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XPost: alt.reciprocity

In article <unu9fk$3vnnn$1@dont-email.me>
shitbag jones <shitbag_jones@libidy.con> wrote:

Democrat niggers are stupid criminals.

That nigger Obama is running the country by proxy using Joe
Biden. That is the only way something could be fucked up this
bad.

Especially when it was running so well under President Trump.

"Which way am I going?" asked President Biden when he ended
Thursday's press conference at the NATO summit in Madrid. He
began to exit stage right, before someone redirected him toward
stage left. This combination of ignorance and indecision was not
new. Throughout his 18 months as president, Biden has been
confused, uncertain, sluggish. He behaves as if he is guided by
unseen forces. He moves on a course set by hidden captains.

People notice. Every time I speak to a conservative audience, I
am asked who is really in charge in the White House. My answer
has been that the president is in command. After all,
institutions take on the character of their leaders. If all the
White House has to offer is excuses, if decisions are made
either slowly or randomly, if the communications team and the
president and vice president seem to live on different planets,
if incompetence and mismanagement appear throughout the
government, it is because the chief executive allows it. No
conspiracy is required to explain the ineptitude. This is Joe
Biden we are talking about.

Lately, though, I have been having second thoughts. Not that
Barack Obama or Ron Klain or Dr. Jill are running the show in
secret. What I have been wondering, instead, is whether anyone
is leading the government at all. There is no power, either
overt or covert, in or behind the throne. The throne is empty.

Think of the economy, the border, and Ukraine. From time to
time, Biden addresses these issues. He may even answer questions
about them. The White House sends out press releases describing
its latest initiatives. Vice President Harris or the second
gentleman pops up somewhere to talk about all the good she and
he are doing.

Yet each of these elements—the president, his staff, his
spokesperson, his vice president, his policy—comes across as
disconnected, discombobulated, as if each inhabits a separate
sphere of activity. Whether because of Biden's age, or his
weekend trips to Delaware, or years of remote work, or lower-
level staff turnover, or a painstakingly slow decision-making
process, or ideological stubbornness, or a lack of a strategic
plan, this administration drifts from crisis to crisis, and from
one bad headline to the next. And nothing improves.

The June 29 Reuters/Ipsos poll has Biden's job approval rating
at 38 percent. By far, Americans say the economy, unemployment,
and jobs are the most important problems facing the country.
What is Biden's plan? He blames Vladimir Putin and the energy
industry for high gas prices. He says it's the Federal Reserve's
job to reduce inflation. He asks Middle East autocrats to pump
more oil rather than easing the burden on domestic fossil fuel
production. He wants more spending, more tax hikes, more
regulation. Will Congress give him what he wants? Okay, you can
stop laughing.

The result: America slouches toward stagflation because the alternative—reducing (non-China) tariffs, suspending "Buy
American" provisions, reversing his entire energy policy,
dropping his tax plans, committing to spending cuts—is
unacceptable to the president.

Earlier this week, authorities found at least 50 dead people in
a tractor-trailer on the side of a road in El Paso, Texas. The
victims were illegal immigrants who had paid human traffickers
to bring them to the United States. This ghastly discovery was a
reminder of illegal immigration's human toll, and of the
inadequacy of Biden's migration policies. One reporter asked
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre for her response
to Republican critics. "The fact of the matter is the border is
closed," Jean-Pierre said, "which is in part why you see people
trying to make this dangerous journey using smuggling networks."

Closed? Unauthorized crossings hit another milestone in May,
when Border Patrol encountered some 239,000 individuals. At that
time, however, authorities could expel illegal migrants under
public health regulation Title 42. The status of the Remain in
Mexico program was unclear. Biden, of course, wants to end Title
42, and the Supreme Court ruled on June 30 that he has the
authority to shut down Remain in Mexico. If you think the border
is "closed" now, just wait.

Biden could explain to the nation why it is in our interest to
admit as many asylum-seekers as possible, even if a rise in
illegal entries and in cross-border human and drug trafficking
is the consequence. Or he could admit that his policies are
responsible for a humanitarian disaster and withdraw his earlier
executive orders. Or he could use whatever political capital he
has left to pass an immigration reform bill that combines legal
pathways to entry with workplace enforcement. But he won't do
anything. Why? Because he is either satisfied with the situation
or simply overwhelmed by it. Neither option is reassuring. And
the problem grows worse.

Where Biden is most engaged is Ukraine. He warned against the
invasion, rallied NATO against Russia, encouraged Sweden and
Finland to join the Western alliance, and committed America to
supply Ukraine with aid and weapons. "The generic point is that
we're supplying them with the capacity—and the overwhelming
courage they've demonstrated—that, in fact, they can continue to
resist the Russian aggression," Biden told reporters Thursday.
"And so, I don't know what—how it's going to end, but it will
not end with a Russian defeat of Ukraine in Ukraine."

Shouldn't the leader of the Free World have some idea of how
this brutal conflict might end? The war has taken a horrible
human toll. Its effects on energy and food markets have been
devastating. The goal should be to end the war.

How? Not by giving Putin what he wants. By giving Ukraine what
it needs to push Russia back to the pre-war line of control. A
Russia on defense is more likely to sue for peace.

Biden makes this prospect more difficult by limiting the systems
we provide to Ukraine, by dribbling them out over time, and by
insisting that we won't provide Ukraine with weapons that could
strike targets inside Russia. From the start of the war, Biden
has been more interested in signaling to Russia what he won't do
than in causing Putin to fear what he might do. His self-
constraint extends the fighting rather than shortens it and
provides Russia the space for its slow roll through eastern and
southern Ukraine. The war has become another disaster that Biden
allows to play out in the background, in between bike rides and
scoops of ice cream from Starkey's.

American aid to Ukraine is just and necessary. Since 1947, the
policy of the United States has been to "support free peoples
who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or
by outside pressures." But Biden won't be able to sustain the
domestic support for American involvement in a years-long war of
attrition. He needs to match his actions with his words and drop
his inhibitions on the aid we provide the Ukrainians. And he
could do so while launching a peace initiative, thereby
restoring coercive diplomacy as a tool of American foreign
policy.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda. Decisive leadership is not Joe Biden's
calling card. And so, the crises continue to mount. And
Americans are left with feelings of aimlessness and fear.

Published under: Biden Administration, Feature, Joe Biden

https://freebeacon.com/columns/whos-in-charge/

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