a bear market, more poorly thought out pandemic decrees, and more are headed our way.
Worse?? What do you mean, worse?!?! It’s been SUCH a relief–there hasn’t been a mean tweet in months! I know, some of you may complain that gas prices are up and inflation may be rearing its ugly head, etc but that’s a small price to pay for a those correct pronouns and clearing out so many racists and white supremists in our society! Anyway people can always get a second job or get some extra money from their family or even have their kids beg on the street in their spare time (as long as they wear their masks, of course!)
Pretty much as bad as expected so far, but there’s still YEARS to go before we can even HOPE to get these fuckwits out of office.
But, as others note, we can rest assured, that only the GOP has had to endure any Mean Tweets since Inauguration Day.
I knew he was going to be a horrible president but yes he is even worse than I feared. I cannot imagine even a Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren administration being much worse.