Biden failures, corruption, destruction, and collapse Thread.

[Primemuscle]

Completely irrelevant.  Biden intentionally mishandled classified documents.  That is expressly what this special prosecutor found.  Any other person would absolutely be in prison for doing what Biden did.

If what you suggest were the case, pretty much every U.S. President, present and passed would absolutely have done or would be doing prison time for retaining and mishandling classified documents. By-the-way, unless you are a speed reader, you did not read the linked article.

[Dos Equis]

If what you suggest were the case, pretty much every U.S. President, present and passed would absolutely have done or would be doing prison time for retaining and mishandling classified documents. By-the-way, unless you are a speed reader, you did not read the linked article.

This involves a VP.  The POTUS is in a class by himself, because he is the only person in the country with ultimate classification and declassification authority.  And the point regarding Biden is that it doesn't matter if he turned over classified documents that he intentionally removed (years later).  The fact he took them in the first place is a crime.  For which anyone else not named Hillary Clinton would be in prison for.   

[Skeletor]

If what you suggest were the case, pretty much every U.S. President, present and passed would absolutely have done or would be doing prison time for retaining and mishandling classified documents. By-the-way, unless you are a speed reader, you did not read the linked article.

As expected, going from "Biden wasn't as bad as Trump" to "well others have done it too!".

This involves a VP.  The POTUS is in a class by himself, because he is the only person in the country with ultimate classification and declassification authority.  And the point regarding Biden is that it doesn't matter if he turned over classified documents that he intentionally removed (years later).  The fact he took them in the first place is a crime.  For which anyone else not named Hillary Clinton would be in prison for.   

Moreover, it also relates to classified documents going as far back as the 1970s during his Senate days, not just his VP days and of course there is the time when he was just a private citizen (if that could be said about Biden). Senators don't have the same rights to classified document possession and retention as the President.

Any other person would absolutely be in prison for doing what Biden did. 

Exactly. But other persons usually don't have the connections the Big Guy has or the convenient "sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory" image/defense.

[SOMEPARTS]

A "staggering" measles outbreak in the USA. Wonder why?


https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/measles-now-spreading-in-9-states-amid-staggering-outbreak-cdc-warns/ss-BB1hZhyE?ocid=winp1taskbar&cvid=0459cd8582c64b249933299dd3bc8d97&ei=21

[SOMEPARTS]

[Soul Crusher]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/-guys-rcna137975

[SOMEPARTS]

"The Heartland Institute study tried to gauge the probable impact that fraudulent mail-in ballots cast for both then-candidate Joe Biden and his opponent, President Donald Trump, would have had on the overall 2020 election results.

The study was based on data obtained from a Heartland/Rasmussen survey in December that revealed that roughly one in five mail-in voters admitted to potentially fraudulent actions in the presidential election.

After the researchers carried out additional analyses of the data, they concluded that mail-in ballot fraud “significantly” impacted the 2020 presidential election."



https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/mail-ballot-fraud-study-finds-trump-almost-certainly-won-2020

[Primemuscle]

This involves a VP.  The POTUS is in a class by himself, because he is the only person in the country with ultimate classification and declassification authority.  And the point regarding Biden is that it doesn't matter if he turned over classified documents that he intentionally removed (years later).  The fact he took them in the first place is a crime.  For which anyone else not named Hillary Clinton would be in prison for.

Yup, Biden was the VP at the time he took the documents. 31 'CFR § 2.2 - Access to classified information by historical researchers, former Treasury Presidential and Vice Presidential appointees, and former Presidents and Vice Presidents.' Check out this link and get back to me. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/31/2.2

[Soul Crusher]

President Non Compos Mentis
By John Kass

February 11, 2024

Do you really think the bizarre angry-old-man cane waving performance of President Non Compos Mentis demonstrates his fitness for office?

Because after that politically disastrous news conference in the White House is where we are now.

Biden is no longer mentally fit to be commander-in-chief. He’s an empty husk. I told you he was a meat puppet years ago. Last week, on national television, he proved it.

The world is on the edge of war. China is pushing us in the Pacific, Iran pushes us across the Middle East. Russia is taking Ukraine, despite our war party’s best effort to bring us to the edge of world war. And the president is not in possession of his right mind. He’s slow and senile and the world can see it.

He is President Non Compos Mentis. That is lawyer talk, Latin for “of unsound mind.”

How did this come about? Biden’s Justice Department the other day ruled that the president was not mentally fit to stand trial on the issue of whether he’d illegally and for years taken top secret documents and stored them in broken boxes in his messy garage. He did willfully take the documents. He did in fact put them in broken boxes in his junky garage.

But the special prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland declined to press charges. Why? Biden is unfit to stand trial.

He’s not fit to stand trial, but he’s fit to be president?

Robert Hur, the special prosecutor noted in his report that during interviews, Biden repeatedly could not remember the years he was vice president under former President Barack Obama, that Biden could not remember the year his son Beau died. The report was released during a week in which the president said he talked to world leaders who were already dead. And then in his angry news conference he mixed up the presidents of Mexico and Egypt.

It was a disaster of biblical proportions.

You wouldn’t hire such a soft headed man to manage a Popeye’s Fried Chicken franchise, let alone task him to be the leader of the free world with China on the prowl. The fate of the United States is at stake.

First he must be tested to determine if he’s mentally fit. If he’s fit, then he stands trial. If he’s not, then he should be removed immediately.

One way to look at it that he’s a tired old man, too old for the rigors of the presidency, a man in the center of a re-election political campaign who decided to pass up a three-minute softball interview during the Taylor Swift Super Bowl. If he can’t handle a softball interview, how can he stand up to Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping.

Another way to look at it was that what America and the world saw on TV—Angry Joe Biden confusing the names of world leaders, sniping, mean—was no accident.

It was a takedown. And some of his own people helped. They put him out there and he performed poorly as expected. I talked about this to a man who spent his lifetime in American diplomacy and intelligence, studying the devious players of the Deep State.

Here’s what he wrote weeks ago, before Biden’s prime-time disaster, in a prescient essay for the conservative website American Greatness.

“The ‘Deep State’ and the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election: Down to the Crossroads”

“One indication to watch for could be whether elements of Biden’s Department of Justice, which has so far worked hard to shield the President, begin to re-examine some of the corruption and other allegations of wrongdoing aimed at him…”

The author is my brother Nicholas Kass, 30+ years of service in CIA and Department of State, working on the president’s daily brief, serving in Washington and overseas in Turkey, and other dangerous parts of the world.

He’s brilliant yes, but for decades when we were growing up, he refused to do household chores. He’d rather study Eastern Roman history and Kyokushin karate than cut the grass. Pete and John cut the grass.

Nick is our scheduled guest for this week’s new episode of the Chicago Way podcast that I co-host with WGN radio producer Jeff Carlin. We try to serve up hot cups of good old-fashioned common sense.

One thing we do know is that Biden is done. Jill Biden, the stern Mrs. Wilson of this White House, decided a year or so ago that the old man  would run for re-election. And so she pushed him out there because she loves power. Was he wearing his depends?

He’s no longer useful. Look at him. He’s dried up, a bitter raisin. And his advisors are turning the screws.

Now it’s too late for him to gracefully withdraw, so someone in his “braintrust” decided it would be a good idea to hold a free-form news conference, even though he’d been shielded for years.

It was predictable.

The sad thing is that our country doesn’t deserve this. He’s not some gentle old man. He’s vicious and mean and he has always put his appetites for venality before the welfare of his country. He’s in public service for what he can take and leverage, like the worst of the big city politicos.

He’s pretending the Junior Soprano senility defense to protect him from charges of taking millions of dollars from China, Ukraine and elsewhere.

Joe Biden’s favorite saying isn’t E pluribus unum. His favorite saying is “No one F’s with a Biden,” usually said with his hand extended to take a check in the form of a “loan” that is never repaid.

He’s not mad as a hatter exactly, but he keeps forgetting the names of world leaders, and according to the special prosecutor he couldn’t remember the year his own son died or when he was vice president when he pulled in all that cash.

And though team Biden came out swinging on Friday condemning the prosecutor for being unfair, with “gratuitous” smears, and the CNN and MSNBC lickspittles were defensively outraged, it became clear that the Biden White House will not release video of the president’s interviews to prove their claims that the special prosecutor was “gratuitous” and that the president is mentally fit. Because he’s not.

Who will they replace him with? The moron Vice President with the horrid cackling laugh? The hair boy Democratic governor of California dripping of hair products? Or the Gov. Jelly Belly of Illinois? How about my pick, Michelle Obama?

If he sticks he drags the Congressional Democrats down with him and their journos will freak. Poll after poll say voters don’t believe old Joe has the mental acuity to do the job.

In a recent ABC poll, 94 percent of Republicans, 69% of political independents and 21% of Democrats thinks Biden lacks the mental sharpness to be president.

Just 33 percent think the 80-year-old Biden is fit enough. And 58 percent of American adults who lean Democrat want someone else.

Is that Vice President Kamala Harris?

No. She has a much softer brain than Biden, but she was selected not for her mental or administrative prowess, but because she had the right skin tone and she’s a woman.

U.S. Rep. Adam Smith understands. Biden is done. As do other smart Democrats. The American people saw what they saw, it was a complete (bleep) show, and telling them Biden is really Einstein just infuriates them now.

And the voters see former President Donald Trump facing similar records-related criminal charges, the left hopes they can use their “lawfare” to put him in jail, but Biden is ruled incompetent and walks free while holding onto the presidency?

That double standard just won’t wash. It is unfair and corrodes the American  system of equal justice under the law. They kill democracy while shouting through their leftist media organs that they are here to save it. They are dangerous, malevolent, mincing buffoons.

The American left leaning corporate media, so shamelessly in the tank for Obama and then for Biden in scandal after scandal are now at point where they must decide who and what they are.

“Well, I think they’ve jumped the proverbial shark,” the classical historian Victor Davis Hanson said to Laura Ingraham on “The Ingraham Angle” on Fox News.  “And I think right now there’s a lot of journalists who are saying I wanna get out of Dodge and I wanna go on record that I’ve always said I always believed he had mental problems… And I think they’re gonna try to be the first to say ‘I have integrity. I’m empirical. I’m disinterested.”

But they were quite interested, like the hairless eunuchs in the palace of the sultan. For decades Washington journalists danced the dance of grace and favor in the court of the kings of the Washington swamp. They have no place to go but down.

“It’s gonna get worse and worse,” said Hanson, “and they don’t want to be the last person on the Biden-is-competent-train and I think they want to get off. I think a lot of people are going to say ‘I knew this whole time.’ ”

Hanson knows it is the same behavior across history. It is the dance of servants covering their behinds. And it reeks, like the parliament of whores Washington has become.

“Very well madam,” some old man said long ago to the streetwalker who ended up in the palace. “We’ve established what you are. Now we’re simply determining the price.”

-30-

About the author: John Kass spent decades as a political writer and news columnist in Chicago working at a major metropolitan newspaper.  All he really wanted to do was cover boxing and write Chicago restaurant reviews and file one story a week. It didn’t work out that way. He lives in Northwest Indiana with the Lovely Sicilian. He is co-host of The Chicago Way podcast. And he just loves his “No Chumbolone” hat, because johnkassnews.com is a “No Chumbolone” Zone where you can always get a cup of common sense.

[Soul Crusher]

Only partisan hacks are defending this any more. 

http://www.wsj.com/politics/democrats-anxiety-over-bidens-age-grows-after-special-counsel-report-faf6578c

[Soul Crusher]

[Soul Crusher]

The Gang’s All Here—Thanks To Biden’s Open Border: The BorderLine
AMAC Newsline ^ | 9 Feb, 2024 | Simon Hankinson
Posted on 2/12/2024, 8:52:0

Have you heard of the Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal gang? Maybe not, but this is “the little engine that could” that may bring your quiet American neighborhood some dangerous young men with little to contribute and even less to lose. Joseph Humire, an expert on Latin American security, calls the Tren “the fastest-growing transnational criminal organization in the world.”

Last year, the Tren de Aragua didn’t even make the Border Patrol’s “Nationwide Apprehensions by Gang Affiliation,” an alphabetical list of 50 Central and South American gangs invading the United States—from the Angelino Heights Sureno 13 to the Zetas. But with 47,000 Venezuelans caught entering the U.S. at the southern border last December alone—27,000 of them single adults—the Tren is on track to make the list soon.

With President Joe Biden’s opening of our national borders, gang foot soldiers can enter from Mexico or Canada with ease. Or they can apply for Biden’s bogus parole schemes, which let in another 50,000 or so illegal aliens a month.

The Tren is reportedly active everywhere from Atlanta to Chicago to Washington, D.C. When police raided a prison reportedly controlled by inmates from the Tren in Tocorón, Venezuela, last year, they found “a zoo, nightclub, swimming pools, and a children’s playground.” It’s not so fancy in New York City, but at least illegal alien gang members there get free housing in luxury hotels, free meals, free laundry, and now, prepaid debit cards, thanks to taxpayers.

According to the FBI, “The gang capitalizes on its Venezuelan community” in El Paso, Texas, primarily engaging in human smuggling and sex trafficking. Foreign gangs, from the Italian Mafia on down, always start with victimizing their own people, making money from extortion, prostitution, and drugs. But then they spread out.

Recently, a group of young, male illegal immigrants attacked two New York City police officers who had tried to stop them from stealing from a local store. They were part of a “wolfpack of violent shoplifters” who steal in the city and then leave for Florida and other states to enjoy the proceeds, according to the New York Post. The perpetrators are believed to be Venezuelans who crossed the southern border illegally, and there are indications they are members of the Tren de Aragua.

This being prosecutor Alvin Bragg’s soft-on-crime New York City, the few perpetrators police managed to arrest were soon released on cashless bail. Four others conned a local migrant charity into giving them tickets out west. Just as they gave fake names to score the bus tickets, they likely gave fake names to the border authorities who originally “processed” and quickly released them into the country.

Reports that they were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Phoenix proved premature—those were just other illegal aliens traveling freely around the U.S. With so many millions out there, who can keep track?

The Tren is following in the footsteps of other foreign gangs already here. The violent MS-13, based in El Salvador, is all over the U.S. This brutal outfit challenges its members to murder innocents to climb in status. In 2016, five MS-13 members stabbed a 14- and a 17-year-old to death in a suburban park in Alexandria, Virginia. Six more MS-13 gang members were just convicted of a string of random murders in 2019, also in Northern Virginia.

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas likes to tell us that illegal migrants are carefully vetted before being released into our communities, but that’s just not true. When a young man presents himself at the border to be “processed” and then sent—with your tax money—to the city of his choice, our law enforcement doesn’t know who he is unless he already has some U.S. record. No matter how bad he is, if he’s never been here before, he won’t.

There was a time when gang members were dumb enough to tattoo themselves in ways that U.S. authorities could identify them, but the wiseguys wised up. Border Patrol can only write down the names and identity information given to them by the aliens or available in documents they have on their person.

If illegal aliens suspected to be gang members have no documents and give fake names, U.S. agents have no way to verify the information other than calling Venezuelan officials. The sheer numbers being caught and released preclude doing that each time, and besides, the U.S. and Venezuela have frosty relations. The Nicolas Maduro regime has no incentive to tell us anything that’s not in its own self-interest.

Biden’s open-border policies have let in as many as 8 million illegal immigrants since he took office. They tend to be younger, and more often male. In general, men are much more likely to be violent than women, and young people commit more crime than older people.

One study of recidivism showed that within 10 years, around 80% of criminals reoffended, and those who did averaged 5.4 arrests each during that time.

Even assuming average prevailing rates of criminality among illegal aliens released at the border, let alone greater rates due to criminals knowingly coming here for opportunity or to flee justice, we’re in for a sustained wave of crime. U.S. cities and towns will experience additional cases, from shoplifting to murder, that could have been prevented if our borders had been secure.

In the New York City precinct where the Venezuelans attacked those two police officers, grand larceny was up over 83% last year over 2022. Perhaps not unconnected, another group of violent thieves, led by another Venezuelan illegal immigrant, “predominantly live in the migrant shelter system,” according to New York police, and ventured out to commit up to 150 thefts in the vicinity.

Though many illegal immigrants sensibly keep their noses clean, the Department of Justice reported in 2018—before Biden’s current mass releases at the border—that 64% of federal arrests involved “noncitizens, despite them comprising only 7% of the population at that time.”

If anyone wonders why the House of Representatives is intent on impeaching Mayorkas, this is one good reason. He swore an oath to protect the nation against foreign threats, but instead, he’s willfully exposed us to them.

Simon Hankinson, a former foreign service officer with the State Department, is a senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center.

Reprinted with Permission from The Daily Signal – By Simon Hankinson

[Soul Crusher]

[Soul Crusher]

Special counsel’s report gives impeachment inquiry new leads in Biden-Ukraine saga
Just The News ^ | February 11, 2024 11:33pm | By Steven Richards
Posted on 2/12/2024, 9:23:32 AM

The House Oversight Committee has become specifically interested in the contents of several classified and confidential, Ukraine-related documents found in Joe Biden’s possession by special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Last week, Justice Department special counsel Robert Hur released his long-awaited report into President Joe Biden’s possession and potential mishandling of classified documents, though Hur recommended no charges be brought.

Several of the memos found in Biden’s possession are eliciting questions from Congress about why Biden retained documents related specifically to countries where his son was conducting his foreign business dealings. The House Oversight Committee has demanded that the Department of Justice provide them access to the classified documents uncovered by the special counsel’s investigation.

“The Justice Department must provide Congress with access to Joe Biden’s stashed classified documents to determine if they were used to help the Bidens’ influence peddling schemes,” the committee said Friday in a post on X.

“Now that the investigation is over and the Special Counsel’s report reveals Joe Biden kept classified materials related to Ukraine and China, two countries where the Bidens made millions, the Department of Justice must provide Congress with unfettered access to these documents,” the committee added.

A review of documents uncovered by Hur’s investigation and emails recovered from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop raise questions about how Joe Biden’s official actions coincided with key initiatives by Burisma while his son served as a board member at the company.

In one binder, the special counsel’s investigators found a confidential document titled “U.S. Energy Assistance to Ukraine,” marked as a memorandum for the Vice President from his staff and dated September 17, 2014.

Earlier that year, in April 2014, Hunter Biden officially joined the board of Burisma Holdings. Hunter Biden, although having no experience in the petroleum industry, collected a $1 million yearly salary.

At the time, in the aftermath of the "Revolution of Dignity" — also known as the "Maidan Revolution" —the Obama-Biden Administration was focused on propping up Ukraine’s new, pro-Western government with economic and security assistance.

One of the key policies involved improving Ukraine’s energy security, according to a readout of an April 2014 call Vice President Biden had with new Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. President Obama had appointed Hunter’s father as his point person to manage the administration’s Ukraine policy.

By the end of April 2014, Vice President Biden visited Ukraine and promised U.S. assistance to “boost energy efficiency” and “production in Ukrainian natural gas fields” according to a Reuters report of the trip. At the time Hunter Biden joined the board, Burisma was Ukraine’s largest private gas producer.

According to emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop, Burisma was keenly interested in taking advantage of U.S. policy to promote energy independence in Ukraine, specifically a program spearheaded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) called the Municipal Energy Reform Project for Ukraine. The goal of MERP, as it was known, was to “enhance Ukraine’s energy security.”

Vadim Pozharskyi, a senior Burisma official who worked closely with Hunter Biden, traveled to Washington in October 2014 and returned to Ukraine with good news for the board and its team of lobbyists and consultants.

“I would like to let you know that following my working visit to Washington DC, our Company has started cooperation with the USAID Municipal Energy Reform Project in Ukraine which aims to promote energy effieciency [sic] and decrease Ukraine's energy dependence,” Pozharskyi wrote. Hunter Biden was copied on the email along with other board members.

“Thank you all for being a part of our effort,” he told the board and its team of lobbyists and consultants.

“David [Leiter] and I just wanted to circle back to let you know that we have shared the press release on Burisma’s partnership with USAID with all of the U.S. Government officials we met with in July,” an ML Strategies employee wrote back, revealing that Leiter had been active lobbying for Burisma that summer.

A few days after this email exchange in late October, Obama's White House visitor logs show that David Leiter visited the compound, though the subject of the meeting is not known.

You can read that email chain below:

File Re Burisma Holdings teams up with USAID Municipal Energy Reform Project.pdf Burisma’s participation in the USAID program would later cause consternation among the staff of the U.S. embassy in Ukraine, specifically the number two official George Kent who argued that USAID should suspend its cooperation with the company in light of the corruption allegations against its founder Mykola Zlochevsky, Just the News reported in 2020.

Other documents uncovered by Hur’s investigation include talking points and a telephone call transcript with the Ukrainian prime minister, hailing from a key period in Hunter Biden’s tenure on the board of Burisma.

In a folder marked “VP Personal” DOJ investigators found two documents relating to a December 11, 2015 call between then-Vice President Biden and then Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. The first document was a set of talking points and briefing materials on Biden’s upcoming call with the PM. The second was a full transcript of the call, which Biden had specifically requested for his personal records, Just the News reported on Thursday.

December 2015 was a pivotal month in Hunter Biden’s Burisma tenure and in U.S. Ukraine policy.

Last year, Just the News uncovered documents showing that in late 2015, Joe Biden unilaterally changed official U.S. policy by linking a $1 billion loan guarantee to the Ukrainian government with a requirement to fire Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma for corruption at the time, a fact that caused worry among the Burisma board members and spurred Hunter Biden’s efforts to retain a U.S. lobbying firm to close the investigation.

In October, a Ukraine task force made up of State, Treasury and Justice Department officials concluded that Ukraine had made “sufficient progress” on its anti-corruption and economic reforms to justify the loan guarantee, memos obtained by Just the News showed.

Internal memos for then-Vice President Biden’s upcoming trip to Ukraine dated Nov. 22, 2015 urged the vice president to offer the $1 billion loan guarantee during his trip, citing Kyiv’s progress. Yet, by the time Biden arrived in Kyiv on Dec. 8, 2015, he had decided to link the loan guarantee to Shokin’s ouster.

The Washington Post, spurred by Just the News’ reporting, found that the Vice President “called an audible” aboard Air Force Two on his way to Kyiv, citing interviews with former Obama Administration officials. This all but confirmed that Joe Biden was instrumental in linking Shokin’s firing to the loan guarantee.

Previously, Kessler – lead fact-checker at the Post – said that Biden was "simply carrying out U.S. policy developed by the State Department" and the European Union and “operated independently of his son’s efforts to engage a PR firm to burnish Zlochevsky’s image.”

Before his father’s trip, Hunter Biden worked to help Burisma retain Blue Star Strategies – a Democratic party connected government relations firm – to improve Burisma’s public image in Ukraine and with U.S. officials at the embassy in Kyiv. In an email from Hunter Biden’s laptop, Pozharskyi described the reason for hiring Blue Star: “to close down for [sic] any cases/pursuits” against Burisma’s founder.

You can read that email below:

File T42-Exhibit-306-Email-from-Burisma-Regarding-Proposal-11.02.2015_Redacted.pdf Last year, Devon Archer—a former business partner of Hunter Biden’s and fellow Burisma board member—testified to Congress that in the first week of December 2015, both Pozharskyi and Burisma owner Zlochevsky asked Hunter Biden to “call D.C.” during a board meeting in Dubai because of the pressure being exerted on the company by Ukrainian authorities. Then-Vice President Biden’s call to Yatsenyuk came just days after this reported call that Hunter made the call to Washington, which Archer testified was to his father.

The White House declined to respond to a request for comment from Just the News.

On Friday, the spokesperson for the White House Counsel’s Office, Ian Sams, attacked special counsel Hur’s report into Biden’s handling of classified documents in a wide-ranging press conference. “When the inevitable conclusion is that the facts and the evidence don’t support any charges, you’re left to wonder why this report spends time making gratuitous and inappropriate criticisms of the president,” Sams told reporters, referring to the report’s emphasis on Biden’s ongoing memory issues.

Earlier in the day, Vice President Kamala Harris also criticized the report as politically motivated.

“So the way the president’s demeanor in that report was characterized could not be more wrong on the facts, and clearly politically motivated,” Harris reportedly said. “And so I will say, when it comes to the role and responsibility of a prosecutor in a situation like that, we should expect that there would be a higher level of integrity than what we saw.”

On that very same day, in a press conference defending his own mental acuity, President Biden confused the presidents of Mexico and Egypt.

It appears that the White House has not addressed House Republicans’ concerns about the topic of the documents which were found in Biden’s possession, including the documents on Ukraine.

After the release of the report, House Oversight Chairman James Comer vowed to continue the investigation through his committee. “mportant questions remain about the extent of Joe Biden retaining sensitive materials related to specific countries involving his family’s influence peddling schemes that brought in millions for the Bidens,” Comer said in a statement posted to X.

“While the Justice Department has closed its investigation, the Oversight Committee’s investigation continues. We will continue to provide the transparency and accountability owed to the American people,” Comer added.

[Soul Crusher]

WTF are they thinking!   He made this drastically worse! 

[Soul Crusher]

LOL - these scumbags are so transparently fake.   So now Garland's DOJ is biased against Biden according to these liberal knts? 

[SOMEPARTS]

Nobody going to point out that Biden's eyes are totally different looking depending on the day?  Getting smaller and smaller.

[Soul Crusher]

Exclusive: How Biden botched the border
Axios ^ | 12 February 2024 | Alex Thompson , Stef W. Kight
Posted on 2/12/2024, 11:33:0

Aboard Air Force One en route to tour the southern border in January 2023, President Biden sat at the head of his conference table and exploded with fury.

The president lit into his team, which included then-Deputy Chief of Staff Jen O'Malley Dillon, Homeland Security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall and other immigration officials. He demanded obscure immigration data points — and vented when his staff didn't have them handy.

Why it matters: The previously unreported meeting, recounted to Axios by three people familiar with the events, is emblematic of the Biden administration's struggle with the border crisis during the past three years — infighting, blame-shifting and indecision.

Biden's fury subsided, and aides scrambled for the information he wanted. People in the meeting later told others in frustration that his winding process and irritability were making it more difficult to reach decisions about the border.

The White House counters that the meeting was "productive." Spokesperson Andrew Bates told Axios that "multiple firsthand participants of the meeting refute this description of the tone and outcome" of a conversation on "the specifics of this complex issue."

The rolling chaos along the border has grown to the point that Biden now is embracing immigration policies he ran against in 2020 — such as restricting asylum laws and suggesting he'll "shut down" the border — as the crisis threatens his re-election.

Reality check: Much of the current crisis is rooted in factors Biden's team has had little control over — including unprecedented global calamities that have pushed millions of migrants to the U.S., decades of congressional inaction, and the state of key agencies after the Trump administration.

Many current and former Biden officials say they believe they've done their best considering the circumstances. But others told Axios they think the administration has fallen far short on matters within its control.

Zoom in: The crisis grew slowly. Many administration leaders treated the issue like a hot potato because it was politically thankless, several sources in and out of government told Axios.

The idea that no one wanted to "own it" came up repeatedly in interviews about the border crisis. But the problem required a robust and coordinated response at several levels of the federal government.

As the humanitarian conditions at the border have deteriorated and the politics surrounding immigration have become a thorn for Biden, he becomes scratchier when the issue comes up, according to current and former aides.

"There are definite incentives ... to not be the person who owns the scary issue with no solutions," a former government official close to the issue told Axios.

"If you're the person briefing the president, you get to piss him off every day."

Some administration officials feel the State Department dragged its feet for years in setting up regional processing centers to allow more migrants to apply for protection in the U.S. before reaching the border.

A State Department spokesperson rejected that claim, pointing to processing centers opened last year.

Cabinet-level meetings to discuss border issues often have been attended by deputies rather than the agency leaders, two people familiar with the meetings told Axios.

Vice President Kamala Harris and her office made clear to others in the administration that her responsibilities began and ended with the factors driving people to leave Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — the issue Biden had assigned her to examine.

As the migration became more global, Harris' team remained focused on the Northern Triangle and Mexico.

A former Biden administration senior official told Axios: "She's been at best ineffective, and at worst sporadically engaged and not seeing it was her responsibility. It's an opportunity for her, and she didn't fill the breach."

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, whose office hasn't historically taken on many border issues, left much of his border portfolio to Sherwood-Randall, who had little experience on the issue.

A sign of her inexperience came early on, when she asked an official on her team for a memo explaining the difference between refugees and asylum seekers, according to a person familiar with the request.

Sherwood-Randall keeps a low profile compared to several of her predecessors, who were regulars on Sunday shows. She's been an internal advocate for tough enforcement of migration policies, sources tell Axios.

Sherwood-Randall is well-liked by her colleagues, but some believe she's in the wrong role.

Between the lines: Warring ideologies inside the White House and the Democratic Party also slowed decision-making

Some officials wanted policies designed to punish or deter people who crossed the border illegally. Others — including vocal immigration advocates outside the administration — pushed to reform asylum policies and expand legal pathways for migrants to stay in the U.S., sources said.

The White House's immigration team also saw constant turnover.

As a result, "the strategy was incoherent from the very beginning," said one former Biden White House official involved in immigration policy.

The internal turmoil led to contradictory actions by Biden's team.

Biden stopped kicking out asylum seekers under Trump's "Remain in Mexico" program, but for years continued to use pandemic-era restrictions known as Title 42 to send asylum seekers back to Mexico.

The administration extended temporary protections for Venezuelans in the U.S. — and weeks later, announced plans to deport Venezuelans for the first time in years.

Biden's team stopped holding undocumented families in U.S. detention centers — a practice under Presidents Bush, Obama and Trump — in favor of monitoring people using ankle bracelets and other technology.

Then, as conditions worsened, Biden considered restarting the detention program.

The White House generally didn't want to talk publicly about immigration or the border for much of Biden's first three years, feeling it would draw attention to a political vulnerability, sources said.

White House officials limited and pushed against having Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas or other immigration officials appear on TV until a few months ago.

Publicly, the White House also initially downplayed jumps in illegal border crossings as normal "ebbs and flows" — even as some internally pushed to acknowledge that the problem was significant.

Some former administration officials believe the strategy provided an information vacuum — that was filled by Biden's critics. "[T]he White House and DHS have worked together closely," White House spokesperson Angelo Fernandez Hernandez told Axios, noting past media interviews and press conferences.

How we got here: Keeping promises he made during the 2020 campaign, Biden signed several immigration-related executive orders in his first weeks in office, undoing many of Trump's border restrictions before much of Biden's immigration team was in place or settled.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a 100-day moratorium on migrant deportations on Biden's first day — despite some senior officials' concerns.

Mayorkas — now facing impeachment by the GOP-led House over the border situation — said at the time that he opposed Biden's moratorium, according to people familiar with his comments during the transition.

A DHS spokesperson did not provide a comment.

Zoom out: Border officials and experts have long warned about the ways smugglers use and manipulate information about U.S. policies to encourage people to migrate.

In early 2021, the new Biden administration was surprised by rapidly climbing numbers of children and teens crossing the border illegally.

Photos of women and kids crowded inside Border Patrol tents led critics to compare Biden's border policies to the "kids in cages" attacks on Trump. "It was a panic," one former Biden official said.

Biden became most personally engaged on border issues when children were at risk, multiple sources said. Infighting broke out among those on Biden's team.

Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice emerged as a central — and controversial — coordinator of the administration's approach to the border.

Some officials found her needlessly combative and disagreed with her policy-wise. But even many of her critics credit her with taking on more responsibility on the border at a time when most other top Biden officials were shying away from it.

There was — and still is — deep animosity toward Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra for what was seen as his reluctance to find more space in child migrant shelters, which are overseen by HHS, according to several sources familiar with the dynamics.

Rice referred to Becerra as a "bitch-ass" and privately called him an "idiot," according to multiple sources. During one meeting when Biden was tearing into Becerra, Rice passed Mayorkas a note that read: "Don't save him," according to two people familiar with the meeting.

"The Trump administration severely restricted [the Office of Refugee Resettlement] capacity to serve children referred to our care," HHS spokesperson Jeff Nesbit told Axios in a statement.

"We worked quickly, but under any circumstances you can't stand up licensed child-care beds overnight, much less in the middle of a pandemic."

Rice also clashed repeatedly with Sherwood-Randall and had tension with Vice President Harris, according to people familiar with the dynamics.

The tension between Rice and Harris had origins in the summer of 2020, when both were being vetted for vice president. Rice later told people she thought Harris and her team were partly responsible for opposition research that resulted in negative coverage of Rice.

Rice appeared to others to take pride in being more informed on the border than Harris.

Some Harris aides found Rice to be disrespectful toward the vice president and dismissively referred to the former UN ambassador as just a "staffer."

Rice declined interview requests. A spokesperson said she "categorically denies" the reporting about her relationship with Becerra and Harris.

Carmel Martin, a policy adviser to Rice and then Harris before leaving last year, disputed that there was tension: "As a former senior staff member for both Vice President Harris and Ambassador Rice, I know firsthand that they and their teams worked hand in hand to address the complex issues of migration."

Since Rice left her position last year, the new head of the Domestic Policy Council — Neera Tanden — has been less engaged on the border.

In September 2021 near Del Rio, Texas, a makeshift camp sprung up along the U.S. banks of the Rio Grande with what would become thousands of Haitians and other migrants, overwhelming border personnel and driving national headlines.

Two former administration officials called it the worst day in their jobs. "It was a moment where people were gonna get hurt," one said.

Afterward, Jason Houser, then the deputy chief of staff at ICE, made several profanity-laced calls to White House and DHS officials, angry about ramping up expulsions of Haitians using Title 42, according to sources with knowledge of the calls.

The episode led to what many sources called the administration's most important move on border policy: The Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan parole program, which took a carrot-and-stick approach by providing legal pathways into the U.S. while blocking asylum for many who crossed the border illegally.

At least initially, it was effective in reducing illegal crossings.

What they're saying: "President Biden is proud that his team has worked well together as they work to resolve unprecedented challenges, and as congressional Republicans continue to choose politics over securing our border," White House spokesperson Andrew Bates told Axios.

[Skeletor]

Why doesn't Biden himself address these issues publicly and instead he sends some advisors to meet in private with Arab Americans and give some fake apology? Talking out of both sides of his mouth as usual.


'Mistakes and missteps': Biden advisers apologize to Arab Americans over Gaza war response

Senior advisers to President Joe Biden admitted “mistakes” and apologized privately to Arab Americans in Michigan for the way the administration has handled the war in Gaza and for how it has talked publicly about Palestinians during the deadly conflict with Israel.

Biden on Thursday dispatched several of his top aides to Dearborn, the U.S. city with the highest percentage of Arab Americans, for a series of private meetings with politicians, community advocates and faith leaders for discussions about the war in Gaza.

Abbas Alawieh, a Dearborn activist who attended one of the meetings, said the officials admitted “mistakes and missteps” in the administration’s response to the conflict.

But Alawieh, who is one of the leaders of a campaign encouraging Michigan residents to vote “uncommitted” in next week’s Democratic primary instead of casting their votes for Biden, said the administration’s mea culpa rang hollow.

“The president’s refusal to change course or even publicly acknowledge his mistakes is a grave insult to people here in Michigan – to Michigan Democrats in particular,” Alawieh said. “The hypocrisy of telling us privately that the administration has made mistakes while continuing to fail to hold (Benjamin) Netanyahu accountable publicly – it’s a blatant display of moral bankruptcy that will have political consequences here in Michigan.”


https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/02/12/biden-apologize-arab-americans-israel-hamas-war/72572106007/

[Soul Crusher]

He can't because he needs wealthy Jewish donors' money and at same time needs arab votes in michigan etc. 

Everyone knows what is going on here. 

Why doesn't Biden himself address these issues publicly and instead he sends some advisors to meet in private with Arab Americans and give some fake apology? Talking out of both sides of his mouth as usual.


'Mistakes and missteps': Biden advisers apologize to Arab Americans over Gaza war response

Senior advisers to President Joe Biden admitted “mistakes” and apologized privately to Arab Americans in Michigan for the way the administration has handled the war in Gaza and for how it has talked publicly about Palestinians during the deadly conflict with Israel.

Biden on Thursday dispatched several of his top aides to Dearborn, the U.S. city with the highest percentage of Arab Americans, for a series of private meetings with politicians, community advocates and faith leaders for discussions about the war in Gaza.

Abbas Alawieh, a Dearborn activist who attended one of the meetings, said the officials admitted “mistakes and missteps” in the administration’s response to the conflict.

But Alawieh, who is one of the leaders of a campaign encouraging Michigan residents to vote “uncommitted” in next week’s Democratic primary instead of casting their votes for Biden, said the administration’s mea culpa rang hollow.

“The president’s refusal to change course or even publicly acknowledge his mistakes is a grave insult to people here in Michigan – to Michigan Democrats in particular,” Alawieh said. “The hypocrisy of telling us privately that the administration has made mistakes while continuing to fail to hold (Benjamin) Netanyahu accountable publicly – it’s a blatant display of moral bankruptcy that will have political consequences here in Michigan.”


https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/02/12/biden-apologize-arab-americans-israel-hamas-war/72572106007/

[Soul Crusher]

http://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/14/mortgage-rates-surge-higher-again-causing-homebuyers-to-pull-back.html


Awful

[Soul Crusher]

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/15/retail-sales-january-2024-.html

Bidenomics 

[Soul Crusher]

Freaking utterly clueless!!!!  Bidenomics!! 

http://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20240215346/biden-adviser-calls-for-grocery-chains-to-bring-down-their-profit-margins-as-elevated-prices-still-sting

[SOMEPARTS]

Freaking utterly clueless!!!!  Bidenomics!! 

http://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20240215346/biden-adviser-calls-for-grocery-chains-to-bring-down-their-profit-margins-as-elevated-prices-still-sting

Be right back, dumping Kroger stock.

Democrat is the new word for communist, for those who still think this is the D party of the 80s.

[Soul Crusher]

ments.

No soft landing: The US economy is going to fall into recession in the middle of 2024, Citi's chief economist says
Yahoo Finance ^ | February 16, 2024 | Aruni Soni
Posted on 2/16/2024, 11:22:31 PM by lasereye

The soft-landing dream is over; instead, the US economy is headed for a recession in the middle of 2024, Citi says.

"There's this very powerful and seductive narrative around a soft landing, and we're just not seeing it in the data," Citi's chief US economist, Andrew Hollenhorst, said in a CNBC interview.

"The question is where are these forward-looking indicators showing us that we're going to go," Hollenhorst said.

One place the economy is showing a weakness is the labor market. January had a blowout jobs report, adding 353,000 jobs to the economy. But Hollenhorst noted that if you scratch beneath the surface, the number of hours worked is falling, the number of full-time workers has decreased, and sectors such as the restaurant industry have stalled on hiring.

"That's the key to the economy — what happens in the labor market," Hollenhorst said. "If the unemployment rate stays low, people continue to spend, the economy holds up." But he added that the unemployment rate was expected to start rising, which would be "the sign that we're going to have a more material decline in the US economy."

Hollenhorst also said inflation was still too high. This week's data from the consumer price index did show a higher-than-expected uptick in monthly inflation, which dragged stocks lower on Tuesday.

Credit-card delinquency rates are also rising. The top economist David Rosenberg has said a consumer credit default cycle has already arrived, with one in every 12 credit-card holders missing their payments.

And consumer weakness is also exposing itself in retail sales numbers. Thursday's release showed a significant drop in activity, posting a 0.8% decline in January.

Hollenhorst isn't alone in his pessimism. Apollo Management's Torsten Sløk recently echoed the sentiment that a soft landing is now the "least likely" scenario.

(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...