JOE BIDEN is known as a serial liar, a "public servant" who has somehow managed to accrue tremendous wealthwho has somehow managed to accrue tremendous wealth, a race-baiting opportunist, a Catholic-in-name-only, and a bought-and-paid-for politician in bed with criminal cartels and foreign foes. In another era, Joe Biden would have been run out of his country much the same way Benedict Arnold was two and a half centuries ago; in an era when integrity, honor, fortitude, fidelity, and grit have been jettisoned for immorality, unscrupulousness, weakness, betrayal, and craven pliability, however, he is elevated to king sleazeball in a city drowning in sleaze. JB SHURK
Report: White House Infighting over Israel-Hamas War Threatens Biden’s 2024 Reelection
Reported infighting among White House aides over the administration’s position on the Israel-Hamas war threatens President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection hopes.
The internal power struggle suggests the Biden administration will go into an election year alienating half the Democrat Party, raising concerns that likely GOP nominee former President Donald Trump will reclaim the White House.
Numerous aides and allies inside and outside the White House told the Washington Post that Biden’s support of Israel’s defensive measures against Hamas is “dividing a White House that has prided itself on running a disciplined and united operation.”
RELATED: Joe Biden Claims Hamas Attacked Israel Because He Was Going to Bring Peace to Middle East
White House senior officials worry that if Israel continues to destroy Hamas the politically divisive issue could spill over into the 2024 presidential campaign.
“[T]he longer the conflict goes on, the more harmful it will be for Biden politically and diplomatically. … U.S. officials remain hopeful that the conflict will not stretch into the heart of the 2024 campaign,” the Post reported.
U.S. officials remain hopeful that the conflict will not stretch into the heart of the 2024 campaign,” the Post reported:
- “Biden officials are in an increasingly vexing predicament,” even though top White House officials previously tried to tamp down the internal strife among aides with “listening sessions” on “their positions on highly emotional issues.”
- “One meeting between White House aides and about a dozen Palestinian Americans turned contentious when participants warned that Biden would lose Arab and Muslim voters over his handling of the war.”
- “One of the Palestinian Americans in the meeting said the participants left with more resolve to organize their communities not to vote for Biden in the 2024 election.”
- “Many are upset about his handling of the Israel-Hamas war. And all of this is against the backdrop of Mr. Biden’s longstanding weakness among young voters, who weren’t enthusiastic about him in 2020, and Mr. Trump’s gains among nonwhite voters, who are disproportionately young.”
Recent polling by the Times support’s Cohn’s observations:
- Biden only leads 76-20 percent among young voters registered as Democrats or who previously voted in a Democrat primary.
- Biden only leads Trump 69-24 percent among young nonwhite Democrats.
Follow Wendell Husebø on “X” @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
After Biden’s Pullout, Al Qaeda Built a Path From Afghanistan to Europe
Afghan gun battles are now happening on the border of EU.
[Make sure to read Daniel Greenfield’s contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]
After Biden’s withdrawal, the fighting ended in Afghanistan and moved into Europe.
Even before the Taliban takeover, a massive traffic in migrants and drugs flowed over the ‘Balkan Route’ that took Afghans into Iran, Turkey and then Eastern Europe. One of the biggest holes in Europe’s armor was the former Yugoslavia, illegally invaded and partitioned by the Clinton administration, with a large Muslim population in Bosnia and heavy criminal organizations across the former republic that tie together the Russian mob, local gangs, Islamic terrorists, and Turkish, Pakistani and Afghan operations moving weapons and drugs.
All of this comes together at the border between Serbia and Yugoslavia. Parts of Serbia’s border areas have become no-go zones: territories occupied by Muslim gangs. Serbian police raids on “migrants” now look like Israeli military operations with armored vehicles and troops. These raids have rounded up thousands of migrants along with automatic rifles and bombs.
Ever since Hungary began fortifying its border, the Muslim gangs had to work harder to penetrate it in order to continue moving their cargo into the rest of Europe. Faced with a more secure border, the smuggling was taken over by more violent groups. Including Al Qaeda.
Much as drug cartels followed Latin American migrants to America, the Afghan migrants traveling through Iran and Turkey to Eastern Europe were followed by Afghan Jihadis.
In Serbia’s border regions, competition between Afghan smuggling gangs broke out into open warfare with the groups using heavy weaponry against each other. Some of those weapons may have been left behind by the Biden administration when it fled Afghanistan. These gun battles are not just happening in deserted villages or near border fences, but in more populated areas.
The Serbian city of Subotica, with a population of nearly 100,000, has become ground zero for the migrant invasion. In September, Afghan and Moroccan Muslim gangs shot at each other in the parking lot of the multinational Lidl supermarket chain in a suburb of the city. The shooting spree in the crowded parking lot filled with families killed a 16-year-old girl.
The Afghan gangs that prevail in the gun battles that have become common on the route are the ones with the weapons and the training and likely to be linked to the Haqqani Network.
When the Taliban took Kabul, it was actually the Haqqani Network which unlike most of the Taliban had built up professional units that resembled their NATO opposite numbers. The Haqqani Network had carried out some of the most devastating attacks against American forces in Afghanistan. The Haqqanis gained these capabilities through their close ties to Al Qaeda.
The Al Qaeda ties brought Arab Muslim money and training to the Afghan Jihadis. After the fall of Kabul, it was the Haqqanis who took over and decided who was allowed to reach the airport. The Biden administration had turned over passenger lists to the Al Qaeda group. After being put in charge of security in Kabul, Haqqani figures control security for the new Taliban regime.
Unlike the old Taliban leadership, which is reclusive and isolationist, the Haqqanis, true to their Al Qaeda links, have been focused on building up an international network. The Biden administration has decided that the Haqqanis, despite Al Qaeda, are moderates because they are more open to supporting education for girls and are willing to talk to the United States. But that is what makes the Haqqanis more dangerous because they are interested in the world.
The Haqqani interest appears to have taken the Al Qaeda linked Jihadis all the way to Europe.
György Bakondi, Hungary’s national security adviser, has warned that the Haqqanis won the gun battles and are now in charge of the smuggling route into the European Union.
“Smuggling gangs originating from Afghanistan in Serbia have family ties to the Taliban government in Afghanistan and the Haqqani network, which is a terrorist organisation,” he said. “The Taliban secret services are now directly controlling the activities of these Afghan-origin smuggling groups.”
The Hungarian authorities have shown video of aggressive efforts by Afghan migrants to invade their country. Migrants no longer just try to get across the border, they “are organised into military-style formations of 20 and armed with marbles, slingshots and sticks to fight back against Hungarian border guards sent to stop them.” The Afghan smugglers carry assault rifles and open fire, into the air or at border patrol officers, to signal that a crossing is underway.
According to Bakondi, the smugglers have “family ties” to the Haqqanis. The Haqqanis are a large family and they also have extended clan connections. Using those family ties to gain control of the smuggling route into Europe would give them a financial lifeline outside of Afghanistan, whose main current source of income is foreign aid run out of Kabul-based NGOs that are taxed by the Haqqanis, and the ability to move Jihadis into Europe for future attacks.
The United States and European NATO members may have hoped to leave Afghanistan behind, but Afghanistan instead followed NATO. As Islamic terrorists always do. When France left North Africa, an army of North African immigrants followed and transformed France into a terror hub. Pakistanis did the same thing to the United Kingdom and Turks and Kurds to Germany.
America imported vast numbers of Afghan refugees and those we didn’t airlift are migrating to Europe. The Haqqani Network decided who would get on Biden’s evacuation planes. Now it’s deciding who gets to enter Europe. While the Haqqanis are cashing in, they’re also almost certainly bringing their own “family” members to Europe to set up local criminal operations.
The Taliban’s alleged ban on opium production was widely reported by the media, less widely reported was that the Taliban have switched from opium to meth. Despite the Taliban ban, opium production actually rose by a third, and the Taliban are cashing in on an artificial shortage that their regime temporarily created, but the real story is that Afghanistan has become the fastest growing source of meth in the world. And the Islamists are using Iran as a model.
The Afghan smuggling route is also the transit point for moving meth from Iran to Europe. By controlling the route, the Haqqanis can potentially control both the heroin and the meth market. And human smuggling allows them to also bring in their people so that they control not only the transit of drugs, but also the sale and distribution of them across Europe. Jihadis have already used access to the European criminal class to convert its members to Islam and recruit them.
While NATO may have left behind its ‘nation building’ operation to win ‘hearts and minds’ in Europe, the Jihadis it was fighting have followed NATO to Europe to build their own nation, their ‘ummah’, in the heart of the infidel enemy. And they’re winning ‘hearts and minds’ left and right.
Afghanistan is not just a place, it’s where the Afghans are. The Taliban and Al Qaeda were not left behind in the dust of Kabul, they are making the long trek into Europe. The Hungarians have tried to build a wall, but much as the Chinese learned during the Mongolian invasions or the Israelis learned on Oct 7, it’s not enough to build a wall, you have to vigilantly defend it. And given enough time, the barbarians will find a way around it, under it, over it or through it.
Walls alone do not stop an invasion. Eventually you will have to fight and defeat the invaders.
Daniel Greenfield
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
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If not Biden, the top Dems are either the corrupt harridan or the dumb cackler
Republicans are worried that, if Biden drops (or is pushed) out of the race, candidates more appealing to voters will step in to fill the vacancy. Their big worry is that Michelle Obama—who, thanks to a slobbering media, is popular in ways that neither her accomplishments nor her personality justify—will be pushed to run. Alternatively, Gavin Newsom is chomping at the bit, and the media could push him over the top despite California’s ongoing decline. But when asked, the most popular Democrats behind Biden are Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris.
The Harvard-Harris poll was taken from November 15-16 and queried 2,851 registered voters. The overall results are interesting. 58% of people think the country is on the wrong track, as opposed to only 35% who think it’s on the right track. There’s the usual immutable partisan split, of course, but what’s important is that only 23% of Independents think the country is on the right track.
The numbers are almost identical regarding whether the economy is on the right or wrong track. However, almost one out of every two people polled say that their personal financial situation is worsening. Those numbers have improved slightly since the peak of Democrat-created inflation, but they’re not good for an incumbent. (Of course, Democrats insist that Americans are just too stupid to know how well they’re doing.) Still, Americans are beginning to feel slightly optimistic (which I hope is because they assume there will be a new administration after November 2024).
Biden, the Democrats, and the Republicans remain under 50% in the public eye. The public dislikes them about equally, although it still dislikes the Republicans just a little bit more. That’s either because the media, although people distrust it, are still effective, or it’s because the public recognizes that most Republicans are feckless people who stand for nothing. (Or maybe it’s a combination of both.)
Image: Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, by Andrea Widburg
When it comes to who’s hot and who’s not, RFK, Jr., a stone-cold leftist who nevertheless got it right on vaccines, has the highest overall favorability in America (52%). However, Donald Trump is a close second at 51%. In fourth place is Joe Biden, who, God alone knows how, comes in at 46%, one point behind Elon Musk. Next in order of favorability are Kamala Harris (45%), Ron DeSantis (44%), Hillary Clinton (44%), and Nikki Haley (43%). Michelle Obama is not on the list, but Gavin Newsom’s overall favorability is 30%, well below Kamala or Hillary.
When it comes to net favorability (subtracting the number of those who dislike a person, whether strongly or weakly, from those who like the person), the winners are RFK, Jr. (25%), Nikki Haley (14%), Bibi Netanyahu (13%), Tim Scott (9%), Vivek Ramaswamy (8%), Mike Johnson (8%), and Donald Trump (7%).
It gets still more interesting when you drill further down. The person with the most passionate devotion from those polled—the coveted “very favorable” view—is Donald Trump, at 30%. Biden comes in next for passion, with 22%, followed by Kamala Harris (21%), Hillary Clinton (19%), Elon Musk (18%), RFK, Jr. (17%), Ron DeSantis (14%), and Nikki Haley (13%), a position she shares with Bibi Netanyahu and Vivek Ramaswamy.
Drilling down still further reveals even more interesting information. Trump inspires the most passion, both pro and con, although the “favorables” (21%) outweigh the “unfavorables” (10%). However, those who hate him (34%) outnumber those who love him (30%). Biden is deeply disliked even more than Trump (36%) but gets a boost from the mush “favorables.” Indeed, the only political figure in America viewed more unfavorably than Joe is his son Hunter, who gets a 37% “very unfavorable” rating.
Hunter, though, still ranks higher than Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Mahmoud Abbas. Of the small percentage of people who have any idea who these three are, only 8%, 7%, and 7%, respectively, have a “strongly favorable” view of them. On the debit side (for them), Tlaib’s “very unfavorables” are 22%, Omar’s are 23%, and Abbas’s are 15%.
Almost a year away from the election, what I think I’m seeing is a combination of the effects of media bias (which strongly favors Democrats), disinterest, and ignorance. It’s to be hoped that all those factors diminish as the election nears.
However, the most important thing the poll shows is that the Democrats have a problem. While the Republicans currently have multiple people who show up well if you can ignore Trump’s overwhelming presence, the Democrats do not. Because Biden is the incumbent, no one can really run against him. Also, because of identity politics, there’s a limit to their options: “Female” and “minority” are going to head the list.
And so, at the end of the day, all that voters can come up with are Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris. I would never count my chickens before they hatch but, if Michelle cannot be persuaded to leave her luxe life of movie stars and yachts to run, it’s either Biden, the corrupt harridan, or the dumb cackler.
45 Questions the Media Should Ask Joe Biden and Kamala Harris
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) will appear in their first joint media interview on Sunday after accepting their party’s nominations this week.
However, unlike President Trump, Biden and Harris have thus far declined to take questions from the media in an open joint press conference where no questions or topics are off-limits.
In the event that such a press availability arises, here are 45 questions the media should ask them. This list is by no means exhaustive.
QUESTIONS FOR JOE BIDEN:
1. Why did members of your family keep getting lucrative business opportunities overseas while you were vice president?
2. How did your brother, Frank, secure $45,000,000 in taxpayer loans from the Obama administration for his Caribbean projects?
3. How did a newly-minted firm employing your other brother, James, receive a $1.5 billion contract to build homes in Iraq despite having no experience in construction or international development?
4. Why did your son Hunter accompany you on your official trip to Beijing in December 2013? What did he do on that trip? Who did he meet with? What should the American public make of the fact that just 10 days after this trip, your son’s boutique private equity firm secured a $1 billion investment deal from the state-owned bank of China (later expanded to $1.5 billion) despite having no prior experience in China, and with this deal, the Chinese government granted your son’s firm a first-of-its-kind arrangement to operate in the the recently formed Shanghai Free-Trade Zone—a perk not granted to any of the large established financial institutions?
5. Should the American public be concerned that your son’s private equity firm partnered with a Chinese government-owned aerospace and defense conglomerate to facilitate the purchase of an American company that produced strategically sensitive dual-use military technology that the Chinese government wanted?
6. Does your “Build Back Better” proposal contain any provisions to ensure that American taxpayer-funded technology is not bought off by Chinese state-backed enterprises working with private equity firms like your son’s?
7. Back in 2000, you voted in favor of giving permanent Normal Trade Relations (NTR) to China. At the time, you said that this would not lead to “the collapse of the American manufacturing economy” because China is “about the size of the Netherlands” and could not possibly become “our major economic competitor.” Furthermore, you predicted that free trade with China would establish “a path toward ever greater political and economic freedom” for the people of China. Do you still stand by these statements today after 3.4 million American jobs have been lost to China and millions of China’s citizens have been imprisoned, surveilled, disappeared, and used as slave labor by an increasingly authoritarian regime enriched by 20 years of record trade imbalances from flagrant trade violations?
8. The People’s Republic of China has a bold plan called “Made in China 2025” to dominate the key technologies of the future in order to overtake the United States militarily and economically. Do you still contend that China is “not competition for us”?
9. Why did you promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to financial special interest groups when research was clear that the deal would make it easier for corporations to move U.S. jobs overseas?
10. Do you believe Xi Jinping kept his promise to Barack Obama to end cyber-espionage against the United States? If not, what are you prepared to do about it?
11. Do you accept that the coronavirus originated in China? Do you think China was honest with the world in its handling of the coronavirus? Are you satisfied with China’s explanations for how it spread? Do you believe their claims about the number of cases and fatalities in China?
12. Do you think China should be held responsible in any way for its handling of the coronavirus? If not, why not? What, if any, repercussions should there be for China in its handling of the coronavirus?
13. Did you suggest investigating Michael Flynn under the Logan Act, as Peter Strzok’s notes suggest?
14. You said in your DNC acceptance speech that America is ready to “do the hard work of rooting out our systemic racism.” What did you do in your 36 years as a U.S. senator and 8 years as vice president to root out systemic racism? Why didn’t it work?
15. You have called for “revolutionary institutional changes.” What does that mean in practice?
16. You have vowed to rescind the Trump tax cuts. Can you think of a single example of a country that recovered from a recession by raising taxes?
QUESTIONS FOR KAMALA HARRIS:
17. Why did you refuse to prosecute even one sexual abuse case involving the Catholic Church in San Francisco when you were attorney general, despite the pleas of victims’ groups?
18. Also, why did your attorney general’s office refuse to release the documents obtained from the San Francisco archdiocese with all the information about priests accused of sexual abuse? Victims’ rights groups have criticized your office for deliberately burying these documents and thereby covering up the crimes and leaving the public unprotected. Why did you do this? The San Francisco district attorney’s office claimed in 2019 that they no longer have these documents in their possession. What happened to them? How can you claim to be a defender of children when you declined to prosecute the abusers of children?
19. Why did your office decline to investigate the health supplement fraud cases involving companies your husband’s law firm represented? Did you, as California’s attorney general, ever purposefully decline investigating or prosecuting clients of your husband’s law firm?
20. You said you believed the women accusing Joe Biden of inappropriate touching. Do you believe Tara Reade? If not, why not? If so, how do you justify supporting him now?
21. You once attacked a judicial nominee on the basis of his membership in the Catholic fraternal organization the Knights of Columbus, which is the largest fraternal organization in the world and includes among its past and present members many prominent Americans like President John F. Kennedy, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Gov. John Bel Edwards (D-LA), and Vince Lombardi. Do you believe that being a member of the Knights of Columbus disqualifies a person from holding public office? Would you refuse to hire someone on the basis of their membership in the Knights of Columbus or any other Catholic organization? In your questioning of this Catholic judicial nominee, you singled out the issue of the Catholic teaching on the sanctity of life. Would you disqualify a job applicant on the basis of their Catholic beliefs, including their beliefs about abortion? Do you believe that being pro-life disqualifies someone from employment?
22. Why did you single out journalist David Daleiden for prosecution for undercover journalism that others do without penalty?
23. Your chief-of-staff, Karine Jean-Pierre, wrote an op-ed last year attacking the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and Americans who associate with it, stating “You cannot call yourself a progressive while continuing to associate yourself with an organization like AIPAC that has often been the antithesis of what it means to be progressive.” Do you believe that pro-Israel activism is incompatible with progressive values?
24. The Biden campaign has adopted a version of the Green New Deal that calls for 100 percent renewable electricity generation by 2035. California has adopted similar “green” goals, but now it can’t keep the lights on due to the state’s reliance on wind and solar energy. California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newson admitted this week that the Golden State needs a “backup” plan for energy because the current blackouts caused by lack of wind and overcast skies have shown the danger of relying solely on “green” energy. Why would the nation fare any better than sunny breezy California in keeping the lights on if we adopt 100 percent renewable energy?
25. You said in the past that we “need to hold China accountable” for trade violations, but you are against the use of tariffs. How do you intend to hold China accountable? You also said that “we need to export American products, not American jobs.” How do you intend to make sure we don’t export more American jobs to China? How would your policy differ significantly from the same policies that led to the loss of 3.4 million jobs to China?
QUESTIONS FOR BIDEN OR HARRIS:
26. You both supported the George Floyd protests, which you claimed were peaceful. Have you spoken to any victims of the riots — people who lost loved ones or businesses?
27. Do you believe that the looting of the Magnificent Mile in Chicago was a “form of reparations,” as one Chicago Black Lives Matter organizer claimed? Is looting an appropriate form of protest as a means of reparations?
28. Seattle Black Lives Matter protesters stormed a neighborhood last week, demanding that residents “get the f*** out” and “give black people back their homes” as reparations. Do you support that style of protest?
29. If elected, would you object if protesters decided to tear down the statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square across from the White House? What about statues to Thomas Jefferson and George Washington? Would you be willing to sign a written pledge to protect our national monuments and statues?
30. What is the maximum number of illegal immigrants you would allow into the country before securing the border to stop more from entering?
31. The Obama administration deported an estimated 3 million illegal aliens. Was that a bad thing?
32. With 30 million Americans unemployed due to the coronavirus, would you support a halt on work visas for foreign workers competing with Americans for jobs?
33. Do you still support a ban on fracking? If so, what do you say to the estimated 7.5 million American jobs that will be lost due to such a ban, which includes an estimated 550,000 jobs lost in Pennsylvania, 500,000 jobs lost in Ohio, 363,000 jobs lost in North Carolina, 353,000 jobs lost in Colorado, and 233,000 jobs lost in Michigan?
34. Wall Street has praised the choice of Kamala Harris as VP. Why do you think financial special interests support her so much?
35. Will you be following the advice of your Wall Street and Silicon Valley donors in negotiating with China? If not, whose advice would you seek out in negotiating with China?
36. Do you support China’s actions in Hong Kong?
37. Do you support China’s actions in Xinjiang province where an estimated 3 million predominantly Uyghur Muslims are imprisoned in what the Pentagon has described as “concentration camps”? Are you concerned about the fact that Hunter Biden’s China-backed private equity firm invested heavily in the surveillance technology used to spy on the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province?
38. Do you disagree with how the Trump administration is handling Huawei? Do you think Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou should be extradited to the United States for trial?
39. Do you believe China’s Belt and Road Initiative is a form of colonialism or is it a good program that Third World nations should sign up for?
40. What are you prepared to do if China invades Taiwan or uses military force to assert its claims in the South China Sea?
41. Do you believe the U.S. should return to the Iran nuclear deal? Would you make further concessions to Iran to secure that? Do you believe the Iranian regime should be allowed to buy weapons again?
42. Are you pleased with the results of the Obama administration’s intervention in Libya?
43. Why did the Islamic State fold up so much more quickly under Trump than the Obama administration predicted?
44. Would you advise Arab nations to follow the UAE’s lead and make peace with Israel, or should they hold out for big concessions to the Palestinians?
45. Should the United States apologize for demanding NATO partners meet their financial commitments? If not, why didn’t the Obama administration ever do that?
Rebecca Mansour is a Senior Editor-at-Large for Breitbart News. Follow her on Twitter at @RAMansour.
Republicans are worried that, if Biden drops (or is pushed) out of the race, candidates more appealing to voters will step in to fill the vacancy. Their big worry is that Michelle Obama—who, thanks to a slobbering media, is popular in ways that neither her accomplishments nor her personality justify—will be pushed to run. Alternatively, Gavin Newsom is chomping at the bit, and the media could push him over the top despite California’s ongoing decline. But when asked, the most popular Democrats behind Biden are Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris.
The Harvard-Harris poll was taken from November 15-16 and queried 2,851 registered voters. The overall results are interesting. 58% of people think the country is on the wrong track, as opposed to only 35% who think it’s on the right track. There’s the usual immutable partisan split, of course, but what’s important is that only 23% of Independents think the country is on the right track.
The numbers are almost identical regarding whether the economy is on the right or wrong track. However, almost one out of every two people polled say that their personal financial situation is worsening. Those numbers have improved slightly since the peak of Democrat-created inflation, but they’re not good for an incumbent. (Of course, Democrats insist that Americans are just too stupid to know how well they’re doing.) Still, Americans are beginning to feel slightly optimistic (which I hope is because they assume there will be a new administration after November 2024).
Biden, the Democrats, and the Republicans remain under 50% in the public eye. The public dislikes them about equally, although it still dislikes the Republicans just a little bit more. That’s either because the media, although people distrust it, are still effective, or it’s because the public recognizes that most Republicans are feckless people who stand for nothing. (Or maybe it’s a combination of both.)
Image: Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, by Andrea Widburg
When it comes to who’s hot and who’s not, RFK, Jr., a stone-cold leftist who nevertheless got it right on vaccines, has the highest overall favorability in America (52%). However, Donald Trump is a close second at 51%. In fourth place is Joe Biden, who, God alone knows how, comes in at 46%, one point behind Elon Musk. Next in order of favorability are Kamala Harris (45%), Ron DeSantis (44%), Hillary Clinton (44%), and Nikki Haley (43%). Michelle Obama is not on the list, but Gavin Newsom’s overall favorability is 30%, well below Kamala or Hillary.
When it comes to net favorability (subtracting the number of those who dislike a person, whether strongly or weakly, from those who like the person), the winners are RFK, Jr. (25%), Nikki Haley (14%), Bibi Netanyahu (13%), Tim Scott (9%), Vivek Ramaswamy (8%), Mike Johnson (8%), and Donald Trump (7%).
It gets still more interesting when you drill further down. The person with the most passionate devotion from those polled—the coveted “very favorable” view—is Donald Trump, at 30%. Biden comes in next for passion, with 22%, followed by Kamala Harris (21%), Hillary Clinton (19%), Elon Musk (18%), RFK, Jr. (17%), Ron DeSantis (14%), and Nikki Haley (13%), a position she shares with Bibi Netanyahu and Vivek Ramaswamy.
Drilling down still further reveals even more interesting information. Trump inspires the most passion, both pro and con, although the “favorables” (21%) outweigh the “unfavorables” (10%). However, those who hate him (34%) outnumber those who love him (30%). Biden is deeply disliked even more than Trump (36%) but gets a boost from the mush “favorables.” Indeed, the only political figure in America viewed more unfavorably than Joe is his son Hunter, who gets a 37% “very unfavorable” rating.
Hunter, though, still ranks higher than Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Mahmoud Abbas. Of the small percentage of people who have any idea who these three are, only 8%, 7%, and 7%, respectively, have a “strongly favorable” view of them. On the debit side (for them), Tlaib’s “very unfavorables” are 22%, Omar’s are 23%, and Abbas’s are 15%.
Almost a year away from the election, what I think I’m seeing is a combination of the effects of media bias (which strongly favors Democrats), disinterest, and ignorance. It’s to be hoped that all those factors diminish as the election nears.
However, the most important thing the poll shows is that the Democrats have a problem. While the Republicans currently have multiple people who show up well if you can ignore Trump’s overwhelming presence, the Democrats do not. Because Biden is the incumbent, no one can really run against him. Also, because of identity politics, there’s a limit to their options: “Female” and “minority” are going to head the list.
And so, at the end of the day, all that voters can come up with are Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris. I would never count my chickens before they hatch but, if Michelle cannot be persuaded to leave her luxe life of movie stars and yachts to run, it’s either Biden, the corrupt harridan, or the dumb cackler.
45 Questions the Media Should Ask Joe Biden and Kamala Harris
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) will appear in their first joint media interview on Sunday after accepting their party’s nominations this week.
However, unlike President Trump, Biden and Harris have thus far declined to take questions from the media in an open joint press conference where no questions or topics are off-limits.
In the event that such a press availability arises, here are 45 questions the media should ask them. This list is by no means exhaustive.
QUESTIONS FOR JOE BIDEN:
1. Why did members of your family keep getting lucrative business opportunities overseas while you were vice president?
2. How did your brother, Frank, secure $45,000,000 in taxpayer loans from the Obama administration for his Caribbean projects?
3. How did a newly-minted firm employing your other brother, James, receive a $1.5 billion contract to build homes in Iraq despite having no experience in construction or international development?
4. Why did your son Hunter accompany you on your official trip to Beijing in December 2013? What did he do on that trip? Who did he meet with? What should the American public make of the fact that just 10 days after this trip, your son’s boutique private equity firm secured a $1 billion investment deal from the state-owned bank of China (later expanded to $1.5 billion) despite having no prior experience in China, and with this deal, the Chinese government granted your son’s firm a first-of-its-kind arrangement to operate in the the recently formed Shanghai Free-Trade Zone—a perk not granted to any of the large established financial institutions?
5. Should the American public be concerned that your son’s private equity firm partnered with a Chinese government-owned aerospace and defense conglomerate to facilitate the purchase of an American company that produced strategically sensitive dual-use military technology that the Chinese government wanted?
6. Does your “Build Back Better” proposal contain any provisions to ensure that American taxpayer-funded technology is not bought off by Chinese state-backed enterprises working with private equity firms like your son’s?
7. Back in 2000, you voted in favor of giving permanent Normal Trade Relations (NTR) to China. At the time, you said that this would not lead to “the collapse of the American manufacturing economy” because China is “about the size of the Netherlands” and could not possibly become “our major economic competitor.” Furthermore, you predicted that free trade with China would establish “a path toward ever greater political and economic freedom” for the people of China. Do you still stand by these statements today after 3.4 million American jobs have been lost to China and millions of China’s citizens have been imprisoned, surveilled, disappeared, and used as slave labor by an increasingly authoritarian regime enriched by 20 years of record trade imbalances from flagrant trade violations?
8. The People’s Republic of China has a bold plan called “Made in China 2025” to dominate the key technologies of the future in order to overtake the United States militarily and economically. Do you still contend that China is “not competition for us”?
9. Why did you promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to financial special interest groups when research was clear that the deal would make it easier for corporations to move U.S. jobs overseas?
10. Do you believe Xi Jinping kept his promise to Barack Obama to end cyber-espionage against the United States? If not, what are you prepared to do about it?
11. Do you accept that the coronavirus originated in China? Do you think China was honest with the world in its handling of the coronavirus? Are you satisfied with China’s explanations for how it spread? Do you believe their claims about the number of cases and fatalities in China?
12. Do you think China should be held responsible in any way for its handling of the coronavirus? If not, why not? What, if any, repercussions should there be for China in its handling of the coronavirus?
13. Did you suggest investigating Michael Flynn under the Logan Act, as Peter Strzok’s notes suggest?
14. You said in your DNC acceptance speech that America is ready to “do the hard work of rooting out our systemic racism.” What did you do in your 36 years as a U.S. senator and 8 years as vice president to root out systemic racism? Why didn’t it work?
15. You have called for “revolutionary institutional changes.” What does that mean in practice?
16. You have vowed to rescind the Trump tax cuts. Can you think of a single example of a country that recovered from a recession by raising taxes?
QUESTIONS FOR KAMALA HARRIS:
17. Why did you refuse to prosecute even one sexual abuse case involving the Catholic Church in San Francisco when you were attorney general, despite the pleas of victims’ groups?
18. Also, why did your attorney general’s office refuse to release the documents obtained from the San Francisco archdiocese with all the information about priests accused of sexual abuse? Victims’ rights groups have criticized your office for deliberately burying these documents and thereby covering up the crimes and leaving the public unprotected. Why did you do this? The San Francisco district attorney’s office claimed in 2019 that they no longer have these documents in their possession. What happened to them? How can you claim to be a defender of children when you declined to prosecute the abusers of children?
19. Why did your office decline to investigate the health supplement fraud cases involving companies your husband’s law firm represented? Did you, as California’s attorney general, ever purposefully decline investigating or prosecuting clients of your husband’s law firm?
20. You said you believed the women accusing Joe Biden of inappropriate touching. Do you believe Tara Reade? If not, why not? If so, how do you justify supporting him now?
21. You once attacked a judicial nominee on the basis of his membership in the Catholic fraternal organization the Knights of Columbus, which is the largest fraternal organization in the world and includes among its past and present members many prominent Americans like President John F. Kennedy, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Gov. John Bel Edwards (D-LA), and Vince Lombardi. Do you believe that being a member of the Knights of Columbus disqualifies a person from holding public office? Would you refuse to hire someone on the basis of their membership in the Knights of Columbus or any other Catholic organization? In your questioning of this Catholic judicial nominee, you singled out the issue of the Catholic teaching on the sanctity of life. Would you disqualify a job applicant on the basis of their Catholic beliefs, including their beliefs about abortion? Do you believe that being pro-life disqualifies someone from employment?
22. Why did you single out journalist David Daleiden for prosecution for undercover journalism that others do without penalty?
23. Your chief-of-staff, Karine Jean-Pierre, wrote an op-ed last year attacking the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and Americans who associate with it, stating “You cannot call yourself a progressive while continuing to associate yourself with an organization like AIPAC that has often been the antithesis of what it means to be progressive.” Do you believe that pro-Israel activism is incompatible with progressive values?
24. The Biden campaign has adopted a version of the Green New Deal that calls for 100 percent renewable electricity generation by 2035. California has adopted similar “green” goals, but now it can’t keep the lights on due to the state’s reliance on wind and solar energy. California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newson admitted this week that the Golden State needs a “backup” plan for energy because the current blackouts caused by lack of wind and overcast skies have shown the danger of relying solely on “green” energy. Why would the nation fare any better than sunny breezy California in keeping the lights on if we adopt 100 percent renewable energy?
25. You said in the past that we “need to hold China accountable” for trade violations, but you are against the use of tariffs. How do you intend to hold China accountable? You also said that “we need to export American products, not American jobs.” How do you intend to make sure we don’t export more American jobs to China? How would your policy differ significantly from the same policies that led to the loss of 3.4 million jobs to China?
QUESTIONS FOR BIDEN OR HARRIS:
26. You both supported the George Floyd protests, which you claimed were peaceful. Have you spoken to any victims of the riots — people who lost loved ones or businesses?
27. Do you believe that the looting of the Magnificent Mile in Chicago was a “form of reparations,” as one Chicago Black Lives Matter organizer claimed? Is looting an appropriate form of protest as a means of reparations?
28. Seattle Black Lives Matter protesters stormed a neighborhood last week, demanding that residents “get the f*** out” and “give black people back their homes” as reparations. Do you support that style of protest?
29. If elected, would you object if protesters decided to tear down the statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square across from the White House? What about statues to Thomas Jefferson and George Washington? Would you be willing to sign a written pledge to protect our national monuments and statues?
30. What is the maximum number of illegal immigrants you would allow into the country before securing the border to stop more from entering?
31. The Obama administration deported an estimated 3 million illegal aliens. Was that a bad thing?
32. With 30 million Americans unemployed due to the coronavirus, would you support a halt on work visas for foreign workers competing with Americans for jobs?
33. Do you still support a ban on fracking? If so, what do you say to the estimated 7.5 million American jobs that will be lost due to such a ban, which includes an estimated 550,000 jobs lost in Pennsylvania, 500,000 jobs lost in Ohio, 363,000 jobs lost in North Carolina, 353,000 jobs lost in Colorado, and 233,000 jobs lost in Michigan?
34. Wall Street has praised the choice of Kamala Harris as VP. Why do you think financial special interests support her so much?
35. Will you be following the advice of your Wall Street and Silicon Valley donors in negotiating with China? If not, whose advice would you seek out in negotiating with China?
36. Do you support China’s actions in Hong Kong?
37. Do you support China’s actions in Xinjiang province where an estimated 3 million predominantly Uyghur Muslims are imprisoned in what the Pentagon has described as “concentration camps”? Are you concerned about the fact that Hunter Biden’s China-backed private equity firm invested heavily in the surveillance technology used to spy on the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province?
38. Do you disagree with how the Trump administration is handling Huawei? Do you think Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou should be extradited to the United States for trial?
39. Do you believe China’s Belt and Road Initiative is a form of colonialism or is it a good program that Third World nations should sign up for?
40. What are you prepared to do if China invades Taiwan or uses military force to assert its claims in the South China Sea?
41. Do you believe the U.S. should return to the Iran nuclear deal? Would you make further concessions to Iran to secure that? Do you believe the Iranian regime should be allowed to buy weapons again?
42. Are you pleased with the results of the Obama administration’s intervention in Libya?
43. Why did the Islamic State fold up so much more quickly under Trump than the Obama administration predicted?
44. Would you advise Arab nations to follow the UAE’s lead and make peace with Israel, or should they hold out for big concessions to the Palestinians?
45. Should the United States apologize for demanding NATO partners meet their financial commitments? If not, why didn’t the Obama administration ever do that?
Rebecca Mansour is a Senior Editor-at-Large for Breitbart News. Follow her on Twitter at @RAMansour.
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