Now, China

At the last presidential debate in 2012, President Barack Obama actually stated

Gov. Romney, I'm glad that you recognize that al-Qaida is a threat, because a few months ago when you were asked what's the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia, not al-Qaida. You said Russia ... the 1980s, they're now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War's been over for 20 years.

Barack Obama is no fool, was no fool, and got elected. The fools were those of us who defended Obama's remark, who didn't realize that when he stated "you know, the Cold War's been over for 20 years," he was being either disingenuous or dangerously wrong.

When the in 1989 the KGB compound in Dresden, Germany was in danger of being overrun, lieutenant colonel Vladimir Putin

felt he was watching one of the largest and most powerful empires the world had ever seen unravel in the most pathetic and humiliating way. “I had the feeling that the country was no more,” he recalled later in a series of interviews published in 2000. “It had disappeared."

On the verge of becoming President of Russia in 1999, Putin warned

For the first time in the past 200–300 years, Russia faces the real danger that it could be relegated to the second, or even the third tier of global powers.. He called on Russians to unite to make sure that the country remained what he called a “first-tier” nation.

Now that President Trump, as Dana Milbank noted in December, "is handing Moscow the Cold War victory it could never win," it is clear that President Obama was either conned by the Russians or conned the American people. He made a major error which President Trump (intentionally or not) is exacerbating. And if we're not careful as a nation, we are likely to make a similar mistake with another world power: mainland China.

Earlier this month, the Washington Post's Philip Bump addressed the massive increase in military spending undertaken by the (Communist) regime in mainland China, as well as the massive Belt and Road initiative, undertaken to position the nation as a global power, and not only an economic one.

From its own perspective, human rights activist Amnesty International earlier this year began

mobilizing its two million members and supporters behind two key pieces of human rights legislation — S. 178, the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act of 2019, and the UIGHUR Act. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and 20 other Senators introduced the Act of 2019. The UIGHUR Act of 2018 (H.R.7384) was initiated by Congressman Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) and four other legislators. Up to one million Uighurs and other ethnic minorities are being arbitrarily detained in so-called “re-education camps” –an affront to international human rights law. The new Congress needs to assert its leadership on this key human rights issue and swiftly pass legislation without haste.

The organization became another victim of the totalitarian regime as

Amnesty International was excited to move to a new headquarters location in New York. Today, however we were notified that a Chinese SoE had purchased the building and unfortunately due to our work on human rights in China can no longer move there. Bc of our work on human rights in China.

Negotiating a trade deal, President Trump has said nothing about human rights abuses in China, the police state in which surveillance of residents is significantly expanding and Uighurs continue to be herded into concentration camps. That's of little discomfort to America's would-be authoritarian. Matt Stoller finds

it’s weird to watch him pose as the defender of liberal internationalism against the Chinese. It’s even weirder that he’s kind of right. We can do better than let Trump claim this mantle....I’m also personally frightened by the many Dem candidates who don’t see the threat or actively dismiss it. The amount of Chinese $$$ in DC and Western politics is astoundingly large.

It's a little bit like 2012 all over again. Many "coastal Democrats," Stoller recognizes, see the Chinese as merely "a peaceful trading partner" while the party's presidential field is led by the man who served under President Obama and says the (mainland) Chinese are "not bad folks, folks." Through an extraordinary sequence of events, Russia has gained, at least temporarily, the upper hand on the USA. Increasingly, it appears that Communist China also is doing so.

Share |

Water

A couple of weeks ago, the word from Washington, D.C. was that Democratic congressional leadership and President Trump had agreed that spending $2 trillion on infrastructure was a swell idea.

Obviously, this was irrelevant because because a) which aspects of infrastructure would be addressed would need to be determined; b) the emphasis could be on aiding the public, as Democrats would prefer, or private profitability, as Trump would prefer; c) Trump agrees to whatever works for him at that moment, which is subject to change within minutes; and d) no one had asked the opinionof Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who promptly nixed the idea. 

Inaction is particularly tragic for the communities in which drinking the water might be considered "cruel and unusual punishment" if imposed on an individual on death row. One location is Lovely in Appalachia's Martin County, in which the drinking water is so severely compromised  that the "Kentucky House recently passed a resolution asking Gov. Matt Bevin (R) to declare a state of emergency and free up resources to fix the dilapidated system." The danger is not limited to Appalachia or to urban towns such as Flint, Michigan, however, as

The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the nation’s drinking-water system a D grade in its quadrennial report card. The network of more than 1 million miles of pipes includes many that are a century old and have a 75-year life expectancy. Across the country, 14 percent of treated water is lost through leaks, and here in Martin County, that figure has at times reached more than 70 percent. The American Water Works Association estimates that it will take $1 trillion to support demand over the next 25 years; in Martin County, repairs carry a price tag exceeding $10 million.

The link between lead exposure and crime has been well-documented by Kevin Drum who in a 2012 magazine article noted

atmospheric lead from gasoline tailpipes rose steadily after World War II, affecting babies born in the late 40s and beyond. The leading edge of this generation became teenagers in the late 60s and was more prone than previous generations to committing violent crime. Every year the population of teenagers with lead poisoning increased, and violent crime increased with it. This is why the 70s and 80s were eras in which crime skyrocketed.

In the early 70s the United States began to phase out leaded gasoline and newborns became steadily less lead poisoned. Like clockwork, as the leading edge of this generation became teenagers in the early 90s, the crime wave started to recede. By 2010, an entire generation of teenagers and young adults—the age group responsible for most crime—had grown up nearly lead free, and the violent crime rate had plummeted to half or less of its high point. This happened across the board: in big and small cities; among blacks and whites; in every state; in every city; and, as it turns out, in every other country that also phased out leaded gasoline.

It’s important to emphasize that the lead-crime hypothesis doesn’t claim that lead is solely responsible for crime. It primarily explains only one thing: the huge rise in crime of the 70s and 80s and the equally huge—and completely unexpected—decline in crime of the 90s and aughts.

As Drum reviews, there has been additional supporting evidence since then. Though the continued exposure to lead among children is especially troubling, it turns out that adults are not immune.  Now a 2018 study has

found that each year, as many as 412,000 American adults face a greater risk of dying from cardiovascular diseases because they were exposed to elevated levels of lead during their lifetimes. That’s 10 times more than previously thought, and comparable to the risk level from smoking, which kills more than 480,000 Americans a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study by Dr. Bruce Lanphear, a professor of health sciences at Simon Fraser University, and his colleagues was published this week in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet. The researchers reviewed death certificates for more than 14,000 people tested for lead exposure between 1988 and 1994. They found that after roughly 20 years, people with the highest levels of lead in their blood were 70 percent more likely to have died of cardiovascular disease, and twice as likely to have died of ischaemic heart disease, than their peers with lower lead levels. 

That suggests that – just as for children – there is “no apparent safe level” of lead exposure for adults, Lanphear said in an interview with The Guardian. He called the findings “troubling” but also “hopeful,” because they represent an opportunity to lower deaths from heart disease by reducing lead exposure of adults.

Of course, this story is very unlikely to have a happy ending.  It does not have the immediacy, the shock value, or the implications to national security of, for instance, nearly 3,000 Americans being murdered in attacks on September 11, 2001.   Nor does it grab the attention even of the (now nearly routine) episodes of mass shootings in American schools, which has resulted in exactly one (1) piece of national gun safety legislation, a ban onbump stocks.

By contrast, the impact of lead upon the human body is insidious, slow-acting, and difficult to dramatize, rendering unlikely a major investment in its removal. However, when in some future year there is a major effort to improve the nation's infrastructure, officials should speak to public officials and residents in places such as Martin County, Kentucky and Flint, Michigan. And Chicago. And Detroit. And Baltimore. And Milwaukee. And Newark, NJ.

*********************************************************************************

This blog will be on (short) hiatus through Saturday, May 11. Please return late on the following day, and often.

Share |

Trumpian Characteristics

On May 5

Palestinian American congresswoman Rashida Tlaib criticized The New York Times for a headline on a story about the recent violence on the Israel-Gaza border, saying it promotes a “lack of responsibility on Israel.”

The headline read “Gaza Militants Fire 250 Rockets, and Israel Responds with Airstrikes.”

“When will the world stop dehumanizing our Palestinian people who just want to be free?” the Michigan Democrat wrote on Twitter. “Headlines like this & framing it in this way just feeds into the continued lack of responsibility on Israel who unjustly oppress & target Palestinian children and families. #FreePalestine”

The headline was objective, accurate, and fair, but was only the catalyst for Tlaib's beef against the only democratic state in the Middle East. Tlaib aimed to emphasis the "lack of responsibility on Israel" (on Israel's part?) and refers to Israel as "who unjustly oppress & target Palestinian children and families."

I'll assume that Tlaib was referring to the governments of Israel rather than to its people, though she refers not to "Israel, which unjustly" but instead to "Israel, who unjustly." It may be a simple error of syntax on the part of someone angry and careless rather than an attack upon Jews generally.  A different view, one more grounded in reality, suggests that accusing Israel, rather than Hamas, as irresponsible ignores the reality that

Each new attack on Israeli communities forces Israel to adopt more restrictive measures on imports to Gaza to prevent the illicit transfer of goods that could be used to build and expand the militants’ arsenals. The international community donated funds for reconstruction of homes, but Hamas diverted these supplies to build the infrastructure for war instead of schools and hospitals.

Examples abound. Cement for building homes, schools and hospitals was diverted to build and reinforce tunnels under the boundary between Gaza and Israel that terrorist groups use to carry out attacks. When concrete was limited, wooden pallets were used instead. Pipes were used to manufacture rockets instead of improving the water distribution systems. Chemicals for bottling and canning were diverted to create rocket fuel. Electrodes for rockets were reportedly smuggled in butter containers and concealed in shipments of marble slabs.

Perspectives on the competing responsibilities of Tel Aviv and Hamas can legitimately vary.  Not so the assertion that "Israel target(s) Palestinian children and families," a lie unbecoming anyone not named "T-r-u-m-p."  Responding to a more typical Israeli attack

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday fiercely denounced Israel for the bombing of a building housing Turkey’s state news agency Anadolu in Gaza.

The bombing came amid heavy fighting on Saturday, as Gazan terrorists fired over 250 rockets at Israel and Jerusalem responded with airstrikes on the Strip....

Anadolu reported that the building collapsed after being hit. The IDF said the eight-story building was used by the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups to conduct terrorist activities.

Staff were evacuated shortly before the strike which was preceded by a warning shot, the agency said, adding that none of its journalists had been hurt.

"Preceded by a warning shot."  Before a cease-fire was reached, the Israeli military had reportedly killed "at least" 25 Palestinians in its attack, which would be extraordinary malpractice were women and children targeted. However, it is not surprising that Tlaib, a sworn opponent of the President, nonetheless would mimic Trump's habit of psychological projection, attributing to her enemy- Israel- a characteristic of her ally, Hamas.

And the congresswoman has made clear her opinion of Israel and her propensity to lie about it. Prior to Tlaib's victory in August in the Michigan Democratic primary, her candidate page on the website of J Street (the dovish, pro-Israel group which had endorsed her) assured potential donors that she

believes that the U.S. should be directly involved with negotiations to reach a two-state solution. Additionally, she supports all current aid to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, particularly to fund initiatives that ‘foster peace, as well as economic and humanitarian services.’ Tlaib does not support the expansion of settlements and believes that they make it difficult to reach a sustainable two-state solution.

In a post-election interview, however, she reversed course, stating

One state. It has to be one state. Separate but equal does not work. I’m only 42-years old but my teachers were of that generation that marched with Martin Luther King. This whole idea of a two-state solution, it doesn’t work.

She added

Americans should not be aiding any country that doesn’t support human rights. I’ve been very clear. I will not support racist countries that pick and choose who gets access to justice.

Tlaib has to get out more often. Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews are not fighting because of their racial composition- whatever that may be- but because of competing historical claims to the same land.   Even though fostering bigotry while spreading falsehoods and misrepresenting one's own position is far more the brand of the President, Tlaib's practice has the potential to harm the Democratic Party considerably if it is not curbed.

Share |

Obama-Biden

Conventional wisdom holds that the Democratic base is increasingly moving left but the country is hankering for a centrist alternative to Donald Trump. Therefore, it is surmised, it will be much more difficult for Joe Biden to get his party's nomination than for him if nominated to beat the incumbent.

However, Steve M has noted that Biden's support is strongest among black voters, perhaps particularly those of the female variety, and specifically in South Carolina. Yet

If mainstream journalists settle on a story they like about Biden -- that he's Hillary 2.0 -- it could stick. By the time we're ready for the general election, he may have secured the nomination but lost a lot of goodwill, just like Clinton, in large part because the mainstream media will have portrayed him as yesterday's man. The MSM might also pounce on pseudo-scandals ginned up by the GOP, like the recent stories about Biden and his son and their dealings with Ukraine.

The worst-case scenario is that press coverage sours much of the country on Biden but leaves him popular enough to secure the nomination. That actually could make him Hillary 2.0.

Nonetheless, the GOP's predominant campaign theme for a Trump-Biden matchup will center on the period of 2009-2106. You will remember David Bossie less as Donald Trump's 2016 deputy campaign manager than for the US Supreme Court's notorious Citizens United case, named after the political advocacy group Bossie heads and which tragically brought the successful suit against the Federal Elections Commission.

In an opinion piece published shortly after Joe Biden declared his presidential candidacy, Bossie laid out the blueprint for a Trump campaign against the former vice-president if the latter were to receive the Democratic nomination. He writes

The first thing you might remember about Biden’s record as Obama’s vice president is his description of the signing into law of ObamaCare as a “big f------ deal.”

Biden, one of the prime supporters of the disaster that was disingenuously marketed as the Affordable Care Act, must answer for the lies told by the Obama team to sell the plan to the American people.

Infamous Obama lines such as “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” or “if you like the plan you have, you can keep it” – as well as the law’s central failure to control health care costs – all now fall squarely into Biden’s lap.

Nearly a decade later, our health care system is more expensive and less accessible. The left’s recent embrace of a policy that will end Medicare as we know it – or create “Medicare-for-all” as they spin it – is proof positive that ObamaCare was fatally flawed from the outset and it cannot be fixed.

One of the Obama-Biden administration’s top foreign policy objectives was known as the “Russia Reset.” The naïve Obama White House said in a fact sheet that the reset “sought to engage the Russian government to pursue foreign policy goals of common interest – win-win outcomes – for the American and Russian people.”

This wrongheaded policy, which President Obama said would give him “more flexibility,” enabled Russian President Vladimir Putin to lure the Obama-Biden team into a false sense of progress as the Russians meddled in our 2016 presidential election.

Unable to admit that their Russia policy was an abject failure at such a critical time, Obama and Biden chose to ignore Russia’s interference in our election instead of doing something to stop it.

The mainstream media cannot allow Biden to rewrite history when it comes to the Obama administration’s cozy Russia policy.

Pushing the pseudo-scandal Steve M cited, Bossie briefly interrupts his message to argue

Biden must also be investigated fully over his alleged actions in Ukraine on behalf of his son Hunter and the investigation into Burisma Holdings, a company with a board of directors that included the younger Biden as a member. The excited cheerleaders in the liberal media must do the right thing and demand answers.

Nonetheless, lest we think that Trump's major thrust will be to portray (with scandal-mongering) Biden as another Hillary Clinton, Bossie continues

On the all-important issue of fighting for the American worker and manufacturing jobs, let’s remember that the position of the Obama-Biden administration on lost manufacturing jobs was – as Obama put it – that “some of those jobs of the past are just not going come back.”

That destructive attitude, along with an outrageous regulatory regime, caused a net loss of nearly 200,000 manufacturing jobs as a result of the lack of leadership of Obama and Biden.

Since President Trump took office, 453,000 manufacturing jobs have been created in just two years as a result of his can-do spirit, his Make America Great Again optimism, and his pro-growth economic policies.

In 2016 President Obama asked then-candidate Trump “what magic wand do you have” when it comes to bringing back manufacturing jobs? This showed Obama and Biden had no answers then on how to create new jobs – and nothing has changed since.

The failed Obama-Biden mindset of “you didn’t build that” – so critical of America’s entrepreneurial spirit – must never be forgotten.

Another horribly misguided Obama-Biden foreign policy decision was their 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. The deal was supposed to keep Iran from becoming a nuclear power for at least a few years.

In a dangerous push to concoct some sort of liberal foreign policy legacy – and after mislabeling ISIS the “JV team” – Obama and Biden gave up the store on a deal that put an exclamation point on their failed eight-year policy of apologizing for America around the world....

You can’t finish an analysis of Biden’s record as Obama’s vice president without asking this all-important question: When it comes to the Obama administration’s efforts to try to stop Donald Trump from being elected president, what did Biden know and when did he know it?

Biden received daily intelligence briefings as vice president. Now that he has made himself a public figure again, he needs to answer for the fake Russian dossier and tell the American people why ex-British spy Christopher Steele was given carte blanche to peddle his lies throughout the highest levels of the Obama-Biden administration.

The American people deserve to know the truth about the fraudulent Russia collusion narrative that was perpetrated on them for two years – and what senior officials in the Obama administration were responsible for it.

Let’s face the fact that an enormous percentage of center-right voters in our country think the Obama-Biden administration was a total failure

In all, Bossie uses the word "Obama" or "Obama's" twenty-six (26) times, including seven times as "Obama-Biden."  

Bossie's criticism of President Obama is dishonest and largely bogus, and a Vice-President wields next to no power, anyway. However, Trump's attacks on Obama were invalid also in 2016 and didn't prevent voters (albeit a minority) from deciding that the previous eight years were no picnic, a perception very effectively exploited by the Republican nominee.

Nonetheless, Democratic voters (especially blacks) are Democratic voters, and Biden realizes that firmly attaching himself to Barack Obama's hip is his most likely (and probably only) path to the Democratic nomination. Potentially deadly in a general election, that connection is critical in a Democratic primary. Steve M more than once has linked to a tweet from a Democratic strategist who reported in March from his focus group among black women likely to vote in the South Carolina primary

Now we’re on to Biden. One woman says it’s the closest we can get to a 3rd term for Obama w/o electing Michelle. Lots of chuckles but also lots of heads nodding in agreement. Another says she would vote for him today but isn’t sure if he’s too “old” or “sloppy” to take on Trump.

— Danny Barefoot (@dannybarefoot) March 5, 2019

The irony is that the same argument- that he can restore some of the Obama luster- which might yield a Biden nomination would present a huge obstacle to victory in November 2020.

Share |

In The Atlantic in mid-April, Edward-Isaac Dovere wrote "Aides say that (Vermont Senator Bernie) Sanders is envisioning himself in the Oval Office, which has been guiding his decisions on both campaign operations and policy positions."

That continued with responses to two questions (beginning at 10:52 of the video below) asked of the Vermont senator on Sunday's "This Week" on ABC.

When Jonathan Karl asked "Cory Booker says he will name a woman as his running mate, will you make the same pledge?" Sanders sensibly responded "I would give very serious consideration to that." Karl immediately followed with "person of color?" and Sanders replied "I think it's premature. It would be silly to make that statement right now."

Of course it would, as understood by anyone who believes he has a serious chance to be the Democratic presidential nominee.

By contrast, at the recent "She The People" presidential forum in Houston, Booker promised "I will have a woman running mate. To me it’s really clear that we do that.” The previous day, Representative Eric Swalwell had stated "I’ve pledged that I would ask a woman to serve as Vice President."

It's easy for them to say. Booker is a dark horse candidate, and Swalwell is no more likely to be nominated than, say, the guy or gal behind you at the supermarket checkout lane. Additionally, such a preposterous promise is a safe one to make for both individuals, given that Swalwell hails from a liberal district in California and Senator Booker from New Jersey, where being a Democrat is an increasingly distinct electoral advantage.

But Sanders is one of the two leading candidates for the presidential nomination.  No doubt it has not escaped his attention that Donald Trump, the surprise winner in the last election, did not choose as his running mate someone based on gender, race, or religion.

When in July, 2016 candidate Trump was about to select Mike Pence as his running mate, Chris Cillizza presciently lauded the choice because, he noted, Trump needed the Koch brothers, the industrial midwest, and "message discipline," as well as "to reassure the GOP establishment" and "social conservatives."

Even Pence's popularity in the Christian right community did not turn on the particular Christian denomination to which he belongs. Rather, it derived from his support of forced-birth, opposition to same-sex marriage, and dedication to "religious liberty," the euphemistic term for permitting discrimination on the basis of claimed religious belief. (It is not apparent what church, if any, Pence attends and he describes himself as an "evangelical Catholic." If you don't know what that is, you're not alone.)

The overwhelming support for the GOP nominee among self-identified (white) evangelicals very likely was determinative in the presidential election, and probably would not have come about without Pence on the ticket. Pence got the nod because it was believed that the Indiana governor and former GOP congressman improved Trump's opportunity to be elected.

And so we have Bernie Sanders properly refusing to commit himself to selecting as a running mate either a woman or a "person of color,"  preferring to wait to determine how best to get to 270. As Dovere found, he's in it to win it. He may not, but at least he didn't make the stupid promise two other Democrats have.

.

Share |

A President Begging To Be Taken Seriously

With all due respect to an arguably incomparable writer, Charlie Pierce is wrong:

This is, of course, insane. https://t.co/GJ5kTuG6RV

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) May 4, 2019

Oh, no, it's not insane at all.  It is a warning.

Last November 18, Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday" had a revealing exchange with President Trump:

WALLACE: Can you envision a situation, you talk about six more years. Can you envision a situation well into your second term where you think that you’re so good for the country and so essential for the progress of the country that you would try to amend the Constitution so you could serve a third term?

TRUMP: No, no.

WALLACE: Why not?

TRUMP: Just won’t happen, it’s not – I think the eight year limit is a good thing, not a bad thing

Of course President Trump wouldn't try to amend the Constitution. That would represent a legitimate effort to achieve desired results in a manner prescribed by the Constitution itself. However, not only did Trump not merely turn thumbs down (for whatever it's worth at two years out) on a constitutional amendment, he endorsed an eight year limit.  In old math or new, that would be 32 years.

That might not have been a slip of the tongue.  Matt Lewis, who picked up on the eight term limit, noted that when China's Xi Jinping became dictator for life, Trump gushed "And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll give that a shot someday.”

Lewis recognized "This was shtick, but humor can be a safe way to launch a trial balloon—or to inject an idea into the public sphere." The President, however, was not done, for on April 18 he

joked about serving more than two terms as president, telling a crowd that he might remain in the Oval Office “at least for 10 or 14 years.”

Trump made the comments on the same day that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report was released to the public.

At an event for the Wounded Warrior Project, Lt. Gen. Michael S. Linnington, chief executive of the veterans charity, gave Trump a trophy to thank him for his support.

“Well, this is really beautiful,” Trump told the crowd in the East Room of the White House. “This will find a permanent place, at least for six years, in the Oval Office. Is that okay?”

After some laughter from the crowd, Trump continued: “I was going to joke, General, and say at least for 10 or 14 years, but we would cause bedlam if I said that, so we’ll say six.”

Trump also made a joke on the same topic last year. In a speech to Republican donors at his Mar-a-Lago estate, he praised Chinese President Xi Jinping for doing away with term limits.

“He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great,” Trump said, according to CNN. “And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.”

Assuming President Trump was "joking" is foolish.  As Lewis had speculated about the praise for Xi Jinping, the President may well have been trying to shift the Overton Window or floating a proposal to see how it would fly.

Support for the latter intention is suggested by Trump's remark of six days earlier when he had stated

We’ve cut more regulations in a year and a quarter than any administration, whether it’s four years, eight years or, in one case, 16 years. Should we go back to 16 years? Congressman, can we have that extended? The last time I jokingly said that, the papers started saying 'he's got despotic tendencies!' No, I'm not looking to do it, unless you want to do it.

"Unless you want to do it." It's a leader asking to be asked, directly or indirectly, so that he has to take no responsibility for remaining in power.  It's what you wanted.  You begged for it.

That's no joke, and that's not insanity. It's someone getting increasingly more outrageous and paying no penalty while planning to consolidate power in a second term and realizing that omnipotence may be just one election away.

Share |

Consistently Accommodating

To be fair, perhaps to bend over backwards, Joe Biden may be merely an accommodationist.

As nominee for re-election as vice-president, Biden maintained "Dick Cheney has been the most dangerous Vice President probably in American History." In 2015, explaining that he and his wife were hosted by Vice President Cheney and his wife at the official residence after the 2008 presidential election, Biden stated "first of all, I like Dick Cheney for real. I get on with him. I think he is a decent man."

In the 1995 Senate debate over the Republican Balanced Budget Amendment after its passage in the House, the Delawarean maintained "When I argued that we should freeze federal spending, I meant Social Security as well. I meant Medicare and Medicaid. I meant veterans' benefits. I meant every single solitary thing in the government."

Then Biden joined 13 other Democrats (out of 47) and all but one of the chamber's 53 Republicans in voting for this monstrosity, which fell one vote short of passage.

Biden never has acknowledged this serious error in judgement and as recently as last December (as he was seriously contemplating becoming a presidential candidate) he contended that Social Security "still needs adjustments"- shorthand for reduction in benefits.

Perhaps Biden simply has always wanted to align his views with President Obama- who was thwarted by Tea Party Republicans in his effort to cut the program as part of the Grand Bargain- centrists, hedge fund managers, and Beltway pundits who have advocated curbing benefits in a misleading effort to reduce the budget deficit.

If so, though, it's a disturbing tendency, arguably character trait, which has continued even to this past Wednesday, when the former vice-president

dismissed the notion that the United States should be worried about China as a geopolitical competitor, prompting criticism from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) as well as some Republicans who argued that Biden is underestimating the world’s second-largest economy.

The argument is one Biden has frequently made in speeches throughout the years, but it is drawing increased attention due to his status as the apparent front-runner among Democrats running for president.

At a campaign stop in Iowa City, Biden pointed to his years serving as vice president and as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, telling the crowd that there’s not a “single solitary” world leader who would trade the problems the United States faces for those confronting China.

“China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man,” said Biden, who last week announced his bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

He argued that Beijing has its hands full dealing with its own domestic and regional problems, such as tensions in the South China Sea — which Biden called the “China Sea” — and the “mountains ... in the west.” It was not clear to what mountains or issue Biden was referring.

“They can’t figure out how they’re going to deal with the corruption that exists within the system,” Biden said of China. “I mean, you know, they’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what? They’re not competition for us.”

"They're not competition for us" is so inaccurate that it could count as a lie.  Oppression of the Turkic-speaking, ethnic Ulghurs in Xinjiang province has been going on for decades.  Moreover

In the past few years, China has conducted a sweeping campaign to suppress Uighur identity and restrict the practice of Islam. As many as 1 million Uighurs and members of other minority groups — mostly Muslim ones — are being held without charges in brutal internment camps, according to the United Nations. It is just the latest episode in a decades-long history of tension between Uighurs and the staunchly secular, Han Chinese-dominated government in Beijing....

After months of denying the camps existed, China switched last year to justifying them. Beijing insists it is merely providing job training and “de-extremism education” in a region that is poor and steeped in fundamentalism. “As a result of the vocational education and training, the social environment of Xinjiang has seen notable changes, with a healthy atmosphere on the rise and improper practices declining,” said Shohrat Zakir, the de facto No. 2 official in Xinjiang, in October.

Surely we can believe that official because, as former vice president Biden assures us, "they're not bad folks, folks." However, the BBC has reported "Former prisoners told us of physical as well as psychological torture in the camps. Entire families had disappeared, and we were told detainees were tortured physically and mentally. We also saw evidence of almost a complete surveillance state in Xinjiang."

The former Vice President characterizes this gang in Beijing as "not bad" and admittedly, neither the West nor theIslamic world has shown much interest, the latter bunch demonstrating that it's not only Jews it wants to see disappeared.

It's not only the now-infamous ambivalence about school desegregation in the mid-1970s;, the notorious (among Democrats) 1994 crime bill; caving to GOP senators by paving the way to make Clarence Thomas an Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court; authorization in 2002 of the Iraq War for President GW Bush, and unapologetically siding with credit card companies against consumers in the 2005 bankruptcy bill. Biden praised Dick Cheney in 2015; diplomatically suggested slicing Social Security in 2018; defended "500 billionaires" last month; whitewashed the mainland Chinese on May 1, 2018.  Whether of accommodation or otherwise, there is a pattern here, and as Joe Biden himself would put it, "it's not pretty, folks."

Share |