Friday 27 August 2021

Seven Months In

 So. Let's review.

Day one: Biden cancels the Keystone XL expansion project. This pipeline, when complete, would have carried oil, natural gas and bitumen from the Hardisty tank farm in southern Alberta to as far away as Texas. 11,000 high paying construction jobs were killed in the US alone, along with thousands of jobs in Alberta. Biden's own Energy Secretary would later admit that if you're transporting fossil fuels, pipe is the best way to do it. It has a smaller carbon footprint than truck or rail, it's safer by far, and more cost effective.

Who benefits? Warren Buffet, who owns a shit-ton of rail stocks. The oil will still cross the border. It's just going on Buffet's trains, at the cost of tens of thousands of fatal wildlife collisions per year and more greenhouse gas emissions. 

Meanwhile, the Biden Administration managed to piss off its biggest trading partner on day one. And they're being sued by the company building the pipeline. And hundreds of tons of already fabricated steel pipe is now being melted down for scrap, using (you guessed it) heat from fossil fuels.

Winning!


Biden lifts Trump's sanctions off of the companies building Nord Stream 2 in Europe. This undersea pipeline will connect Russia directly with Germany, cutting Eastern European countries like Ukraine out of royalties. Putin's Russia (a gas station with a flag and a president) stands to make billions servicing Western Europe, while being able to turn off the taps to Eastern Europe without disrupting service to Germany, France, Italy, Greece, etc.

Putin's openly stated goal is to recreate the old Soviet Empire. He took Crimea on Obama's watch, and thanks to Biden, with Nord Stream 2, he'll be able to freeze Ukraine and other Eastern European countries into compliance with his annexation plans. 

When asked why he did it? He said that the pipeline was already 95% complete. Yeah. It was 95% complete when the sanctions were imposed, and it stayed at 95% complete, which means 0% operational. So Trump (allegedly Putin's puppet) blocked the consolidation of Russia's power in Eastern Europe, but Biden (definitely no one's puppet) hands it back to Putin.

Winning!


Biden supports HR-1 (The For the People Act). This bill would federalize election law in the US. It is openly unconstitutional. The US Constitution places the authority to determine how presidential electors are selected firmly in the hands of State Legislatures. The Constitution doesn't even require states to hold general presidential elections. A State Legislature could decide to choose its electors by random draw, a House vote, a UFC-style tournament, or consulting a psychic. I doubt any of them would, but there's nothing in the constitution that says they couldn't.

The only federal interest in election law supported by constitutional amendment, statute and precedent is that if and when states do hold elections, the rules apply equally to everyone, and that no rule is so onerous to one group over another that it has a significant disparate impact. 

But who cares about the Constitution? Biden's butt's been wiped, and I think we all know what brand of TP he's using. It's called the US Constitution.

Winning!


Biden is pushing massive spending bills. True, Trump did too, particularly after COVID. It was his comprehensive economic policy that made things so good for Americans that in September of 2020, 56% of Americans said they were better off than they were 4 years ago. No incumbent president running for reelection has broken the 50% ceiling since the poll was started.

He'd brought good jobs back in sectors Obama had declared dead. America was energy independent. The US didn't need to rely on foreign oil and gas, or on the price fixing of the cartels. And despite that, US carbon emissions were decreasing faster during his administration than they were almost any other country. People were keeping more of their paychecks, and their dollars had more spending power.

Think about that. We were 7 months into COVID, 4 months into nightly race riots, and 95% of the press coverage of Trump's administration was negative, yet he was the first incumbent president in the history of that poll to bust through that 50% ceiling. 

Meanwhile, Biden is continuing to pay people to not work. It doesn't have to be more, it just has to be enough to make not working the better option.  Especially if you don't have to pay your rent. 10 million job openings remain unfilled. He's allowed renters to become long term legally untouchable squatters, and mom & pop landlords are increasingly selling their rental properties off to Wall Street. Black Rock is currently the largest buyer of residential property in the US. 

When the eviction moratorium ends and all that back rent comes due, tenants won't be negotiating with that kindly elderly couple down the block to try to work out a repayment plan they can afford. They'll be negotiating with a faceless company that manages $9.5 trillion in assets. You think they're gonna take your call, average Joe who rents a 1 bed + den in a 3 story walkup? Why would they? They'll just boot you out and strafe your credit rating while they're at it.

Winning!


Afghanistan. Trump negotiated with the Taliban. He hammered out a conditions based deal. Meet and continue to meet our conditions, and we'll leave. In May, during the "quiet contemplation time" of Ramadan which happened to fall at the beginning of fighting season. Break the deal, and we'll bomb the fuck out of you. 

And not a single US soldier was killed under Trump after that deal was signed. 

His plan? Begin getting civilians out. Keep Bagram Air Base, a highly defensible quasi-city with two international flight capable air strips. If necessary, move the US Embassy to Bagram. Get the civilians out, get the equipment out, then bomb everything of value that you had to leave behind.

And if the Taliban took the country? Yeah. The US wasn't going to leave. One of the conditions was that the Taliban form a coalition government with the current US-backed government. I won't say that if Trump were still in office, the US wouldn't be out of Afghanistan. Because Trump was willing to impose costs and consequences on the Taliban. For all we know, the US would be safely out, and there'd be a shaky coalition government in place right now, destined to fall apart at some point.

I do know NONE of what's transpired in Afghanistan over the last several months would have happened.

Biden claims he had to live by Trump's policy of getting out. 

First off, Biden has taken several giant shits on Trump's policies. He stopped construction on the border wall. He reversed the remain in Mexico policy. He ended COVID border restrictions. Now he's going to pull some bullshit and say this deal with the Taliban was the ONE thing he couldn't reverse?

And the insane thing is, he DID reverse it. He took the completely sane May 1, conditions-based deadline and turned it into a 9/11 unconditional deadline.

He went from "we're leaving in early spring, when you all are fasting and praying and are just coming out of your hunkering-down season, as long as you behave, " to "we're leaving no matter how you behave on the 20th anniversary of America's greatest humiliation at the hands of jihadis. On that day, America will be leaving Afghanistan no matter what you savages do."

Who thought the symbolism of this was a good idea? Afghans are 90% sunni. Sunnis believe in qadar (predestination). Inasmuch as free will coexists with qadar, it's the freedom to choose the manner of your end. If you get divorced, it was always going to happen. It was just a matter of whether he cheated or you cheated or you got into a fight over whether Ted Lasso is a good show. If you die, it was always going to happen. It was just a matter of how. The end is already written. The path is already before you. You just have to look for the signposts.

And in choosing that particular date, and in placing no conditions on it whatsoever, Biden gave both the Taliban and the Afghan Defence Force a giant signpost. It told the Taliban they'd already won, and it told the ADF they'd already lost.

Then what does Biden do? He pulls military contractors out of Afghanistan. Please understand, these are the people who service the "very formidable" air force the US taxpayers donated to the ADF. They maintain the equipment and provide all the logistical support for the air strikes the ADF were trained by the US military for the last 6+ years to rely on. HE GROUNDED THEIR AIR FORCE.

Then Biden blames the ADF for rolling over and giving up. If you believed in predestination and these were your circumstances, and your fate was assured, and all you could affect was the manner of your own end? Wouldn't you roll over? Wouldn't you give up? Biden has given you signpost after signpost telling you you're destined to lose.

And THEN what does Biden do? He turns out the lights at Bagram. He doesn't even strafe it on his way out. He just leaves tens of millions of dollars worth of weapons and equipment to be seized by the Taliban. After they'd already seized billions from the demoralized ADF in their relentless sweep across the country.

THEN he goes on FUCKING VACATION.

And then the Taliban take Kabul. Joe "that will never happen" Biden says well, it's no big deal. We'll just sign a deal with the Taliban to get our people out. And all the Afghans the Taliban views as traitors. And with our borders wide open, maybe some terrorists as well.

I mean, Trump was a horrible person for signing his conditional deal with the Taliban that resulted in 18 months of zero US casualties. But hey, I'm gonna sign an unconditional deal that puts the safety of US persons and Afghan allies in the hands of people who think they can fuck with me because I'm WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING AND REFUSE TO PUT MY FOOT DOWN.

And surprise of surprises, several Taliban checkpoints let in two bombs that killed at least 13 American soldiers, and killed and wounded dozens of others. But they're still in charge of who gets into the airport.

Also, this is Donald Trump's fault. Here, let me stand on my dead son's brain tumor and pretend I care.

It hasn't even been a goddamn year. 

1) hyperinflation

2) energy crisis

3) border crisis

4) impending hostage crisis

5) impending terrorism crisis

6) Middle East, destabilized

7) gas prices through the roof

8) OPEC feels like they can tell the US to fuck themselves

9) Russia about to annex Ukraine without a shot fired. Just a tap turned off

10) Mexico's mad at you. El Salvador's mad at you. Canada's mad at you. Britain is mad at you. NATO is mad at you.

11) massive increase in violent crime in cities across the US

12) hey, let's import a million people who may or may not have COVID!

13) we should fire cops, but you know, you shouldn't be allowed to have guns. 

14) have you seen these gas prices? That wasn't me. Because I don't understand the futures market.


It's been 7 months, and there is no one in America whose life has gotten better. Even if you don't have less money in your pocket, you can't buy as much with it as you could last year.

My family is going to eat pork all week. Pork loin center cut roast and chops is going for $8.80/kg on special. Chicken? $15+. Beef? $29+. Ground beef? $16+. GOOD beef? Like rib steak or NY cut? $40+ per 2.2lbs. 

And I'm in Canada. I just feel the ripple effects of all this. You know, except for all those pipeline jobs and the downstream jobs Biden killed. And you pulling out of Afghanistan in the worst possible way and not even letting your NATO partners know what you were doing until you'd already done it?

81 million people allegedly voted for this retard. And at this point, I can't even say he's a retard, because you can't be catastrophically wrong this consistently without it being on purpose.

America, please save yourselves.