Unfit Joe Biden and Kamala Harris

[Farfromgeneva]

Why did you never answer? You're contexuatlization is dumb. It misses all the point, but go ahead and feel good about that post. Pat yourself on the back for being obtuse and happy.

[wgdsr]

Of course it could be a pro Biden swing. Or a pro trump Swing. He had things going the right direction before the Rona hit.

All I read is it’s probably excitement about split gov and no likely major policy changes.

Aside from the stock market, which is not the economy, can you point to quantitative or measurable items that indicate the president had things going in the right direction economically? And I would point out that economists who lean both Ways have exposed massive flaws in the measurement of unemployment rate, they are all working towards a better measurement to eventually be adopted by the government which would apply underemployed, meaning people working but below the level they need to support themselves effectively. By this measurement we weren’t doing very good.

So not applying a flawed UE rate and understanding the stock market doesn’t mean anything, what did he have going well?

GDP growth?
Stability of the dollar?
Budget deficit?
Productivity?
Inflation? (Why did we have Powell lowering Fed Funds prior to Rona if inflation was stable at the long run benchmark? Deflation is 100x worse than inflation when it hits you surely know)
Other metrics?

wage growth was probably the best metric
https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2019/
a lot of numbers someone can not like in there (wage inequality, others), but as a result of the already tightening employment picture prior and since, wages had a lot of beneficiaries.

The underemployment metric would suggest it wasn’t nearly enough to declare success. I would also note it took a long time after the financial crisis for wage growth to make ground. Stabilization took 4-5yrs into 2013, then we had the “taper tantrum” that summer because, oh god the Fed is going to raise rates, then the biyach Fed backed off and let the market have their way. There was almost no way to see true wage growth until 2014 or 2015.

And while that’s a nice metric, it’s not enough to state the “economy was humming” under this soon to be prior admin. Fact is things were weakening in 2019 for sure.

https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2019/mobil ... r-2019.htm

total employment had been climbing.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/269 ... ed-states/
as had wages. started in 2014 for both in unison. i guess you can have any take you wish.

As can you. That one statistic in isolation without any discussion of distribution, inflation or population is hardly enough to hang ones hat on that the economy was humming or doing well, which is what was stated as fact, prior to Covid in spite of GDP, underemployment, affordability and about a hundred other metrics yet you throw it out there with no context as if to suggest it alone and with no context is sufficient evidence. So like you said you can have any take you wish.

the first link i gave you was in real terms (inflation), i also initially gave it with the caveat of wage growth inequality (your distribution?). you asked for us worker population for context vis a vis total employment/underemployment, which i gave you as flattened (and is cut off from this post as we've each had a reply since).
you asked what was going well. oh, well.

No I asked a person who stated that the economy was going well to point to something factual. You threw out one metric, sure I can agree that's a good thing and think I already acknowledged that, but it's also not nearly enough to say "the economy was going well". Your caveat isn't a minor thing either when discussing the economy as a whole don't you think. To me that negates the entire premise if it's skewed such to leave significant portion of the populace. It's as if you picked one sentence out of a conversation and threw one, flawed when including the "caveat", metric out and that's the entire counterpoint. Is that what your intention was with this? Did you read what I originally replied to at all? Or is the whole methodology to only play devils advocate to others and never take a position to stand behind?

ok. didn't catch you wanted a list. and i didn't say the caveat made it flawed, though some can argue that.
gdp growth was fine even if not late 90s.
unemployment was good to very good.
inflation, tough to judge a perfect metric but was not outside any kind of rangebound issue, so good also. ask powell why he did what he did.
non farm productivity good.
stability of the dollar historically better than average.
budget deficit horse out of the barn without a cowboy around.. so, not good.

let's hope we get on good footing when and if this is over.

[jhu72]

Georgia Recount won't change the outcome. Biden still won Georgia.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Georgia Recount won't change the outcome. Biden still won Georgia.

Are they counting the illegal votes this time?

[dislaxxic]

Lets hope we don't just leave it up to Mr. 76 of 85.

"I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do!"



https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm ... story.html

But he was 506 out of 688 at the University of Delaware.

"Top half" of his class, by his thinking.

You guys musta been really depressed about W’s IQ, AWOL from ANG unit, etc., etc...snickering about it behind his back and all...

..

[jhu72]

Georgia Recount won't change the outcome. Biden still won Georgia.

Are they counting the illegal votes this time?

Apparently, Orange Duce got a few more votes this time round.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Georgia Recount won't change the outcome. Biden still won Georgia.

Are they counting the illegal votes this time?

Apparently, Orange Duce got a few more votes this time round.

Lindsey made that call to Georgia.....you think he drove over to the South Carolina office?

[DMac]

Lets hope we don't just leave it up to Mr. 76 of 85.

"I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do!"



https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm ... story.html

But he was 506 out of 688 at the University of Delaware.

"Top half" of his class, by his thinking.

Can either one of you tell me where and when it's going to matter where Joe finished in his class?
Is this an issue or just something you want to make an issue about?

[jhu72]

Lets hope we don't just leave it up to Mr. 76 of 85.

"I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do!"



https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm ... story.html

But he was 506 out of 688 at the University of Delaware.

"Top half" of his class, by his thinking.

Can either one of you tell me where and when it's going to matter where Joe finished in his class?
Is this an issue or just something you want to make an issue about?

... seems to me the whole meme / argument that Joe wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed is a loser with the Trumpnista base - the non-hardcore base. Blue collar workers that feel they have been looked down on all their lives. Be careful or you run the risk of turning Joe into a hero for these folks, when they come to discover he is not doing all the "scary" things Trumpnista have been telling them he would do.

Otherwise, carry on.

[kramerica.inc]

No. His terrible class ranks aside, it's telling that Joe is willing to lie about something so dumb as his class rank in law school. If he's willing to lie about that, its easy to choose to lie about other things.

It woulda played better if he had laughed it off and been honest.

But I doubt he woulda said, "I was just there for the draft deferment."

Cadet Bone Spurs, meet Private Asthma. Glad that asthma didn't develop until he was done playing hs and college football!

[jhu72]

No. His terrible class ranks aside, it's telling that Joe is willing to lie about something so dumb as his class rank in law school. If he's willing to lie about that, its easy to choose to lie about other things.

It woulda played better if he had laughed it off and been honest.

But I doubt he woulda said, "I was just there for the draft deferment."

Cadet Bone Spurs, meet Private Asthma. Glad that asthma didn't develop until he was done playing hs and college football!

The base didn't seem to care about Trump's lies. I doubt they are going to worry about a few Biden lies. He will lie far less than Trump.

[CU88]

Heather Cox Richardson
4tSdpa hrronusoressdtm ·
November 18, 2020 (Wednesday)
Today marks a grim milestone. The official count of Americans dead of coronavirus has topped a quarter of a million. 250,000 Americans, lost. Governors, including some Republicans previously opposed to ordering measures to stop the spread of the virus, are now issuing mandatory mask requirements. New York City has reached a 3% positivity rate; schools there have closed, and will go entirely on-line tomorrow. That rate is far below that of the regions worst hit these days.
“Right now, we are in an absolutely dangerous situation that we have to take with the utmost seriousness,” Assistant Secretary of Health at the Department of Health and Human Services Dr. Brett Giroir told MSNBC. “This is not crying wolf. This is the worst rate of rise in cases that we’ve seen in the pandemic in the United States and right now there’s no sign of flattening.” The latest report from the White House coronavirus task force says we are facing “aggressive, unrelenting, expanding broad community spread across the country, reaching most counties, without evidence of improvement but rather, further deterioration.”
And yet, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, maintains that no one in his department can coordinate with the incoming Joe Biden and Kamala Harris administration until the General Services Administration determines that Biden won the election. An administration official told CNN that department leadership had warned staffers not to communicate with Biden team, and to report any contact to the deputy surgeon general. Rick Bright, who was fired from the Trump administration for warnings about the dangers of coronavirus and who is now on the Biden team, told CNN: “We haven’t been able to sit down with the Trump administration at all, to be able to understand what plans are already in place, where the gaps are, where help is needed, and how we can make sure there's a smooth hand-off after January 20, where the bulk of these vaccines will be administered after that date.”
Talking to frontline coronavirus workers, Biden said that Trump’s refusal to admit defeat is “the only slow down right now that we have.” He pointed out that the lack of information means, for example, that his team has no idea how much personal protective equipment is stockpiled. “Soon we’re going to be behind by weeks and months being able to put together the whole initiative relating to the biggest promise we have with two drug companies coming along and finding 95% effectiveness, efficiency in the vaccines, which is enormous promise,” he said. In a letter to the president, the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, and the American Nurses Association begged the administration to “work closely with the Biden transition team to share all critical information related to COVID-19.”
Despite orders not to coordinate with the incoming Biden administration, a few Trump officials are quietly reaching out, according to CNN. As one put it: “Nothing that would get us in trouble…. Just an offer to be of help. They know what we mean, and what we can-and-can't do or say.” So far, nothing has come of these tentative offers.
Trump appears to be doing all he can to cripple Biden’s administration before it begins. Officials have told CNN that Trump is withdrawing troops worldwide in order to box Biden in before he takes office. A senior official told CNN that the goal is “to set so many fires that it will be hard for the Biden administration to put them all out.”
Shortly after the election, Trump purged civilian leaders at the Defense Department, replacing a number of them with people close to Devin Nunes (R-CA), who was apparently involved in conversations with Russians in 2016 that got picked up by intelligence officers, and General Michael Flynn, Trump’s former National Security Adviser, convicted of lying to the FBI about his contacts with then Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak shortly after Trump’s election in 2016.
Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller announced today that the civilian leaders from Special Operations Command will report directly to him, rather than through the normal chain of command. Special Operations includes about 70,000 troops that undertake unconventional military operations like raids, reconnaissance, search and rescue, and psychological operations. This was a change permitted by a 2017 law, and puts Special Operations at the same level as the other military departments. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle say this elevation of Special Operations is overdue.
But the timing of this move raises questions, since the officials now overseeing Special Operations are the ones installed since Trump’s purge, none of whom has been approved by the Senate. The acting assistant secretary of defense for special operations—the one who will now report directly to newly-installed acting Defense Secretary Miller-- is Ezra Cohen-Watnick, originally elevated to a prominent position by Flynn. Cohen-Watnick is an obscure figure who was not removed from his job at the National Security Council when Flynn resigned, apparently because he was personally protected by Jared Kushner. This was unusual: he was very young and inexperienced. He is fiercely loyal to Trump.
Like the other new hires at the Defense Department, Cohen-Watnick is known to be eager to hit at Iran, with whom simmering conflict continues. A week ago, inspectors reported that Iran has many times the uranium stockpile it would have been permitted under the Iran deal Trump pulled the U.S. out of, and that it would take less than a year for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon (something its leaders deny they have any interest in doing). The following day, Trump asked his top aides if he could launch a military strike against Iran’s biggest nuclear facility. They talked him out of it, noting that such a strike could lead to a larger war.
Today, Trump imposed sweeping new sanctions on Iran. Henry Rome, an Iran analyst with Eurasia Group, consultants who analyze political risk, told Reuters: “The administration is clearly, and I think transparently, trying to raise the political cost for Biden to re-engage with Iran and lift the nuclear deal sanctions.”
Trump’s erratic behavior is starting to alarm even Republican lawmakers, who have kept silent as Trump has done pretty much whatever he wished for the past four years. His firing yesterday of Christopher Krebs, the nation’s top cybersecurity official, led some Republicans to speak out against the president. “I’m sure I’m not the only one that would like some return to a little bit more of a—I don’t even know what’s normal anymore,” said Senator John Cornyn (R-TX).
A bipartisan group of senators is trying to block the administration’s sale of $23 billion worth of weapons to the United Arab Emirates, including F-35 fighter planes, the most technologically advanced planes in the world. It is unlikely they will be able to do so because it would take a two-thirds majority in both houses to override Trump’s veto of any measure they produce, but they have at least highlighted that Trump has violated normal procedures to make a sale that will dramatically change the balance of power in the Middle East.
Biden and Harris will meet with the bipartisan executive committee of the National Governors Association tomorrow to talk about addressing the coronavirus.

[CU88]

So an interesting question remains.
How will Brookie and other doves here react to Biden upping troops in the ME once he takes office? Just curious because it's gonna happen.

How are the r's reacting as IMPOTUS o d is making this "rushed" reductions in force now?

Pretty obvious that your guy is just acting to make fires for the next administration. Nothing his is doing now is supported by career military advisors or the senior r's in the senate.

Do you support the actions now being taken?

[DMac]

No. His terrible class ranks aside, it's telling that Joe is willing to lie about something so dumb as his class rank in law school. If he's willing to lie about that, its easy to choose to lie about other things.

It woulda played better if he had laughed it off and been honest.

But I doubt he woulda said, "I was just there for the draft deferment."

Cadet Bone Spurs, meet Private Asthma. Glad that asthma didn't develop until he was done playing hs and college football!

I don't believe these are 1Y equivalents, one is a complete fabrication, the other not so much.

In the second half of his summary, Vice President Biden’s physician describes him as having viral induced asthma. A typical cold or flu virus results in symptoms of runny nose, cough, fever, sore throat and congestion. Patients who have a history of allergies or asthma, can also develop asthma like symptoms of wheezing, chest tightness and/or shortness of breath. Treatment for this also is albuterol, but for more severe symptoms it could require inhaled or oral steroids. Most people actually do not develop bronchospasm with upper respiratory infections, only those with a history of asthma, as is the case with Vice President Biden. A good way to monitor a patient with asthma is a pulmonary function test (spirometry). His report did not state if he received one or not.

https://allergylosangeles.com/allergy-b ... allergies/
Played HS hoops with an asthmatic, very good hoopster, went on to play college ball.
Friend's daughter is an asthmatic, played volleyball all through HS.
This insinuation that one can't play ball because they're asthmatic is nonsense.
Besides, Joe and Donald aren't in the same league when it comes to lying.

[MDlaxfan76]

So an interesting question remains.
How will Brookie and other doves here react to Biden upping troops in the ME once he takes office? Just curious because it's gonna happen.

How are the r's reacting as IMPOTUS o d is making this "rushed" reductions in force now?

Pretty obvious that your guy is just acting to make fires for the next administration. Nothing his is doing now is supported by career military advisors or the senior r's in the senate.

Do you support the actions now being taken?

Who does all this benefit?
When was the last time Donald talked with Vlad with no one else (in the US) on the line?

[jhu72]

If Jill really moves forward with this plan, it will make a huge difference in our politics and the perception of the next president.

[DMac]

I like it, and why not? After all, Melania continued to be an armpiece model while being the FLOTUS.

[jhu72]

I like it, and why not? After all, Melania continued to be an armpiece model while being the FLOTUS.

I have always liked Jill Biden. See has always seemed very grounded. I suspect the Secret Service agents are looking forward to the change in style for both FLOTUS and POTUS.

[Typical Lax Dad]

No. His terrible class ranks aside, it's telling that Joe is willing to lie about something so dumb as his class rank in law school. If he's willing to lie about that, its easy to choose to lie about other things.

It woulda played better if he had laughed it off and been honest.

But I doubt he woulda said, "I was just there for the draft deferment."

Cadet Bone Spurs, meet Private Asthma. Glad that asthma didn't develop until he was done playing hs and college football!

I don't believe these are 1Y equivalents, one is a complete fabrication, the other not so much.

In the second half of his summary, Vice President Biden’s physician describes him as having viral induced asthma. A typical cold or flu virus results in symptoms of runny nose, cough, fever, sore throat and congestion. Patients who have a history of allergies or asthma, can also develop asthma like symptoms of wheezing, chest tightness and/or shortness of breath. Treatment for this also is albuterol, but for more severe symptoms it could require inhaled or oral steroids. Most people actually do not develop bronchospasm with upper respiratory infections, only those with a history of asthma, as is the case with Vice President Biden. A good way to monitor a patient with asthma is a pulmonary function test (spirometry). His report did not state if he received one or not.

https://allergylosangeles.com/allergy-b ... allergies/
Played HS hoops with an asthmatic, very good hoopster, went on to play college ball.
Friend's daughter is an asthmatic, played volleyball all through HS.
This insinuation that one can't play ball because they're asthmatic is nonsense.
Besides, Joe and Donald aren't in the same league when it comes to lying.

Von Miller, all pro linebacker for the Denver Broncos is asthmatic.

[kramerica.inc]

No. His terrible class ranks aside, it's telling that Joe is willing to lie about something so dumb as his class rank in law school. If he's willing to lie about that, its easy to choose to lie about other things.

It woulda played better if he had laughed it off and been honest.

But I doubt he woulda said, "I was just there for the draft deferment."

Cadet Bone Spurs, meet Private Asthma. Glad that asthma didn't develop until he was done playing hs and college football!

The base didn't seem to care about Trump's lies. I doubt they are going to worry about a few Biden lies. He will lie far less than Trump.

That's why I liked Jeff Dahmer. He only killed 17 people. Such a better guy than Ted Bundy who killed dozens more.