COVID Vaccinations
Several times Biden reiterated his pledge to have 100 million Americans vaccinated within his first 100 days in office. Kudos to the President for meeting this goal, but he makes it sound like he’s some sort of miracle worker; this couldn’t be further from the truth. According to the ourworlddata.org COVID vaccination tracker (https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations), on 12/20/20, 0.17 of every 100 Americans had received at least one dose of a vaccine. That’s roughly 562,000 Americans. As of January 20th, inauguration day, that number had risen to 4.94 out of every 100 Americans, or 16,300,000 people. This represents an increase in the number of vaccinated Americans of 2900% in only one month. On March 25th, the day of the Biden press conference, we were at 39.86 vaccinations per 100 Americans. Obviously, an improvement, but how much of that is due to the Biden administration? In roughly two months in office, the number of Americans to receive at least one shot rose by a factor of eight. True, a great improvement in the numbers, and it’s also true that as more and more Americans receive the vaccine, the ability to improve that number goes down and will eventually arrive at zero. But a look at a graphical representation proves that Biden is no miracle worker (Inauguration day circled in blue below):
The graph shows no noticeable increase in the vaccination rate after January 20th this year. Biden simply took over a program that was working and allowed it to continue to do its job. The day Biden took office, 16 million Americans had already been vaccinated at a rate of 800,000 per day as of January 20th, and the rate of vaccinations per day was already rising steadily. Having 100 million Americans vaccinated by his 100th day in office, or even in the first two months, was not a lofty goal. It was simply an inevitability that he now wants to take credit for.
There are several other things that Biden promised in his COVID plan that simply did not come to fruition in time to show any improvement over the Trump administration’s plan already in place. Biden promised thousands of “Community Vaccination Centers”, with 100 of those to be federally supported centers in the first month of his term. He then moved the goalposts to change that to 100 sites in the first 100 days. The first of these federally supported sites was at the Oakland Coliseum, which opened on February 16th, his 25th day in office. By that time almost 55 million Americans had received a shot, and we were administering shots at a rate of over 2 million per day. The effects of the Oakland federal vaccination center, along with the others, seems to be negligible.
Biden also bragged about the number of schools that had been reopened, stating that the number of K-12 schools currently opened was just shy of 50%. It’s amazing what kind of response you get when you throw the teachers unions $129 Billion from the latest COVID spending bill. Biden received almost $260,000 in campaign donations from teachers unions (https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.php?ind=L1300&cycle=2020&recipdetail=A&sortorder=U), by far the most of any candidate in the 202 election cycle. The majority of these donations came from the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). This was part of a larger donation scale that saw these two unions contribute almost $40 million to liberal candidates in the 2020 cycle. Let’s just call that $129 billion in spending exactly what it is: a public payoff to the unions that got Biden and others elected. Its bribery in public. They haven’t been hiding it for some time, and now Biden is bragging about it.
The Southern Border
For a guy who says he’s going to have the most transparent administration ever, Biden certainly likes keeping secrets at the border. I was actually surprised to see some “reporters” grill him on restricting media access to the border facilities. Of course, given many Americans expressing outrage at the conditions, children cramped next to each other under foil blankets, it’s something he had to address. He addressed it poorly, and there was shockingly no followup. Biden committed to allowing media access to the border facilities once “My plan is underway.” Of course no timeline was given for this, and no plan was given. Since the media has picked up on other topics to throw at us, namely re-igniting the gun control debate, I seriously doubt anyone from the left-wing media will challenge him on this one again.
Biden had several excuses for the crisis at the border. His first beef was that Trump eliminated a $700 million program to study why people are leaving their own country to come to These United States. I have several issues with this statement.
1) In a country that is more than $24 Trillion in debt, should we really be spending $700 million to study why people would be leaving Honduras to come to that US?
2) Isn’t the answer to the question of why people immigrate here illegally pretty obvious? I can lay it out for those of you who haven’t looked into the issue: BECAUSE WE GIVE THEM FREE STUFF!
3) Continuing on, the President went on to brag about things like paying for neighborhood lighting in Central American countries, stating that if people felt safer in their home country then they wouldn’t immigrate to the US. So, what you’re saying Joe, is that I have two options: Pay for them in their country, or pay for them to live here. We can’t afford either, and I’m sure we’re still doing both.
Biden, like the rest of the left, continues to treat Trump like the boogeyman they can blame all their problems on. He also criticized Trump from removing funding for border facilities in which to house illegal immigrants. We shouldn’t be allowing people into our country illegally, so why should we be spending money we don’t have to build facilities we don’t need? Biden also claimed that a “vast majority” of families are being turned away. This is simply not true. Thousands of families have already streamed through the border, and fewer than half are being turned away. He also claimed that “Mexico won’t take them back”, in a response to a Trump policy of leaving families on the Mexican side of the border while their case was processed. Excuse me, but how is Mexico’s stance on not harboring immigrants our problem? If Mexico won’t let them back in, then don’t allow them to cross the border until their case is processed. It’s really not difficult.
The Filibuster
Democrats have seized on the filibuster to distract gullible Americans from the actual issue. It’s a smart tactic that both sides have used throughout the years, and the left has perfected this strategy as of late. It’s obvious that the left wants to get rid of the filibuster, allowing them to pass whatever legislation they so desire regardless of the wishes of the non-left Americans. Biden appears to be right on board with getting rid of the filibuster…..now that it’s convenient for him.
Biden has LONG been a proponent of the filibuster. During Bush 2, several prominent Repulican Senators had threatened to use their majority to end the filibuster, which would have made judicial nominees require only 51 votes to be confirmed. Biden, as a Democratic Senator, was of course against this, as he should have been. He affirmed the entire point of the filibuster, to ensure that the minority party and independents had a voice. He was quoted as saying: “I say to my friends on the Republican side, you may own the field right now, but you won’t own it forever,” he warned. “And I pray God when the Democrats take back control we don’t make the kind of naked power grab you are doing.” His prayers must have fallen on deaf ears, because that’s exactly what many Democrats are trying to do right now. Biden could also be counted on to support filibusters concerning legislation from both Bush presidents, on anything from Energy bills to tax cuts. For no one to call him out on this in the media just shows what a short memory we have.
Random Quotes
Here’s a random sampling of other quotes I captured during the presser, and a bit of my thoughts on each.
“I got elected to solve problems” – President’s have quotes like this all the time, and it shows a vast misunderstanding of the duties of the Executive by both politicians and the public alike. We have plenty of experience in our country of the disasters that strike when Presidents try to “solve problems”, or otherwise act like they’re the smartest people around. Simply examine recent history: Our foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East, the TARP Bailouts, the Iran-Contra affair, just to name a few. The fact is that Presidents simply aren’t good at solving problems? Why? Because they are just regular people, just like the rest of us. The President has one job, and one job only, and that is to exercise the powers vested in the Executive per Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution. We haven’t really had a President limit themselves in such a manner in over 100 years, so now everyone of them thinks they’re around to “Solve problems.” Americans should be terrified when we hear those words from any elected official.
“People worried about if they’re going to lose their home or not be able to pay their mortgage or their rent” – This quote was in response to the economic hardships the government has brought down on us since the spring of 2020. Please note, I did not blame our poor economy on COVID. COVID did NONE of this. It was the many state governments and federal government who conspired to crash our economy, put people out of work, and spend us into even more debt. The virus did not do this, we did it to ourselves. This is a classic example of a life long politician making excuses for more government to solve a problem that government created. Government shuts down the economy, so we need more government, in the form of a $1.9 trillion spending bill, to take care of people. Why not just let everyone keep working? We were getting along relatively fine before you took our jobs away.
The next two quotes I’m going to lump together: “My Republican colleagues are going to have to determine whether or not we’re going to work together or if they’re going to decide the way in which the way they want to proceed is to divide the country, continue the politics of division. But I’m not going to do that”, along with “Many of you didn’t think I could get my plan passed without Republican support” – No Republican Senator voted for H.R. 1319
Let’s start with the second quote. NO ONE thought that Biden wouldn’t be able to pass his legislation. The Democrats hold the majority in the House AND the Senate. It’s mathematically impossible for Biden to not be able to ram through most of his, and his parties, bad ideas. Tke the recent votes on the American Rescue Plan. These were passed without a single “Yea” vote from any Republican.
House
https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/202149
Now on to the divisive comments. I would say that Biden is the most divisive President we have ever had, but that title still belongs to his former boss. But Joe is no slouch. He’s divisive on the issue of race, stating that racism is a “White man’s problem visited on people of color” and that “We have a lot to root out, but most of all is the systemic racism that most of us whites don’t like to acknowledge even exists.” Pretty ballsy comments from a guy who has been a part of that system for over four decades. Biden also pushes divisive policies. Not one Republican voted for that American Rescue Plan. How can you claim to be a President of unity if you can’t get one solitary vote for a piece of legislation from the other party? Biden is going to be moving on to gun control soon, something that will not only further entrench the Repulican party against him, but may even alienate some prominent politicians from his own party who come from states that strongly support our right to arm ourselves against tyranny.
When asked if it’s possible that we have troops in Afghanistan next year – “I can’t picture that being the case.” I’m just going to leave this quote here so that it can be revisited later. I would bet my life savings that we still have troops deployed in Afghanistan at the end of 2024.
Finally, I’ll take some space to address the huge elephant in the room: Joe Biden is showing signs of some kind of brain disease, and it’s getting more obvious every day. Look, I’m not a doctor, but I know what a confused old person looks like when I see one. It’s not like this is something to be ashamed of. My Grandfather just turned 82. He doesn’t drive after sundown anymore because he doesn’t trust his night vision. Makes sense, his eyes have been functioning for 82 years. He has a hard time hearing, because his ears are the same age his eyes are. Sometimes we’ll be talking and he forgets what we were talking about, or what story he was telling me. Those of us that live long enough will all go through it. The difference is that my grandfather isn’t’ the President, he’s a retired guy who likes to get breakfast at 5am because that’s what old people do. There’s a reason that the Biden team has kept him out of the spotlight and away from the media: The man cannot handle being President. I’m not even bothered by the fact that he had a list of media members with their pictures. Some people are bad with names, or faces, and I’m sure it’s not easy when you’re 78. But several times during the conference Joe would just trail off, leave a sentence unfinished, a point he was clearly trying to make but could no longer remember just hanging in the air. What followed was always a super awkward silence, him trying to remember what he was going to say and then moving on to the next question. He seemed to be ok when he was going through his prepared remarks, but when the questions started coming, and as time went along, it was obvious he couldn’t handle speaking in public that long. I actually feel bad for the guy. He should be spending time with his grandchildren, but as soon as Bernie started winning primaries the left knew that they needed Old Joe to actually win because, though we have slid far to the left as a country, These United States aren’t ready to elect an actual communist. Instead of being retired, he’s being paraded around on a stick, an empty suit of a sometime sentient being propped up by the Democrats. It’s like “Weekend at Bernie’s”, except it’s real life, and Biden really is the President.