Once again, Michelle Goldberg pulls into the lead for “Worst and Most Biased New York Times Columnist.” This is impressive, because so many Times columnists are unethical blights on national soul. Paul Krugman, Gail Collins, Charles M. Blow, Maureen Dowd, Jamelle Bouie…it’s an awful group; I could teach a “Bias Makes You Stupid” ethics course using only their columns as materials. I doubt that even these pundits would be foolish enough to claim Biden is a “great President.” Here I am, still comparing records to determine if he’ll be regarded as the worst President ever, and she claims that.
I try to rate Presidents by their own standards, and by his own stated standards, Biden has been a failure. He said he needed to bring a divided country together, and by fully placing himself in thrall to the most radical segments of the Left, he has made the partisan and ideological divide worse, and dangerously so. Like Obama, his policies and rhetoric have exacerbated racial tensions. Long a supporter of the military, he has overseen a brutal weakening of the Armed Forces, by making woke indoctrination a priority over national defense. A supposed women’s rights advocate, Biden has allowed trans-mania to undermine women’s sports. While giving lip service to Constitutional Rights, his administration has used its power and influence to illegally urge private entities to censor speech. He has allowed the National Debt to explode; he has presided over such extreme inflation that wage increases cannot keep up. The horde of illegal immigrants pouring over the border has never been more overwhelming, yet he allows his Vice President and Cabinet members to claim that “the border is secure.” He has openly endorsed racial discrimination in his appointments. After joining in the Democratic chorus that Trump “undermined democratic institutions,” Biden has used the “bully pulpit” institution to focus hate on political opponents. His Justice Department allowed illegal harassment of Supreme Court members. The FBI has been revealed as partisan and corrupt. Under his Transportation Secretary there have been more crises in the system than at any time since 9/11. His fecklessness in international relations allowed Putin to feel secure in invading Ukraine. Biden has harmed the nation with purely symbolic and otherwise useless climate change measures, like cancelling the XL Pipeline. Crime rates are soaring; and worst of all, he has indulged his party’s increasing thirst for constraining personal liberties, free expression and dissent.
I could go on, but it is exhausting and depressing.
And Michelle Goldberg says Biden is a great President, because…
He’s presided over record job creation and the lowest unemployment rate in over 50 years. Whereas Donald Trump’s infrastructure weeks were a running joke, Biden signed the largest infusion of federal funds into infrastructure in more than a decade. His Inflation Reduction Act made a historic investment in clean energy; the head of the International Energy Agency called it the most important climate action since the 2015 Paris climate accord. (And incidentally, inflation is finally coming down.) Biden rallied Western nations to support Ukraine against Russia’s imperialist invasion and ended America’s long, fruitless war in Afghanistan, albeit with an ugly and ignominious exit. His administration capped insulin prices for seniors, codified federal recognition of gay marriage and shot down that spy balloon everyone was freaking out about. He’s on track to appoint more federal judges than Trump.
The first part is simply lifted from the advance text of Biden’s speech last night, and as even the Washington Post has observed, it pure hooey. I don’t even know what “Whereas Donald Trump’s infrastructure weeks were a running joke” means, but I do know something about infrastructure, and spending a lot of money on infrastructure is not the same as successfully fixing the infrastructure. The bill allots far too little for what has been half a century of bipartisan neglect, and contains too much pork. It’s better than nothing Hooray.
“His Inflation Reduction Act made a historic investment in clean energy; the head of the International Energy Agency called it the most important climate action since the 2015 Paris climate accord.'” That’s a rigged appeal to authority, and actually funny, since the 2015 Paris climate accord accomplished nothing, and won’t. Next, Goldberg is so desperate for real accomplishments is that she resorts to inflation, which may be “coming down,” but it is still far worse than when Biden became President. How does that make him “great”? The rest is just sad, with Goldberg even having to resort to the spy balloon debacle as evidence of “greatness.” If I used the kinds of weak evidence Goldberg employs, I could make an argument that almost any President was “great.”
And none of them were outrageously unfit for office when they were elected, like Biden
Does the New York Times have editors any more? Principles? Ethics Alarms, Shame? Goldberg, and that headline, holds the whole paper up to ridicule.
[Note: One of Reiner’s many moronic tweets extolling Joe is here.]
Ethics Alarms 
Is it just me, or does the entire left of center establishment, elected officials, party leadership, media, and other supporters, appear to be completely “out to lunch” and not even trying to do much? That’s the sense I get. At the same time, they tell everyone that everything is great, in the hopes that enough of their diehard supporters will buy it and enough middle of the road folks will say “well, it’s better than Trump.”
I love the Ron Klain “we’ve accomplished more in the last two years than” and “we’re more successful than” lines that have been sent out as talking points and have been dutifully parroted by all the usual suspects. The simple truth is they’ve done more damage in the last two years than the country can bear. And we’re supposed to stay bent over and say, “May I have another, sir?”
It’s just so breathtakingly disingenuous.
Yup. You might want to invest in a tube of K-Y jelly.
I was thinking more of a a frat house initiation paddle, Steve. Not sure K-Y jelly will lessen the blow. Unfortunately.
Wouldn’t the blow be a question of coming in from the front rather than the back? 🤣😈
Ouch!
This administration is actually making people poorer. One figure I have heard is that Americans are approximately $7,300 poorer since 2021. The net effect of inflation adjusted income alone is about -$4,200. Most of the of the comparisons between administrations suffer from the problem with bases. Claiming a larger rate of increase when the base is low such as rates of job growth in Biden’s first 6 months provides a false picture of reality. The same is true about reductions in the deficit. Wading through data sets is not something most people spend their time doing. The real danger is how that data is interpreted.
Sources:
https://nypost.com/2022/10/16/average-american-is-losing-34k-and-everything-else-on-bidens-watch/
https://nypost.com/2022/09/23/americans-have-lost-4-2k-in-income-under-biden-report/
https://rvivr.com/2022/10/the-shocking-destruction-of-americas-wealth-under-joe-biden/
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/27/stock-market-losses-wipe-out-9-trillion-from-americans-wealth-.html
This estimate I used above is based on a combination of purchasing power and wealth and not on nominal disposable incomes. Most Internet searches yield old data that show incomes are rising but that data includes transfer payments under the CARES act and the American Recovery Act. There will be no big extra check coming to households in 2023.
When supply chains were disrupted due to the Wuhan virus during Trump and the immediate cancellation of the XL pipeline and oil leases coupled with the prospect of future cancellations of leases in the future by Biden the stage was set for supply side inflation. The CARES Act under Trump primed the pump pushing money into the homes of Americans which caused the economy to begin rebounding at a 6% rate due to pent-up demand by the end of his term. Most of this went into spending on non-durable goods and services because durable goods were unavailable. Not to be out done, Biden and the Democrat controlled Congress pumped another 1.9 trillion into the economy in the American Recovery Act. This politically motivated and unnecessary spending unleashed double digit inflation which outstripped wage gains that were to be had.
The Fed has hiked the Federal Funds rate a bit more than 4 % since Biden took office to curtail supply side inflation from Wuhan and demand-pull inflation from American Recovery Act. This has caused existing mortgage holders with adjustable mortgages or equity lines to be paying more and causes them to use higher levels of revolving debt to simply maintain a given lifestyle. The cost of revolving debt rises with the Fed rate hikes so the public goes further and further into debt. Higher interest rates and lowered expectations of future profits have taken a significant toll on investment wealth for what I would term the indirect investor. They are those with retirement accounts that are managed as a pool instead of a personal account managed by a fiduciary.
Inflation is coming down slowly but because the government continues to overspend any reductions in consumer spending is outweighed by Government spending which retards the dampening effects of higher interest rates. Including one-time increases in transfer payments to households distorts the reality that such purchasing power is lasting. Right now, debtors are being socked with costs in the form of higher interest rates well above the modest amount received under either the CARES Act or the ARA. This is how the government is forcing Americans into dependency which results in indentured servitude to those in power.
If the Fed chooses to use monetary policy to control inflation through interest rate hikes there must be a corresponding requirement to fix government spending at or below existing levels. Not doing so is the equivalent of trying to empty a pool while the hose is still pumping water back into the pool. Increasing Government spending while trying to choke off Consumer spending equally only makes the electorate who do not receive increased transfers or income from government poorer.
Re Constitutional rights: I understand Biden also made another demand that Congress immediately (and unconstitutionally) ban “assault weapons.”
I’ve been puzzled by the lack of pushback on Biden’s claims of lowering prescription drug prices. I am on Medicare and my out-of-pocket prescriptions exceed $10k/year.
When open enrollment happened for 2023, I asked about the out-of-pocket maximum of $2k/year, as proposed in the Inflation Reduction Act. I was informed that insulin prices would be capped at $35/month, beginning in 2024. Other prescriptions would be folded in during the following years.
It just so happens that I think price-controls are terrible, so I was split on whether I was happy that price controls for prescriptions weren’t imminent, but sad that I’d still be spending more than one-third of my (unadjusted) gross income on prescriptions for the foreseeable future.
At least I’ll still be able to itemize these.