Here, in a nutshell, is the modern-day aristocratic principle that prevails behind the threadbare trappings of “democracy.” The financial robber barons of today are a law unto themselves. They can steal, plunder, even murder at will, without fear of being called to account. They devote a portion of their fabulous wealth to bribing politicians, regulators, judges and police—from the heights of power in Washington down to the local police precinct—to make sure their wealth is protected and they remain immune from criminal prosecution.
President Joe Biden delivered a new set of gaffes during the G7 summit and his closing remarks at the NATO press conference. On multiple occasions during the summit, Biden confused the country of Libya with Syria. While attempting to respond to a question from CNN's Jeff Zeleny at the NATO press conference, Biden lost his train of thought and followed up with an exceedingly long pause.
Biden is a joke on the world stage
Stop me if you've heard this joke before. The Russian president and the American president decide to meet up in Geneva to work out their differences.
The Russian president says, "I'm concerned for your country, sir. The same Big Tech companies that helped rig your election by paying off election workers and manipulating the flow of information to voters are now engaged in mass censorship of half the country as they protect your grip on power. Your corporate news people discarded any pretense of being an investigative 'free press' long ago and openly launder propaganda from your Intelligence Community and a small collection of multinational corporate oligarchs advancing outright lies. They spent years blaming Hillary's election loss on a 'Russian dossier' that Hillary's own campaign created, and nobody was ever brought to justice for a lie that tore your country in two and brought ours to the brink of war.
"Antifa and Black Lives Matter have destroyed many of your cities and repeatedly terrorized your citizens, yet you celebrate them as heroes, while your corrupt FBI categorizes them as mere 'ideas' spreading 'hope and change.' Your Democratic Party has closed churches and punished the faithful for practicing their religion in the face of a virus that has proved far less lethal than predicted. At the same time, your government health agencies and medical journals conspired to cover up the origin of the illness in Wuhan, China, while allowing hundreds of thousands of your citizens to die by engaging in a disinformation campaign against certain generic pharmaceutical drugs that have been around for decades and proven highly effective in treating the new lab-created disease.
"Your education system is teaching that racism is good if it hurts people with lighter skin color. Your military is purging members who speak out against communism. Your Justice Department has engaged in the worst kind of political persecution against conservatives, while shielding Democrats from criminal inquiries. You're encouraging anger and violence against your own citizen police forces. You're aiding drug cartels and sex-traffickers at your southern border. You and your family have been bought handsomely by the Chinese Communist Party. And even though a majority of the American people believe you outright stole the 2020 election, you've criminalized those who say so as 'domestic terrorists,' thrown hundreds of political prisoners into solitary confinement without bail or trial, and excused the killing of an unarmed Air Force veteran for the crime of trespassing in the 'People's House,' even though there is ample video footage of Capitol Police inviting political protesters inside the building.
"My apologies, Mr. President, but how is all of this possible in a country founded on liberty, a nation that has historically seen itself as the 'city on a hill' and the American president as the 'leader of the free world'? How can you call Russia the greatest threat to Americans' security today when your own government does such an outstanding job of threatening Americans?"
The American president, listening intently, nods his head and replies, "I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir."
"Wait, I'm Vladimir. You mean Obama?"
What's scarier about this scenario — that it strikes too close to home to be funny, or that Biden's conversation with Putin in Switzerland may go a whole lot worse than what I describe? When the White House handlers have to pre-emptively nix any possibility for a joint press conference days before the big meeting because the Russian president might make the American president look dumb and feeble, you know that nobody in Biden's orbit believes he is up for the job.
What's that standard from the Constitution's 25th Amendment that Democrats dragged out for four years in their attempts to remove President Trump from office by hook or by crook? Oh, yeah — presidential fitness. Wouldn't admitting that Joe Biden can't be trusted to appear alongside "Pootie-Poot" without being humiliated before the world or risking being provoked into a dementia-raddled rage or being tricked into handing Alaska back to Russia set off most alarm bells that the American president is a national security risk and not fit for office?
It's not as if America is asking Sniffy-Feely to storm Normandy under fire and guns-a-blazin' — hell, the Biden White House can't even be bothered to remember D-Day or the mainly white Americans who died there so Europe could be free. All we need is an American executive capable of recalling that he is president, committed to protecting America's interests, and alive enough to stand before reporters for an hour and competently answer softball questions given to him in advance by a compliant and obsequious press corps all too eager to pretend Biden's descent into dyspeptic confusion and inaudible mumbling is the result of a childhood lisp.
Which part of all that is too much to ask of the "most powerful man in the world"? The standing part, the speaking English part, or the idea that Biden can appear in public that long without forgetting where he is or why he's there? If America needed any reminder that its doddering old fool of a puppet president lost what little mental fitness he once had sometime around when he was complimenting Barack Obama for being surprisingly "clean" for a black man, it has seen more than any nation should have to stomach as Bag-o-Bones stumbles around Europe.
When he's not getting lost in Cornwall or being retrieved from common cafeterias by his nursemaid wife who has somehow become acting president for the duration of Joe's time in office (heh, why not, once you train a country to accept election fraud, you can train the people to accept hereditary dictatorship pretty easily), he's busy confusing military action in Syria and Libya, immediately forgetting what's said by world leaders sitting right next to him, and getting repeatedly touchy-feely with onlookers. By comparison, the queen of England looked downright youthful at the tender age of ninety-five, if for no other reason than her composed demeanor and situational awareness around guests of the G-7 summit highlighted how perpetually lost America's head of state seems to be.
Biden's splash on the world stage with back-to-back fêtes in Cornwall and Brussels should have been an easy showing — even for a man who cannot speak or answer questions unless he is reading verbatim from remarks written down for him. Shoring up America's commitment to G-7, the NATO military alliance, and U.S.-E.U. hegemony were supposed to be simple endeavors in which Europe could embrace the new American president, celebrate the end of President Trump's "America First" policies, and jump back into the business-as-usual neoliberal global order that keeps the West's ruling class well fed and in power.
Instead, Joe Biden has looked every bit the imbecile Americans already know him to be and has no doubt made more than a few Europeans wonder, as state audits of the 2020 election continue to pick up steam, how a man who so noticeably struggles with English could be elected president of an English-speaking country or how a man who routinely disparages America and Americans both at home and overseas could be chosen to represent them. No doubt the Russian president will be asking those questions, too. As one British member of Parliament remarked, though, Biden's "so senile that he probably won't remember" anyway.
Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.
What About His Gaffes? Joe Biden Bumbles His Way Through G7 Summit
VP Kamala Harris also embarrasses USA in first trip abroad
President Joe Biden's performance at the G7 summit in England has done little to allay concerns about his mental competence, to say the least. The 78-year-old president has bumbled his way through the summit, embarrassing the United States in the process and raising questions about his capacity to lead.
In one video clip making the rounds, Biden appeared disoriented as he wandered into an outdoor seating area. His patient wife, Dr. Jill Biden (EdD), ultimately came to his rescue and led him away.
Over the weekend, Biden embarrassed himself during a photo op with other world leaders by urging the summit's host, British prime minister Boris Johnson, to introduce President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa. Video from the event clearly showed Johnson introducing Ramaphosa before Biden interjected.
"And the president of South Africa," Biden said after Johnson finished introducing the leaders.
"And the president of South Africa, as I said earlier on," Johnson replied.
"Oh, you did. I'm sorry," a bewildered Biden told the host, embarrassing his country on the world stage.
Biden's relationship with Johnson was already strained after the president gifted the prime minister a $6,000 bicycle, which could be construed as an insult in the United Kingdom. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, telling someone to get "on your bike" is "a rude way of telling someone to go away."
The gift was also an insult to the millions of Americans who rightly view cyclists as a menace to society.
Further questions were raised about the president's mental fitness when Biden snapped at a reporter during a media availability. Asked a simple question about his administration's decision to keep some Trump-era tariffs and sanctions in place, the president leaned over and grumbled into the mic.
"A hundred and twenty days. Give me a break. Need time," Biden growled before shuffling off the stage.
Biden's embarrassing display continued when he repeatedly mixed up the countries of Syria, in the Middle East, and Libya, in North Africa.
"We could work together with Russia, for example, in Libya," Biden said during an address to summit attendees. "We should be opening up the passes to be able to go through and provide food assistance and economic—I mean, vital assistance to a population that's in real trouble."
As the White House later confirmed, Biden was actually talking about Syria, where Russia has helped the ruthless regime of President Bashar al-Assad cling to power since the outbreak of civil war in 2011. Biden went on to confuse the two countries a couple more times during his address.
Biden was not the only prominent American official to embarrass his country abroad. Vice President Kamala Harris was criticized from all sides for bumbling her way through a recent trip to Mexico and Guatemala. Even some Democrats were perplexed by the VP's inability to answer simples questions about her plans to visit the U.S. border with Mexico.
Celebrity journalist Abby Phillip of CNN described Harris's performance as "cringeworthy" and noted that "her allies in the White House and elsewhere are watching it and just kind of wondering, ‘What is going on?'"
Harris's failure to suddenly evolve into a better politician than the one who failed to get a single vote in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary is even more alarming given the precarious status of Biden's cognitive health.
It's also very embarrassing for America.
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