Day 1166 – OMG! Why Are We Still Hearing About This?

Tuesday, July 9, 2024

Do you remember the Whitewater Scandal? The Clinton’s had been in a land deal with a guy. The deal went bust and years later that same fellow did some fraudulent stuff. The Republicans in Congress tried – endlessly – to tie that fellow’s illegal activities to the Clintons. Nevermind that the activities were years apart. This went on and on. Finally, news broke that Bill had an affair with a 21 year old staffer. It turned out he only had a few failed blow jobs, but close enough to go crazy over. And, let’s not forget the only reason he was even in contact with the young lady was due to a government shutdown engineered by the Republicans. I, BTW, doig my civic duty reported the breaking of law by a Republican Senator named Ted who trespassed on government property that was shutdown, stole government property and littered. He and a bunch of soon to be MAGA people took saw horses from a closed National Park and deposited them at the White House in protest over their closing the government.

So then we had to hear endlessly about Monica Lewinsky. It went on all summer. Longer than Debby Boone’s on hit, which was a nice enough song but after hearing it every time you’d turn on the radio. At least Taylor Swift has different songs. Many sound the same, but still.

So why am I bringing this up? Good question. Well back when Monica and Bill’s name were in the news for as long as Debby was lighting up our lives I asked a woman I knew, “why?” I figured she’d know because she was a producer for a major news organization. She explained that when you only have 20 or 30 seconds to do a news item it is easier to add on to an existing story than try and explain in any depth a new story. We already know the players and the basic story so all a news report has to do is introduce updates. You can do that in 20 seconds. Hence the story lasts for way longer than it should.

This is what is now happening with Biden and the question of whether he should stay in the race or not.

A few people in Congress are saying he should step aside. Multiple pundits are reporting this and rehashing his poor performance. The debate was seen by the smallest audience to see a debate in years.

But, it’s an easy story to keep adding on to.

Yesterday, I heard a guy on the radio going on and on about the fact that Biden is old and then suggesting that maybe he should step aside. This took up most of the interview. Near the end he was asked replace Biden with who? Well, he didn’t know and that would have to be worked out by the Democratic party. Blah blah blah.

There’s little reporting of the great job Biden has been doing and is still doing. Maybe he’s too old? Yeah, maybe, but the evidence does not suggest that. He’s led us back from the brinks of disaster after disaster to having the strongest economy in the world today.

Let’s run through a few of his hits:

Covid: When he took office the Trump team refused to give the transition team any clue as to their roll out plan for getting Covid vaccinations out to people. the reason became startling clear as soon as Biden’s folks got in office. There was no plan.

Yet, Biden turned that around and people were getting immunized rapidly. What were Trump’s people doing at that time? Hld rallies saying vaccines were no good.

Afganistan: Trump likes to saywhat a disaster the pullout from Afganistan was. Let’s remember who created the circumstances for that pullout. Trump got the head of the Taliban out of jail, told him exactly when the U.S. was leaving. He even invited the guy to Camp David. Then the week before Biden took office he had the troops in Afganistan reduced to a minimal level. There was no way that any pullout would not be chaos. However, Biden and our troops did a remarkable job of getting many out. What had Trump’s team done? Well, Steven Miller, known racist and conspiracy theorist, had made sure that any of our Afgan interpreters and agents were not given asylum here in the U.S. as they had been promised. He did this throughout the Trump presidency.

Economy: There are lots of ways to look at the economy but by any measure the economy now is so much better than it was under Trump. Trump wanted to put in tariffs. He still wants to do that. He does not understand that tariffs are a tax on the people of this country. We pay for the increased price not the exporters. 

Jobs is another way to look at things. The job growth is way up. Trump was the first president since Hoover to have negative job figures. One can point to Covid as the culprit, and it was. but Covid also drove down the demand for gas and so the price of gas was lower. However, now job growth is up. Gas prices went up for awhile, but then Biden did something really clever. He relaesed gas from the government storage and stopped the price rise. He has been credited with breaking Opec’s stranglehold by doing this. He then bought the gs back when the price was lower making over half a trillion dollars for the government. Talk about art of the deal!

Prices have been going up, but that has now slowed. There seem to be two reasons for the price increases: people have money and many corporations face little competition so they can charge whatever they want. (thank Republican administartions for the latter.) However, the inflation rate has pretty much stabilized. 

the stock markets are at all time highs, causing many to say equities are overvalued, and that the economy will crash. Remember awhile back that’s what all the econonomic pundits were saying? They finally stopped saying it because it didn’t happen. Even Fox Business went so far as to say of Biden’s economic numbers, “if I had those numbers I’d run on it tt.”

Don’t forget the huge crisis at the ports. Covid was coming to what? an end? a dribble? All kinds of goods were waiting to be unloaded. This right after Biden took office. What happened? The huge crisis went away. Why? Biden sent people to fix it, that’s why.

But he’s old. 

Yeah. When I was first working in the factory and I critizied someone the fellow in charge of getting the job done looked at me and said, “What’s your idea?”

He looked at me, waiting to hear my answer He genuinely wanted to know. 

I had nothing.

He softly snorted, closed his eyes briefly, and moved on.

To all those whosay Biden’s too old I ask, “What’s your answer?”

Yeah, I thought so.

You got nothing.

Shut up. Let’s get to work.

Suggestion: Let’s elect someone who knows what they are doing. Has done it, and proven he can do it.

Someone who has done that over and over again,

Who fits that bill?

Yeah, but he’s old. Go to Suggestion.