Tonight a couple of news items came across the wire about Ukraine.
First, President Biden said he cannot get American citizens out of Ukraine. I guess he is still working on getting them out of Afghanistan.
Remember during Afghanistan when Biden sent drones to kill terrorists and they turned out to be innocent civilians? That wasn’t about military strategy, it was about political spin and image. Of course, the mainstream media said it was killing terrorists to make Joe look tough since he fumbled the ball so badly.
In Biden’s most recent press conference, he practically invited Putin to enter and take over Ukraine. You know, just a little bit. My friend Craig has a nice write-up on it here. By the way, Biden has had 10 scripted press conferences. Trump had more than double plus all the unscripted ones when he was getting on and off planes.
Yesterday Biden sent a similarly equivocal signal to Putin on Ukraine, insinuating that Russia had Biden’s blessing to invade Ukraine. As long as the invasion isn’t too big! Whatever that means. The administration then attempted to clean up this shocking statement by saying that any incursion would bring a strong US response. (Cleaning up after Biden is akin to cleaning up after a Barnum and Bailey Circus parade.)
There are war hawks in the US who want to confront Russia militarily if Putin does cross the border, bigly or otherwise–as Biden arguably just invited him to do. This is absolutely insane.
Biden’s presidency is unequivocally one of the worst in US history so far.
At the left-wing statistics blog, 538, they show his approval at 42.8%. On mainstream left-wing news, I hear that number and I hear the Quinnipiac poll numbers on right-wing media. The Quinnipiac poll is decidedly left-biased and showed the number at 33%.
Other polls show that even Trump could beat Biden if an election were held today. If we had a Prime Minister type government system, no doubt elections would be called and we would toss the rascals out.
Democrats aren’t stupid like Republicans. That’s why they aimed to kill the filibuster and federalize elections. They wanted to codify cheating by eliminating voter protection like voter ID. Lately, people are finding the Republican message a lot better than the Democratic one, despite the efforts of the press to spin it.
As David Burge pointed out on Twitter years ago
Before the election, the mainstream press was mum about the Biden grifting operation and they are carrying water for him now.
This whole Ukraine thing isn’t about freedom for the Ukrainian people. Heck, the government there is as corrupt as the city of Chicago. Biden’s kid Hunter grifted millions of dollars out of Ukraine. This thing might be about that. I wonder if the 10% payment for the “big guy” has cleared yet.
Biden’s handlers looked at historical poll numbers. Presidents tend to poll higher and have more favorable ratings in times of war. They think America will rally around Biden if they commit troops to “free” Ukraine.
Remember, Ukraine has no strategic purpose for America. Not militarily and certainly not for business. If anyone had anything to worry about it’s Poland and I don’t see them worrying too much. America cannot be the policeman for the world. Didn’t we learn that the last 20 years? Bush and the neo-cons used 9/11 to fight a war that shouldn’t have been fought. It pains me to write it, but Hans Blix was mostly correct.
Nope, this whole thing is about polls and popularity. The stock market will take a bath if we commit troops. Crude oil will shoot higher and higher in price hurting Americans at the gas pump.
No one likes war. Sometimes, they are worth fighting. I am sure that Biden’s handlers want a war to use as an excuse to demand even more government spending which will exacerbate inflation since they failed on Build Back Better. Glad they failed since it wouldn’t have done anything except take America deeper into debt which it cannot afford.
What’s funny is President Trump was supposed to be a grifter and a warmonger. Yet, no one can prove he grifted any money out of Russia. The Russian dossier is a fallacy. Trump scaled us back in Afghanistan. In a second term, he would have done a better job than Biden at getting us out. It turns out, Biden is the grifter in both China and Ukraine! Now he wants a war too.
Be prepared for a sob story speech about his son who was in the military and that we have to defend freedom. Biden/Harris can’t even defend our southern border.
Biden was supposed to beat Covid. Instead, he is screwing it up. Mask mandates persist in Democratic-run states and many Democratic-run places ask people to “show their papers” in order to patronize a private business.
Kids are being forced to wear masks at schools, and it is crushing them and their parents. Masks don’t work to stop the spread of Covid of course. But, illogical mask mandates persist. My friend Nicole tweeted this. The responses are misogynistic.
The vaccine doesn’t work either. How many people do you know that were triple vaccinated that got Covid? I read Alex Berenson’s book Pandemia and it made my blood boil.
China is in the game too. It’s easier to make a case to defend Taiwan than Ukraine.
Biden is clueless. So are the people that work for him.
Bari Weiss says what I think most Americans are thinking starting at 1:27 of this video. She sees herself as a center-left person. I can see through her writing she is starting to wrestle with her long-held beliefs. I don’t think she would have said what she said here five or ten years ago. The rest of the people on the panel are not centrists, they are unapologetically left-wing. But, even Bill Maher thinks Biden is a chump.
More people will think Biden is a chump if he sends troops to Ukraine. He shouldn’t and as a citizen of America, you shouldn’t stand for it either.
When Trump was elected my wife lamented that he was going to start a war. She didn't trust him because he didn't have enough experience. I felt Trump was the least likely president to start a war for that reason, lack of foreign policy expertise, that was a good thing, and he turned out to be the type of person who didn't jump to action, he was content to merely talk too much.
Hard to contemplate what the Biden people are thinking about. Any war will not be a "rally around the flag" moment, we are past that, and for a nation that is stressed out and exhausted from two years of Covid mismanagement, a war would be like trying to cure insomnia with amphetamines. We are already set up for bad times, inflation is here and we have a federal reserve that may not have the will to deal with it. Supply chain issues, incompetent bureaucrats. Throw a war on top of all that and we may end up living through the worst time since the Civil War. I think the Democrats know this, and that's the scary part. When people know they are going to lose they often get careless.
Jeff, back in 2021 (early?) you posted a pre-substack blog and within made the bold/clear statement "the vaccines work." Yet in this substack post you clearly just stated (cut/paste) "The vaccine doesn't work either." Not calling you a hypocrite, but curious what changed your mind? BTW, I'm a regular reader of your blogs, and I believe you are one of the few who see the broad picture and "get it". As a lifelong Chicago (area) guy, I can relate to your comments about how things are/work here, but thankfully for me living in the suburbs offers a little bit of protection. Anyway, back to the original question: What changed your views about the vaccines? Thx.