How did Joe Biden sound today? I didn’t watch the State of the Union address, but I have skimmed the transcript. I think it is fair to say that Joe Biden is the most transformative president in U.S. history because a country is defined by its residents and Joe Biden has done more to change who lives in the U.S. than any other president (at least 7.2 million new neighbors via undocumented migrants plus perhaps 3 million additional immigrants arriving by what used to be called the “legal” process).
An arithmetic question… President Biden said that he wanted “100 more immigration judges to help tackle a backload of 2 million cases.” Isn’t that 20,000 cases per new judge? If each judge handled five cases per day and worked 220 days per year and migrants stopped walking across the southern border, the backlog would be cleared in 18 years?
An unfortunate turn of phrase?
Pass the Equality Act, and my message to transgender Americans: I have your back!
What do the doctors who perform gender affirming surgery say after a “top” or “bottom” surgery? “I have your ….”?
Delusions of grandiosity?
I’m taking the most significant action on climate ever in the history of the world.
If we believe Professor Dr. Greta Thunberg, Ph.D., wouldn’t the most significant actions on climate in world history have been taken by the fossil fuel pioneers? James Young, for example, who distilled paraffin from coal and oil shales. Edwin L. Drake, who pioneered drilling for oil. The scientists and engineers who built the first internal combustion engines and automobile industry. Or, if we want to look at the virtuous side of the equation, how about the engineers and scientists who made photovoltaic solar cells possible, starting with Edmond Becquerel? New York Times, April 26, 1954:
A federal appeals court in California found that it was illegal for Donald Trump to build a wall along our now-fully-open border with Mexico because Congress hadn’t appropriated the funds for this specific purpose (The Hill). The wall would have been within U.S. territory (stolen from Mexico, of course, but that’s another story). Biden seems to have vastly greater powers than Trump:
Tonight, I’m directing the U.S. military to lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary pier in the Mediterranean on the Gaza coast that can receive large ships carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelters.
Congress never appropriated money for this construction project. The construction will occur in waters and on land that aren’t part of the U.S. How is it possible for Trump’s border wall project to have been illegal while Biden’s “build stuff in Gaza” project is legal?
(Separately, Biden says that a river of free stuff from American taxpayers will “guarantee [that] Palestinians can live with peace and dignity”. But won’t the river of free stuff actually enable Palestinians to stay at war forever and pursue the military goals that the majority agree on? And won’t the U.S. delivery of essentials to Hamas-ruled Gaza help Hamas continue to hold Americans hostage? (Biden explicitly mentions the Americans held hostage by Gazans in the very same speech where he promises to give Gazans everything that they want or need.))
Official Hamas statistics are cited without skepticism by the U.S. president:
More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed. Most of whom are not Hamas. Thousands and thousands are innocent women and children.
Here’s the stuff that Ron DeSantis should have learned to say…
Above all, I see a future for all Americans!
I see a country for all Americans!
And I will always be a president for all Americans!
Because I believe in America!
I believe in you the American people.
You’re the reason I’ve never been more optimistic about our future!
So let’s build that future together!
Let’s remember who we are!
We are the United States of America.
There is nothing beyond our capacity when we act together!
Note that the above message of solidarity and brotherhood/sisterhood/binary-resisterhood is contradicted just a few lines up:
I see a future where the middle class finally has a fair shot and the wealthy finally have to pay their fair share in taxes.
I see a future where we save the planet from the climate crisis and our country from gun violence.
The wealthy are scapegoated despite the fact that if they handed over 100 percent of their wealth it still wouldn’t satisfy Congress’s appetite for deficit spending (i.e., we’d still have a budget deficit and the accompanying inflation). Gun lovers are threatened. Those who work in the fossil fuel industry are targeted for unemployment. In other words, Biden points out that we’re not in this together right before saying that we should “act together”.
Did the transcript tell you that Jose Ibarra of Tren de Aragua killed Lincoln?
https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/1765939554253443116
Look at the smirk on Kamala’s face. She knows she will be president if Biden can hold off the Orange Demon.
Hmm… looks as though this is another Ministry of Truth situation. The video on Twitter, apparently authentic (we know it isn’t Silicon Valley AI because there are some white people depicted!), doesn’t match the transcript in TIME.
Do the worthy aeronauts and aviation enjoyers on this blog have any opinion on the growing number of videos of Boeing wing bolts, wheels, doors, etc falling off in flight and/or planes catching fire in flight? Is this genuine? And if so, where is the FAA?
Do the worthy aeronauts and aviation enjoyers on this blog have any opinion on the growing number of videos of Boeing wing bolts, wheels, doors, etc falling off in flight and/or planes catching fire in flight? Yes!
Is this genuine? Yes!
And if so, where is the FAA? Washington DC
The FAA is mostly in Oklahoma City. Only the most elite of the bureaucrats are in DC!
> … the backlog would be cleared in 18 years?
What if 90% of “asylum seekers” who walk across the border are granted asylum, then citizenship, then free welfare worth 10x what they could earn in their native country? Wouldn’t that just attract even more “asylum seekers”, and create an endlessly increasing backlog?
Rhetorical question?
I think 100 percent of Haitians (about 12 million) are now eligible to live in the U.S. Any Haitian can claim a credible fear of being attacked by a gang member. The gang members themselves can come here and say that they were afraid of being attacked by fellow gang members if they tried to leave the gang.
See https://apnews.com/article/haiti-timeline-jimmy-cherizier-barbecue-ariel-henry-gang-violence-kenya-150201a4ce6f772893ca339e632b5446 for example.
From a year ago:
https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2023/02/11/are-we-in-year-14-of-temporary-protected-status-for-haitian-migrants/
Gaza air drop: Shouldn’t we include guns so that the overwhelmingly peaceful Gazans who disagree with and are being oppressed by Hamas can defend themselves against the Hamas thugs who are stealing their food and other aid?
Mitch: You raise a great point. We are informed that nobody in Gaza supports Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, contrary to the November 2023 poll (https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2023/11/29/international-day-of-solidarity-with-the-palestinian-people-and-a-poll-result/ ). Since inside every Gazan is a progressive Democrat yearning to breathe free in Al-Quds, maybe what would be most welcome are boxes of rainbow flags and “Queers for Palestine” signs.
I think President Biden hit it out of the park. He presented a positive vision for America and demonstrated he has the intellect and stamina for the job.
He reminded me on Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino. Get off of my lawn!
He looked quite feeble. And had mental stoppages, probably despite drug cocktail he was on.
It is fascinating how Democrats and Republicans can watch the same video and come away with completely opposite impressions! I guess we see the same thing with the Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”) and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. They’re noble freedom fighters creating an ideal society for about half of the Americans who watch them.
@philg, clarification: Republican only because Democratic party left me behind in the dust on their race to hell.
How did Joe Biden sound today? Angry.
Isn’t the 20,000 cases per new judge? No.
If each judge handled five cases per day and worked 220 days per year and migrants stopped walking across the southern border, the backlog would be cleared in 18 years? No.
An unfortunate turn of phrase? Yes.
What do the doctors who perform gender affirming surgery say after a “top” or “bottom” surgery? “I have your ….”? Top or Bottom.
Delusions of grandiosity? Yes.
How is it possible for Trump’s border wall project to have been illegal while Biden’s “build stuff in Gaza” project is legal? It’s not.
Or, if we want to look at the virtuous side of the equation, how about the engineers and scientists who made photovoltaic solar cells possible, starting with Edmond Becquerel? Don’t look now.
If we believe Professor Dr. Greta Thunberg, Ph.D., wouldn’t the most significant actions on climate in world history have been taken by the fossil fuel pioneers? We don’t believe dumbs dumbs like her and Mike.
How is it possible for Trump’s border wall project to have been illegal while Biden’s “build stuff in Gaza” project is legal? Not possible.
But won’t the river of free stuff actually enable Palestinians to stay at war forever and pursue the military goals that the majority agree on? Yes.
And won’t the U.S. delivery of essentials to Hamas-ruled Gaza help Hamas continue to hold Americans hostage? Yes.
Based on the twitters, he was extracting more money from renters to subsidize home owners, with another $5000 downpayment credit, a $10,000 selling bonus, & a monthly $400 mortgage entitlement. It’s good to be rich. Just waiting for Michael Bordenaro to vlog the final word.
I didn’t watch the speech, but I watched clips that are on news media. One thing stood out, in every-single-clip I watched, Joe Biden is glowering continuedly non stop. I have no idea why or what he was glowering at. Will the illegal migrant be scared and stop coming? Will companies feel sorry and stop shrinkflation? Will inflation see the anger and slide down? Will the deficit, which is growing at $1 trillion every 100 days, give in and stop growing? Will Hamas and Putin panic and laydown their weapons? Will ANYONE take Biden seriously now — or in his 2nd term — just because just now he started to glowering?!
You want glowering, try Katie Britt:
https://twitter.com/NickKnudsenUS/status/1766308578904998127
@J, Joe Biden just handed illegal migrant, on a Silver Platter, without glowering, a free entry to the USA:
“During your response to [Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s] heckling of you, you used the word ‘illegal’ when talking about the man who allegedly killed Laken Riley,” Capehart said.
“An undocumented person. And I shouldn’t have used ‘illegal.’ It’s ‘undocumented,’” Biden said.
“So you regret using that word?” Capehart pressed him.
“Yes,” Biden replied. [1].
Screw those who want to come to the USA legally, like my uncle, who is on a waiting list for a brother/sister visa, since 2008 (still has 3-4 years to get his turn) and has endured the Syrian civil war, lost his home in Aleppo (and so did several of my relatives) — are last in line.
In the USA, it pays to be illegal, with or without glowering.
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-says-regrets-reference-illegal-state-union-address-rcna142561
@J, one more thing. You may or may not know this. To immigrate to the USA, legally, once you get your visa turn, you and your family will undergo background check, medical exam, and most importantly, you must provide an Affidavit Of Support [1]. Without it, you won’t get a visa.
In the USA, we reward illegal migrants and law breakers, but punish legal immigrants for fallowing the law.
[1] https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-processes-and-procedures/affidavit-of-support
Also, it used to be illegal migrating coming from South America, than illegals started to come from Africa, Middle East, Asia and now, China.
Watch this 60 Minute [1] story, and let me know why your blood shouldn’t be boiling. At a minimum, Joe Biden should issue an execute order to patch that 2ft opening, but hey, we don’t have the money, but yet we have the money to house and feed those illegals who are already hear!
Nevertheless, the real question should be asked, why are those illegals coming from all over the word, as far away as China? Because Biden and the democrats don’t want to call them illegal, law breakers, they call them “undocumented”.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7TNP2OTY2g
Sorry, but I just cannot get enough of this.
“US military ship heading to Gaza to build port” [1]
So we have the money to build a port in Gaza, but we don’t have money to patch a 2ft opening on our boarder [2]?
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68526503
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7TNP2OTY2g&t=770s
@George A.:
Wow, thanks for all the detailed responses, however honestly all I was really pointing to was the fact that Katie Britt giving the Republican SOTU response showed facial expressions that were astonishingly mercurial, changing from upbeat and cheerful to concern to anger in seconds. The latter emotion offering a much more impressive example of glowering than I saw in Joe Biden’s speech. And yes, he slurs a bit, and on occasion stumbles over some words, he is quite old after all, and has had a speech impediment his whole life, and I prefer not to mock people for their challenges. In my opinion it was a pretty impressive and well delivered speech overall, and that applies to both the scripted parts, and the occasional ad libs delivered with an actual sense of humor it seemed to me. In contrast it I thought the take down of Britt’s austere and humorless kitchen table speech as a pack of lies was pretty convincing.
By the way I am an immigrant myself, I’ve had a variety of non-immigrant visas, gone through multi-year green card process, and am now naturalized. And it is a nasty bloody minded system, but that predates Biden . . . I sympathize with your uncle, but, like with the case Katie Britt raised, his travails started in 2008 when George W. Bush was the Republican president. Oh, and the Republicans currently blocking an immigration reform bill on Trump’s orders to make Biden’s administration look bad strikes me as the height of cynical disingenousness, a point Joe made quite convincingly in the SOTU.
@J, are you comparing the glowering and facial expressions of someone who has been in public service for less than 2 years to someone who has been in public service for 52 years, with experience? And where in my post did I mock Joe Biden for his speech (I have my own speech problem (and hearing), mild for both, but anyone can tell within a minute, thus I know better)?
No, I didn’t watch Katie Britt rebuttal, and there wasn’t much of it on the news media to watch anyway — the media doesn’t seem to have any interest to what she said.
The illegal migrant problem has been an ongoing problem for ages, but in recent years, thanks to Democrats ideology: that no human is illegal and all are welcome, and thanks to Joe Biden regretting calling them “illegals” (see my post above), everyone and anyone got a clear message that they can enter the USA, illegal, and get taken care of.
As for Joe Biden’s Immigration Bill [1], why would anyone wanting to enter the USA would care about this bill now that Joe Biden regret calling illegal migrant “illegals”? It is far easier to enter illegally vs. fallowing a low which is a low on paper only.
Furthermore, before you try to pass a bill, shouldn’t you first fix the known existing entry points that illegals are using to enter the USA? Cannot the president issue an executive order to patch those walls to deter or make it harder for illegals to migrate? After all, the president just ordered the military to build a temporary pier off the coast of Gaza, surly he can do the same at our boarders, no?
[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/01/20/fact-sheet-president-biden-sends-immigration-bill-to-congress-as-part-of-his-commitment-to-modernize-our-immigration-system/
@George No, you didn’t mock Joe’s speech, acknowledged. I guess I took your “glowering” comment to be a bit critical (and honestly I didn’t see it). I was also responding to something in an earlier comment: “He looked quite feeble. And had mental stoppages, probably despite drug cocktail he was on.”, and really tons of general chatter about Biden’s presumed dementia and so forth.
Yes, I did compare Katie and her 2 years as a senator to Joe and his 52 years in the public eye. Katie was, after all, selected to represent the Republicans in giving the SOTU response, so I think that’s legitimate. Also (and no this isn’t entirely about what you said) it’s not really fair to say Joe’s too old to be coherent, and then present his 52 years of service as an advantage. Also despite just two years of service Britt should know better than to egregiously lie.
This is interesting in that regard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw-J7b1HdiI
of course Britt doubles down on her lie.
I think Biden did really well, even when ad libbing, and despite his age and speech impediment, and rather than seeing him always glowering I was impressed by his sense of humor and general outlook.