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Due to family coming and time constraints I hope to have one more Memo regarding Biden's Press Conference but may be unable. If so, this will be my last Memo for a while.
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Now for a little humor: > https://youtu.be/XQTuFudB028
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Biden takes terrorist organization off list for no obvious or known reason:
Biden Takes Dangerous Terrorist Group
Off Terror List
On
February 6, President Biden removed Yemen’s Ansar Allah group – commonly called
the Houthi movement – from the US list of designated foreign terrorist
organizations. Just days later, the Houthis launched a new series of attacks on
Saudi Arabia, including an apparent drone attack on a civilian airport.
The alarming thing
about this is that there’s no obvious reason why the
administration should have removed the Houthis from the list. In fact, the day
after deciding to delist them, the State Department felt it had to warn them to
stop attacking civilian targets. The Houthi response was the February 10 attack
on Abha Airport, labeled a war crime by Saudi Arabia.
Many Democrats opposed
the Houthis’ designation as terrorists, which took effect early this year.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Gregory Meeks (D-NY) called it a
“death sentence” for Yemenis, even though the Houthis are an Iran-backed
organization that only represents religious extremists among Yemen’s Shia
minority. Human Rights Watch has accused them of numerous war crimes, including
the use of child soldiers and anti-personnel mines, as well as more routine
crimes like kidnapping and the theft of humanitarian aid. Did Dems only want
them taken off the list because Trump put them on it? It’s hard to think of any
other reason.
And:
The General lays it out in a neat summary and we know it to be so. Meanwhile, there are those who prefer to remain in denial because to admit reality would prove embarrassing.
OUR PRESIDENT IN ACTION
By: Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired
Within a very few hours after being sworn in as our president, Biden was at his desk in the oval office singing 17 executive orders. This was the beginning of a 50-day series of events in which he clearly has demonstrated he may be, for the most part, unaware of what he was doing.
During the executive order signing on 20 January (17 orders) and the additional 20 signed during the first week, there was no fanfare, no gathering of sponsors as he signed each order, no holding the folder up so all could see his signature. But most importantly, there was no verbalizing of what the executive orders are to accomplish, why it is important to give the orders immediately. Nothing, zip. Some have even suggested he was, in fact, just signing blank pieces of paper.
After watching the so-called campaign over the summer and fall months, we all became aware of the extent to which Biden’s handlers were calling all the shots. Pre-selected questions at fake “press conferences” by pre-selected loyal main-stream media were the norm. Following the inauguration, it became immediately obvious to the casual observer that he was being controlled to the maximum extent possible.
But eventually, his handlers knew the president had to make a “public” appearance. The choice was with Anderson Cooper at a CNN carefully orchestrated town hall. What could have possibly been less threatening? The main topic of discussion was, of course, Covid; the one subject on which the president had been totally immersed for months. What could possibly go wrong?
The questions were, of course, carefully scripted and presumably rehearsed. Ready, set, go.
Things were going along OK until the president got off-script in an unrehearsed moment and said, “It’s one thing to have the vaccine which we didn’t have when we came into office. But a vaccinator, how do you get the vaccine into someone’s arm?”
Stop reading for a moment and just think about the last 12 months we all spent with some level of pent-up anxiety, inability to be with loved ones, canceled trips, praying for the next medical breakthrough, and, for many, a complete lifestyle change. Who among us could possibly forget that we have or have not received a vaccination?
Vaccinations under Operation Warp Speed began across the country on 14 December. Biden got his first shot on 21 December and the second on 11 January.
Back to the CNN town hall: Biden went on to say, “We came into office there were only 50 million doses that were available.” In minutes he went from thinking zero to 50 million doses available.
It is not as if Biden was not involved in the planning for vaccinations during the two months preceding the CNN townhall session. On 8 December the president-elect rolled out his program to administer 1 million vaccine doses per day in his first 100 days in office. Maybe Biden is not the only one with his head in a dark place. By 8 December President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed was already planning to administer a lot more than 1 million a day during the winter and spring of 2021. Actually, on 20 January the average was 1.7 million shots being administered per day across the country.
The townhall debacle immediately presented Biden’s staff with a stark reality; we cannot trust him to speak extemporaneously. Should any of us be surprised that he is yet to hold an open press conference? And when it does happen will it be completely open as in Trump-open? Don’t hold your breath.
On 26 February Biden visited Texas following the power grid shutdown. Closing out the visit, at the microphone, he was attempting to thank the governor and a number of Texas elected officials. He struggled with the names, halting, “no that’s not right, (long pause) what am I doing here? (pause) “I’m going to lose track here.”
Jesse Waters, Fox News a couple of weeks ago: During his opening monologue, Waters showed three brief tapes of President Biden in action. If you get your news from the main-street-media, you will not have seen these clips. I found them difficult to watch and found myself feeling sorry for him. The subject in all three is Covid numbers.
In the first clip he is seated with a Black History Month logo behind him, I do not know the venue. When the tape begins, he is commenting on a Covid fatality number that he cannot recall. “Over 500 I think, it”….. He is patting all his pockets furiously looking for a card, he says, “I have a card, I carry a card with me every day” ….. continuing to seek out the card, looking around helplessly, then says, “folks affected by” ….. he finds and shows the card, it looks to be a folded 5x7 card. He has the card but appears dazed and cannot remember which number he is looking for. Cut.
Second: He is standing behind a microphone and says, “I carry a card with me”…..again searching his pockets and cannot find it….. looking around obviously seeking help. “I don’t have it with me, I must have given it to my staff.” A hopeless look on his face, long pause then goes on saying, “Do I have that around”…….long pause……”anyone”…..looking around……”where is my staff?”
Final clip: Seated at his desk in the Oval Office looking down at notes, “I carry a card”, again searching pockets, looking around for help, hopeless, dazed look on his face “I carry a card…… left it on my desk.” He was at his desk.
Like I said previously, difficult to watch even though the whole sequence was only about a minute long.
On 8 March Biden made some comments on International Women’s Day while attending the promotion of two female generals. At the end of the speech, Biden thanked his Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, as follows, “I want to thank Sec ……. the former general ….. I keep calling him ‘General.’ My …… the guy who runs that outfit over there.” “That outfit over there” being the Department of Defense in the Pentagon.
Conclusions: Since we see very little of our president, period, and even less of him in an unscripted situation, we find ourselves thinking, hoping perhaps that his health isn’t as bad as some make it out to be. But what if it is actually worse?
Why did he even run for president? I place the blame clearly on his family and closest advisors. They, more than any of us, have been fully aware of his inabilities. They have to have known that he lacks the energy and mental acuity to think through and work long-range strategic domestic and foreign policy issues.
He simply cannot handle the toughest job in the world. He cannot lead this once-great nation in his current state.
Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, a columnist for THE PILOT, a national award-winning local newspaper in Southern Pines, NC and the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com.
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A new Democrat wedge issue is the fillibuster is racist . McConnell reminds us the fillibuster was enacted long before Civil Rights became an issue. The purpose of the fillibuster is to slow down passions of the moment resulting in hasty legislation. The Senate was formed to throw oil on troubled water emanating from a more passionate House.
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I truly encourage you to listen to some of these discussions. The one with Cochrane, Ferguson and McMaster was outstanding and so informative.
Hoover Daily Report (Edited.)
Featured:
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Defining Inequality So It Can't Be Fixed
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by John H. Cochrane via The
Grumpy Economist
In one of their
series of excellent WSJ essays, Phil Gramm and John Early notice that
conventional income inequality numbers report the distribution of income
before taxes and transfers. After taxes and transfers, income inequality
is flat or decreasing, depending on your starting point.
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From Boom To Doom
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interview
with John H. Cochrane, Niall Ferguson, H. R. McMaster, Bill Whalen via GoodFellows:
Conversations From The Hoover Institution
On the eve of
President Biden’s first press conference, Hoover senior fellows Niall
Ferguson, H. R. McMaster, and John Cochrane weigh in on what questions
they’d ask the president—on economics, woke culture, Afghanistan
withdrawal, and Taiwan tensions—if given the chance to be White House
correspondents for one day. Analysis and Commentary
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Avoiding A K-Shaped Global Recovery
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by Michael Spence,
Joseph E. Stiglitz, Jayati Ghosh via Project Syndicate
While the United
States and other advanced economies rush to vaccinate their populations
and gear up for post-pandemic booms, developing countries and emerging
economies continue to struggle. Fortunately, rich countries could help
everyone else – and themselves – at little to no cost.
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Lessons From An American Prisoner In Iran: A
Discussion With Xiyue Wang
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interview
with Cole Bunzel, Wang Xiyue via The
Caravan Notebook
Xiyue Wang, a PhD
candidate at Princeton and AEI fellow, discusses what he learned about
the Iranian regime, and efforts to appease and placate it, as an American
prisoner in Iran. +++++++++++++++++++++++++ Israelis either love Bibi or hate him but they can't get rid of him.
Israel still can’t make up its mind about Netanyahu By Johnathan Tobin Despite his
accomplishments, half the country is determined to oust the prime minister. But
a possible way out is both a societal breakthrough, as well as a source of
potential trouble. When the first exit polls
were published, it seemed as if the long stalemate had been ended. Within a
couple of hours, however, the polls had been revised, and by the end of a long
night and morning of counting, it turned out that the deadlock between those
who wish to keep Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister and those who want to get
rid of him hadn’t been broken. With 88.5 percent of the vote counted (and with approximately
half a million absentee votes that could alter the electoral math still left to
be tabulated), the parties supporting Netanyahu, plus one likely coalition
partner, had fallen two seats short of the 61 Knesset seats needed to form a
new government. By the same token, the disparate group of parties that agree on
very little, but which are all pledged to oust the prime minister, were
similarly short of a clear path to an alternative government. This fourth consecutive election stalemate in two years is a
discouraging outcome for the Jewish state. It’s not just an annoying waste of
time. More than that, it has been estimated that the cost of holding these four
votes amounted to $4.24 billion—a staggering sum for a small country that, like
the rest of the world, is dealing with the economic catastrophe caused by the
ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Aside from the not-inconsiderable expenses
involved in staging the contest, election days are legal holidays in Israel.
That costs company holiday pay, as well as a loss of productivity and sales,
even though some businesses, like restaurants, benefit from people having the
day off. Then there is the plain fact that the lack of a national budget
for 2020—let alone 2021—is also a blow to stability and the country’s economic
well-being There is a national consensus that the standoff has been
something of a disgrace since, among other things, the frequency of elections
means that Israel has now surpassed Italy as the home of the most unstable
democracy in the world. And yet, the one person who hasn’t been hurt by it is
Netanyahu. The failure to form a stable government has served him fairly well
since it enables him to govern without actually winning an election. Even the
lack of a budget has made it easier for him since he hasn’t been hampered by
the financial negotiations that would have undermined his agenda. Indeed, in the course of the last year, Netanyahu hasn’t just
managed to stay afloat. Since Israel was last forced to the polls, the prime
minister had what historians may ultimately say were his two greatest
accomplishments: the signing of the Abraham Accords and the successful effort
to get Israelis vaccinated against COVID-19, enabling it to be the first of
nations to essentially emerge from the yearlong pandemic crisis. Any leader with two such impressive achievements to his credit
might have expected to be easily re-elected. But the election results speak
volumes about both his strengths and his weaknesses. That’s because it could
also be said that no prime minister who was facing trial for three corruption
charges and who had worn out his welcome with both the public and political
colleagues after 12 consecutive years in office could reasonably presume to
emerge from an election as the head of the largest party and as the only person
with a chance to form a government, as is also the case with Netanyahu. His able statesmanship and skillful governance—not to mention a
national consensus behind his core positions on issues that used to divide
Israel over policy towards the Palestinians, territory and settlements—have
made him something of an institution. It’s no wonder that polls show that most
Israelis (including many who don’t vote for him) think that he’s the most
qualified person to hold the top job. Still, his constant scheming, untrustworthiness in political
negotiations and the sense of entitlement that go with having stayed in office
so long with no thought of grooming a successor, let alone stepping aside for
the next generation, has also fueled rage at Netanyahu on the part of a broad
cross-section of the Israeli public. It may be created by a mix of partisanship
and ideology (many in the “anybody but Bibi” camp would be similarly determined
to oppose any Likud leader or non-leftist), but it is nonetheless real. His
followers cannot imagine Israel being led by anyone else. And yet the fact that
so many Israelis seem focused on nothing but the quest to topple him has
further embittered the country’s political discourse. Can Netanyahu find a way out of the corner into which the Israeli
public has painted itself? Talk of defectors from other parties is, as was the case last
year, mooted by his supporters, but that seems even less likely this time
around. Another possibility of a solution is both a laudable development as
well as a potential case of staggering hypocrisy. When the four disparate Arab factions ran together as a single
party last year, they won 15 seats as the Joint Arab List. When Blue and White
leader Benny Gantz spoke of his willingness to deal with that coalition of
anti-Zionists—many of whom sympathize with terrorists—the Likud and others
blasted the idea as something that would compromise the nation’s security. The Joint List split when Mansour Abbas, leader of the Ra’am
Party that advocates the conversion of Israel into an Islamist Palestinian
state, pointed out something that was quite true. Israeli Arabs have been badly
served by their politicians. Many of them are corrupt and have spent their time
working harder to support Palestinian efforts to undermine Israel than on
trying to assist their constituents. Abbas (no relation to the Palestinian
Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas) suggested that it was time for them to stop
grandstanding in order to help allies in Ramallah and Gaza, and start doing
deals with the Zionist parties in order to serve their people better. Assuming that the current results stand up after all the votes
are counted, that led to a loss of four seats for the Arabs after the Joint
List won six seats and Ra’am five. As he promised during the campaign, however, Abbas says that he
is open to supporting either side of the Israeli political divide in order to
advance the interests of Israeli Arabs. That opens up the possibility that one
of the non-Jewish parties would become part of a government, even if it meant
supporting it from outside the coalition. If Ra’am enables Netanyahu and the Likud to govern in this
fashion, the prime minister and his supporters would be open to charges of
staggering hypocrisy. Then again, it would also give the lie to the canard that
Israel is an “apartheid state.” It would also illustrate just how far the Abraham Accords and
the other normalization deals between Israel, and Arab and Muslim states, have
helped erode support for the century-long war on Zionism. Friendly relations
with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain are a signal to Arab voters that it’s
in their interests to stop acting like auxiliaries of Palestinian terror
groups. This scenario may not happen—not the least because many of
Netanyahu’s supporters won’t tolerate sitting in a government whose existence
depends on the votes of those who don’t really want it to exist. It also
doesn’t alter the fact that half of the country will never rest until he is
finally defeated. Nor does it erase the way the prime minister’s sense of
indispensability and double-dealing has fatally divided an Israeli right that
might otherwise be firmly in control under almost any other leader. The mere
fact that the option of a deal with an Arab party can be realistically
discussed is also a tribute to how much Netanyahu has changed Israel and the
Middle East.
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