Thursday, August 19, 2021

JOE AND KAMALA HARRIS ARE HAVING A GOOD TIME - HUNTER, TOO. JOE IS ON HOLIDAY, KAMALA IS SCREECHING AND HOWLING, AND HUNTER IS SUCKING OFF BRIBES FOR THE 'BIG GUY'

It is clear that Biden and his Democrats don’t believe in American exceptionalism or greatness, preferring to share the stage with powerful dictatorships. Biden’s legacy will be American surrender, economically, politically, and morally.

Inflation Hits Highest Since 1974 in Philly Fed Manufacturing Survey as Growth Unexpectedly Slows

President Joe Biden walks with Vice President Kamala Harris after speaking on updated guidance on face mask mandates and COVID-19 response, in the Rose Garden of the White House, Thursday, May 13, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
2:56

Inflation signals climbed in August even while the pace of growth in manufacturing unexpectedly slowed in August, according to a survey from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia Fed’s survey of manufacturers showed the current activity index slipping from 21.9 to 19.4 in August, the regional Fed bank said Thursday.

Economists had forecast an increase in the index to 25.

Yet the slowdown in the pace of growth did not slow down price increases. To the contrary, the price indexes climbed in August.

The index of current prices received by manufacturers for their products increased 7 points to 53.9, its highest reading since May 1974. The index for prices paid for components and materials edged up 2 points to 71.2, after dropping 10 points last month from June’s 42-year high.

Vice President Joe Biden makes a phone call on a train at Union Station in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2011, as he headed to an event in Philadelphia to tout plans to improve the nation's infrastructure. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Vice President Joe Biden makes a phone call on a train at Union Station in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2011, as he headed to an event in Philadelphia to tout plans to improve the nation’s infrastructure. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

The median forecast for manufacturers’ prices was for an increase of 5.0 percent over the next four quarters, the same as when the question was last asked in May. The firms’ actual price change over the past year was 3.0 percent.

Companies expect that their employee compensation costs will rise 4.0 percent over the next four quarters, the same as in May.

When asked about the rate of inflation for U.S. consumers over the next year, the median forecast was 5.0 percent, an increase from 4.0 percent in May. The median forecast for inflation over the next ten years was 3.0 percent, the same as in May.

The index for new orders increased, while the current shipments index dropped.  The current employment index rose, as did the average workweek index rose 6 points to 24.5.

Vice President Joe Biden eats ice cream during a visit to Little Man Ice Cream, in Denver, Tuesday, July 21, 2015. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)

 (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)

Other than the inflation gauges, most of the other indexes of future business activity showed slowing. The index for future general activity decreased, the second consecutive decline after reaching a 30-year high in June. Nearly 46 percent of manufacturers expect growth over the next six months, down sharply from 59 percent last month. Twelve percent expect a decrease in activity.

The future new orders index fell alongside the future shipments index fell. The future employment index declined but remains elevated. Over 48 percent expect to increase employment in their manufacturing plants over the next six months, compared with only 6 percent that foresees employment declines.

The survey covers manufacturing businesses in an area with 13.3 million people in Delaware, southern New Jersey, and eastern and central Pennsylvania.


Chris Hedges | America: A Final Farewell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRAkX7NWkos


Don’t be fooled by Joe Biden




Chris Hedges | NAFTA, Clinton, and Obama BETRAYED Americans... and Joe Biden was right there with the worst of them!




Nolte: Dangerous Joe Biden Delivers Border, Economic, Coronavirus, Crime, and Overseas Chaos

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 25: U.S. President Joe Biden talks to reporters during the first news conference of his presidency in the East Room of the White House on March 25, 2021 in Washington, DC. On the 64th day of his administration, Biden, 78, faced questions about the coronavirus pandemic, …
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
4:07

While we’re watching all the terrible chaos break out in Afghanistan, His Fraudulency Joe Biden and the Democrats are also serving up plenty of chaos right here at home.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t keep an eye on Afghanistan, not with thousands of American civilians trapped behind enemy lines after a jihadist takeover. But let’s do two things at once and remember all the chaos Joe Biden and the Democrat party are wreaking on the home front.

You know, when Donald Trump was president, all that chaos was mostly manufactured by the fake news media; that chaos was fabricated by a Deep State determined to use lies (like the Russia Collusion Hoax and the Ukraine phone call) to foment a coup. Granted, some chaos was created by Trump himself and his mercurial personality.

Still, the chaos we’re now seeing is all a result of Joe Biden and a feckless, hapless, and totally incompetent Democrat party — and it’s real, very real.

Afghanistan Chaos

The withdrawal in Afghanistan did not have to be this way. Biden did not have to break Trump’s deal with the Taliban for a May 1 withdrawal. Biden did not have to remove our troops before every American was safely evacuated. He did not have to leave behind billions of operational U.S. weapons for the Taliban to pick up. He did not have to choose Summer to withdraw when the Taliban are fully operational, instead of Winter when the Taliban are scattered around waiting out the cold weather at their respective homes.

As a result, we now have thousands of American civilians trapped in a terrorist hell being told by their own government that they are on their own.

TOPSHOT - Afghan people climb atop a plane as they wait at the Kabul airport in Kabul on August 16, 2021, after a stunningly swift end to Afghanistan's 20-year war, as thousands of people mobbed the city's airport trying to flee the group's feared hardline brand of Islamist rule. (Photo by Wakil Kohsar / AFP) (Photo by WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images)

TOPSHOT – Afghan people climb atop a plane as they wait at the Kabul airport in Kabul on August 16, 2021, after a stunningly swift end to Afghanistan’s 20-year war, as thousands of people mobbed the city’s airport trying to flee the group’s feared hardline brand of Islamist rule. (Photo by Wakil Kohsar / AFP) (Photo by WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images)

Economic Chaos

Biden inherited a recovering economy and decided to strangle it with a lunatic amount of government spending that created record inflation. As a result, all the wage gains during the Trump years have been wiped out by an explosion in the cost of life’s most basic necessities: food, housing, and energy.

Gasoline alone is up a dollar a gallon, which is a brutal tax on the working poor.

Nevertheless, Biden keeps spending, kills oil pipelines, and refuses to allow oil exploration.

And now all signs point to a coming recession.

Border Chaos

Biden has opened up our southern border to anyone who wants to come in, regardless of whether or not they are vaccinated or infected. As a result, we currently have the worst southern border crisis in decades after Trump had pretty much solved the problem and stabilized it.

Honduran migrants hoping to reach the U.S. border walk alongside a highway in Chiquimula, Guatemala, Saturday, Jan. 16, 2021. Guatemalan authorities estimated that as many as 9,000 Honduran migrants have crossed into Guatemala as part of an effort to form a new caravan to reach the U.S. border. (AP Photo/Sandra Sebastian)

Honduran migrants hoping to reach the U.S. border walk alongside a highway in Chiquimula, Guatemala, Saturday, Jan. 16, 2021. Guatemalan authorities estimated that as many as 9,000 Honduran migrants have crossed into Guatemala as part of an effort to form a new caravan to reach the U.S. border. (AP Photo/Sandra Sebastian)

Coronavirus Crisis

According to the CDC’s own math, the  Trump vaccine is working about as well as anyone could have dreamed, and yet Biden has lost total control of the messaging. As a result, masks, panic, and the economic devastation that comes with the panic have returned.

The fear-porn peddlers have turned a nothing breakthrough issue for the vaccinated into a false crisis that says the vaccine doesn’t really work.

What an unforced error.

Crime Crisis

Violent crime is up, and in many cases, way up, in almost every major Democrat-controlled city. But, again, this is another thing that did not have to happen. But after Democrats embraced the domestic terrorists in Antifa and Black Lives Matter, emptied prisons, basically legalized rioting, and ended bail, all the gains against violent crime over the last two decades have been erased.

Overseas Chaos

It’s not just Afghanistan. After years of Middle East stability under Trump (including peace treaties), rockets are again being fired into Israel, Islamic terrorists are emboldened by Biden’s capitulation in Afghanistan, as are the Chinese and Iranians.

The world is much less safe than it was seven months ago, and America is not only less safe, it is less free.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNCFollow his Facebook Page here.


The Days of “Catch and Release” May Be Numbered
Judge moves “to prevent the continued systemic violation” of the law

Washington, D.C. (August 17, 2021) - A Center for Immigration Studies analysis examines the decision by a federal judge to block the Biden administration’s termination of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), better known as “Remain in Mexico”. The court made clear that the administration has three choices: Detain illegal migrants, remove or expel them, or send them back across the border. Crucial to the judge’s decision was section 235(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which requires that aliens be detained until they are granted asylum (or other relief) or are removed.

Andrew Arthur, the Center’s resident fellow in law and policy and author of the analysis, said, “If Judge Kacsmaryk’s 'Remain in Mexico' order stands (and it should), the days of 'catch, release, and disperse into the interior of the United States' at the Southwest border are numbered. And the migrant surge there will subside, because if they cannot be free in the United States, few migrants will make the trip to begin with.”

MPP was implemented in January 2019 in response to the surge of aliens coming to the border for whom there was not sufficient detention space and allowed DHS to return non-Mexican migrants caught entering illegally or without proper documentation back to Mexico to await removal hearings. They were then paroled into the United States long enough to apply for asylum, while the Mexican government agreed to provide them with protection for the duration of their stays there.

The Biden administration terminated MPP despite the continued lack of detention space – there are about 2,500 “family unit” spaces, but more than 308,000 migrants in “family units” (FMU) have been apprehended at that border this fiscal year. Just short of 288,000 of these families have come in the six months since the inauguration.

MPP removed the enticement of a quick passage for migrants — mainly from the Northern Triangle — to this country with the expectation of entering illegally with weak and/or fraudulent asylum claims. In January 2019, DHS found that 90 percent of asylum claims by nationals of the Northern Triangle countries were denied.

Their cases nonetheless clogged the immigration court system, making it much more difficult for aliens with valid persecution claims to be granted asylum.

To ensure that the administration complies, the judge ordered it to provide him, on the 15th of every month, monthly totals of aliens encountered at the Southwest border, the number expelled under Title 42 or the INA, its total detention capacity and usage rate, the total number of applicants for admission, the total number of applicants for admission who were paroled, and the total number of applicants for admission who were released on parole “or otherwise”. (Emphasis in original.)


Joe Biden is imploding before our eyes

Having created one crisis after another – e.g., a broken economy, a broken border, a broken energy supply and, now, a broken Afghanistan – you’d think that Biden would at least step up and lead us into some brave new Progressive future. That, though, is not how Biden rolls. Instead, he’s either played the blame game, hidden at Camp David or in Delaware, attacked Republican governors, dismissed as bagatelles the horrors in Afghanistan, and generally been weirdly disconnected.

I’ve already commented on Biden’s dreadful statement on Monday, during which he created a straw man by contending that the main issue was whether withdrawing from Afghanistan was the right thing to do. Of course, because few disagree with the decision to withdraw, the real issue was and is the utterly appalling mess the administration, whether in the White House, the Pentagon, or the State Department, made of the withdrawal.

However, Biden having presented his straw man knew where the fault lay: With Trump. It was Trump’s fault that Biden, who has systematically reversed everything Trump did, was forced to fall in with Trump’s planned withdrawal from Afghanistan. But having done so, he bravely took responsibility for that unremarkable decision.

As for the real issue – the debacle – Biden knew where responsibility for that one lay as well: The Afghans. It was all their fault, he said, that when the Americans slipped away overnight, the Taliban were able to roll through Afghanistan, enriching themselves with American weapons, vehicles, and planes along the way. After making that speech, Biden practically ran out of the room and headed back to Camp David.

If you thought that speech was as low as it was possible for an American president to go, you underestimated Biden. On Wednesday, Biden sat for an interview with George Stephanopoulos and insisted that the Afghanistan debacle was “old news” and couldn’t have been avoided in any event:

President Joe Biden angrily defended his handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying on Wednesday that chaos was unavoidable and snapping when asked about horrific images of Afghans falling from planes.

‘That was four days ago, five days ago,’ he said, even though the images of people falling to their deaths emerged on Monday.

[snip]

And in a second excerpt shared ahead of the chat, Biden also insisted he’d been told by his intelligence officials that Kabul would likely avoid falling to the Taliban until the end of 2021 - instead of the mere days it took.

‘There was no consensus if you go back and look at intelligence reports,’ the president said when asked if there had been intelligence failings. ‘They said that it’s more likely to be some time by the end of the year.’

Did you hear an echo of Hillary’s “what difference, at this point, does it make?” when Biden said the collapse is old news?

Tom Cotton was incandescent over the claim that the chaos was inevitable:

Biden also insisted that he’d get all Americans out...except he really meant only those the administration could get out by August 31. As for the others, “we’ll determine at the time who’s left,” whatever that means. Currently, the State Department has made it clear that Americans are on their own getting to the airport and Central Command refuses to allow troops to leave the airport to help them. No mention was made of the fact that the Biden administration deleted a comprehensive Trump-era plan for getting Americans home from emergency situations.

Also on Wednesday, Biden gave a speech – except it wasn’t about Afghanistan, which is the most important issue for most people. Instead, it was about Republican governors who refuse to get with the COVID program. He was especially enraged that these governors are “banning masks in school.” That is, of course, a complete lie. In Texas, Florida, and South Carolina, they’ve banned forced mask mandates. Those who wish to wear masks are free to do so. But Biden’s going to use the power of the federal government to crack down on those states.

Of course, the real issue is that creating a sense of crisis about COVID is how the Democrats are consolidating their power. As long as people are kept in a perpetual state of fear, they will freely hand their liberty to the government.

It's not just that the speech was false and inappropriate. Look at Joe’s affect. This is not a well man:

Having had his say and told his lies, Biden followed his instructions and vanished without taking questions:

The whole grim situation was best summed up in the comment someone named “BooggieMan” left on a Facebook page: “This entire ‘presidency’ is like being tied to a chair and watching a toddler play with a loaded pistol.”

Image: Biden dismissing events in Afghanistan as old news. Twitter screen grab.

 

Biden’s Surrender Presidency

The seven months of the Biden presidency reveal a theme of surrender. Surrender is to give up possession of something to another, or to give up to some influence or idea. President Biden has surrendered so much on so many levels. The only question is how much is due to his abject incompetence versus a deliberate attempt to surrender America, the country he swore an oath to preserve, protect, and defend, to dark forces in the world.

Start with the latest surrender, far from America in the war-torn country of Afghanistan. Despite promises to the contrary, Biden and his foreign policy clown posse gave us a rerun of Saigon in 1975. After hiding under his bed for a week, the President explained his brilliant strategy by blaming his predecessor President Trump, and the Afghan military. Surprisingly his speech writers failed to mention climate change, as another cause for the fall of Afghanistan.

YouTube screen grab

Biden basically surrendered, after 20 years and over a trillion dollars and countless American and Afghan lives sacrificed to the cause of bringing faculty lounge democracy to a largely illiterate band of thugs living in the 7th century. He blamed Trump for attempting to end a war that now Biden says he opposed all along, neglecting to mention how he presided over eight years of this war while serving as vice-president. Or that he and Obama’s administration released the masterminds of this current Taliban surge from Gitmo in exchange for deserter Bowe Bergdahl.

Trump boxed him in, says Biden. Yet Biden reversed all of Trump’s other policies upon taking office, opening the border, ending American energy independence, and greenlighting Iran’s nuclear program. If he wanted to counter Trump’s plan to exit Afghanistan after 20 wasted years he certainly could have. Biden defied his generals, who must have seen “white rage” in Kabul and told Biden not to abruptly pull out the military.

But Joe knew better, living up to his reputation as a foreign policy dunce. Obama’s Secretary of Defense famously observed of Biden, that he has been wrong on nearly every foreign policy question over the past 40 years. What little foreign policy knowledge he had was decades ago when he was at least firing on all cylinders rather than now, in rapid cognitive decline, surrendering thought and reason to his advanced age.

Biden also surrendered 40,000 Americans and countless numbers of locals to the whims of the Taliban. Will they be released, held hostage, or beheaded on an international stage? What if they are killed on 9/11 at the surrendered US embassy? America’s humiliation will be complete.

He also surrendered a generation of Afghan girls and women, for two decades allowed to wear Western clothing, and attend school, hoping for a university degree and profession. Instead, Biden surrendered these women to covering all but their eyes, serving as Taliban brides and sex slaves.

Where are the Democrats and Hollywood harpies that were screaming about Justice Kavanaugh and supposed “rape trains” while Biden just unleashed the real thing on millions of Afghan women?

Biden also surrendered Bagram Airfield, the only reliable exit from Afghanistan, not last, once all Americans and our equipment were safely out of the country, but six weeks ago, completely backwards to anyone with a whit of common sense. It’s not leaving Afghanistan that’s the problem, it’s the ham-handed backward way Biden did it

To those Americans stuck in Kabul, trying to get to the airport, the US State Department buffoons say good luck, “Please be advised that the US government cannot guarantee your safety as you make this trip.” They might as well tell the stranded Americans to surrender. That’s what the Biden administration did.

Also surrendered were billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment, now in the hands of the Taliban, with China likely scoping out any high tech items to add to their arsenal. China and the Taliban? They don’t work together, or do they? The geniuses at Foggy Bottom missed it but the Australian news didn’t as they correctly observed, “Why China’s relationship with the Taliban poses an enormous risk.”

We left military bases, forts, and enough equipment to create a first-rate military force. One that may be used against American interests. This is worse than surrender. Will the Democrats call this “infrastructure spending”?

Have other countries noticed Biden’s capitulation? Iran, as Reuters recently reported, is ramping up uranium enrichment to “near weapons-grade.”  If Iran goes nuclear, Biden, by reinstating the failed Iran-nuke deal has surrendered the Middle East and many allies to a bunch of theocratic thugs.

Biden also surrendered to China, as they observe America as a paper tiger, as Osama bin Ladin claimed. American soldiers are real tigers, but not the parade generals at the Pentagon and the woke foreign policy experts in the White House. After Biden surrendered Afghanistan, China is now holding “assault drills near Taiwan.”

What happens when it is no longer a drill but the real thing? Would America come to Taiwan’s defense against China? Hunter Biden’s billion dollar investment from a Chinese bank suggests not. That was protection money China paid to the Biden Crime Family to look the other way.  Will America help her ally? Or will Biden babble while Blinken blinks, and voila, Taiwan is now part of communist China?

Is Russia watching America surrender? Replace China with Russia and Taiwan with Ukraine and you will have your answer. Other countries are watching Biden’s surrender too. Do they want to hitch their fortunes and fates to a paper tiger who will cut and run when politically expedient? Or will they pay homage and allegiance to China for their protection? Just as store owners paid Tony Soprano protection money to avoid something bad happening to their shop.

Back in America, Biden has been surrendering America to myriad bad forces. He surrendered America’s energy independence to AOC and the climate warriors. It’s now to the point that he is begging OPEC to increase oil supplies that he curtailed by stopping fracking and the Keystone pipeline.

He surrendered the Southern border to throngs of who-know-who from who-knows-where, bringing COVID and other diseases, or criminals from emptied foreign prisons. How soon until Taliban fighters find their way to Mexico and then across the border into the US?

Biden surrendered the booming Trump economy, rebounding after the worst of COVID, and now declining. Inflation is a word now being muttered, although in hushed tones, by CNN newsreaders. The misery index is once again being calculated, after a long hibernation from the Jimmy Carter presidency. Joe looked at Jimmy’s failures and said “hold my beer” as he is doubling down on the worst of Carter.

Biden surrendered American cities to police defunding, replaced by BLM riots, leaving city residents in similar dire straits as poor Afghanis, promised hope and change from a succession of US presidents starting with George W Bush, culminating in a horribly executed cut and run.

Biden and his Democrat surrogates in the media have surrendered civility and common sense to wokeness where everything is racist and questioning authority, once a proud virtue of the left, is considered domestic terrorism.

It is clear that Biden and his Democrats don’t believe in American exceptionalism or greatness, preferring to share the stage with powerful dictatorships. Biden’s legacy will be American surrender, economically, politically, and morally.

The world is watching and calculating. Hard earned trust is easily squandered, much harder to recover. The ramifications of Biden’s surrender will haunt America for decades.

As President Trump said in a recently released statement, “Who or what will Joe Biden surrender to next? Someone should ask him, if they can find him.”

Brian C Joondeph, MD, is a physician and writer. He is on sabbatical from social media.


Stubborn Joe Biden Snaps, Falls Apart in Interview as Afghanistan Crisis Worsens

Volume 90%
 
4:46

President Joe Biden continued to struggle with his response to the crisis in Afghanistan after days of hunkering down and seemingly waiting for the storm to blow over.

Faced with an outcry from the press over the president’s unwillingness to answer questions about the chaotic conclusion of the 20-year war in Afghanistan, Biden did an interview with ABC News host George Stephanopoulos at the White House to defend his actions.

The interview was the first time Biden took questions about the crisis in Afghanistan in eight days. But he did not appear prepared.

Biden snapped at Stephanopoulos for asking about Afghan people rushing a plane as it took off the runway in the airport in Kabul, some even falling to their deaths as it took off.

“That was four days ago, five days ago,” Biden replied sharply when asked about the images, trying to dismiss them entirely.

In fact, however, the incident occurred only two days ago, which Stephanopoulos did not press him on.

U.S soldiers stand guard inside the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Aug. 16, 2021. Thousands of Afghans have rushed onto the tarmac at the airport, some so desperate to escape the Taliban capture of their country that they held onto the American military jet as it took off and plunged to death. (AP Photo/Shekib Rahmani)

U.S soldiers stand guard inside the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Aug. 16, 2021. Thousands of Afghans have rushed onto the tarmac at the airport, some so desperate to escape the Taliban capture of their country that they held onto the American military jet as it took off and plunged to death. (AP Photo/Shekib Rahmani)

When asked what he thought about the images, Biden replied that he reacted by wanting the military to get in control of the situation — avoiding any sense of emotion about scenes that shocked the world.

“What I thought was, we have to gain control of this,” he said. “We have to move this more quickly. We have to move in a way in which we can take control of that airport. And we did.”

When Stephanopoulos asked if he could have handled the withdrawal better, Biden denied it.

“No. I don’t think it could have been handled in a way that — we’re going to go back in hindsight and look — but the idea that, somehow, there’s a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don’t know how that happens,” he said.

The president also appeared defiant against his critics in the interview, calling his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan a “simple choice” rather than a task that he and his team could have planned and executed much better.

“When you look at what’s happened over the last week, was it a failure of intelligence, planning, execution, or judgment?” Stephanopoulos asked.

“Look, it was a simple choice, George,” Biden said, arguing that he could have either stayed true to the withdrawal date of August 31 or extended it further with more troops.

But in recent days, Biden has already deployed 6,000 troops to Afghanistan to help facilitate the evacuation process as the security situation in the capital city of Kabul collapsed.

All of the conciliatory messages he shared with the public during his speech at the White House on Monday melted away.

When Biden was confronted with his assertion in July that the Taliban would not take over Afghanistan, Biden admitted that intelligence suggested the Afghanistan government would collapse by the end of the year.

Taliban fighters take control of Afghan presidential palace after the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Aug. 15, 2021. (AP Photo/Zabi Karimi)

Taliban fighters take control of Afghan presidential palace after the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Aug. 15, 2021. (AP Photo/Zabi Karimi)

“Well, the question was whether or not it — the idea that the Taliban would take over was premised on the notion that the — somehow, the 300,000 troops we had trained and equipped was going to just collapse, they were going to give up,” he said. “I don’t think anybody anticipated that.”

Under pressure from Stephanopoulos, Biden finally committed to leaving American troops in Afghanistan beyond the August 31 deadline if necessary, a commitment both his press secretary Jen Psaki and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan refused to make during a press briefing on Tuesday.

Americans should understand that we’re going to try to get it done before August 31,” Biden said and added, “If we don’t, we’ll determine at the time who’s left.” And “if there are American — if there [are] American citizens left, we’re going to stay until we get them all out.”

Biden continues to struggle with criticism of his sloppy exit from Afghanistan, but the White House does not appear willing to put him back on camera to answer more questions about it.

On Wednesday, the president tried to refocus America’s priorities on the coronavirus pandemic, spending more time attacking unvaccinated Americans and Republican governors than reassuring Americans that he would get all citizens out of Afghanistan.

WASHINGTON, DC – AUGUST 18: U.S. President Joe Biden gestures as he delivers remarks on the COVID-19 response and the vaccination program in the East Room of the White House on August 18, 2021 in Washington, DC. During his remarks, President Biden announced that he is ordering the United States Department of Health and Human Services to require nursing homes to have vaccinated staff in order for them to receive Medicare and Medicaid funding. The President also announced that Americans would be able to receive a third booster shot against Covid-19. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

He walked out of the room after his speech, ignoring shouted questions from reporters who stood watching in disbelief.

The president has locked down his schedule for Thursday as there are no public events scheduled and no press briefings.

Despite Biden’s failure to address the controversy, he may be trying to squeeze another long weekend at his home in Delaware during the month of August.

A Federal Aviation Administration flight restriction notice suggested that Biden would leave the White House for Delaware on Wednesday and remain there until August 23.

But the president remained at the White House on Wednesday evening as his staff called a lid for the day.



Art Critic: Hunter Biden’s Art Raises ‘Ethical Issues’ for Father and Administration

Hunter Biden walks to Marine One on the Ellipse outside the White House May 22, 2021, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
3:18

Art Critic and Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi called into question Hunter Biden’s art career Tuesday, saying it “raises obvious ethical issues for his father” and the administration.

Mahdawi believes Hunter’s “hobby has turned serious” due to the nature of selling “colourful creations” for $500,000 to anonymous investors:

It looks like the prodigal son is a painter now. Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s child, has apparently been dabbling with paints for years. Now his hobby has turned serious: starting soon, you can pick up one of his colourful creations from a gallery in New York’s SoHo. It will cost you, though: the pieces are reportedly priced between $75,000 and $500,000.

Mahdawi questioned who exactly buys artwork for such a large amount of money without being a “critically acclaimed” artist, which raises “obvious ethical issues for his father… and Biden administration.”

“Hunter’s new career raises obvious ethical issues for his father and, in an attempt to avoid accusations of influence peddling, the Biden administration has asked the gallerist to keep all information about the buyers and prices of Hunter’s work confidential,” she wrote. “The gallery has also agreed to reject offers that seem suspiciously generous.”

But White House press secretary Jen Psaki on July 22 labeled Hunter’s “anonymous” art selling scheme as “reasonable.”

“Will he get ethics training, will he have to report afterwards about the conversations — anything specific you can tell us about you are monitoring” the sale of art, a reporter asked.

Psaki regurgitated a frequent answer, ignoring the reporter’s direct question by suggesting Hunter “is not involved in the sale or discussions about the sale of his art,” and that Hunter will not be “informed” of “who is purchasing his art.”

Breitbart News senior contributor and Profiles in Corruption author Peter Schweizer told Breitbart News the “anonymous” proposal is an utterly “absurd” solution.

“The only way to address these issues is with greater transparency–not less,” said Schweizer. “Their proposed solution is greater secrecy, not transparency. And they are essentially saying ‘Trust Us.’ Joe and Hunter Biden’s track record on such matters gives us no reason to trust them.”

Hunter Biden on July 29 responded to his artwork critics by suggesting selling art for $500,000 to anonymous investors is a “pretty courageous thing to do.”

“Fuck em… Look man,” Hunter Biden said on the Nota Bene Podcast, “I never said my art was going to cost what it was going to cost, or how much it would be priced at. I would be amazed, you know, if my art was sold, for you know, for, umm, for ten dollars.”

“I’m [the] most famous artist in MAGA world, at least,” Hunter facetiously explained before suggesting President Joe Biden thinks “everything” Hunter does “should be in National Gallery” of Art.

Indeed, first lady Jill Biden is displaying Hunter’s art in her taxpayer funded White House office.

Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø

Hunter Biden: Bane of the 'Mainstream' Press

Tim  Graham
|
Posted: Aug 18, 2021 12:01 AM
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.
Hunter Biden: Bane of the 'Mainstream' Press

Source: Jonathan Ernst/Pool Photo via AP

  

Four summers ago, the network evening news shows obsessed over Donald Trump Jr. attending a brief and ineffective meeting with Russians at Trump Tower in 2016. He hoped to get "dirt" on Hillary Clinton, but nothing came of it. ABC, CBS and NBC offered viewers more than 62 minutes of coverage energetically speculating over collusion with the Russians in just four nights in July.

On Aug. 11, the Daily Mail reported, "Hunter Biden claimed Russians stole another one of his laptops for blackmail while he was close to overdosing in a Las Vegas hotel room." Coverage on ABC, CBS and NBC? Nothing. Zero. The story underlined this alleged theft "would mean Hunter lost a total of three computers -- the first abandoned at a Delaware computer store and the second seized by federal agents."

On video, Biden claimed he had a laptop loaded with his sex videos that were taken by a drug dealer and a Russian hooker; a "really nice, pure brunette." So, a reporter could take his tale with a grain of salt. But there's no salt needed. Reporters are aggressively incurious. There's no sign they have spent five minutes with any evidence.

The Daily Mail and the New York Post have reported quite a bit on Biden's computers and the scandalous videos and emails that were found on them. But the "news" gatekeepers have tried to squash all of this content as somehow "fake news." The definition of "mainstream media" is "refuses to acknowledge any evidence of Hunter Biden's dissolute life, lobbying and buckraking as authentic."

You can see it discussed on Fox News or other conservative networks, but not much else. On his HBO show, Bill Maher joked that Biden only has sex when he records it on his laptop. He said other people orgasm yelling, "Oh God," while Biden says, "Like, comment and share."

The networks are mostly bored senseless at Biden's scandalous plans to sell his "novice" paintings for as much as $500,000. NBC's Stephanie Gosk filled one report with skeptical art critics and ethics watchdogs on July 12. ABC and CBS skipped it, as did CNN, MSNBC and PBS. Somehow, the pro-Biden networks that pompously declare they "hold government accountable" are bored senseless by the Biden art sale.

On Aug. 13, the New York Times gently reported on the high expected prices, and wondered if it's not all about the artist's fame (or infamy). Cristin Tierney, a New York gallerist, told the paper, "I have artists who have very real careers who might not sell that much in dollar terms cumulatively over 10 years."

Art history professor Joan Kee warned, "We have a situation in which the White House is essentially giving a private gallerist that no one has ever heard of a political position."

The unknown gallery owner, Georges Berges, touted Biden's "authenticity" as an artist after grappling with addiction. "I saw a lot of the positive qualities that have defined his life in his art -- the heroic journey that comes from stumbling and falling and then rising up; his art is full of hope."

The real "hope" here is that Biden can score some more money off his famous father, knowing that the press will act more like bodyguards than investigators -- more like enablers than watchdogs. The rest of us have no hope that the establishment media will play any role in it. They say democracy dies in darkness, but Biden thrives in their darkness.

Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org.

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