Pete Buttigieg’s tour de force of fatuousness, dishonesty, and backdoor socialism
Pete Buttigieg took questions on Sunday from George Stephanopoulos. This little man with the carefully tweezed eyebrows, sleazy 5:00 shadow, Alfred E. Neuman mien, and orator’s voice hid behind fatuous, hackneyed political babble even as he discretely revealed the hardcore totalitarianism that drives him and, indeed, drives the entire Biden administration. In many ways, Buttigieg is like a Stepford politician. There’s something eerily unreal about the man as, no matter the question, he responds with administration talking points rather than substantive information.
Stephanopoulos opened by speaking about Jamie Dimon’s warning that America is facing an economic “hurricane” (a word Stephanopoulos carefully avoided using), as well as Larry Summers’s concerns about a recession, and then asked if Americans need to brace for an economic storm. Buttigieg answered with blather.
He boasted about the swift, red-hot, wildly fast economic growth in the first year of the Biden administration—which was in fact a weak return to work by Americans who had been locked out of their jobs for over a year—but then conceded that we won’t be seeing that “growth” this year. He wants us to know, though, “that this administration takes seriously” people’s fears. The Fed will do its job and Congress will do its job and the supply chain will be stronger. And more blah-blah and some yadda-yadda.
Image: Pete Buttigieg (edited). YouTube screen grab.
But when Buttigieg finally got to a few specifics, alarm bells should have gone off. What Buttigieg wants is what Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) proposed in a New York Times opinion piece last week. That piece is behind a paywall, but Breitbart sums up the gist, which has the government become the middle-man for products sold to consumers and for wages paid to employees:
The article suggested three big government ideas for Biden to consider: 1) The federal government should buy energy and resell it to the American people for less money, 2) Biden should assemble a task force “to lower and stabilize short-term prices of volatile goods like food and fuel,” 3) Biden should “provide generous wage subsidies for American workers during the shortages.”
That is neither a free market nor is it capitalism. Instead, the government uses taxpayers’ money to buy products that the government then sells to non-taxpayers at a loss. It’s redistribution pure and simple. Yet that’s what Buttigieg espouses:
There are a number of things that the president has proposed that we do, that Congress could do...lowering the cost of insulin lowering, the cost of child care, lowering the cost of housing...Things that would make a difference no matter what's happening macroeconomically...would make life easier for Americans who are facing these economic question marks right now.
Buttigieg also has some weird factual views. In his world, Biden didn’t receive a growing economy; he received a broken one, saved it by flooding the system with cash, and now must be given the chance to repair it fully by becoming the chief retailer for all goods and services, presumably to be sold to people according to racial, gender, and ideological identities.
Buttigieg, as part of a party that controls the White House and Congress, laughably blames the Republicans for failing to give Biden power over goods and services. He also puts in a jab at Senator Rick Scott’s planned “raising taxes on lower- and middle-income Americans,” implying that Scott expects to perform economic miracles further impoverishing the poor. In fact, Scott makes an excellent point (one he’s subsequently run away from in interviews):
All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount. Currently over half of Americans pay no income tax.
This is not about having poor people fund government spending; it’s about everybody having a stake in the government so that they’ll be more inclined to control government spending, rather than greedily seeking more of it. Mitch McConnell, predictably, opposes this sensible plan.
Buttigieg’s fantasies also extend to claiming that rising oil prices aren’t because Biden cut off oil and gas leases on federal land on his first day in office but are, instead, because oil companies are profiteering, something they forbore to do during Trump’s presidency. He also insists that the companies be forced to use permits they’ve obtained.
That they don’t isn’t because they’re greedy but because many of the leases are for land that’s currently unprofitable or that could take years to develop (partly because of onerous federal regulations and permitting requirements). Meanwhile, the Department of the Interior put out a press release boasting that it’s planning to use public land for windmills and solar arrays which are dirty to produce, kill birds, have short lifespans, and cannot be recycled when they’re dead.
In other words, everything Buttigieg said was dishonest or dangerous. He is a perfect representative of the Biden administration.
Report: ‘Frustrated’ and ‘Seething’ Joe Biden Angry About Flailing Presidency
President Joe Biden is getting more frustrated by his flailing presidency, according to another report in the establishment media.
Politico’s Jonathan Lemire cites five White House officials and Democrats close to the Biden Administration who point to “the greatest source of West Wing frustration, coming from behind the Resolute Desk.”
Biden is exasperated, the report says, that his approval ratings are below former President Donald Trump’s.
The report also notes Biden is “far more prone to salty language behind the scenes than popularly known” and “erupted” over the optics of the baby formula shortages.
The Politico report adds to other recent stories outling Biden’s flailing presidency, including an NBC report detailing a frustrated president reminding his staffers he is the president and a CNN story detailing his messaging struggles online despite a team of over 70 people dedicated to online strategy.
Those closest to Biden, including his wife Jill Biden and his sister Valerie Biden Owens, have urged White House staff to loosen up the restraints on the president and allow him to get back on the road.
U.S. President Joe Biden looks down at his watch alongside First Lady Jill Biden as they attend the dignified transfer of the remains of a fallen service member at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware, August, 29, 2021. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
One person close to the president, the report cites, urges staff to “let Biden be Biden” despite his multiple gaffes.
The report also notes Biden did not want to meet with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, rejecting proposals of a meeting out of principle.
Biden called Saudi Arabia a “pariah” during his presidential campaign and vowed to treat them as such. But he might relent as the West desperately needs more oil from the Saudis as gas prices continue to rise through the summer.
At this point, Biden’s presidency is an abject failure.
High inflation, record-high gas prices, an extended baby formula shortage, a long-lasting border crisis, and an extended Russian war in Ukraine.
The recent mass shootings under his watch only exasperated Biden further, as he unrealistically demanded full-scale gun control as a response.
Hurricane Joe – A Category Five Economic Calamity
Hurricane season is officially underway, beginning June 1, extending to November 30. Expect the usual stories about hurricanes becoming more frequent and severe due to global warming, despite contrary evidence.
What about a new type of hurricane? Not rain and wind, but an economic hurricane of stagflation, a toxic combination of high inflation and stagnant economic growth. This hurricane is so miserable that a term was coined to measure the misery, aptly named the misery index, the sum of the inflation and unemployment rates.
The misery index is currently in double digits, near 12, and if economic malaise continues, expect this number to creep closer to 20, territory last seen during the Jimmy Carter presidency, the last time both the misery index and malaise were commonly discussed.
True hurricanes are forecast by meteorologists, although amateurs such as Al Gore, Greta Thunberg, and Prince Charles, often opine on upcoming climate change catastrophes. Economic hurricane predictions are best left to those with a far deeper understanding of business and the economy than Al or Greta have of the weather or climate.
One such expert is Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank. At a recent financial conference, he warned, “You know, I said there’s storm clouds but I’m going to change it … it’s a hurricane.”
He went on with his economic hurricane forecast, “Right now, it’s kind of sunny, things are doing fine, everyone thinks the Fed can handle this. That hurricane is right out there, down the road, coming our way.”
YouTube screen grab
Another business titan, Elon Musk, echoed Dimon’s hurricane forecast. Just as animals are able to sense an incoming storm or tsunami, Musk has a similar premonition about an upcoming economic hurricane. Musk has a “super bad feeling” about the economy. He emailed Tesla executives to “pause all hiring worldwide,” and instead plan on cutting 10 percent of the Tesla workforce.
A third economic mogul weighed in, although not with a weather analogy. Goldman Sachs's President John Waldron observed:
This is among - if not the most - complex, dynamic environments I’ve ever seen in my career. The confluence of the number of shocks to the system to me is unprecedented. We expect there’s going to be tougher economic times ahead.
It's clear that America is heading toward an economic hurricane. Do others recognize this, aside from the three commenting above? Does the media notice, or are they too busy reporting on COVID cases as if it’s still 2020?
Average Americans certainly recognize the coming economic storm. Anyone who drives a gasoline powered vehicle knows the pain of filling up the tank. Gas prices hit another record high of $4.71 a gallon with seven states topping $5.00 a gallon. Biden’s response is that gas and food prices are “not likely” to come down anytime soon because there is a lot “going on right now.” There’s always a lot going on. He was elected to manage it.
When Joe Biden was elected on Nov. 3, 2020, gas prices were only $2.12 a gallon. They already hit $3.57 a gallon when Russia invaded Ukraine, throwing water on Biden's bid to blame Russian President Vladimir Putin for the soaring gas prices. As the Biden-faced stickers pasted on gas pumps nationwide acknowledge, “I did that,” so Biden blaming Trump or Putin for the more than doubling of gas prices on his watch is disingenuous.
One California gas station is charging nearly $10 for a gallon of gas. What happens when this spreads across the rest of the country?
It's not only gasoline, but energy costs in general. As CNN reluctantly acknowledged, “The world is grappling with gravity-defying energy price spikes on everything from gasoline and natural gas to coal. Some fear this may just be the beginning.”
One of CNN’s experts, the secretary general of the International Energy Forum went back to the weather analogies, “We have a serious problem around the world that I think policymakers are just waking up to. It’s kind of a perfect storm.”
Aside from energy, another staple is food. As PJ Media reported, “Grocery store and supermarket purchases rose 10.8% year over year in April. The USDA’s forecast for May predicts the cost of food will increase again and significantly by fall.” They warned Americans to get ready for $1 eggs.
Hormel Foods Corporation CEO Jim Snee warned of “large supply gaps,” an economic euphemism for shortages. Think of the recent shortage of baby formula with America having to fly in supplies from Europe, which only supplied a few days of America’s need for formula.
Wheat production will also be down. As Fox Business noted, “U.S. wheat crop hurt by dry winter and spring's heavy rain.” The weather isn’t Biden’s fault, but goading Russia into invading Ukraine over NATO expansion threats is Biden’s doing, and the war has slashed worldwide food production, “The United Nations has said that the war's impact on grains, oils, fuel and fertilizer could result in severe hunger for millions of people.”
Americans have lost faith. Economic confidence fell to 87.7 in this month’s Rasmussen Reports Economic Index, more than 20 points lower than April. “May’s decline reverses two consecutive months of gains. The index is now at its lowest point in eight years.”
Rasmussen also notes that Biden’s approval stands at just 40 percent, compared to Trump at 48 percent exactly four years ago.
Gallup’s economic confidence measure confirms the above. While positive during the last administration, it dropped in 2020, never to return to positive territory. It currently fell from minus 39 to minus 45, “The lowest reading in Gallup's trend during the coronavirus pandemic, and likely the lowest confidence has been since the tail end of the Great Recession in early 2009.”
Does the supposed voice of reason, the calming Scranton Kid, compared to the loud-mouth tweeter from Queens who he replaced, have words to soothe anxious Americans?
Fat chance. Last week Biden said he's not "aware" of any "immediate action" that would reduce food and fuel prices. Jimmy Carter could not have said it better.
The economic hurricane is coming. Buckle up for a rough ride.
Brian C. Joondeph, M.D., is a physician and writer. Follow me on Twitter @retinaldoctor. And on Truth Social @BrianJoondeph.
VIDEO
20 Signs Of The Staggering Decline Of The American Middle Class Family
We just got more evidence that the middle class is being systematically destroyed in America. At this point, millions of people out there have already grown accustomed to barely scraping by from month to month. But that is not what being “middle class” is supposed to be about. Middle-class families should be able to make more money than they have to spend on everyday necessities because is only by doing so that they can build long-term wealth. Unfortunately, income growth has not kept up with the pace of the rising cost of living, and millions of households have taken massive amounts of debt. At the same time, the labor market doesn't offer good-paying jobs that support middle-class life, and the lack of these positions has been contributing to the decline of this income group all across the country. In the early 1970s, the middle class accounted for around 60 percent of the population, but now middle-income households are rapidly becoming a minority in the United States. And as economic conditions continue to deteriorate, millions of hard-working families all over America are being stretched financially like never before. “In America, the middle class can no longer afford retirement. Middle-class Americans face sharp economic inequality, with ownership of financial assets highly concentrated among the wealthy,” explained Tyler Bond, NIRS research manager. “Now that we have a retirement system largely built around the individual ownership of financial assets in 401(k) accounts, middle-class Americans are struggling to accumulate sufficient financial assets during their working years. This means the retirement outlook for many in the middle class is bleak at best.” Since the onset of the health crisis, the U.S. economy has been decaying at an alarming pace. Over the past two years, the middle class has gotten smaller and smaller in this country, and now it seems that another economic downturn is upon us once again. So many families are already living on the edge right now. Recent surveys have exposed that well over 50% of the population is living paycheck to paycheck and that most Americans don't have emergency savings or a financial cushion to fall back on. When you are living on the edge, there is always a danger that you could fall over. Since 2020, we have never seen so many middle-class Americans falling straight into poverty. In other words, unless dramatic changes happen in America, the middle class is going to be absolutely eviscerated in the next decade. We must wake up now. The middle class is dying right before our eyes, and if we want to save it, we must take action now. Today, we compiled a series of new numbers that expose the rapid downfall of the U.S. middle-class.
Brian Kilmeade: Is Biden's luck running out?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0EVUGJsBM4
REALITY CHECK: OBAMACARE WAS WRITTEN BY OBOMB'S BIG PHARMA CRONIES IN THE FIRST PLACE!
VIDEO
Ralph Nader: Biden's First Year Proves He Is Still a "Corporate Socialist" Beholden to Big Business
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jTIUtjkDss&t=28s
Biden enforces largest Medicare premium hike in history while funneling more profits to private insurers
In a move that received minimal media attention, last week the Biden administration reaffirmed its decision to enact the largest Medicare premium hike in the program’s 57-year history. The president is also endorsing a plan to funnel more money to private insurance companies and escalating plans to privatize the government insurance program for seniors and those with disabilities. Medicare enrolled 62.7 million people in 2021.
The White House announced May 27 that Medicare recipients will not see their premiums lowered this year. This is despite the fact that a rate hike confirmed last November was due in large part to projected costs for a drug to treat Alzheimer’s disease that have now been lowered.
In November 2021, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced an approximately 14.5 percent increase to premiums for Medicare Part B, which covers doctor visits and some preventive care and outpatient services. The standard monthly premium rose from $148.50 in 2021 to $170.10 this year.
The hike came largely as a result of uncertainty over whether Medicare would cover the costs of Aduhelm, an exorbitantly expensive drug to treat Alzheimer’s. Under pressure from the pharmaceutical industry, the controversial drug was approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in June 2021, despite disputes over whether it is effective in treating the debilitating disease.
Biogen, the maker of Aduhelm, originally priced the drug at $56,000 a year. After a considerable outcry from patient advocates and others, Biogen announced that the drug would cost $28,200 effective January 1, 2022, when the Medicare premium hikes kicked in. In April, Medicare instituted strict rules regarding who could receive Aduhelm, restricting its use mainly to clinical trials.
On May 27, the Biden administration said that despite the halving of Aduhelm’s cost, and also its restriction to a small patient pool, it would not be lowering the monthly premiums deducted from seniors’ Social Security benefits. The administration justified this move on the basis of “legal and operational hurdles.”
In a report to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, CMS wrote that “a mid-year administrative redetermination [of Medicare premiums] would be prohibitively complex and highly risky, requiring significant resources and unproven technical solutions from the varied entities which manage premium collection and payment.” In practical terms, this means that Medicare enrollees will not be receiving either a refund on the premium increases already collected this year, nor will premiums be adjusted for the balance of 2022.
CMS claims that 2023 premiums will be adjusted to reflect the lowering of the price of Aduhelm and the reduction in the drug’s usage. There is no guarantee, however, that such an adjustment will take place, as other price hikes demanded by the pharmaceutical industry or other segments of the for-profit health care system are highly likely. And the government has seldom rebated money that it has already collected from the population.
CMS also makes the fantastic claim that seniors are unlikely to feel the impact of the premium hike due to a 5.9 percent cost-of-living adjustment in their Social Security benefits that began in January 2022. This small increase has already been more than eaten up by rapidly rising inflation hitting food, housing, transportation and other basic necessities. The impact on seniors is particularly dire, with more than 7 million living in poverty and 7.3 million food-insecure, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF).
The news that 2022 premium hikes will not be refunded or scaled back comes as Biden officials are moving forward with an 8.5 percent increase in payments made to private insurers operating Medicare Advantage plans in 2023.
Under Medicare Advantage, also known as Medicare Part C, beneficiaries pay their monthly premiums to the federal government but receive coverage from a private insurer for inpatient hospital and outpatient services, typically including prescription drug coverage as well. The establishment of these plans marked a major step in the dismantling of Medicare as a government program. Companies operating these plans are incentivized to limit the amount of medical care received by their enrollees in order to boost profits.
Dr. Susan Rogers, president of Physicians for a National Healthcare Program, told The Lever, “Medicare Advantage insurers such as United Healthcare, Anthem, and CVS/Aetna are celebrating record profits in the tens of billions of dollars.” She added, “Their business plan is simple: inflate their Medicare payments by making seniors look sicker than they are, and then pocket more of those Medicare dollars by ruthlessly denying seniors’ care.”
Enrollment in Medicare Advantage—signed into law in 1997 by Bill Clinton—has more than doubled over the past decade. In 2021, more than 26 million people were enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan, or about 42 percent of the total Medicare population. Private plans have cost Medicare $146 billion since 2008.
In addition to hiking Medicare premiums and funneling more money to Medicare Advantage insurers, Biden has expanded Medicare privatization. The Direct Contracting Entity (DCE) program was launched in April 2019 by the CMS, during the Trump administration, under the auspices the CMS Innovation Center, known as CMMI.
Similar to Medicare Advantage, the DCE program allows intermediary companies to offer unique benefits, such as gym memberships. DCE operators range from private insurers to publicly traded companies to private equity firms. As for-profit entities they are also incentivized to limit patient care, particularly for the critically ill.
While Medicare patients choose to sign up for Advantage plans, patients can be enrolled in DCE health plans without their informed consent. Remarkably, seniors for instance may be “auto-aligned” to a DCE if any primary care physician they have visited in the past two years is affiliated with that DCE. Seniors are being swindled by these plans via methods more unscrupulous than scammers trying to obtain Social Security numbers over the phone.
Notably, CMMI was created under the Affordable Care Act, which was signed into law in 2010 by Barack Obama. CMMI’s aim was to develop new payment models in Medicare and Medicaid, the government insurance program for the poor, without going through the formal legislative process that requires public comment.
The DCE program is now being expanded by the Biden administration under a new name—ACO REACH, or Accountable Care Organization Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health. Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s office told The Lever that 350,000 seniors were assigned to DCE plans as of January 2022, none of whom signed up voluntarily.
In the US health care system, access to and the affordability of medical care is subordinated to the profits of the private insurers, pharmaceuticals and giant hospital chains. Democratic and Republican politicians alike are concerned with upholding the interests of this market-driven system, not by the needs of patients and health care workers. One need only follow the money to see who benefits.
Business Insider reports that Biden received roughly $47 million from health care industry executives during his 2020 presidential campaign. The leadership of DCE contractor Clover Health donated $500,000 to the main super PAC for Senate Democrats in 2020, while Chamath Palihapitiya, the company’s financier, donated $750,000 to the same super PAC, according to the Open Secrets web site.
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Nolte: Dems Freak as Obamacare Premiums Set to Spike By 53%
Democrats are in total control of the federal government and about 13 million Obamacare recipients are about to receive notice of a 53 percent premium price increase.
The only thing that will stop reality from hitting these 13 million is if Congress acts to extend the subsidies, which will cost the American taxpayer $70 billion over three years.
Hey, remember when Obama and his media fact-checkers told us Obamacare would DECREASE the deficit?
U.S. President Barack Obama sits during the presidential inauguration on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol January 21, 2013, in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Good times, good times…
The premium increases would be substantial if Congress does not act, with an average rise of around 53 percent, affecting roughly 13 million people, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Middle class people making more than 400 percent of the federal poverty line would be especially hard hit, given that they would go back to not being eligible for any financial assistance and have to pay the full cost of their premiums.
[…]
“Right before the election, people would get notices of big premium increases, and that will certainly not reflect well on Democrats,” said Larry Levitt, a health policy expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
You see, this is what happens when you do business with the government. You are constantly a victim of the whims of an unaccountable bureaucracy and mercenary politicians.
These Obamacare recipients are trapped. They have no place to go. No competition to turn to. And no upstart will come along to try and make everything work better and cheaper. You can’t compete with a rigged system as powerful as the federal government.
(Mikhail Nilov/ Pexels)
Look at the movie Joker. What turned the Joker into Joker was losing his government-subsidized mental health care. His whole life went to shit because the government made him dependent and then pulled the rug out from under him.
Look at all the veterans who died because they could only use the Veteran’s Administration.
It is utterly idiotic to give the government total say over something as vital as healthcare. There’s no competition, which means you are totally reliant on a single entity, which makes you extremely vulnerable and removes all the control and power a free market offers — a free market where you can always do business with the other guy down the road.
So what’s holding up this $70 billion subsidy from being passed? The same old BS. Right now, it’s part of a much bigger package. In other words, it’s attached to an expensive piece of emotional blackmail that has nothing to do with lowering premiums.
The hope is that a clean bill can be proposed and passed, but they are running out of time. August is the deadline, and even then, “waiting to the last minute to extend the subsidies would pose operational difficulties,” for the “Affordable Care Act marketplaces need time to set up their systems before the enrollment period[.]”
Hahahahaha: they’re still calling it the Affordable Care Act.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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