President Joe Biden

[perrykneeham]

This is a rum old business. The Defense Secretary has surgery and is further hospitalised and nobody knows he's off sick?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67905060

Also, "I commit to doing better." What an awful expression. I do hope it doesn't gain currency here, no matter how much Van should engage with the concept.

[flatandy]

It's pretty terrible on all fronts. What were the rest of his staff doing? Were they unaware or could they not be arsed to tell the Prez? Either way, not good.

The weird thing about Biden and his administration is that I feel deeply embarrassed every time I see him on TV, and I wish we had someone different. But broadly, they're doing a pretty good job. I just wish I never saw him, and we accepted that he's just appointed competent people who get a small amount of the right stuff done.

Unfortunately, Lloyd Austin's team not informing anyone that their boss is incapacitated fucks up the "they all know what they're doing and are competent" story. Although it doesn't change the "The policies are all working well, it's just gossipy stuff that's wrong" part.

[perrykneeham]

Also, you might have assumed that there was some sort of protocol to kick in if the Defence boss is incapacitated.

[voice]

The Biden economy is now the best performing world economy, better than everyone, even China, by quite a margin

Inflation controlled, unemployment 3.4% lowest in a generation following best jobs growth since the post war boom, stock market highest ever, best wage growth for the average worker since the 60s. Every measure shows Bidenomics is working, and working well

Obviously Trump is trying pathetically to find a way to take credit, but it's just too ludicrous to stick. Mostly the GOP are just ignoring the booming economy and whipping up their cult over immigration (despite the GOP also refusing to sign the immigration law that gives them almost everything they said was needed to fix the system)

[flatandy]

I find it really interesting that the US media is finally beginning to mention this rather than going all in on the ridiculous "the economy isn't good for the people without a job" line that they normally love, just like the "inflation is really high if you look at the price of eggs alone and nothing else" nonsense rather than overall inflation. They're finally beginning to acknowledge that most people are doing pretty f**k**g well, rather than just telling us about the few people who aren't.

[flatandy]

US job growth massively exceeded expectations yet again. There's always a worry that it'll come to an end at some point, but currently lots of people are in work and businesses keep creating more and more jobs and things are going pretty well, really.

[mids]

Gig economy. Low paid. Etc.

[flatandy]

Wages are up across the board. For the first time since Reagan started trashing the economy wage growth has finally relinked a bit to productivity growth.

[mids]

Sounds made up.

[voice]

It's not though, and it's showing in increasingly improving consumer confidence, it's also being reflected in the polls that last month were giving Trump a narrow lead, latest polling showing Biden pulling ahead in every battleground state.

[flatandy]

It sounds made up to someone living in sweatshop Britain where wages for the majority remain low.

[voice]

Biden has just hit 85 targets across Syria and Iraq, so far, in a massive retaliatory strike against Iranian Republican Guard units and Iranian proxies. Interestingly using B1's to deliver huge loads of munitions.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-68144478

Iran's gonna be smarting

[flatandy]

A long list of many of the massive improvements that have happened as a result of the Biden administration, on top of - of course - the booming economy and the generally good response to the Ukraine war:

www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/02/02/joe-biden-30-policy-things-you-might-have-missed-00139046

[mids]

Yes it's often the case that despots like Biden start wars to distract from their abysmal economic records.

[voice]

Weak, even for you.

[mids]

Nerve touched. Also cloth.

[Repat Van]

Jan 7, 2024 14:22:32 GMT perrykneeham said:

This is a rum old business. The Defense Secretary has surgery and is further hospitalised and nobody knows he's off sick?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67905060

Also, "I commit to doing better." What an awful expression. I do hope it doesn't gain currency here, no matter how much Van should engage with the concept.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=M2a767Iktxw

[flatandy]

Absolutely bizarre collection of things happening at the moment in US politics

In addition to the Trump stuff which belongs on the other thread, I guess:

Republicans in the House completely f**k*d up two things. They're trying to impeach the Homeland Security Secretary. Except they don't really have a reason to. It's purely optics, claiming that the border is open or something (reminder: I live 10 miles from the border and there's not much concern here). Anyway, they failed to get it through their own majority.

At the same time they tried to pass a bill to give money to Israel, but somehow f**k*d that up too. They don't seem to be able to pass anything.

Meanwhile, in the Senate they negotiated a bill that enforces a lot of the stuff they said they needed enforced on border security. And promptly voted against it - they have said that they don't want to give Biden a win in an election year. So, rather than improve the situation at the border they have explicitly said that they really don't give a f**k and want things to get worse just so they can have a talking point.

One of their ironic counterpoints is that they say the President has executive power to do all sorts of things, except when Trump was in power he didn't and couldn't do those things so they tried to pass a bill to do them instead, so we all know it's utter sh*t.

-

Meanwhile, Biden has got Macron (alive) and Mitterand (very dead) confused in a speech. Ex-Pres Trump got confused between Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi. He also currently owes $85m to one woman and looks like his companies might be about to owe $400m in fines for corruption and lies and bribery, and he might not be able to appeal that.

As for Haley, she was just beaten 2:1 in the Nevada primary by "None of the above"

-

It's an absolute sh*t-show, but the Dems are clearly way more competent than their opponents.

[voice]

I think the boarder thing will be an own goal for the GOP, everytime they try to blame Biden for the mess, all he has to say is he was willing to sign a very conservative bill, but they let Trump sink it

[unclejunior]

/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1755708533343990115%7Ctwgr%5Ef82f6adc567c0820e501e908d65546af5a8bd5f7%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fbiasedbbc.tv%2Fblog%2F2024%2F02%2F06%2Fmidweek-7th-february-2024%2Fcomment-page-4%2Fcomments

So,Trump was charged with having classified documents at his home.
Biden has classified documents at his home but will not be charged....interesting!