The Joe Biden Presidency Thread

[DE]

1 hour ago, swordfish said:

https://nypost.com/2022/04/04/throwing-hunter-biden-under-the-bus-wont-be-enough-to-clear-joe/

Hunter Biden won’t like the interview his father’s chief of staff Ron Klain did with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Sunday.

Asked about the Delaware investigation into the president’s son’s business affairs, Klain threw Hunter and his uncle Jim Biden under the bus.

“The president is confident that his family did the right thing. But, again, I want to just be really clear, these are actions by Hunter and his brother. They’re private matters. They don’t involve the president. And they certainly are something that no one at the White House is involved in.”

This is the party line, parroted by the Washington Post and CNN in their belated coverage of the story last week.

Sure, they say, it looks bad for Hunter, but, gosh, Joe Biden had nothing to do with it.

Unfortunately, this line of defense does not sustain scrutiny.

Judging by morsels trickling out of the ongoing investigation into Hunter, the scope has widened to include questions involving the president.

‘Big Guy’

Witnesses testifying before the Delaware grand jury are believed to have been asked if they know who is the “Big Guy” referred to in coded fashion in emails on Hunter’s abandoned laptop and in WhatsApp messages his former business partner Tony Bobulinski handed to the FBI in October 2020.

Bobulinski asserts that the “Big Guy” is Joe Biden.

The identity of the “Big Guy” is relevant because he was to be allocated 10% equity in a joint venture Hunter and partners were cooking up with Chinese company CEFC, according to an email on the laptop.

“Hunter Biden called his dad ‘the Big Guy’ or ‘my Chairman,’ and frequently referenced asking him for his sign-off or advice on various potential deals that we were discussing,” Bobulinski wrote in a letter to The Post in October 2020. “I’ve seen VP Biden saying he never talked to Hunter about his business. I’ve seen firsthand that that’s not true, because it wasn’t just Hunter’s business, they said they were putting the Biden family name and its legacy on the line.”

There is evidence on the laptop that Joe Biden profited from Hunter’s overseas business dealings, indicating mingled finances, shared bank accounts and household bills Hunter was expected to pay for his father.

Hunter complained about having to give “half” his salary to his father and “pay for everything for this entire family for 30 years.”

But even if Klain and media pals want to dismiss evidence of Joe Biden’s involvement in his family’s influence-peddling scheme — including meetings with Hunter’s foreign partners — that doesn’t clear the president.

There is no country in the world where millions of dollars paid to a top official’s son for doing nothing would not be regarded as corruption.

“Large payments to the children of powerful government officials by those with interests potentially affected by those officials’ actions are universally understood to be corrupt efforts to influence the officials,” Manhattan litigation lawyer Francis Menton writes in the Manhattan Contrarian blog.

“In cases involving people other than the Bidens, whether the official/parent ‘personally benefited’ from the payments or ‘knew details’ of the transactions are considered completely irrelevant.”

Klain will have to find a better response.

 

The distancing from Hunter has officially started......"Looks bad for Hunter, but gosh, Joe had nothing to do with it".....

 

10% to the big guy.  He is complicit.  

[Muda69]

Joe Manchin on Biden's Wealth Tax: 'You Can't Tax Something That's Not Earned.'

https://reason.com/2022/03/30/joe-manchin-on-bidens-wealth-tax-you-cant-tax-something-thats-not-earned/

Quote

Ever since Joe Biden entered the White House, he's had a Joe Manchin problem. Most accounts of Biden's presidency cast this as a problem with Manchin's unwillingness to go along with Biden's agenda. Democrats hold exactly 50 seats in the Senate, and thus need every Democratic senator to pass a party-line vote; Manchin, the Senate's most centrist Democrat, has consistently resisted. 

But the problem is not only that Manchin is withholding his vote. It's that Manchin keeps bluntly and accurately describing the problems with Biden's policy proposals. To twist the Twitter-cliche, Joe Manchin keeps saying out loud the part that Joe Biden would rather keep quiet. 

Take, for example, Biden's recently proposed wealth tax, dubbed the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax, which taxes realized and unrealized gains on households worth at least $100 million. Under this scheme, non-cash holdings could be taxed based on an assessed change in value. So a home or property that increased in value but was not sold could generate a federal tax obligation, even though the owner saw no money from the increase. 

The administration has rather dubiously described the tax as "a prepayment of tax obligations these households will owe when they later realize their gains." This is a stretch at best, an intentional abuse of language for political reasons at worst. 

But when asked about the tax yesterday, Manchin engaged in no such obfuscation. "You can't tax something that's not earned. Earned income is what we're based on," he told The Hill. 

You can't tax something that's not earned.

One could quibble with the phrase "can't." A government could certainly try, as many countries have—although almost all have ditched their wealth taxes, partly because they turn out to be quite difficult to administer. 

But Manchin's underlying point is quite clear. The Biden administration is proposing taxing a kind of income that is not, in any real sense, income. The proposal treats money that has not been earned, but might hypothetically be earned at some future point, as money that an individual already possesses. It's an attempt to tax money that people haven't made yet, and might not make at all. 

Manchin has made admirably direct statements like this all throughout Biden's presidency, frustrating the Biden agenda in the process. In a lengthy statement last September, he laid out his opposition to Biden's spending bill, dubbed Build Back Better, which, among other things, expanded health care programs without addressing looming gaps in Medicare's financing.

"Spending trillions more on new and expanded government programs," Manchin said, "when we can't even pay for the essential social programs, like Social Security and Medicare, is the definition of fiscal insanity." In the same statement, he said he opposed overspending in the wake of the trillions in deficit-financed pandemic aid, and warned that Democrats were foolish to believe that trillions of dollars worth of additional federal spending would not further increase inflation. 

Months later, Manchin once again blasted the Build Back Better plan, which had contorted in an attempt to please both Manchin and progressive Democrats. The headline price tag had been reduced, but in large part by artificially shortening the funding lengths for the various programs, even programs Democrats hoped would remain permanent. 

Once again, Manchin was not only opposed, but cleareyed about the bill's various structural ruses. "What I see are shell games," he said. "Budget gimmicks," that hid the true cost of the plan. 

These were the sorts of inconvenient notions that Biden (and Democrats in Congress) didn't want to acknowledge. Manchin just…said them.  

So it was no surprise that by the end of last year, Manchin had effectively killed Build Back Better, or at least put to rest the idea that he'd support anything like the versions that had been floated.

He was also blunt in a way that defeated the White House's shifty messaging. 

Throughout the year, the Biden administration repeatedly sought to maintain the pretense that the spending bill was nearly a done deal, and that Manchin was on board with the general idea, even if some specifics still needed to be negotiated. Biden even gave an address premised on the idea that the spending bill was a fait accompli.

"After months of tough and thoughtful negotiations," Biden said in October, Democrats had reached agreement on a "historic economic framework." They obviously hadn't, yet nearly two months later, Biden was still insisting that the West Virginia senator was more or less on board, saying "Senator Manchin has reiterated his support for Build Back Better funding at the level of the framework plan I announced in December."

Once again, Manchin responded bluntly and directly. "I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. I just can't," he said just before Christmas. "This is a 'no' on this legislation."

This is a no on this legislation. 

There is, perhaps, some wiggle room in this statement, which leaves open the possibility that Manchin will eventually support something called Build Back Better, or something that includes some scattered elements from the Build Back Better framework. 

But it was clear in a way that Biden was not. Once again, Manchin had shed light on Biden's attempts at verbal misdirection, revealing how Biden's plans rest on messaging designed to obfuscate rather than clarify. Manchin's penchant for transparency is a problem for Biden, but a boon to the public.

Agreed.  Mr. Manchin at least appears to support some form of fiscal sanity in Washington, and hasn't swallowed the MMT kool-aid.

 

[swordfish]

https://nypost.com/2022/04/05/need-for-special-counsel-in-hunter-biden-case-has-grown-urgent/

David Weiss, the US attorney for Delaware, seems to be leading a genuine investigation of Hunter Biden: Prosecutors taking the case to a grand jury the other day even asked a witness about “the big guy,” for whom Hunter and his partners had reserved a 10% cut of one potential (and lucrative) deal.

No one familiar with the case has suggested who the “big guy” might be if not now-President Joe Biden, and at least one of the partners has confirmed it was Joe.

Then, too, Weiss is a veteran of the Delaware office, appointed US attorney in early 2018 by President Donald Trump — not a political hack. The only thing at all questionable about his Hunter investigation is why it has taken so long, when the probe actually began long before the last election. Hunter’s bank records on his dealings with the Bank of China, for example, got subpoenaed back in May 2019.

For the long wait, you have to assume the blame rests with his superiors in Washington. It would’ve been standard procedure to hold off making headlines in the runup to the 2020 vote, but delays since then likely came at the order of central Justice, namely Attorney General Merrick Garland and his top aides.

And that’s where we really start to worry about a finger on the scales of Justice. What if Weiss is ordered to, say, accept a plea bargain that seals all the evidence he’s gathered, no matter where it points?

The pro-Biden press will rush to justify such a move, arguing, Hey, Hunter’s already paid the IRS what he owes, so the case would be hard to win anyway. Swept under the rug would be any other crimes, such as lobbying for foreign interests without registering as such — not to mention all the “big guy” questions.

Garland himself is usually deemed beyond reproach, but the nation already has clear proof that White House hacks influence his office, and even him.

We’re talking primarily of Garland’s outrageous press conference last October siccing the FBI and all US attorneys on parents who dare to cross the establishment at local school board meetings. It eventually came out that the whole thing was ginned up by a cabal of White House and Department of Education staffers, who got outside activists to write and demand such action, with the staff then getting Garland’s staff to bring him on board.

Even then, the AG proceeded to dissemble, telling Congress that Justice had never actually used counterterror tools to target parents, when in fact the FBI had asked agents to “apply” a “threat tag” and “track” threats against school officials.

It’s easy to imagine White House demands for Garland to leash and muzzle Weiss: Chief of staff Ron Klain, for example, last weekend told the nation, “The president’s confident that his son didn’t break the law,” when it turns out that Klain himself asked Hunter for donations to help out the then-veep back in 2012, which suggests he knows full well that Joe has long relied on Hunter’s dubiously gotten gains.

We’ve said before that Garland and his entire office should be cut out of the case, with a special counsel named to oversee it. Now that the investigation is clearly closing in on actual indictments, that need has grown urgent.

 

Agreed!

 

[DE]

https://archive.org/details/FOXNEWSW_20201029_040000_Tucker_Carlson_Tonight

Been known for over a year.

Watch the full interview with Tony Bobulinski.

I know.  I know.  The lefties and the never Trumpers will come up with yet another 🐎💩 excuse.  

They have their heads so far up their a$$es, most will never realize just how deceived they were and are.

Again.  I know.  I know.  Another conspiracy theory.

 

[DE]

US targets Putin's daughters, Russian banks in new sanctions

Head line from today's https://www.nwitimes.com/

How are we (The US) targeting Putin's daughters?  Sending Joe's crackhead, sex addicted, money laundering, "artist" son, Hunter, over there?

I aM sUrE tHiS wIlL eNd WeLl (for those that do not understand sarcasm).

Biden (or Obama) is going to f*** around and get us into WWIII.

Thank you to the "81 million" for this 💩show.

[DE]

Governor Abbot of Texas is going full “f*** around and find out” mode on Biden. 
 

Texas is chartering busses from Texas to DC full of illegal immigrants. 

Here you go Joe. 

[swordfish]

What we already know is just a preview to what's coming when this all catches up to the POTUS...

https://nypost.com/2022/04/06/heres-a-dozen-times-joe-biden-played-a-role-in-hunters-deals/

President Biden and the White House have repeatedly denied that he and Hunter Biden ever discussed the first son’s controversial overseas business dealings — yet there are at least a dozen times where Joe Biden had to know what his son was doing.

1. Joe “recommends”

The latest example emerged Wednesday, when it was revealed that Hunter Biden got his dad to write a recommendation letter to Brown University for the son of a powerful Chinese business associate, Jonathan Li.

“Jonathan, Hunter asked me to send you a copy of the recommendation letter that he asked his father to write on behalf of Christopher for Brown University,” Hunter Biden’s then-business partner, Eric Schwerin, wrote to Li on Feb. 18, 2017, in an e-mail first revealed by Fox News.

Schwerin told Li the “original” was being shipped by FedEx to university president Christina Paxson “directly at Brown.”

Li is the CEO of the Chinese investment firm BHR Partners and in 2013 established a subsidiary — Bohai Harvest RST (Shanghai) Equity Investment Fund Management Co., known as BHR — where Hunter Biden was a founding board member and held a 10% equity share through a company called Skaneateles LLC.

After the White House refused to say whether the first son remained a part owner after resigning from the board in 2019, Hunter Biden’s lawyer finally told The New York Times that Hunter “no longer holds any interest, ­directly or indirectly, in either BHR or Skaneateles.”

2. The other kid, too

Hunter Biden also arranged for his dad to write a letter to Georgetown University — Hunter’s alma mater — on behalf of Li’s daughter, but neither child got into the elite institutions, The Post understands.

During Wednesday’s White House briefing, press secretary Jen Psaki said, “I have no confirmation of any recommendation letter the president wrote —when he was a private citizen, by the way, and not serving in public ­office.”

3. Joe’s “hopes”

Hunter Biden acknowledged in a 2019 New Yorker magazine article that he and his dad once discussed Hunter’s job on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, which paid him as much as $83,333 a month when Joe Biden was vice president under President Barack ­Obama.

“Dad said, ‘I hope you know what you are doing,’ and I said, ‘I do,’ ” he recalled.

4. Air Force 2 trip

 In December 2013, Hunter and his daughter, Finnegan Biden, traveled to China on Air Force Two with then-Vice President Joe Biden during an official, six-day trip to Asia. Joe Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other officials — and was also introduced to Li by his son in the lobby of the hotel where the American delegation was staying.

Afterward, Hunter Biden sat with Li for what both sides claimed was a social meeting, with Hunter Biden telling The New Yorker, “How do I go to Beijing, halfway around the world, and not see them for a cup of ­coffee?”

5. Half his salary?

In a 2019 text message to his daughter Naomi, Hunter Biden bitterly wrote, “I hope you all can do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family for 30 years.” He added, “It’s ­really hard. But don’t worry, ­unlike Pop [Joe], I won’t make you give me half your salary.”

Meanwhile, White House chief of staff Ron Klain was revealed this week to have hit up Hunter Biden for help raising $20,000 for the foundation that maintains the vice president’s official residence.

 

6. Meet the partners

As vice president, Joe Biden met with Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer in April 2014, around the same time that Archer joined the Burisma board and shortly before Hunter Biden did so, according to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).

A photo that surfaced more than five years later reportedly shows Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and Archer posing with golf clubs on a course in the Hamptons in August 2014.

In February, Archer was sentenced to one year and one day in prison in an unrelated bond-fraud scheme that targeted the impoverished Oglala Sioux tribe of American Indians.

7. Meet the Ukrainians

Vadym Pozharskyi, a Burisma exec and adviser to its board, sent Hunter Biden an April 17, 2015, e-mail that said, “Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure.”

8. Meet the Kazakhs

One day earlier, Joe Biden attended a dinner at Washington DC’s Cafe Milano with some of his son’s business associates from Ukraine, Russia and ­Kazakhstan.

An unverified photo apparently shows the Bidens posing between two of the guests who attended that night, Kazakhstani banking oligarch Kenes “Kenges” Rakishev and Karim Massimov, a former prime minister of Kazakhstan.

In January, Massimov was arrested in a plot to overthrow the former Soviet republic’s government, following his ouster as head of its counterintelligence and anti-terrorism agency.

9. Meet Bobulinski

 Former Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski revealed in October 2020 that he spoke with Joe Biden in May 2017 after being introduced by Hunter, who reportedly described Bobulinski as “the one who’s helping us with the business we’re doing with the Chinese.”

According to Bobulinski — who has identified Joe Biden as “the big guy” with a 10 percent share in a planned deal with CEFC China Energy — the former vice president told him, “Keep an eye on my son and brother and look out for my family.”

Bobulinksi also said he later asked Joe’s brother James Biden about the possibility that Joe would run for president in 2020. “He looks at me and kind of chuckles and says, ‘Plausible deniability,’ ” Bobulinski said.

10. Getting an office 

 E-mails show that in September 2017, Hunter Biden asked for a new sign and additional keys to an office he was renting in Washington DC’s House of Sweden office building, which is home to the Swedish Embassy.

The sign was to say, “The Biden Foundation and Hudson West (CEFC-US)” and the keys were for his father, stepmother Jill Biden, uncle James Biden and a Chinese executive named Gongwen Dong.

The building manager wrote back, “We are very excited and honored to welcome your new colleagues!” but a spokeswoman for the Swedish agency that oversees the property told The Washington Post that the sign was never changed and the keys were not picked up.

11. Meet the Mexicans

In 2015, then-Vice President Joe Biden hosted a group of his son’s Mexican business associates at the vice president’s official residence and posed for a photo with Hunter Biden and a group of possible business partners, including Mexican billionaires Carlos Slim and Miguel Alemán Velasco.

12. Quid but no quo?

In 2016, e-mails indicate that Hunter Biden messaged Velasco’s son from Air Force Two, which was en route to Mexico for an official visit. Hunter complained to the younger Velasco that he hadn’t received reciprocal business favors after “I have brought every single person you have ever asked me to bring to the F’ing White House and the Vice President’s house and the inauguration.”

 

[DE]

1 hour ago, swordfish said:

What we already know is just a preview to what's coming when this all catches up to the POTUS...

https://nypost.com/2022/04/06/heres-a-dozen-times-joe-biden-played-a-role-in-hunters-deals/

President Biden and the White House have repeatedly denied that he and Hunter Biden ever discussed the first son’s controversial overseas business dealings — yet there are at least a dozen times where Joe Biden had to know what his son was doing.

1. Joe “recommends”

The latest example emerged Wednesday, when it was revealed that Hunter Biden got his dad to write a recommendation letter to Brown University for the son of a powerful Chinese business associate, Jonathan Li.

“Jonathan, Hunter asked me to send you a copy of the recommendation letter that he asked his father to write on behalf of Christopher for Brown University,” Hunter Biden’s then-business partner, Eric Schwerin, wrote to Li on Feb. 18, 2017, in an e-mail first revealed by Fox News.

Schwerin told Li the “original” was being shipped by FedEx to university president Christina Paxson “directly at Brown.”

Li is the CEO of the Chinese investment firm BHR Partners and in 2013 established a subsidiary — Bohai Harvest RST (Shanghai) Equity Investment Fund Management Co., known as BHR — where Hunter Biden was a founding board member and held a 10% equity share through a company called Skaneateles LLC.

After the White House refused to say whether the first son remained a part owner after resigning from the board in 2019, Hunter Biden’s lawyer finally told The New York Times that Hunter “no longer holds any interest, ­directly or indirectly, in either BHR or Skaneateles.”

2. The other kid, too

Hunter Biden also arranged for his dad to write a letter to Georgetown University — Hunter’s alma mater — on behalf of Li’s daughter, but neither child got into the elite institutions, The Post understands.

During Wednesday’s White House briefing, press secretary Jen Psaki said, “I have no confirmation of any recommendation letter the president wrote —when he was a private citizen, by the way, and not serving in public ­office.”

3. Joe’s “hopes”

Hunter Biden acknowledged in a 2019 New Yorker magazine article that he and his dad once discussed Hunter’s job on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, which paid him as much as $83,333 a month when Joe Biden was vice president under President Barack ­Obama.

“Dad said, ‘I hope you know what you are doing,’ and I said, ‘I do,’ ” he recalled.

4. Air Force 2 trip

 In December 2013, Hunter and his daughter, Finnegan Biden, traveled to China on Air Force Two with then-Vice President Joe Biden during an official, six-day trip to Asia. Joe Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other officials — and was also introduced to Li by his son in the lobby of the hotel where the American delegation was staying.

Afterward, Hunter Biden sat with Li for what both sides claimed was a social meeting, with Hunter Biden telling The New Yorker, “How do I go to Beijing, halfway around the world, and not see them for a cup of ­coffee?”

5. Half his salary?

In a 2019 text message to his daughter Naomi, Hunter Biden bitterly wrote, “I hope you all can do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family for 30 years.” He added, “It’s ­really hard. But don’t worry, ­unlike Pop [Joe], I won’t make you give me half your salary.”

Meanwhile, White House chief of staff Ron Klain was revealed this week to have hit up Hunter Biden for help raising $20,000 for the foundation that maintains the vice president’s official residence.

 

6. Meet the partners

As vice president, Joe Biden met with Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer in April 2014, around the same time that Archer joined the Burisma board and shortly before Hunter Biden did so, according to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).

A photo that surfaced more than five years later reportedly shows Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and Archer posing with golf clubs on a course in the Hamptons in August 2014.

In February, Archer was sentenced to one year and one day in prison in an unrelated bond-fraud scheme that targeted the impoverished Oglala Sioux tribe of American Indians.

7. Meet the Ukrainians

Vadym Pozharskyi, a Burisma exec and adviser to its board, sent Hunter Biden an April 17, 2015, e-mail that said, “Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure.”

8. Meet the Kazakhs

One day earlier, Joe Biden attended a dinner at Washington DC’s Cafe Milano with some of his son’s business associates from Ukraine, Russia and ­Kazakhstan.

An unverified photo apparently shows the Bidens posing between two of the guests who attended that night, Kazakhstani banking oligarch Kenes “Kenges” Rakishev and Karim Massimov, a former prime minister of Kazakhstan.

In January, Massimov was arrested in a plot to overthrow the former Soviet republic’s government, following his ouster as head of its counterintelligence and anti-terrorism agency.

9. Meet Bobulinski

 Former Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski revealed in October 2020 that he spoke with Joe Biden in May 2017 after being introduced by Hunter, who reportedly described Bobulinski as “the one who’s helping us with the business we’re doing with the Chinese.”

According to Bobulinski — who has identified Joe Biden as “the big guy” with a 10 percent share in a planned deal with CEFC China Energy — the former vice president told him, “Keep an eye on my son and brother and look out for my family.”

Bobulinksi also said he later asked Joe’s brother James Biden about the possibility that Joe would run for president in 2020. “He looks at me and kind of chuckles and says, ‘Plausible deniability,’ ” Bobulinski said.

10. Getting an office 

 E-mails show that in September 2017, Hunter Biden asked for a new sign and additional keys to an office he was renting in Washington DC’s House of Sweden office building, which is home to the Swedish Embassy.

The sign was to say, “The Biden Foundation and Hudson West (CEFC-US)” and the keys were for his father, stepmother Jill Biden, uncle James Biden and a Chinese executive named Gongwen Dong.

The building manager wrote back, “We are very excited and honored to welcome your new colleagues!” but a spokeswoman for the Swedish agency that oversees the property told The Washington Post that the sign was never changed and the keys were not picked up.

11. Meet the Mexicans

In 2015, then-Vice President Joe Biden hosted a group of his son’s Mexican business associates at the vice president’s official residence and posed for a photo with Hunter Biden and a group of possible business partners, including Mexican billionaires Carlos Slim and Miguel Alemán Velasco.

12. Quid but no quo?

In 2016, e-mails indicate that Hunter Biden messaged Velasco’s son from Air Force Two, which was en route to Mexico for an official visit. Hunter complained to the younger Velasco that he hadn’t received reciprocal business favors after “I have brought every single person you have ever asked me to bring to the F’ing White House and the Vice President’s house and the inauguration.”

 

yeah but we are all conspiracy theorists.

foh to those people

[swordfish]

https://nypost.com/2022/04/11/white-house-warns-of-elevated-march-inflation-rate/

Does anyone remember POTUS Biden's inflation terms like "transitory", or in July of last year "Temporary" when inflation was at 5%, or in December when inflation was at 6.8% the term "likely the Peak"?   

Now “We expect March CPI headline inflation to be extraordinarily elevated due to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s price hike, and we expect a large difference between core and headline inflation reflecting the global disruptions in energy and food markets,” Psaki said at her regular press briefing.

SF wonders what "extraordinarily elevated" indicates for March....

It used to be Trump's fault....Now it's Putin's fault.....

 

 

Edited April 11, 2022 by swordfish

[swordfish]

Same story - 2 different truths.......In one, POTUS is a hero for attempting to save us 10 cents a gallon for gas, in the other it's pointed out that POTUS hopes to offset the "extraordinarily elevated" inflation number to be revealed TODAY.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10710737/Biden-allow-higher-ethanol-fuel-sales-summer-check-gas-prices.html

https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/12/politics/us-gas-prices-waiver-joe-biden/index.html

 

 

 

[Muda69]

3 hours ago, swordfish said:

Same story - 2 different truths.......In one, POTUS is a hero for attempting to save us 10 cents a gallon for gas, in the other it's pointed out that POTUS hopes to offset the "extraordinarily elevated" inflation number to be revealed TODAY.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10710737/Biden-allow-higher-ethanol-fuel-sales-summer-check-gas-prices.html

https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/12/politics/us-gas-prices-waiver-joe-biden/index.html

 

 

 

Ughh.  Ethanol blended gasoline is crap and hard on engines, especially small engines.   I've had to replace the carburetor on a leaf blower twice now because that garbage leaves a residue behind that clogs jets and gums up everything.

 

[DE]

3 hours ago, swordfish said:

Same story - 2 different truths.......In one, POTUS is a hero for attempting to save us 10 cents a gallon for gas, in the other it's pointed out that POTUS hopes to offset the "extraordinarily elevated" inflation number to be revealed TODAY.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10710737/Biden-allow-higher-ethanol-fuel-sales-summer-check-gas-prices.html

https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/12/politics/us-gas-prices-waiver-joe-biden/index.html

 

 

 

So what you are telling me is.....the potus CAN set gas prices.

😉

 

[Muda69]

Real Wages Fall Again as Inflation Surges and the Fed Plays the Blame Game

https://mises.org/wire/real-wages-fall-again-inflation-surges-and-fed-plays-blame-game

Quote

According to a new report released Wednesday by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Consumer Price Index increased in March by 8.6 percent, measured year over year (YOY). This is the largest increase in more than forty years. To find a higher rate of CPI inflation, we have to go back to December 1981, when the year-over-year increase was 9.6 percent.

March’s surge in consumer price inflation is also the twelfth month in row during which the increase is well above the Federal Reserve’s arbitrary 2 percent inflation target. March’s CPI inflation rate was up from February’s rate of 7.9 percent. The month-over-month increase (seasonally adjusted) was 1.2 percent, which was the highest since September 2005.

The price inflation was driven largely by increases in energy prices (rising 32 percent, YOY) and by “food at home”—i.e., grocery prices—which were up 10 percent. Used cars also continued to show big price increases with a year-over-year jump of 35.3 percent.

Not surprisingly, we find that wages are not keeping up with price inflation. While the CPI rose by 8.6 percent, average hourly earnings only rose by 5.56 percent.

This was a gap of 3 percent between price inflation and earnings, and the largest gap since April 2021.

Not coincidentally, this price inflation comes after two years of rapid increases in the money supply. M2, for example, has risen by 40 percent since January of 2020. M2 inflation had risen rapidly during the decade following the 2008 financial crisis as well. Today, $12 trillion of the existing $21 trillion was created by the central bank after 2009. That means 60 percent of today’s entire M2 money supply was created in only the past fourteen years.

Throughout it all, central bankers actively attempted to boost price inflation. As late as February 2020, the Fed’s Lael Brainard was calling for new ways to boost price inflation. And New York Fed president John Williams in 2019 called low inflation “the problem of this era.” Jerome Powell in April 2019 called low inflation—by which he meant inflation under 2 percent—“one of the major challenges of our time.” In 2017, Janet Yellen said she wished she had managed to produce more price inflation during her time at the Fed.

Given this obsession with higher prices, central bankers were naturally unequipped to deal with reality when inflation began to surge above their arbitrary 2 percent standard. Powell and other Fed officials throughout 2021 insisted that inflation would be no problem. And then when levels got more worrisome, this was declared to be “transitory.” When price inflation continued to rise, the Fed then insisted it had a plan. No plan materialized, but the Fed said that it would at some point in 2022 begin doing something to rein in inflation.

Now we’re at the stage of indulging in a blame game. For example, in her interview with Nick Timiraos of the Wall Street Journal Wednesday morning, Brainard repeated a litany of talking points about how inflation was due to covid and to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. When asked what the Fed will do about it, Brainard said it is difficult to guess what to do because the models aren’t perfect. Then she used the common Fed tactic of buying time by saying the Fed will make a decision about what to do in the future. Specifically, she announced the Fed will make a decision about reducing the Fed’s balance sheet in May. And after talking about it in May, the Fed might actually do something to reduce the balance sheet “in June.”

The basic message was “We have things under control, and inflation is really Putin’s fault.”

However, attempting to blame rising prices on Russia or covid or logistical snags misses a key point. If rising prices were due to specific problems in the availability of certain commodities, this would not mean general, economy-wide increases in prices, as we see now. When price increases do not have their origins in monetary inflation—i.e., “printing money”—we can expect to see declining prices in goods and services as consumers prioritize and also begin to look toward goods and services less affected by those shortages and logistical problems. This is because there would be only so much money to go around, so some portions of the economy would experience price deflation. But when enormous amounts of new money have been created, we never see the expected deflation in some sectors. So, as we find in Wednesday’s CPI report, prices are once against rising across the board.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration and its friends in the media have tried to distract from falling real wages by pointing to “job growth” as evidence of an excellent economy.

Yet what they’re really pointing to is the current tight job market, which is itself a symptom of money inflation and price inflation. That is, it doesn’t necessarily make sense to portray job growth as a counterbalance to price inflation. Rather, the overheated job market we now see may simply be evidence of the fact we’re in the later stages of an inflationary cycle. As we’re already seeing, monetary inflation may bring rising wages, but it also brings rising prices for goods and services. And those increases are outpacing the wage increases.

Good job, Mr. Biden.

[DE]

2 hours ago, Muda69 said:

Real Wages Fall Again as Inflation Surges and the Fed Plays the Blame Game

https://mises.org/wire/real-wages-fall-again-inflation-surges-and-fed-plays-blame-game

Good job, Mr. Biden.

always someone else's fault with these people

[Bonecrusher]

On 4/5/2022 at 7:32 AM, Muda69 said:

Joe Manchin on Biden's Wealth Tax: 'You Can't Tax Something That's Not Earned.'

https://reason.com/2022/03/30/joe-manchin-on-bidens-wealth-tax-you-cant-tax-something-thats-not-earned/

Agreed.  Mr. Manchin at least appears to support some form of fiscal sanity in Washington, and hasn't swallowed the MMT kool-aid.

 

If we only had two more Dems just like him, that would balance out the three RINO's (Romney, Murkowski & I forget the 3rd one).

But, isn't this what's happening now with property taxes for Joe Homeowner?  My property value increased 40% (yes, that's not a typo) this year, and if were not for the homestead exemption, my tax bill would have went up accordingly.  Down here homestead limits tax increase to a max 10%/yr.  If our homes increase in value, we pay taxes on that even though we haven't sold.  Then when we sell, if the dollar amount is high enough, we get hit with capital gains tax.  Unfair for the 1% and unfair for us, too.

[swordfish]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10720467/Anyone-Biden-sticks-hand-appears-shake-air.html

Footage from the Thursday event shows Biden ending the speech in Greensboro, North Carolina, with the signoff 'God bless you all'  before turning to his right and seemingly saying something to the empty space behind him and miming a handshake. 

The Democrat proceeds to frantically look around the stage with a bewildered look on his face before beginning to wander aimlessly around the crowded auditorium. 

He then bizarrely turned his back to the audience, looking lost on the stage as music rolled, marking the speech's conclusion. 

The strange behavior from Biden - the latest of several brain lapses by the president in recent years - instantly sparked a firestorm online, with many, including Texas Senator Cruz, 51, pointing to the politician's most recent display of possible cognitive deterioration.

In a post published minutes after the speech's conclusion, Cruz re-shared the clip of Biden - the oldest-ever US president - with a caption that included a wide-eyed emoji. 

Others called Biden's actions at the end of the speech 'elder abuse' and questioned his mental state.

'Where are the White House and Biden family handlers whose job it is to make him look good?' wrote Harmeet K. Dhillon, former vice chairwoman of the California Republican Party following the display. 

'This is truly bizarre,' the Republican lawyer went on, 'unless they WANT him to look like a dementia patient.' 

Politician Robby Starbuck, who is running for Congress in Tennessee's upcoming Republican primary, remarked: 'Oh man. The music makes it 10x worse. This man is unfit to be President. Period.'

 

The president had been visiting Greensboro to see North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University as part of an effort to apply pressure on Congress to approve the Bipartisan Innovation Act, which aims to increase funding for domestic production of semiconductors.    

He again blamed the record-high inflation on Russian leader Vladimir Putin's decision to invade Ukraine. 

'What people don't know is that 70% of the increase in inflation was the consequence of Putin's Price Hike,' he said. 

Inflation soared to a 41-year high of 8.5 percent in March, according to the latest figures from the Labor Department. The Consumer Price Index increased 1.2 percent in March just from the previous month. 

The speech also saw Biden bizarrely claim that he used to be a 'full professor' at the University of Pennsylvania. 

'I've been at a lot of university campuses, matter of fact for four years, I was a full professor at the University of Pennsylvania.'

Biden, from nearby Delaware, was named Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor, the first person to hold the role, in 2017. He did not teach regular classes but made about a dozen public appearances on the campus, mostly at big-ticketed events, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. He collected a pay check in 2017, 2018 and early 2019. 

In all, Biden reaped nearly $1 million from the university after being given a vague role and teaching no regular classes.

 

Wow - just wow.......

I can accept the premise that any POTUS is ruthlessly attacked by the opposition on any given occasion and can look at this POTUS through that lens and forgive alot of actions, but this clip actually worries SF about the man.  

[DE]

On 4/13/2022 at 12:41 PM, Bonecrusher said:

If we only had two more Dems just like him, that would balance out the three RINO's (Romney, Murkowski & I forget the 3rd one).

But, isn't this what's happening now with property taxes for Joe Homeowner?  My property value increased 40% (yes, that's not a typo) this year, and if were not for the homestead exemption, my tax bill would have went up accordingly.  Down here homestead limits tax increase to a max 10%/yr.  If our homes increase in value, we pay taxes on that even though we haven't sold.  Then when we sell, if the dollar amount is high enough, we get hit with capital gains tax.  Unfair for the 1% and unfair for us, too.

Collins

[swordfish]

https://nypost.com/2022/04/18/easter-bunny-stops-biden-from-answering-reporters-question/

You really should worry when his own staff dresses as the Easter Bunny to be able to rescue the guy from those nasty reporters asking questions .....

The confused look on his face and the instant almost fearful obedience from POTUS is remarkable.....

 

 

 

[swordfish]

Another sobering look at our POTUS during a celebration of Justice Brown's elevation to SCOTUS......wow

 

 

[DE]

Sure glad I paid my taxes so the POTUS can send another $800 million in "aide" to Ukraine, yet our southern border is being infiltrated by the thousands daily.  

He is proving he cares more about other people than Americans.

[DE]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/afghan-is-group-claims-series-of-bombings-targeting-shiites/2022/04/22/aa431c30-c215-11ec-b5df-1fba61a66c75_story.html

FJB!

Let's Go Brandon!

 

[Robert]

On 4/21/2022 at 1:32 PM, DE said:

Sure glad I paid my taxes so the POTUS can send another $800 million in "aide" to Ukraine, yet our southern border is being infiltrated by the thousands daily.  

He is proving he cares more about other people than Americans.

I have friends in South America thinking about making the trek.  I'm a good Christian, my house is open.

[DE]

4 minutes ago, Robert said:

I have friends in South America thinking about making the trek.  I'm a good Christian, my house is open.

Congratulations. So am I. Hope they do it legally and become American citizens. 

[Robert]

1 minute ago, DE said:

Congratulations. So am I. Hope they do it legally and become American citizens. 

They are going to come across the way that Mexico and the US are allowing them to come now.  They'll play the game exactly as it is being played now.  Everyone is being stopped, some are allowed to continue without official visas.  If I was in a similar situation, I would be tempted to do the same.  I have lived in Ecuador and Colombia and have spent months in Peru.  Those are terrific places, but there are reasons that certain people come to the USA.

Edited April 22, 2022 by Robert

[DE]

3 hours ago, Robert said:

They are going to come across the way that Mexico and the US are allowing them to come now.  They'll play the game exactly as it is being played now.  Everyone is being stopped, some are allowed to continue without official visas.  If I was in a similar situation, I would be tempted to do the same.  I have lived in Ecuador and Colombia and have spent months in Peru.  Those are terrific places, but there are reasons that certain people come to the USA.

Fantastic.  As long as they come legally.