"America’s comeback continues. Today’s report shows that the economy created 227,000 jobs in November, as Boeing machinists returned to work with record wage gains and hurricane recovery continued. Unemployment of 4.2% is in the same low range of the past seven months. This has been a hard-fought recovery, but we are making progress for working families."
"Since I took office, the economy has created more than 16 million jobs, with jobs created every single month. Unemployment has been the lowest on average of any administration in 50 years. Incomes are up almost $4,000 more than prices. While there is more to do to lower costs, we’ve taken action to lower prescription drug prices, health insurance premiums, utility bills, and gas prices that will pay dividends for years to come."
For those who do not appreciate the Biden/Harris record, Bidenonomics helped do this.
Donald Trump had nothing to do with this and his recent attempts to take credit for positive national and international developments since his re-election in November is nothing more than his usual dosage of grandstanding opportunism and lying misinformation.
He pulled this turnabout crap when he succeeded Barack Obama, taking credit for the Obama/Biden Economy.
Do not let him get away with taking the credit again.
Election Rights Attorney Marc Elias, the founder of Democracy Docket, has ideas on what Democrats and Progressive Activists can do to regroup and oppose the Trump and the MAGA agenda over the next four years starting now.
Fair Weather Democrats, Republican Hypocrites, and media pundits are at it again.
Disparaging President Joe Biden because he did not get out of the Presidential race sooner because of his age and because he pardoned his son Hunter after he said he would not.
Newsflash to those Fair Weather Democrats and Media Pundits.
If age was a factor in this election, Donald Trump would not be the President-Elect.
If pardons were a factor in this election, twice impeached and 34 times convicted Donald Trump, with his pardon of cronies and accused criminals from within and outside his first Administration, would not be the President-Elect.
These are the same people who overlooked Trump's failed Presidency, two impeachments, what he and his people did at the Nation's Capitol on January 6, 2021, and criminal convictions.
Two more points.
To those people who think Joe Biden has given an excuse for Trump to justify future pardons like those for the people who launched the January 6, 2021, Domestic Insurrectionist attack on the Nation's Capitol Attack, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. Trump is going to issue those pardons no matter what President Biden did.
Furthermore, if bad debate performances indicated who would win the presidency, Kamala Harris would be picking her cabinet right now because she crushed Donald Trump in their one debate and he was too chicken sh-t to do another one with her.
Fair weather and bed-wetting Democrats are in this writer's opinion a contributing factor to why they lost this Presidential election.
Instead of effectively countering Trump's continued avalanche of lies and the history of his failed two impeachment Presidency in communities across the country, these people did a circular firing squad on Mr. Biden who is ranked byhistorians in the top third of United States Presidencies.
Mr. Trump is ranked last.
Another reason why Americans should be exposed to more education in history, government, current events, and economics.
Instead of building up the achievements of the Biden/Harris Administration and more ably broadcasting their plans for the future in the areas of the country that Biden bested Trump in, these fair weather and bed-wetting Democrats played right into MAGA's hands by doing Trump's work for them.
President Joe Biden, compared to recent American Chief Executives, has a remarkable record of achievements to boast about including:
A record number of Minority and Women Judicial Appointees to the Bench.
Close to 16 million jobs were created.
Overseeing the end of the Coronavirus Pandemic with the American Rescue Plan which distributed vaccinations, helped fund schools and public safety.
A cabinet and White House team where no one has a criminal record.
Major investments in clean energy programs.
A Bipartisan Infrastructure program that is delivering results across all parts of the country.
Expanding the Obamacare/Affordable Care Act Health Marketplaces.
Standing up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and expanding N.A.T.O.
The CHIPs and Science Act is a boon to American Manufacturing.
Reducing prescription drug prices for seniors.
Rising wages.
Falling inflation.
Falling illegal border crossings.
Falling crime rates.
The first gun safety legislation in 30 years.
Increased health care protections for veterans.
Record numbers of small business start-ups.
The expansion of the Child Tax Credit until Republicans and Joe Manchin took it away.
When Biden leaves the White House on January 20, the country and the people will be better off than on the day the President entered it.
Historically and statistically, the same can not be said of Mr. Trump's first term where thousands were dying due to his mismanagement of the Coronavirus and 2020 election denialism.
Now were there misplays from the Biden/Harris Administration? Yes.
Could the Biden/Harris team have made real-time adjustments in the withdrawal from Afghanistan? Yes but remember it was Trump's dealmaking with the Taliban that created the ingredients for the withdrawal fiasco.
Should they have taken a different communications approach to the issue of affordable housing and rent? Possibly but to be fair, they were saying the right words and pursuing the right policies but whether the timing was quick enough and word got out to the people in an effective manner is something to consider.
Could the Biden/Harris team have restricted the entry of illegal border crossers requesting asylum sooner? Yes but remember it was Republicans that stymied bipartisan immigration reform at the beginning of this administration and bipartisan border security measures in the last year for political reasons. Unfortunately, enough people, acting against their self-interests, rewarded Republicans for putting Trump and their party over the country by buying their lies on immigration.
Could the Biden/Harris Administration have been tougher on Israel as the war on Gaza intensified? Maybe but many people who openly protested Biden's approach to Israel erred by not finding any blame for Hamas and their role in starting this war and taking innocent people, including Americans, hostage.
Should President Biden have pardoned his son? Personally, I see it from both sides. The President probably should not have made the promise not to pardon him in the first place but with Mr. Trump's "Justice" Department picks, like Pam Biondi as Attorney General and Kash Patel at the F.B.I. promising retribution and endless investigations into their leader's political enemies, I understand the change of heart for Mr. Biden toward his last surviving son. Again, hypocrites on the Republican side have no reason to whine considering the pardons Trump has given including to his son-in-law's father, Charles Kushner, who he just nominated to be Ambassador to France.
For all his achievements, President Joe Biden deserved better from the Fair Weather Democrats and honestly the American People.
He, at least for now, is the Rodney Dangerfield of American Presidents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCVR_ajL_Eo
He does not get the respect he deserves.
Hopefully, history will be kinder to President Biden than the Fair Weather Democrats and the American People who deserted him.
For those who may not remember, the Bush/Cheney team, when their administration began in 2001, had what many considered an All-Star Team of foreign policy advisors.
Colin Powell was the Secretary of State.
Condoleezza Rice was the National Security Advisor.
Donald Rumsfeld, who had been the Secretary of Defense under President Gerald Ford, took that post again.
George Tenet, a holdover from the Clinton/Gore Administration, was the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) Director.
Vice President Dick Cheney had been Secretary of Defense under Bush Jr.'s father.
President Bush was the son of a former President widely seen as a successful foreign policy steward who wisely oversaw the end of the Cold War.
That team, who everyone thought was competent and would safeguard American Security, committed many intelligence failures that allowed the 9/11 attacks to occur and provided the false rationale for going to war in Iraq in 2003.
That team and the successors that followed in Mr. Bush's Administration also failed to catch Osama Bin Laden.
The Obama/Biden team did that.
When the American People consider that a Republican A team botched the intelligence that led to 9/11 and the false narrative that led us into a quagmire in both Afghanistan and Iraq, they should also ponder what harm the Trump 2.0 Foreign Policy D team, currently proposed to include Senator Marco Rubio at State, Fox News Commentator-Sexual Assaulter-Alcoholic Pete Hesgeth (this may change today) at Defense, Russian and Syrian Loving Tulsi Gabbard as National Intelligence Director, Fringe-Fascist Loving Sebastian Gorka as Counterterrorism Director, and Trump loyalists John Radcliffe at C.I.A. and Kash Patel at the F.B.I. could do.
Readers should also note that Mr. Trump nominated his two daughters' fathers-in-law, one of whom Charles Kushner is a convicted criminal pardoned by Trump, to be the Ambassador to France and a Senior Advisor to the Middle East.
Now there are strong picks to advance the United States interests.
If the Bush team could commit so many mistakes that harmed American Security and Lives, just think what the Trump/Vance team could do with their band of unqualified incompetents and fringe alternate reality-viewing nominees.
What can possibly go wrong?
This is not a trick question.
Remember during their first term, the Trump B and C teams sabotaged the Iran Nuclear Deal, letting that proliferation genie out of the bottle and releasing the Taliban Leaders who negotiated the Afghanistan Withdrawal that the Biden/Harris team had to adjust and oversee with poor results.
When he was President the first time, Mr. Trump contented himself with hiring mostly a B team Cabinet and Executive Branch staff. Over time, they became a C and D team as many hires were either driven out or resigned because they either could not stomach Trump's incompetency, would not bend the knee to his most authoritarian impulses, or proved to be, in the 45th President's mind, sufficiently disloyal.
Fast forward to 2024 and a case can be made that the sequel is really going to be worse than the original installment.
Previous articles have already highlighted how Mr. Trump, in prizing loyalty and chaos over competence and experience, has already picked a team headlined by the worst and the dumbest.
Matt Gaetz may be out of the running for Attorney General and not returning to Congress (where Republicans and Democrats openly rejoiced) but the second nominee, Pamela Bondi, is also marked by controversy for her election denialism following the 2020 elections and allegations that she traded in campaign donations for looking the other way in prosecuting the Florida branch of Trump University.
Just today, Mr. Trump announced that he would nominate Kash Patel to replace the F.B.I. Director he hired to replace James Comey, the first F.B.I. Director he fired because of the Russia Investigation.
Both Bondi and Patel definitely fit in with the blind loyalist, unlawful and disorder flavor of Trump 2.0.
Trump's Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth's sexual predatory revelations keep coming out with the latest being an email from his own mother blasting him for abusing women. Below are some of the excerpts:
"I have tried to keep quiet about your character and behavior, but after listening to the way you made Samantha feel today, I cannot stay silent. And as a woman and your mother I feel I must speak out..
You are an abuser of women — that is the ugly truth and I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth...
...I know you think this is one big competition and that we have taken her side… bunk… we are on the side of good and that is not you. (Go ahead and call me self-righteous, I dont’ care)
Don’t you dare run to her and cry foul that we shared with us… that’s what babies do. It’s time for someone (I wish it was a strong man) to stand up to your abusive behavior and call it out, especially against women
We still love you, but we are broken by your behavior and lack of character. I don’t want to write emails like this and never thought I would. If it damages our relationship further, then so be it, but at least I have said my piece..."
Real family values party we have coming into the White House in January.
Hegseth is also not qualified to lead Defense.
From Mike Luckovich
The same is true of Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard who is a walking definition of the term security risk with her political attraction to dictators like Vladimir Putin and Bashir Assad (who at the time of this writing is hiding in Russia with his family after fleeing Syria where rebels currently have the upper hand in their drive to take control of the country.)
Then there is vaccine and fluoride denier Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and some of the other health care nominees that Mr. Trump has picked. Beware measles or small pox outbreaks if these guys get their way. Also, Mr. Kennedy made news by admitting he was a heroin addict for 15 years.
There is also Mr. Trump's pick for Education Secretary, Linda McMahon, who despite her lying claims, has no background in education but she has been implicated in a lawsuit accusing her of not interceding when one of her Wrestling Federation staff sexually abused children.
In the non MAGA-world, McMahon would not have been on anyones top 100 for Education Secretary or any other cabinet/executive branch office.
In Trump 2.0, she is part of the norm.
Finally, there is Charles Kushner, Mr. Trump's son in laws father.
This is a man who has spent time in jail for 16 counts of tax evasion, attacking a federal witness, and hiring a prostitute to seduce his brother in law who was a witness against him.
Mr. Trump just nominated him to be the Ambassador to France.
Then of course, there is Mr. Trump himself with his 34 convictions, two impeachments, and findings of sexual assault and business failure.
President Joe Biden was right during the campaign to call Mr. Trump a one man crime wave.
Now he is proving it again with the an Animal House gang of Presidential appointments.
There was no mandate for this and the only ones happy about these picks are certain elements of the media who had probably grown bored with the no drama cabinet and executive branch picks of the Biden/Harris Administration and America's enemies in Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran who are probably thrilled with all the incompetent cretans Mr. Trump has appointed.
Chaos will be in full swing in Washington D.C. the first couple of months of 2025.
Senate Democrats are going to be falling over themselves looking to make headlines questioning these nominees when they appear before their respected Senate committees.
This would be funny if it was not unfortunately real.
