1. It is now 7:15 pm, E.S.T. as I write this. The “big boy” news conference , we were told, would begin at 6:30. Wouldn’t you think the President, or whoever pulls his strings, would make sure he was ready to go on time? I have images of make-up artists, doctors with needles and last minute electronic devices being planted. Doesn’t everybody?
2. Oh yeah, this is a good sign: Speaking at the NATO summit in Washington, D.C. today, President Biden introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by saying, “And now, I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination. Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin.”
3. Landing very briefly on Fox News during “The Five,” I heard a black reporter I’ve never see before express annoyance that Kamala Harris is being called a “DEI Vice-President.” When a member of the panel asked, “Why was she chosen then?” He answered immediately,”Because she was qualified!” Shameless. Biden made it clear from the beginning that he was going to nominate an African-American woman. There were even three widely publicized finalists: the indefensible Stacy Abrams, the ridiculously unqualified Cory Bush, and Harris, who might have been the best of the three, which is like saying Moe was the smartest Stooge. How do members of the Axis media get away with lying like that, openly, in defiance of known facts, on national TV? Are they depending on public amnesia? Stupidity? The fact that Democrats will accept outright dishonesty if that’s what it takes to win?
4. Biden finally arrived and immediately launched into a Trump bashing campaign speech. Has a President ever begun a press conference that way before? It’s cheating, a bait-and-switch. Biden is exploiting the network coverage to get a purely partisan speech broadcast, one that he is reading off a teleprompter. Republicans should demand equal time.
5. Biden’s taken three questions so far, the last two about his fitness to serve. He brushed off his Putin-Zelensky botch by saying how successful the NATO conference was, whatever that means. He ignored the question about what staying in the race and losing t Trump would mean for his legacy by again going back to his claim that the economy is great, oddly saying that doubters claimed his policies would lead to inflation and an exploding national debt….which is exactly what happened. He’s not answering questions, he’s defaulting to pre-programmed talking points. So that’s the strategy. Got it.
6. And the pre-programmed talking points are being relayed in such rambling fashion that I personally find them unlistenable. Maybe its just me.
7. Biden just used the same answer to a question about taking a cognitive function test that he did with Stephanopolos. What possible justification is there for insisting on this dodge, other than Biden’s fear that he won’t pass it?
8. Norah O’Donnell summed up Biden’s press conference by saying that he had shown a thorough understanding of current foreign policy issues. If she says so, I guess. I found his round-about, free association answers just about indecipherable. Anyone who watched that and came away saying “I”m convinced! This guy is a whiz!” is grasping at straws.
9. Another thought as I went over what I heard tonight while I was walking Spuds: Biden really said that Trump wanting to get rid of the Department of Education posed a threat to democracy. This calls for Inigo…
To the Democrats and statists like Biden, reducing central government control is somehow a bad thing. I think there is little doubt that our children were better educated before federal power bloat inflicted the Education Dept. on us, but even if you disagree: how is eliminating huge administrative bureaucracies undemocratic?
10. And another thing…to hear Biden tell it, adding those two military power-houses Sweden and Finland to NATO should let American sleep sounder at night. How? And how much resistance to those knew members was there? Biden is certainly, to quote a line I’ve always hated, “a legend in his own mind.”
Ethics Alarms 
Listening to the press conference. Sounds like a campaign speech. What kind of miracle drugs did they give him tonight?
He doesn’t sound like a man that’s going to heed calls to resign. No telling what will be left of his cognitive ability by November.
Mrs. OB had breakfast with her elderly women friends this morning. One reported her father-in-law had had Parkinsons. He didn’t have the hand tremors, he froze. Like Joe does. The next phase, Mrs. OB’s friend reported: “He started falling over.”
6. It’s not just you. Mr. Golden – regular Democrat voter – got frustrated with the rambling and stopped paying attention.
Whew! I was about to schedule a cognitive function test…
AM, do you have any explanation for “Mr. Golden – [being a] regular Democrat voter?”
Inquiring minds want to know.
IIt’s my understanding that you don’t have to do that unless you’re told to do so!
With the Ukrainian President standing THREE feet away from him, President Biden called him President Putin! How can he possibly have a thorough understanding of foreign policy?!? The bigger questions are: does the President have a thorough understanding of colors?…of numbers?…his family?…the animals on Old McDonald’s farm?
I stand by the assessment I read the other day: President Biden doesn’t need a cognitive test. His supporters do.
9. I certainly don’t think eliminating the Dept of Education would be “undemocratic” in the slightest, but there is one thing they do that would give me pause about getting rid of them. Since the “No Child Left Behind” reforms of the early aughts, the feds have been a major source of funding for schools in underprivileged areas. Before, schools in poor areas with poor tax bases often just got woefully underfunded.
Let ’em have charter schools?
Before, they were woefully underfunded, and the kids could read and do math. Now, they have better funding, and the kids cant read or do math. So… more money? Less?
Formulaic funding would solve that problem without the bureaucracy. I would point out that Baltimore City Public Schools spends more per pupil than Washington County, MD and student performance in BCPS is abysmal. I am not sure that money is the answer.
The progressives are adamant about keeping Head Start but the premise behind the program formed in 1977 by the Carter administration was to “. . . provide comprehensive early childhood education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income children and families. It is the oldest and largest program of its kind”, yet it has been an abject failure by macro standards. I am sure that it has helped some but the children in Head Start today are the grandchildren of those who were in the program in the early days. Head Start has become the initial indoctrination camp for progressivism.
If a program does not end the reason for its creation then the program should end
It’s been well-demonstrated that money alone won’t solve the problem of bad schools. But with most things, a lot of things have to go right in order to succeed, but any number of smaller parts can cause the failure of the whole. Money may not solve everything, but underfunding doesn’t solve anything.
Could there be other ways to prop up education for the poor? Sure, but this is currently what we have, and if we intend to replace it, it behooves us to be explicit about what we’re replacing it with.
Dave you wrote “But with most things, a lot of things have to go right in order to succeed, but any number of smaller parts can cause the failure of the whole. Money may not solve everything, but underfunding doesn’t solve anything.”
Based on my experience in both education and economic development, the inability of students to succeed in the classroom stems from two core issues: many poor parents do not value education because they themselves never succeeded economically; and, government provides self reinforcing reasons/excuses for their lack of success. It is a chronic problem that will undermine any program to which children are exposed. This must be addressed before we start funding anything other than the basics. Parents need to be explicitly held accountable for the success or failure of their children. Blaming government funding is an easy cop out.
I come from a family that had two public school teachers as my parents. I am the second son of four boys. My older brother and youngest brother are the academics of the family. The eldest was a about eighteen months older and the youngest 12 years younger. Upon reflection it was those two who profited from parental involvement in their schooling. I have never said this before but even they – teachers – failed to instill in me the value of learning in a structured setting. As children, my older brother captured most of my parents time. He was the one dad would play chess with or engage in discussions. The only experiences I remember in which my parents were involved in my schooling was when I was suspended in first grade for failing to follow directions, in 7th grade because I failed gym because I damn near broke my ankle trying to do a required leap over the Pommel horse, and later in 10th grade for an issue with a woefully derelict Geometry teacher. In the first and last case my parents were summoned to the school by the principal. I wound up in summer school that year. In Eleventh grade I was consistently failing Algebra and at 16 my dad thought I needed to work instead of developing socially along with others in my age group. My academic career in primary and secondary education was mediocre at best all I can remember is the feeling of failure that I was made to feel for my inadequacy as a student. I do not recall any attempts to find any other cause for the proximate cause for my inadequacy as a student.
After my mother passed away I was given documents from my childhood that she had saved over the years. I looked those old report cards and found the answer as to why I struggled in Algebra. It turn out that you should be required to take Algebra 1 before Algebra 2. Apparently, I was supposed to take Algebra 1 in ninth grade but instead I was in something called business math because I was taken out of the college prep curriculum because I no longer took foreign language. I got my High School diploma in 74 and set out to make my way in life. My parents never discussed college with me. We did look at Lincoln Technical Institute but the roughly $2500 tuition made it beyond my earning potential at the time. In short, advisement by my educator parents was virtually non-existent other than I had to find a job.
There is a lot more I could go into but the point is that both schools and parents have equal responsibilities for their children’s success or failure. In the end, it took a major life cataclysm for me to go back to school and get that ever so required “degree”. I had been a minority owner in a reasonably sized trucking firm so I chose Business as my area of study at the community college. When I went to an upper division school I exceled in Economics despite my initial poor math education. Ironically, I was the first of the four boys to achieve a graduate degree. If I had to make a choice today of going after an MBA or learning a technical trade skill (read certification requirements or licensing requirements) I would opt for the latter because that’s where you have the greatest chance at charting your own destiny.
The above was my experience but I have worked with inmate students as well as traditional and non-traditional students. I have held positions in economic development that involved working in the poorest sections of Baltimore City. From those experiences I found that those who looked for excuses as to why they failed often did just that and those who took responsibility succeeded.
Before we throw one more dollar at a problem we need to assess whether or not the foundation upon which we try to build is comprised of sand or stone.
Outstanding thoughts, Chris!! Thanks for sharing them.
Thank you Joel. I don’t know how outstanding they are. I just tried to use myself as a case study on why funding is not the first solution. Funding should be predicated on concrete positive results. The under funding lament will never be satiated because money itself does not solve problems.
So, we send a bunch of money to Washington, a huge bureaucracy siphons off most of it for a bloated payroll and graft, then sends some hey did of it back to you. How does THAT improve funding?
Gov. Engler of Michigan wasn’t expected to win, he definitely wasn’t expected to win re-election. So, when school funding came up, he vetoed it. He told them to send him a funding bill as fair as taking all the property tax revenue in the state and dividing it equally by student. He wanted something that fair or better or he would veto it. He said he felt it was important enough that he would shut down the schools for the entire year if need be. They told him he was insane, a threat to democracy, that he was ending his political career. He said he didn’t care and that everyone said his political career was over anyway, he might as well do something good with what is left of it. The beginning of the school year came, and the schools didn’t open. The Democrats kicked and screamed. Engler didn’t budge. With no option, they did what he asked. THEN, he won re-election despite all predictions.
A press conference with teleprompters? As passive aggressive lefties are wont to say, “Excuse me?”
First thought: I want some of those drugs. What would happen if we put him on a super high fat carnivore diet and give him psilocybin.
Second thought: What a lame campaign speech. Lost me at “My predecessor…”, so I went back inside to finish communicating to my 16yr old that just because he can drive now does not mean that he is a free man and there are protocols to follow before you take girls out on dates.
Third thought: Nice teleprompters you have there. It would be a shame if something bad we’re to happen to them.
So, now that Trump is vice-president, does he become president again if Biden dies?
Other Agencies We Should Eliminate:
EPA – they mainly take money from the states, siphon off a bunch of it, then send the remainder to the state agencies to do the actual work. Just let the states keep the money. We could boost environmental protection by 50% and it would still cost less.
FBI- Prohibition is over. All they seem to do now is recruit people for terrorist actions. It came out recently that they recruited Timothy McVeigh and tax dollars may have purchased his explosives. They also founded and run the largest neonazi group in the US (for over 50 years) and planned and executed things like the 2005 race riot in Toledo and the 2006 neonazi rally in Orlando. The Garland Texas shooting was orchestrated by the FBI, they gave the body armor and Fast and Furious weapons (that they claimed had been ‘lost’ years earlier) to the terrorists, and followed the terrorists to the site (as in, 20′ behind them). When the shooting started, the FBI didn’t stop it, they left and were arrested by the Texas Rangers as accomplices. Notice how most ‘mass shooters’ are known to the FBI, but they don’t do anything about it? So, are these FBI ‘intelligence operations’ doing more harm than good? Does the agency have any top brass who haven’t lied to Congress, leaked classified documents, or misused their positions to ‘get Trump’?
ATF- This should be a store, not a government agency.
CIA/NSF- It turns out that Trump didn’t use them because he couldn’t trust them. So, the entire Trump presidency didn’t use them. If we did without them for 4 years and those were the 4 years we almost got Middle Eastern peace, why do we need them?
NIH/CDC/SEC – These agencies are so captured by the industries that they are supposed to ‘regulate’ that they can’t be trusted anymore. Eliminate them and find a better way. Perhaps give the new agencies some conflict of interest rules that aren’t waivable?
What other agencies should be on the list? Now remember, we have about $4 trillion in tax revenue each year. We spend about $6 trillion. We pay ~$1 trillion in interest on the debt. Mandatory spending (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and retirements) is $3.8 trillion. The day we will be forced to live within our means is approaching soon. Cutting a budget by 50% when 78% of it is ‘mandatory’ is no easy task. Entire agencies will have to go.
Departments of Energy and Homeland Security. Is there any bigger oxymoronic joke than DHS?
Here’s the view of a self-proclaimed moderate liberal…
At this point in time, I think it’s relatively impossible for anyone to watch Biden do anything without a bias regarding his age and mental capabilities affecting what’s seen or unseen, heard or unheard. I think relatively everyone the has watched Biden now thinks there is both physical and mental decline and there is absolutely no way for Biden to overcome this.
He calls that “doing well”? If Reagan had done that “well” in a press conference, there would have been mass hysteria. And he also ignores the fact that the reporters were told in advance they would be called on, meaning that Joe almost certainly knew what they were going to ask. This is why he was blathering about foreign affairs. He knew that was going to be the main focus, and that what he was prepped on.
Right on!
For years now, people have referenced President Reagan’s last 12-18 months in office…how he was incapable of managing or doing anything. But I wonder how many of those people listened to his 1992 RNC speech…four years later. He was outstanding…not just “outstanding considering his condition”…but outstanding. I saw President Reagan speak, and I’ve seen President Biden speak, and Joe Biden is no Ronald Reagan.
Not then, not now, not ever.