Posts tagged as “Joe Biden”

Who is Failing Ukraine: Biden or Congressional Republicans?

Who is Failing Ukraine: Biden or Congressional Republicans?

By John R Guardiano on January 8, 2024

The media blame Congressional Republicans for failing to support Ukraine; but the real failure of support lies in the Oval Office with Joe Biden.

The media and most foreign policy analysts would have you believe that farsighted Joe Biden supports Ukraine, while myopic Congressional Republicans don’t; and that a lack of GOP support is why Ukraine enters this, its third year of war, on the defensive, facing a Russian military onslaught.

In fact, the opposite is true. Joe Biden says he supports Ukraine; yet he has deliberately withheld from Ukraine critical weapon systems such as the ATACMS or long-range Army Tactical Missile System.

He has been seriously tardy and parsimonious about the weapon systems he has provided (e.g., a few dozen Abrams tanks and just 20 ATACMS), while imposing range and use restrictions on other provided weapon systems (e.g., the HIMARS or High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems).

As Biden himself publicly acknowledged Nov. 9, 2022: “There’s a lot of things [i.e., weapon systems] that Ukraine wants that we didn’t do” or provide.

Consequently, as Phillips P. O’Brien observes, “while Russia can strike anywhere in Ukraine, the U.S. has denied the Ukrainians the weapons they need to hit Russian targets, even in the parts of Ukraine that Russia occupies.”

Biden’s dithering and delay has been quite costly. It has given Russia the time and space that it needed to massively mine occupied Ukraine and to erect massive defensive fortifications, which the Ukrainians simply have not been able to overcome, especially given their lack of Western and American aircraft.

The President, of course, has his reasons, or excuses, for practicing self-deterrence. He says he wants to avoid a wider war, “escalation” and “World War III.” But whatever the reason or excuse, the bottom line is still the same: The West has given Ukraine enough to survive, but not enough to win.

For the most part, Biden’s center-left supporters have implored him to speed up the delivery of weapon systems to Ukraine while they refrain from criticizing him directly. Instead, they aim their rhetorical fire at Congressional Republicans for not supporting Biden’s most recent Ukrainian aid request.

As David Frum argues, “A ‘yes’ on both Ukraine and the border is still within reach, if only pro-Ukraine Republicans will press their colleagues to grasp it.”

Congressional Republican Politics. There is some truth to Frum’s argument. Some Congressional Republicans are, indeed, opposed to aiding Ukraine, while other GOPers are playing politics and trying to use Ukraine aid to score political points against Biden.

But the more important and consequential issue which Frum and other center-left Biden supporters ignore, is that most Congressional Republicans are fed up with Biden’s weak, timid and half-hearted approach to aiding Ukraine.

Congressional Republicans don’t want another “forever war”; they want a clear and decisive Ukrainian win. Yet Biden has never laid out a strategy for ensuring that Ukraine wins and Russia loses. Instead, he repeats his vague mantra about “standing by Ukraine for as long as it takes.”

But this begs the question: as long as it takes to achieve what, exactly? Win? Lose? Tie? Negotiate? Biden never says.

Biden’s Timidity. Occasionally, the president will tip his hand. During a June 13, 2023, Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Biden said explicitly that aid to Ukraine is designed to achieve not a military victory for Ukraine, but a negotiated settlement instead.

“It’s still early days,” he told reporters, “but what we do know is that the more land that Ukrainians are able to liberate, the stronger hand they will have at the negotiating table.”

In other words, Biden isn’t playing for a Ukrainian win; he’s playing for a tie and a negotiated settlement that will force Ukraine to cede large amounts of its territory and millions of its people to the tender mercies of Putin’s Russia.

As O’Brien frankly acknowledges, “The Biden administration doesn’t want Ukraine to win.”

Most Congressional Republicans, however, do want Ukraine to win, and this explains their frustration with Biden and their reluctance to support additional aid request for Ukraine.

“Absolutely, we have to stop Putin,” Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Florida) told Fox News’ Mark Levin Dec. 11, 2023. But “it’s our job to say ‘to what end?’ What’s the strategy? How are you going to get there?’—and also to question what he [Biden] has done so far.”

“We are in a stalemate that will be very long and very expensive,” Waltz adds.

“I’d say from the very beginning, they’ve [the Biden administration] been engaging in half-measures while Ukraine has been half-succeeding,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) Feb. 16, 2023.

“That has been a pattern with this administration from the beginning,” said Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) Feb. 26, 2023.

They have slow-rolled critical military weapon systems… [and] it’s a long list. It’s Patriots, it’s HIMARS; it’s tanks; and now it’s F-16’s. And to me, that is a real blunder.

We need to get them what they need now and listen to the Ukrainians… They’ve proven their ability to fight bravely, and I think we need to do a much better job.

It took nine months to get them the Patriots…

In short, Biden says he supports Ukraine but fails to follow through with specific policies that would make that rhetorical support real and tangible. Most Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, support Ukraine but have grown weary of a president who refuses to commit to victory.

As Frum rightly notes, “If leadership was ever needed, it’s needed now.” But that leadership has to come from the President, the Commander in Chief. It cannot come from Congress.

Featured photo credit: President Joe Biden (L) and Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) (R), courtesy of the Washington Free Beacon (Getty Images). Biden and Cotton represent polar opposite approaches to Ukraine. Biden, the Democrat, wants a tie and a negotiated settlement. Cotton, the Republican, wants a Ukrainian win and a Russia defeat.

Joe Biden Is No Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. His Administration Will Be Much More Radical and Much, Much Worse.

Joe Biden Is No Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. His Administration Will Be Much More Radical and Much, Much Worse.

By John R Guardiano on October 31, 2020

America survived Bill Clinton and Barack Obama because the Democratic Party then was center-left. But America likely will not survive Joe Biden because the Democratic Party has become radicalized and is now a “progressive” or socialist party.

Many center-right voters who don’t like Donald Trump’s obnoxious personality and unpresidential behavior are thinking about voting for Joe Biden. Here’s why, and here’s why that would be a serious mistake.

Point. Their thinking goes like this: America survived Bill Clinton; we survived Barack Obama; and we’ll survive Joe Biden. Clinton and Obama were liberal Democrats, after all, and yet, Republicans lived to fight another day.

The republic did not end. Free-market capitalism endured. America remained free and prosperous. Surely, the same thing will happen if Biden is elected president:

Democrats and Republicans will have their policy disagreements, of course; and sometimes one party or the other will win; but we’ll return, at long last, to a state of political normalcy.

Quiet. “The first thing you’ll notice [in a Biden presidency] is the quiet,” writes New York Times columnist David Brooks.

There will be no disgraceful presidential tweets and no furious cable segments reacting to them on Inauguration Day…

It will become immediately clear that in a Biden era politics will shrink back down to normal size. It will be about government programs, not epic wars about why my sort of people are morally superior to your sort of people…

It will also become immediately clear that in a highly ideological age, America will be led by a man who is not ideological.

“I’m sure there are Republicans and independents who couldn’t imagine crossing over to support a Democrat,” said former Ohio Governor John Kasich, Republican, during his Democratic National Convention speech endorsing Biden.

They fear Joe may turn sharp left and leave them behind. I don’t believe that. Because I know the measure of the man—reasonable, faithful, respectful. And you know, no one pushes Joe around.

Counterpoint. Brooks and Kasich are wrong. The idea that a Biden Presidency would be a garden-variety, center-left Democratic administration is badly mistaken and wishful thinking.

To believe this, you have to ignore all of the political and cultural forces that, in the past decade, have been relentlessly driving the Democratic Party further and further to the left:

Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, George Soros;
Black Lives Matter, reparations, defund the police;
the public option, Medicare for all, amnesty, open borders;
end the filibuster, abolish the Electoral College, pack the Supreme Court;
ban fracking, end fossil fuels, enact the Green New Deal;
D.C. statehood, Citizens United, Modern Monetary Theory;
Critical Race Theory, intersectionality, the 1619 project, et al.

In short, the Democratic Party today is far more radical than it was when Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992 and significantly more radical than it was when Barack Obama ran for reelection eight years ago in 2012.

Clinton ran for election as a “New Democrat” from the South, and he eschewed the liberal fundamentalism that had dominated his party for more than a generation.

Obama, meanwhile, campaigned as a non-ideological Democrat who rejected labels while espousing “hope and change.”

More importantly, Clinton and Obama ran in a Democratic Party whose center of gravity was well to the right of where it is now.

Today, by contrast, the intellectual ferment and activist energy lies entirely within the “progressive” or socialist wing of the party.

Biden is not a socialist, but that doesn’t matter: He is a weak and physically frail politician who will accommodate the progressive left because he knows no other way and has no other choice. As the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board explains:

What evidence is there today that Mr. Biden will restrain his increasingly radical party? Across his long career he has been the consummate party man, floating right or left with the political tides.

As a presidential candidate this year he has put no particular policy imprint on the Democratic Party—not one. The party has put its stamp on him.

Little wonder, then, that Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and “The Squad” are among Biden’s most fervent supporters. They know he will do their bidding.

Biden, in fact, has tacked left since winning his party’s nomination. Thus last summer he signed a 110-page “unity” manifesto with Bernie Sanders.

The manifesto “envisions the socialism of an all-encompassing welfare state, with virtually every need a right, and every right guaranteed by taxpayer funding,” writes economist (and former Texas Senator) Phil Gramm.

Sanders “may not sit in the Oval Office next year,” notes the Journal, but Mr. Biden will be implementing Bernie’s dreams.”

If the Republicans controlled Congress, or even one branch of the Congress, they might serve as a useful check on a Biden presidency that is otherwise preordained to swerve sharply left. But the reality is that if Biden captures the White House, the Democrats almost certainly will gain control of the Senate.

Our politics have become too polarized for much split-ticket voting. And the Dems are expected to retain control of the House of Representatives.

Clinton and Obama, by contrast, had to contend with a Republican-controlled Congress for six of the eight years that they each were president.

The bottom line: if Biden wins, his administration will be staffed by hardcore progressives working in tandem with the socialist left, both in and out of Congress, to pursue what the Journal rightly calls the most left-wing policy agenda in decades.

Irreversible Socialist Change. Bad public policies, of course, typically can be changed or reversed legislatively by future presidents and future congresses. But if Biden and the Dems take over, that may not be an option.

That is because the progressive left is hellbent on instituting structural “reforms” that will make it impossible for a future Republican president or congress to reverse their radical policy agenda.

D.C. statehood, for instance, would add two very liberal senators to the Senate, thereby giving Democrats an all-but-guaranteed lock on that legislative body for at least a generation.

Ending the filibuster would mean that, unlike in our nation’s past, major reform legislation no longer would require bipartisan support and cooperation.

Instead, the Dems could steamroll the Republicans while enacting new and costly tax-and-spend redistribution schemes, including reparations.

Packing the Supreme Court with “progressive” justices who legislate from the bench would allow Democrats to create new and permanent “rights” for favored classes and reciprocal political and financial obligations for less favored and ostensibly “privileged” Americans.

Repealing Citizens United would pave the way for the worst legislative and regulatory assault on free speech in American history.

Unprecedented. That is why this election is not like past elections; and it is why electing Biden as president would yield a very different result than what happened when Clinton and Obama were elected. This time, to a real and worrisome extent, America itself is at risk.

Indeed, when the Democrats are done, there likely will be no going back: A dynamic, diverse and freewheeling commercial republic will be replaced by a sclerotic and slow-growing statist democracy with fewer jobs, less opportunity, and more bureaucratic constraints.

Basic Constitutional liberties, such as freedom of speech, religious worship, and the right to bear arms will be under sustained assault. And our national memory and understanding of our political inheritance will wither away as the activists who have toppled statues now implement bureaucratic decrees that erase our nation’s history.

A Defeated Nation. Sure, all of this may happen quietly, as Brooks and others hope or expect. There will be no juvenile, cringe-inducing tweets from a President Biden, as there are too often from President Trump.

But the quietude will reflect the dull and subdued resignation of a tired and aging nation burdened with an entitlement state that it cannot long support and lacking the economic dynamism and cultural wherewithal needed to sustain and support its people.

Moreover, far from making politics a less invasive force in our lives, as Brooks hopes, a Biden presidency instead will extend the reach and influence of Washington, D.C. That, after all, is what the Democrats’ progressive base demands: a more assertive, domineering, and activist federal government.

This will be the “new normal” ushered in by the “progressive” or socialist Democrats who will dominate a Biden presidency. Be careful whom you vote for, we just might get it.

Feature Photo Credit: Political twins Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders (Elise Amendola, Associated Press, courtesy of Citizens Times).

When Biden Says ‘Follow the Science,’ He Means ‘Ignore My Politics’

When Biden Says ‘Follow the Science,’ He Means ‘Ignore My Politics’

By John R Guardiano on October 11, 2020

The American people have a right to know what policies a President Biden would pursue to combat COVID. A politically self-serving declaration that he will “follow the science” is pure obfuscation.

“Let’s end the politics and follow the science,” declares Joe Biden.

Biden’s declaration is politically self-serving because it suggests that, as president, his policies to address COVID will be apolitical and simply science-based. However, nothing could be further from the truth.

As Faye Flam points out at Bloomberg:

Joe Biden’s promise to “follow the science” does not amount to a strategy. It’s just a slogan.

A strategy to deal with the pandemic needs to set priorities and incorporate values that science isn’t equipped to provide. If Biden and his fans think following the science is the plan, they misunderstand the nature of science and its limitations.

Science can give insights into the nature of the pandemic, but there is no scientific formula pointing to a solution

“This year has driven home as never before the message that there is no such thing as ‘the science,'” writes Matt Ridley in the Wall Street Journal. “There are different scientific views on how to suppress the virus.”

Sweden. As we’ve previously noted, for instance, Swedish scientists and public health authorities have taken a strikingly different approach to combating COVID than their counterparts in the United States.

The Swedes have eschewed lockdowns and mandatory mask orders and instead, have focused their efforts on protecting the most vulnerable members of the population. Thus schools, restaurants, and fitness centers have remained open.

Early on in the pandemic, as Ridley notes, the Swedish approach looked foolish and shortsighted. “Now, with cases low and the Swedish economy in much better health than other countries,” he observes, Swedish public health authorities look prescient and wise.

“Different countries,” explains Flam, “can ‘follow the science’ to different strategies.”

Science. Yet, “follow the science” resonates with us because it appeals to our belief that politics involves opinions and value judgments about which people can and do vigorously disagree. Science, by contrast, deals with facts and empirical reality which we all must acknowledge and recognize.

If only it were that simple! In truth, our scientific understanding of the coronavirus is not fixed and settled dogma; it is developing and evolving based on new discoveries and new empirical realities.

“In 2020,”writes Gideon Meyerowitz -Katz,

science has gone from a gradual accumulation of knowledge to a train at full steam.

It’s worth remembering that what is true today will almost certainly be proven false next week, and that when people appear to change their minds it is an inherently good thing—adapting to new evidence is the cornerstone of science.

Just last week, for instance, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) acknowledged for the first time that the coronavirus sometimes can spread through airborne particles “that can linger in the air for minutes to hours,” thereby infecting people “who are further than six feet apart.”

The implications of this finding, though, are a legitimate source of political debate. Is the risk of airborne infection serious enough to warrant a different public health strategy? Or is the risk sufficiently low that no change in strategy is warranted?

“The science” ought to inform how we answer these and other public health questions; but ultimately, policymakers must make value judgments that balance competing interests, assess what is most important, and determine how much risk the public should assume.

Politics. In short, the science of COVID cannot be divorced from the politics of COVID. It is, therefore, too glib and self-serving for Biden to declare that his strategy for combating the coronavirus will be simply to “follow the science.”

As Bruce Trogdon observes, this is a great political “sound-byte. But the scientists don’t even agree and the consensus is constantly shifting. Which scientist? Which study? Which day?”

We don’t know because Biden won’t say.

Bide says he’ll “follow the science,” because he wants us to ignore his politics, which mirror those of blue state governors like Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer and New York’s Andrew Cuomo, who embrace lockdowns.

“Joe Biden is the shutdown candidate,” explains the Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Hennninger. “At last week’s presidential non-debate,” he writes,

perhaps the most consequential remark by Mr. Biden was about living with the virus. “You can’t fix the economy,” Mr. Biden said, “until you fix the Covid crisis.” Virus first, economy later.

I take that to mean Mr. Biden’s coronavirus policy would be to support reviving shutdowns if the virus-case metric goes up, and support governors who push back against openings.

As such, his policy would reflect minimal adjustment of the Democratic party’s lockdown bias, no matter the country’s experience with the virus since March.

That’s a legitimate position to take, even if it is, as I think, seriously mistaken and misguided. What is utterly illegitimate and wrong is for Biden to continue to dodge the question in an effort to deceive the American people.

Voters have a right to know precisely what the former Vice President means when he says he’ll “follow the science”: because, as he surely knows, the meaning of that phrase is anything but self-evident and self-explanatory. It is, though, politically self-serving.

Feature photo credit: The Yeshiva World.

Biden Clearly Beats Trump Even as Trump Scores Some Points

Biden Clearly Beats Trump Even as Trump Scores Some Points

By John R Guardiano on September 29, 2020

Trump needed to hit Biden on the economy and taxes. Instead, he obsessed over Hunter Biden, law and order.

Substantively and politically, Joe Biden won the first presidential debate.

Donald Trump did score some points; however, he missed many opportunities to hit Biden, especially on the economy. And, because Biden is the clear front runner, Trump’s failure to knock him off his perch means that Biden is one step closer to becoming President of these United States.

To be sure, Trump threw a lot of punches, but most of his punches failed to connect; and he too often failed to throw punches when it mattered most.

Taxes. For example, Trump said next to nothing about Biden’s $4-trillion tax plan, which threatens to sink the stock market and throw the economy into a prolonged depression.

Debate moderator Chris Wallace, in fact, asked the sharp question about Biden’s tax plan that Trump himself should have asked, but did not.

Of course, Trump partisans will plausibly spin this debate as a win for their candidate because Trump did hit Biden hard on multiple occasions.

Trump, for instance, asked Biden to name one police organization or law enforcement agency that had endorsed him for president. Biden literally had no answer.

However, the truth is that, in the aggregate, Trump did little to convince independents and undecided voters that they should vote for him.

Biden, meanwhile, seemed sharper than usual and suffered no real senior moment. And Trump may well have turned off many voters with his childish petulance, bullying, and constant interruptions in violation of the ground rules of the debate.

I suppose it’s possible that Trump may have inspired more voters already predisposed to vote for him to go to the polls on his behalf, but that, to me, seems a long shot.

The more likely outcome, I think, is that independents and undecided voters watch this debate say, “Joe’s OK. I can live with him.”

We’ll see.

Feature photo credit: New York Post.

For the Most Part, the 2020 Election Is Not About Trump or Biden

For the Most Part, the 2020 Election Is Not About Trump or Biden

By John R Guardiano on September 27, 2020

Is a presidential election a personality contest between two men—or a clash of two political tribes with divergent views on public policy? Are you voting for someone you like—or for hundreds of people you may never see, known or hear from, but who may dramatically affect your future?

To a disconcerting extent, presidential elections are popularity contests. Voters make an intensely personal decision. They eschew ideology and public policy to vote for the man (or woman) they like best and believe is best prepared to lead the nation in the next four years.

I say disconcerting because while the man or woman at the top obviously matters, and while their leadership abilities (or lack thereof) definitely matter, he (or she) is just one person. And our government is far too big, unwieldy, and complex to be run or administered by just one man.

The reality is that a vote for president is a vote for hundreds of people and scores of policies that, to a surprising degree, operate independently of the president, or with his simple approval or assent.

Tax Reform, for instance, had Trump’s imprimatur, but was crafted by Congressional Republicans well before Trump even came on the political scene.

Thus when you voted for Trump, you were voting for scores of people—in Congress, the Trump administration, in think tanks, lobby groups, and the federal bureaucracy—who gave substantive meaning to Trump’s pledge of tax reform and who made tax reform a reality.

Trade. Likewise on trade. Trump promised to “get tough” with China by ending unfair and discriminatory Chinese trade practices. But it wasn’t Trump who formulated these specific public policies and who actually negotiated with China’s communist government.

Instead, it was Robert Lighthizer, Steve Mnuchin, Peter Navarro and other public policy experts who spearheaded this effort and negotiated the deal.

Political Parties. The point is not that Trump doesn’t matter. The point is that he matters a lot less than you might realize if you understand how our government works and how public policy is formulated and implemented. Yet, the media (and most voters, frankly) are fixated on Trump and his childish and obnoxious behavior.

I get it. Trump is the president, after all.

Still, part of being an informed and educated adult is recognizing that we’re not in high school anymore, and we’re not voting for the prom king or queen. The presidential election should not be a popularity contest; it should be a contest of ideas.

The reality is that any president, Democrat or Republican, will inevitably reflect the political tribe from which he comes and with which he affiliates. This means that voters must look beyond the man and the personality to the political party, its thought leaders and ideological agenda.

The Supreme Court. Consider, for instance, Supreme Court appointments, federal judgeships and the judiciary. Here, Trump has taken his cues from Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and the Federalist Society.

In fact, if you want to understand Trump’s judicial appointments, you’re much better off listening to McConnell and the Federalist Society than you are listening to Trump. The president, after all, is shallow and incoherent; McConnell and the Federalist Society are thoughtful and coherent.

Biden is more substantively engaged than Trump, but no less a reflection of the party and movement that guide and direct him. In fact, given his advanced age and obviously waning physical and mental abilities, Biden is arguably more of a political puppet than Trump.

Radical Democratic Agenda. Moreover, the energy and intellectual ferment in the Democratic Party today is clearly on the extreme left, as the party has embraced radical plans to:

restructure the judiciary;
end the use of fossil fuels, including a ban on fracking;
decriminalize illegal immigration;
abolish the Electoral College;
make Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia bona fide states, each with two U.S. Senators; and
inexorably extend the government’s takeover of the healthcare system through “Medicare for All.”

Biden may or may not agree with all of these radical plans. (We don’t know for sure because Biden has been lying low, hiding in his basement, saying very little of substance, and campaigning as little as possible.) But whether he agrees or not with his party’s extreme left agenda is largely irrelevant.

Biden is a good and loyal Democrat who will sign whatever bills House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and Charles Schumer (D-New York) send his way—just as Trump has been a good and loyal Republican who has signed whatever bills McConnell and then-House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) sent his way when the Republicans controlled Congress.

The bottom line: there is a lot more on the ballot this fall than simply two opposing candidates.

There are two opposing political parties, two divergent political philosophies, and two teams of candidates vying for control of the Senate and the House. And there are scores of policy analysts and public policy administrators who work for these two opposing teams or political tribes.

Trump and Biden may be the faces that you see, but there are a lot more faces—and arguably more important faces—behind the scenes working to shape America’s future; and, depending on who wins the election, they may get their chance.

Understand this and please vote accordingly. Policy, not personality, is what matters most.

Feature photo credit: The Shtick.