News

Meet The Depressed

Posted on by boom booms room staff

Rush Limbaugh used to mockingly refer to the NBC Sunday morning news show as “Meet the Depressed.”

Perhaps it is an apropos name even if just for a week for the party in power.

Yesterday, Halloween Day, host Chuck Todd delivered some scary news for Democrats.  An October 23-26 NBC News poll was discussed and answers to it disseminated.

“The overarching message, Americans have lost their confidence in President Joe Biden and their optimism for the country. At least they have right now. Just 22% of adults say we are headed in the right direction. A shocking 71% say we’re on the wrong track and that includes a near majority of Democrats who are saying that,” Todd said.

Did he say “a near majority of Democrats as well?”  It is spooky indeed that the left-leaning network and its marquee show would even kick off the broadcast with that.

Further, fifty-four percent of Americans disapprove of the job Biden is doing, while only 42% approve.  The numbers are in a free fall from a similar poll conducted just two months ago.

The further you dive into the details the worse it gets for team Biden on some issues.  On border security, inflation, crime, national security, and the economy the president is underwater by 18-27 percent vs how Americans think that Republicans would handle such needs.

All of this sets up as an early tell.  Later this week Biden travels back from Europe to Virginia to lend a political hand.   Republican Glenn Youngkin is within striking distance of Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia governor’s election.  This statistical dead heat comes just one year after Biden routed Trump in the state by 10 points.

Can McAuliffe survive after he told parents that they shouldn’t have a say in what their children are taught?  Biden is ridin’ to the rescue.

The good news about the scary news is that the midterms are a year away.  Poll numbers can change significantly by then.  But will they?

The Dems currently hold all of the power, but constantly argue over spending more, or a lot more money than this country can afford?  Too much candy isn’t too good for you.

Will Halloween time a year from now be a trick or a treat for the Democrats?

Fish Like Hell, and Make Up Lies

Posted on by boom booms room staff

Hook, line, and sinker.  It’s all there for your eyes to peruse the ruse in one sentence.  Wear some sunglasses though.

“It seems to me almost every sensible progressive revenue option that the President wants, that the American people want, that I want, seems to be sabotaged,” he said.  He would be Bernie Sanders, of all things the Senate Budget Chairman.

Is there such a thing as a “sensible progressive revenue option?”

If you have enough lines in the water surely someone (Sinema, Manchin, someone, Buehler, anyone) will bite, won’t they?

As Democrats face a self-imposed deadline to pass a sweeping reconciliation spending bill and a bipartisan infrastructure plan they appear in danger of doing neither – again.

You make your bed, and you lie in it.  Months ago Madame Speaker Nancy Pelosi caved or got in cahoots (take your pick) with the far, far left.  She agreed to tie the two bills together.

It sounded good at the time.  When you’re the majority on both floors of the Congress and are reeling in a fish for a President what could go wrong?   What went wrong is that they thought they had all of the fish in the boat, but two are unexpectedly swimming upstream.

It seems like the fishing license has a renewal date, too.

President Biden is leaving the United States Thursday for an international trip that will include, among other things, a climate summit.   “The president looked at us in the eye and he said, ‘I need this before I go represent the United States in Glasgow,’” Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said Sunday.

Ah, yes, the bull rush close.  Get them in the boat before there’s too much slack in the line and the hook gets loose.

“American prestige is on the line,” he added.  Really?  Sounds like good cop, bad cop.

“It’s the effing progressives,” one moderate Democrat anonymously told Fox News. The moderate accused progressives of asking for “unreasonable things.”  It sounds like some are ready to jump overboard.

Maybe, just maybe, they’re asking for a haul that exceeds any sensible fishing limits?  Elon Musk thinks so.  He’s had enough.   They threw out the chum and grabbed the gaff to hook the rich.

How about a 15% tax on all billionaires making over 100 million?   “Eventually, they run out of other people’s money and then they come for you,” he wrote on Twitter.

Musk could face up to $50 billion in taxes for the first five years under the plan if implemented.  We are reminded often that everyone should pay their fair share.  In his case, the fair share exceeds the gross domestic product of some developed countries.

If you let a group of angry, unintelligent fishermen (call them “the squad” maybe) wet a line long enough they’ll eventually fish an area dry. It’s why gill nets are banned.

The Democrats could extend their own self-imposed deadline again.  But, before you know it, it will be winter and then 2022.

Remember, 2022 is a midterm election year.

That’s when fishing poles are quickly replaced by reelection polls, and Americans take the bait all over again.

 

 

Ho, Ho, No

Posted on by boom booms room staff

Yes DC, there is a Santa Claus.

“With holidays coming up, you might be wondering if the gifts you plan to buy will arrive on time,” President Biden said from the White House yesterday. “Today we have some good news: We’re going to help speed up the delivery of goods all across America.”

And ole Joe, one of Kris Kringle’s older elves is here to help.  The White House responded to the roughly 66 container ship backlog by finalizing an agreement for the Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach to become a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week operation just like the hours that Santa’s helpers keep this time of the year.

The hope is that nighttime operations will help to break the logjam and get that temporary inflation, which isn’t so temporary, under control.

Want to know a Santa’s secret?  The port has been operating 24/7 for the last 21 days.  Want to know another?   Consumer prices climbed 5.4% from a year ago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday, way above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.

Higher energy, food, and shelter costs were prime drivers of price increases in September.   There isn’t too much energy coming into LA’s ports.  And, it accounts for zero shelter cost increases.

Ah, but it’s been said before, and savvy politicians will say it again.  And, again.   Never, ever let a good crisis go to waste.  Alas, the president is trying to use the predicament as a selling point for his policy plans that are undergoing congressional scrutiny.

“We need to take a longer view and invest in building greater resiliency to withstand the kinds of shocks we’ve seen over and over, year in and year out, the risk of a pandemic, extreme weather, climate change, cyberattacks, weather disruptions,” he said.  That’s a mouthful of leftist cookies and milk if we’ve ever heard it.

What’s so weird about this is that Santa and his elves work in the harshest climate of all, the North Pole.  And, we’ve seen over and over, year in and year out that jolly ole Nick guy and his reindeer get to millions of homes, up and down chimneys, and deliver on promises all in one 24 hour window.  That’s a supply chain logistics model to emulate if ever there was one.  And, yet, it doesn’t work this year.  Hmm.

And, lost in all of this is that the ports are but one small piece of the puzzle.  Up and down the supply chain- wages, raw material shortages, manufacturing shortfalls, lack of truck drivers, lack of retail workers, etc all have a role.  Oh, and the government is stuffing money in the stockings hung on the mantle without care.

Rudolph’s red inflation nose is flashing so bright, that the Fed might need to deliver an interest rate lump of coal increase sooner than later.   That, of course, assumes coal is still an allowable fuel source should the Democrats pass the Reconciliation Bill, but we digress.

University of Michigan economist Betsey Stevenson noted on Twitter the “economy is in a very fragile and unprecedented place.”  “No one really knows what’s going to happen,” wrote Stevenson, a former member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama.

Maybe Santa could trade in his old, old sleigh. We hear used vehicles are commanding top trade-in dollars these days.

The problem with that is he’d need to buy a pricey new one.

And, those come from China, through the LA port, and are back-ordered until mid-2022 we heard.

Lefty and Shorty-Gruden, Gas Prices, etc.

Posted on by boom booms room staff

Last evening Lefty and Shorty were all but ready to close the Gulf Station.   Rain was falling from the heavens at an accelerating pace and cars were nowhere to be found. Lefty- Why do we stay open until midnight?  Shorty-So that you and I can discuss this wacky world.

Lefty sat to the left of Shorty.  Imagine that.  Shorty sat on the shorter of the two “halves” of the 55-gallon drum. Imagine that.  Each was cut down to size and retrofitted with a soft cushion top.

Lefty- Jon Gruden resigned.  Shorty- It’s about time somebody took ownership of the fiasco under the Del Rio Bridge.  Lefty- What? Gruden, the Raiders coach. Shorty- Oh!  Maybe Jack Del Rio can take over as interim?  Why did he resign?

Lefty- Umm.  Gruden’s 10-year-old emails exposed him as a racist, a bigot, a misogynist, and a few other names that I cannot spell.  Shorty- What do 10-year-old emails have to do with the high price of oil today? Lefty- I’m dumbfounded, but in today’s cancel culture world I guess everything.  Shorty-What does dumbfounded mean?   Lefty-  Look in the mirror much?  Shorty- I’ve called Roger Goodell a few names myself from time to time.   Lefty- Everyone that has an NFL pulse has, but “gotcha” got Gruden this time.   Shorty- Frank Caliendo lost a voice.

Lefty- Moving along.   Shorty-  What’s Biden doing about the high price of oil?

Lefty- Same as he’s doing for everything.  Calling it transitory.  Shorty- Isn’t transitory one of those bad names that exposed Gruden that you can’t spell?   Lefty- Huh?  No.  He’s saying it’s only temporary.  Shorty- Like his presidency?  Lefty- Whew, you must have slept well last night! Here’s a softball down the middle for you.  Do you think Kamala takes over if Biden doesn’t quite make the four years? Shorty-  Who is harder to find these days, Kamala Harris or Brian Laundrie?

Lefty- This isn’t going well.  Shorty- You mean the gas business?  Lefty- Sure. I’ll bite.  Shorty- How can it?  We don’t have enough help.  We don’t have enough gas.  And, the cost per gallon is about to hit a decade-high price. 

Lefty- Just one more question should do it.  What do you think of the Reconciliation Bill?  Shorty- Not much.  If I was Bill I’d stay as far away from Hillary as possible.

Lefty- Be sure to lock up.  Shorty- Bill?

 

 

Buy Today, Deliver Tonight

Posted on by boom booms room staff

Those “come on” deals always sound so tempting.  You know the ones.

Buy this entire room of furniture today, have it delivered tonight with nothing down, no interest, and nothing to pay until…….

Until.  That’s the rub.  The bills always come due.  And, if you sell your soul to the devil(or Tony Soprano types) they never end.

Do take our word for it, ask POTUS.

He promised it all, or at least his team did, to the left of the left inside of the Democratic Party to get elected.  They wanted that room full of furniture.

So, they took to the streets, lit fires, threw rocks, looted, had mostly peaceful protests, told you that Black Lives Matter, wanted to defund the police for social justice, complained about the rich getting richer, needed tuition debt forgiven, wanted free preschool, and need to end this pesky climate change(hurricanes included) all to get Biden in office.  And it worked in record voting numbers we are told.

All of this unrest when unemployment was at record lows, the stock market was at record highs, interest rates were at record lows, companies building new in America were at record highs, illegal border crossings were at record lows.  We could go on.

But, the Trump world was a terrible one and we need to Build Back Better they said.  And, now the bills are due.

So, with one enormous spending bill followed by another, he’s attempting to pay off the debts of gratitude.  Like hurricanes, each bill had(Covid relief) or has(Infrastructure, Reconciliation) a name to remember it by.

But, a funny thing happened these last several weeks.  Controlling the House, the Senate, and the White House the party in power can’t agree on how much, how fast, when, where, and why.

The further left you are, the more you “need” for all of the minions that elect and reelect and reelect you.

The furniture hasn’t even been delivered yet.  Yet, Bernie Sanders wants to remodel and nearly double the size of the room (5 tril he says).  AOC scoffed at 3.5 tril on the Reconciliation Bill sarcastically asking if this was rent to own by month money.  Nancy Pelosi wants until the end of October to appoint the joint.  She’s trying to get the kids to agree on adding the love seat and dropping out the recliner.

And two Senators (Manchin and Sinema)aren’t sure if we need all of this new free stuff.

One of them, Sinema, made the mistake of getting up from the sofa and heading to the bathroom where she was accosted by malcontents likely hired to act like imbeciles.

Biden said yesterday that all of this stalling was the Republican’s fault. He really did.  He also said that he needed them to get out of the way as our nation’s economy was at stake over this.  He actually may be so wrong about the economy that he is right.

With gas prices at seven-year highs, supply chain issues across numerous industries, food prices skyrocketing, labor shortages everywhere, and the Fed carefully considering when(not if) to raise interest rates perhaps the last thing we need to do is print more money to create more demand and higher costs of living.

At least soon enough we’ll be able to forget about these squabbles over money we don’t have and buy some Christmas presents for our loved ones with money that we don’t have.

On Monday Dr. Fauci said we could have Christmas celebrations this year.  That was a relief because on one of Sunday’s morning shows he said it was too soon to tell if we could gather with our loved ones.

He also said that his comments were taken out of context. His problem is a lot like Urban Meyer’s problem.  Roll the videos.  But, we digress.

For now, the conservatives can tell the woke that we are going broke and the woke can tell the conservatives that our country is broken.

Buy today and we’ll deliver tonight!

 

 

 

If A Tree Falls…

Posted on by boom booms room staff

Unless you live under a rock you know that 10-15k Haitian migrants have been living under a bridge on the border in Del Rio, TX for about 10 days and counting.

What you may not know is that in mid-sentence of answering a question yesterday (presumably about Ireland), UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was cut off by a White House staff that ushered all UK and US reporters out of the room.

This was only one and one-half answer in for the Prime Minister, and after President Joe Biden had answered “good luck” to Johnson when he first suggested that the two begin taking questions.  Biden and Boris watched the herding out of the reporters with the look of second-graders when first introduced to long division.  There sat Plugs and Shag Rugs.

The migrants’ ten-day fiasco and the three-minutes and halted Q and A have much in common.   They are both unfortunate examples of the Biden Administration’s over-the-top, incessant attempt to control the content, its narrative, as well as Biden’s exposure to the press to account for any and all things pertinent to running this country.

Consider the following.

  1. None of the Haitians are directly from Haiti, hence the term migrants, not refugees.  Every single one interviewed thus far stated that they have been living in Brazil, Mexico, or in one of a few Central American countries.  They’re claiming refugee status in light of the recent events in Haiti as a cover for entry.  Biden kicked that door wide open months back.
  2. The Del Rio crossing as well as other entry points across the Rio Grande have gone unmanned in recent weeks.  The Biden team told the Border Patrol to stand down entirely.  Open borders it is.
  3. It is believed that Haitian’s are only 3% vaccinated.  Americans can’t walk into restaurants without one or two jabs, but it’s no problem for entry via our borders.
  4. On Sunday talk shows DHS and ICE leaders told America that everyone was going to get a one-way ticket back to Haiti.  Crisis solved. Nothing to see here.  Never mind that they don’t live there anymore.  Also, as of yesterday, only about 300 have been flown back. Over 1000 have caught buses bound to who knows where in the US sans any documentation.  And, most of all, estimates range from 10k to 30k people caravans of additional migrants headed to Del Rio from all parts south.
  5. The FAA over the weekend prohibited Fox News from flying drones over the site.  If you can’t see the crisis is there a crisis?  Other networks finally started covering the mess days later.  If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, is it sound?  Yesterday, the FAA relented.
  6.  Politicians and left-wing media types spent the last 48 hours comparing pictures of border patrol officers “whipping” Haitians to slavery, systemic racism, 100 years ago, etc.  The incensed officers pushed back yesterday saying no one was hit, the whips were actually horse reins and are swung for the horse to see to control their movements in crowds.   Doesn’t the Biden team control the border patrol?  They stood down two weeks ago when asked.
  7. Seldom seen Border Czar Comma La Harris called the images “very disturbing.”  CNN shrill Chris Cuomo compared the horse scene to the aforementioned slavery.  Cuomo may have a bit of a horse face, but his familiarity with equines likely stops there.  Forget the illegality of the crossing, the terrible conditions, the heat.  Forget the green card.  Play the race card.
  8.  Texas Governor Abbott yesterday finally put a halt to the unfettered crossings with Texas Ranger vehicles blocking the way.  He did what the federal government paid lip service to.  Somehow, he’ll be the bad guy now.  Isn’t that what the left wants anyway?

Walking out of the UN Council yesterday morning a masked Biden was asked what he was going to do about the “out of control border crisis.”  He answered simply, “we’ll get it under control.”  That’s it on day ten of this mess, five words.

The administration must be proud.  Plan executed.  You know, less is more.

Oh, and he must have been following the science wearing the mask.  Remember, he said sternly two weeks back that we need to protect the vaccinated from the unvaccinated.  Haitians aside we presume.

 

 

A Not So Hairy Recall.

Posted on by boom booms room staff

In the 19th-century election ballots were counted by hand. Usually, when the count was first announced, the customary crowd of people that gathered to await the results cheered loudly. Oftentimes, this was a preliminary indication of who would win the election, hence the expression, all over but the shouting.

In California last evening it was over without any shouting.  And, in fact, the recall Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom election ballot was over before it started. BBR’s best guess is that the final tally will be at least 60% against combing back Gavin like his hair to under 40% in favor of a new dude with a new do.  That’s not close, and it never was.

Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly a 2-1 margin these days in the Golden State.  With nearly 40 million residents it’s not too hard to get 1.5 million to sign a recall petition, but it’s really hard to get 51% of a vote when the sitting governor “identifies” the same as 67% of the state’s citizens.

“We said yes to science. We said yes to vaccines. We said yes to ending this pandemic,” said Newsom.  He controls none of that, but never mind.  “Economic justice, social justice, racial justice, environmental justice are values where California has made so much progress.   All of those things were on the ballot this evening,” he added.  That’s a lot of justice.  It makes you wonder why Cali is losing a congressional seat due to an accelerating population reduction even with immigration flowing in.

This brings us to a bevy of questions.  One, did Cali vote against Larry Elders (or anyone not deemed Progressive) or for Gavin Newsom?  Two, did America vote more against Donald Trump or for Joe Biden? If you say you voted for Biden and not against Trump, get some truth serum in your next booster vaccine, please. Three, did America vote against Hillary Clinton more than for Donald Trump?  Likely.  We could continue.

This brings us very prematurely to 2024.   Can America find a candidate that the very polarized public can get behind from both sides?  We HIGHLY doubt it.  The entirety of the process, more than ever before, sets up against it.  Lobbyists, big donor money, PACs, two-party dominance, fractured feelings, and several other major factors all set up against it.

America sees things more black and white than ever before and we aren’t talking about race.  Though, playing the race card is still a, ahem, trump card.  Either you’re with us or you’re against us.  Hatfields and McCoys.  Cowboys and Indians, though you can’t say Indians any longer.  Good cop, no cop.

Hey, how about Rand Paul?

Have you ever listened in detail to his orations?  He identifies as a Republican, but he’s plenty Libertarian.

Yesterday, without malice he took Secretary of State Antony Blinken apart limb by limb over what we did and didn’t do in Afghanistan, knew and didn’t, and what we are going to do, or not about it now.  Like Paul himself, it was a poised, unemotional, educated, evenhanded, intelligent drive down the middle lane.

Unelectable you say?  We agree.  Paul favors a balanced budget, not a ballooning deficit.  Strike one.  He favors independence over dependence on government.  Strike two.   And, three, his hair game ends where Gavin’s begins.  Strike three, you’re out!

Logic is as out of style as a perm on the national scene.  Emotion is all the craze.

Meanwhile back in Cali, Newsom can again dare to depart for the maskless, crazy expensive dinners that he doesn’t dare part his hair for.

After all, a part divides.

Slick.

 

 

 

 

Storm Clouds

Posted on by boom booms room staff

Yesterday President Joe Biden warned Americans that time had run out to keep global warming from causing catastrophic weather events in the United States.

“Climate change is real. We’re living through it now. We don’t have any more time,” Biden said.

Ida was the perfect storm for Biden and the Democrats.  It was terrible ripping through Louisiana, but the flooding it caused in the northeast gave Biden the platform to stump not once, but twice, for his left wing’s climate change initiatives. Hammer a red state, bad.  Hammer a blue state or two, hit the campaign trail.

And, how timely, they have hundreds of billions of the 1 trill infrastructure and 3.5 trill budget resolution earmarked for climate change at the ready for passage.

“Every part of the country is getting hit by extreme weather,” Biden said. “We’re now living in real-time what the country is going to look like.”  How many years have forest fires scorched the west in the dry and lightening filled summer? Four?  Or, forever?  Can you help us with how many hurricanes have hit the coast of Louisiana in the last, say, 10,000 years?  And, who knew that heavy rains could cause flooding over the banks of rivers, even in New York and New Jersey?

Biden said powerful hurricanes like Ida and wildfires in the West only proved that climate change was real.  Not really.  It only proved that it’s late summer again.

The next thing you know, some expert will tell us that melting snow from the nation’s heartland will eventually find its way next spring to the Mississippi River and threaten to flood states west and east of it from Iowa clear down to Louisiana yet again.  This happens every spring, doesn’t it?  There is a reason why the richest soil for farmers in America lies in the flooded lands of the mighty Mississippi.

“I think we’re at one of those inflection points where we either act or we’re going to be, we’re going to be in real, real trouble.”  Sometimes Biden is hard to understand with his occasional misspeak, flub, mispronunciation, and/or truncation.   Not this time.  Give me my spending bill or you and your loved ones are going to perish in all of this peril, he says.

Our kids are going to be in real trouble,” Biden said.  We’ll give him this one.  Biden knows a lot about troubled kids.

And he knows a tornado when he sees one.  Not really.  “Looks like a tornado, they don’t call them that anymore,” he said.  “They are wreaking havoc in our nation’s heartland.  Nevada, Iowa, our wetlands, etc,” he stammered.  “We’re in this together.”

US geography may not be a long suit of Joe’s.

Meanwhile back in Afghanistan, it’s not so sunny either.

But if you change the narrative, you can hide behind the clouds.

 

 

Here to Help

Posted on by boom booms room staff

In June of 1971, shortly after a publication of a special message to the Congress on drug abuse, prevention, and control, the American media popularized the term “The War on Drugs.”  Richard Milhouse Nixon declared the problem, as he put it, “public enemy number one.”

By 1973 our government was in such agreement with Nixon on the dire situation of the matter it created the Drug Enforcement Administration(DEA) to fight this war on any and all fronts.

A decade later cocaine had become so prevalent stateside that Nancy Reagan took the lead of the “Just Say No” initiative.

For crooks in the drug trade during the Reagan years and beyond, prison penalties skyrocketed.  Incarcerations for nonviolent drug offenses increased from 50k to over 400k from 1980 to 1987.

A half of a century ago Richard “I am not a crook” Nixon declared war on drugs.  And drugs are as easy to get a hold of today and in many more dangerous and advanced synthetic forms than ever before.  And, the DEA manpower and budget are bigger than ever.

Now we want an early release for nonviolent offenders.

Has our government failed us?  When you throw a lot of money at a big problem and that problem is still staring you in the face today, the obvious answer is yes.

Twenty years ago this 9/11 America was attacked by Al-Qaeda, a broad-based militant Islamist organization founded by Osama bin Laden in the 1980s.

Twenty years ago this October America invaded Afghanistan.  Call it the War on Terror if you wish.

Meanwhile, the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, passed by the 107th Congress and signed on November 19, 2001, established Transportation Security Administration(TSA).

We spent the first ten years in Afghanistan looking under rocks for a devil named Osama Bin Laden.  Supposedly.  We spent the last ten nation-building and getting our soldier’s lives and limbs blown away by roadside bombs knows as improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

And, now we’ve come home.  Enough of this never-ending war Joe Biden said.  And, America agrees.

We got “90 percent” of the Americans out that wanted out, he said.   We also left untold numbers of Afghan friendlies to us (interpreters, snitches, and the like.  We left behind helicopters, planes, tanks, humvees, weapons, and ammo that are now in the hand of the very same people we attempted to beat back out of the bushes for two decades.  America disagrees with how we exited, not why.

The Taliban, and its numerous factions of terrorist groups, are in exactly the same spot where we found them.

Two decades and two trillion dollars later we’re in the same spot as well except we got one guy who was so good at hide and seek it took ten years to find him. When you throw a lot of money at a big problem and that problem is still staring you in the face today, the obvious answer is still yes.

How’s the TSA doing you ask?  Its budget is over six times larger than when it was first instituted.  Self-imposed tests by the TSA show a greater than 90% failure rate at stopping dangerous weapons from getting past them.   And, don’t forget to take your shoes off when going through.

At least we’re soon to put some money that we don’t have to good use here at home.  We can fix the nation’s decaying infrastructure for a measly one trillion dollars we are told and sold.

Surely you’ll only see orange cones littering your favorite routes for a short period of time.

The War on Roads and Bridges easily will be completed in a decade or two.

You can see the roadside sign in your head right now, “Your Tax Dollars at Work!”

Can’t you?

 

 

WSJBDN?

Posted on by boom booms room staff

What do a botched departure plan, a George Stephanopolous interview, two disastrous press conferences, and a thrice interrupted vacation all have in common?

That’s an easy one.  They’re all bad acts on the biggest international stage at a time that the brightest lights were shining and the world was watching.  And, they all occurred after the fact.

What fact is that, you ask?  That’s another easy one.  President Joe Biden decided to withdraw the last of the troops before providing all Americans (first), helpful Afghans (second), and journalists (third) a safe passage out of what’s left to Afghanistan is that fact.

With Kabul’s airport looking like Chicago’s O’Hare the day before Christmas in a whiteout blizzard, only the checkpoints to get there look tougher than the United Airlines reschedule flights line.

So, WSJBDN? What should Joe Biden do now?  Well, while you mull that over, realize that Kamala can’t be part of your answer.  She jetted off to Singapore a day ago for unknown reasons and likely unimportant ones as well.  When asked a question upon arrival that she should be plenty prepped for, her nervous laughter is a bad “tell” and makes for a poor poker player.  But, we digress.

What Joe Biden should do now, in between naps, is send roughly another 20k troops back into the occupied for 20 years and counting cesspool that Afghanistan is.  He’s sent 6k back in a mere two weeks after he pulled the last 2.5k out.

If you’re going to do a job, well, git er dun dammit.

You’re already pot committed.  Go all in to get all out.  Get it?  He didn’t get it then, but he desperately needs to now.

Saying that you’re negotiating with the same people you fought against doesn’t cut it.  Saying that you don’t trust them doesn’t cut it.  And, most of all, saying that you aren’t sure that you can provide safe passage out of Kabul for our trapped loved ones doesn’t cut it whatsoever.

Sometimes we’re called Ugly Americans.  At least we used to be.  If nothing else we expect strong confidence and dealing from a position of strength.  We have a weak hand right now.  We look even weaker.  Oh to be called ugly again. Those were the days Archie might say.

Then, when the last travel passport is stamped we can line up the flights for every soldier to head back too, but not before.

Only then can we get back to worrying about green new deals, pronouns of choice, infrastructure that isn’t infrastructure, temporary inflation, the resurrection of the insurrection, and most of all the vaccine passports.

Hopefully, Kamala will be back by then.  Because we could use a good booster shot and a laugh.

And soon.