https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/06/leave-joe-biden-alone/661278/

Most people are blaming Joe Biden for conditions setup by Republicans and DJT. Folks say the withdrawal from Afghanistan was sloppy, but actually DJT set the original withdrawal date and also made a deal to free Taliban leaders from a Pakistan prison a year before. By the time Biden Administration began the withdrawal, The Taliban had already taken over all but Kabul.

People complain about gas prices and inflation, they ignore that the crisis in global not just in the US. Inflation was created by countries that like China that manufacture a significant portion of the world’s product. They ignored worker protections during the pandemic and now they don’t have enough workers to meet the world demand for products. That is part of the ‘Supply Chain’ crisis. That crisis drives up prices.

Gas prices are driven by the increase in the price per barrel for oil. Those prices currently driven by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Oh yeah, it turns out a substantial part of the word depends on the farmers of Ukraine to provide essential grains for food. Guest what country is now stealing the grain? I would remind you that DJT all but rolled over for Putin to rub his tummy. If he were President today, NATO would not be in position to assist Ukraine in fighting for off the Russians.

In the meantime major American companies are reporting record high profits, and you’re asking why isn’t Biden doing anything? Where were you folks when the discussion of the powers of the President were compared to the powers of King were taught in school? Where were you when Conservatives were reminding former President Obama that he wasn’t a King?

Biden is the right President to clean up the mess left by DJT and Republicans, you folks just have to get out and vote smart to increase the number of Democrats in the Senate and the House of Representatives. They need to add three to four seats to the 50 they hold so that people like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema can’t stall the agenda for more progressive and fair policy making, and the US Government can tax those businesses profiting off of the pandemic, oil prices, and price gouging…”The Joe Biden who ran in 2020 appeared wiser, sadder, somewhat deflated, and seemed to be taking on the presidency as a public service and a burden. Time and tragedy had tempered Biden, and I liked him even more than I did in his flashier, Jason Sudeikis–like youth. These days, I think he’s done a pretty good job, especially given the fact that he’s dealing with a pandemic, revelations about an attempted American coup d’état, and an economic slowdown over which he had no control.

Oh, and by the way: He’s also managed (so far) to head off World War III and a possible nuclear conflict. We seem to forget that this is Job One for every American president, but while we’re griping about the gas prices (over which Biden also has no control), the Russians are replaying the Eastern Front against 40 million Ukrainians and also threatening NATO. It’s been reassuring to have a steady hand in charge of our foreign policy.

So why can’t the president catch a break? The public blames him for almost everything, and his approval ratings are cratering. What’s going on here?

Forget about the Republicans; controlled by their wackiest members (I would say “the fringe,” but they are now “the base”), they have fallen into a vortex of nihilism and desperation. They’re almost a lock to win the House in 2022, but they’re not sure why they want it, other than to protect themselves both from having to live among their own constituents and the slow but steady approach of justice for GOP involvement in January 6.

One might have hoped, however—and by one, I mean “me”—that the Democrats would hold their fire and stop their whispering about what happens if Biden steps down, or even dies. And if Biden does hold on—well, there are some prominent young Democrats who haven’t decided if they’re going to support him. (And by young Democrats, I mean “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”)

My suspicion is that the full weight of our foreign and domestic crises has not broken through the self-absorption and solipsism of not only our political parties but the American public. We are just not capable of understanding that at home, we are inches away from the meltdown of our constitutional system of government, and abroad, we are one errant cruise missile away from a nuclear crisis.

But this is all the president’s fault because Joe Biden is old and talks like … well, like Joe Biden.

This is part of a more general problem in American politics: We have come to regard the presidency as a temporary appointment to Superman, and the White House as a gleaming Fortress of Solitude full of potential miracles. In doing so, we let ourselves off the hook for any responsibility either for our own actions as voters, or for any requirement to face our problems together with resilience and understanding.”

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/oil-gas-industry-stockpiled-drilling-leases-before-biden-pause

Know the facts, don’t just assume the usual media outlets will accurately inform you…..”A stockpile of federal oil and gas leases across an Ohio-sized swath of land in the West shows the fossil fuel industry was preparing for a leasing moratorium for years, former Interior Department officials say.

President Joe Biden imposed what he described as a “pause” on federal oil and gas leasing on Wednesday as part of his climate policy—while allowing millions of acres of existing leases to remain unaffected. Nevertheless, industry representatives and elected officials in the West lambasted the move, saying it’ll deprive Western states of much-needed income for basic state services.

But the industry’s “huge inventory” of undeveloped existing leases and drilling permits are evidence that the oil and gas industry anticipated a “pause” in leasing long ago, said John Leshy, a law professor at the University of California, Hastings and former Interior solicitor in the Clinton administration.

That “makes the ‘sky is falling’ rhetoric from the industry and its allies a bit over the top,” Leshy said Thursday. “Especially since many of the Trump-era lease offerings attracted no bids, or only minimum bids.”

Oil and gas production was occurring on less than half of the more than 26 million acres of land already under a federal lease by the end of fiscal 2019, according to the most recent federal Bureau of Land Management data, which doesn’t include millions of acres leased in the Trump administration’s final year.

Energy companies have the right to drill federal oil and gas leases for 10 years, and many of the leases sold over the last year were auctioned by the land bureau for as little as $2 per acre. The land bureau didn’t respond to a request for comment Thursday.”

One of the most disingenuous narratives pushed onto the American economic story is that President Biden has the power to control the price of gas at the pump. It’s false. Even the notion that the Keystone XL Pipeline could bring down gas prices is a lie, and if only the Biden Administration allowed more drilling on public lands gas prices would come down. That is a lie.

Gas prices are determined but the market established by oil producing countries. Whatever the price per barrel they establish, will be the basis for prices set by American oil companies. Don’t believe it ask yourself if Biden could control oil prices why are US oil companies reporting record profits. Didn’t Biden have plans to tax those profits? Every Republican in the Senate and two Conservative Democrats; Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have rejected that part of the Biden economic agenda.

(https://www.npr.org/2022/05/07/1097177459/big-oil-exxon-earnings-gasoline-prices-crude)

Gas prices present glaring problem for Biden

“Biden has ordered the release of millions of barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to boost supply, pushed for nations in the Middle East to boost production, lifted restrictions on the sale of fuel with higher ethanol content, and promoted renewable energy sources such as electric vehicles and solar power.

But the reality, as even some Biden administration officials acknowledge, is the president has little sway over day-to-day gas prices, which are often at the mercy of global supply chains and have been impacted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“This is, in large part, caused by [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s aggression,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on CNN this week. “Since Putin moved troops to the border of Ukraine, gas prices have gone up over $1.40 a gallon, and the president is asking for Congress and others for potential ideas. But, as you say, the reality is that there isn’t very much more to be done.”

Friday delivered another blow to the Biden administration with the release of a poor inflation report that showed consumer price growth spiked in May. The Labor Department’s consumer price index rose 1 percent last month alone and 8.6 percent in the 12-month stretch ending in May.

Republican strategist Doug Heye argued the Biden administration has had a lackluster response to inflation that has contributed to the hit his approval rating has taken and the low marks he has received on the economy.

“There seems to be, on some of these issues, just a shrugging of the shoulders, and that’s why you see, overwhelmingly, Biden’s handling of the economy is unpopular,” he said. “Obviously what’s happened in Ukraine has caused a spike, and there’s nothing wrong with talking about that, but that seems to be the entire explanation when inflation has gone up every month that Biden has been president.”

Biden on Friday stressed that he is sympathetic to the impact of high inflation on American families.

“I understand Americans are anxious, and they’re anxious for good reason,” he said in remarks at the Port of Los Angeles.

“Make no mistake about it: I understand inflation is a real challenge to American families,” he added. “Today’s inflation report confirmed what Americans already know: Putin’s price hike is hitting America hard. Gas prices at the pump, energy and food prices account for half of the monthly price increases since May.”

He called on Congress to pass legislation to cut shipping costs and the costs of energy bills and prescription drugs as well as tax reform so big corporations pay more.

Part of the challenge for the White House, however, is that many Americans don’t realize Biden doesn’t control gas prices, said Matt Bennett, a strategist with centrist think tank Third Way.”

The Biden Administration also took steps to help relieve supply chain issues to get imported products into American ports and shipped to stores. However, a lot of the backlog is happening in countries that produce the goods due to continued issues with mutating strains of the COVID virus. It’s not just a problem hitting the markets of the US, its global. Why do we feel it here, well back in 1990’s and early 2000s US companies and their investors began offshoring jobs and manufacturing to countries that paid their workers less and offered little if any healthcare protection. Now in the face of a global pandemic those companies cannot keep enough healthy workers to fill the demand of consumers, and the US investors in companies continue to expect a fat return on their investments, so they push up prices to make up for the product shortfalls.

Last night’s House Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capital, and the ongoing insurrection did one thing. It took a lot of seeming disjointed puzzle pieces and began to present a clear picture. It also shows where many people who we were told are serious civil servants actually failed to protect or democracy when they could have stopped this slow rolling train long ago.

It started with FBI agents in New York who gave Rudy Giuliani information on their investigation into the Clinton Foundation. He then disingenuously spun that information into something to help the DJT campaign. Then it was James Comey who ignored DOJ rules and policy and went public to announce an investigation into Clinton 11 days before the 2016 election.

At the same time the Republican control House of Representatives was spending millions of tax payer funds on the spectacle of the Benghazi investigation, which turned up nothing, but helped DJT defeat HRC. By the way, they get to thank Bernie Sanders for his assistance in their efforts.

Then it was Robert Mueller, who we were told was a pretty straightforward by the books professional, who somehow could not bring himself to say our loud what was buried in his final report, that DJT is a criminal. So he handed over his report to William Barr, the guy who white washed the Iran-Contra investigation results, and allowed him to misrepresent the findings of two years of investigative work that saw several convictions for criminal activity for people less empowered than DJT.

The failure of moral and legal integrity by so many entrusted to protect our democracy is stunning. I save my biggest criticism for the American voter. Since 2000 you have displayed a growing ignorance and apathy that hinges on the single notion that on day you may enter into the upper echelon of the economically 1%. You have allowed the religious right, the so-called Moral Majority to tell you that this country was founded upon Christian principles, when the founders clearly rejected faith based governance.

Minority, Progressive, and women voters have the audacity to sit out elections and allow the partisan extremist to decide who becomes empowered to govern. So this is where we are today. We have time to make a true democracy but do we have the will to be responsible enough to ourselves, to engage to create a fair and just society?

See the post from my Tumblr blog below.

We will not engage or otherwise accept racial, sexist, homophobic, religious, or any other form of hateful bigotry here. I am a non-religious agnostic. Opinion without verifiable facts will not be accepted here. Doctrine without science, will not be accepted here. Lies when there is no evidence of support….i.e…’Trump won’ will not be accepted here.

As the midterm political season begins with the January 6th Congressional Hearings, Posting on this blog will commence. You l always have the right to disagree with a point of view, but you do not have the right to be an ‘Argumentative A-Hole’. We can all inform from a different perspective. We all have room to learn from another point of view.