By Daniel Nardini
I do not have to be a Republican to think there is something wrong with U.S. President Joe Biden’s running of the White House these days (or rather lack of effectively running it). All I have to do is go to the grocery store and see how food prices have in some cases almost doubled. For a man determined to fight inflation he has done a lousy job. A rise of anywhere between twenty cents and two dollars on some food items is enough to mess around with any working family’s budget. Additionally, there are the supply chain shortages which makes inflation that much worse. And what about crime? We have not seen levels of crime like this since the 1970’s, and even then I do not recall crime from petty theft to store robberies to home invasions to gang fights being as bad as this in the 1970’s. Chicago is not the only city being badly affected by these things. I remember former U.S. President Ronald Reagan dealing with an inflationary rate he had inherited from then U.S. President Jimmy Carter far more effectively, and he was at that time considered “too old” by everyone.
And now the new Taiwan crisis. China has again virtually surrounded Taiwan in an effort to intimidate the people of that country and to challenge the United States. Because that is what it is—-probing the United States to see what it will do. What the White House has done has acted feebly. The Chinese Navy virtually surrounded Taiwan with almost a ring of steel in a simulation not so much to invade the island but to create a planned blockade to starve the island out (I think Chinese military planners realize that an outright attack to actually take the island would be too costly). What did Biden do? Sent a mere battleship into the Taiwan Straits as a kind of “warning” against China. I am sure that the Chinese military is laughing at this one. Back in 1996, when the Chinese Navy was conducting live fire drills, then U.S. President Bill Clinton sent two the aircraft carriers U.S.S. Independence and U.S.S. Nimitz to deal with the Chinese and display a show of force to make it clear the Chinese Navy was not going to cross the line. These two aircraft carriers were the best and most advanced ships we had at the time, and these ships were accompanied by battle cruisers and support vessels. Sending in one battleship after China virtually surrounded Taiwan is a joke.
Speaking of China, why are our store shelves still filled with so much consumer goods made in China? I mean, come on, relations with China are going down the toilet. Chinese-American relations are at their all time low, and the Chinese government has stated over and over again to its people that the United States is the enemy. Why is Biden even remotely letting U.S. corporations still do business in that country? After the pandemic that China caused, which led to the deaths of one million plus Americans, should we still be doing business with a government like that? What about the genocide of the Uyghurs by the Chinese government? Why do we even have diplomatic relations with China at all at this point?
It is all going back to what happened in Afghanistan in August, 2021. The former Afghan government, heavily supported and paid for by U.S. taxpayer money, was collapsing in a matter of days. Perhaps Biden could not be blamed for that. However, it took the Biden administration way too long to do anything about getting U.S. civilians and Afghan supporters out of the country, with the result that both U.S. citizens and our Afghan supporters were trapped in the country at the hands of the winning Taliban. It became one of the worst U.S. disasters in history; worse than the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam (at least then U.S. President Gerald Ford got all U.S. citizens and most of our South Vietnamese supporters out of a collapsing South Vietnam). All of this has to be laid at the feet of President Biden. I am beginning to see the limitations of what an 80 year old politician can and cannot do (especially what he cannot do). There are many other things I could point out that have gone wrong under this administration, but what would be the point? We are dealing with a geriatric regime where an old guy has to make life and death decisions for tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of people, and I am to put it mildly uncomfortable with that.
Our Feeble Man in the White House
By Daniel Nardini
And now the new Taiwan crisis. China has again virtually surrounded Taiwan in an effort to intimidate the people of that country and to challenge the United States. Because that is what it is—-probing the United States to see what it will do. What the White House has done has acted feebly. The Chinese Navy virtually surrounded Taiwan with almost a ring of steel in a simulation not so much to invade the island but to create a planned blockade to starve the island out (I think Chinese military planners realize that an outright attack to actually take the island would be too costly). What did Biden do? Sent a mere battleship into the Taiwan Straits as a kind of “warning” against China. I am sure that the Chinese military is laughing at this one. Back in 1996, when the Chinese Navy was conducting live fire drills, then U.S. President Bill Clinton sent two the aircraft carriers U.S.S. Independence and U.S.S. Nimitz to deal with the Chinese and display a show of force to make it clear the Chinese Navy was not going to cross the line. These two aircraft carriers were the best and most advanced ships we had at the time, and these ships were accompanied by battle cruisers and support vessels. Sending in one battleship after China virtually surrounded Taiwan is a joke.
Speaking of China, why are our store shelves still filled with so much consumer goods made in China? I mean, come on, relations with China are going down the toilet. Chinese-American relations are at their all time low, and the Chinese government has stated over and over again to its people that the United States is the enemy. Why is Biden even remotely letting U.S. corporations still do business in that country? After the pandemic that China caused, which led to the deaths of one million plus Americans, should we still be doing business with a government like that? What about the genocide of the Uyghurs by the Chinese government? Why do we even have diplomatic relations with China at all at this point?
It is all going back to what happened in Afghanistan in August, 2021. The former Afghan government, heavily supported and paid for by U.S. taxpayer money, was collapsing in a matter of days. Perhaps Biden could not be blamed for that. However, it took the Biden administration way too long to do anything about getting U.S. civilians and Afghan supporters out of the country, with the result that both U.S. citizens and our Afghan supporters were trapped in the country at the hands of the winning Taliban. It became one of the worst U.S. disasters in history; worse than the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam (at least then U.S. President Gerald Ford got all U.S. citizens and most of our South Vietnamese supporters out of a collapsing South Vietnam). All of this has to be laid at the feet of President Biden. I am beginning to see the limitations of what an 80 year old politician can and cannot do (especially what he cannot do). There are many other things I could point out that have gone wrong under this administration, but what would be the point? We are dealing with a geriatric regime where an old guy has to make life and death decisions for tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of people, and I am to put it mildly uncomfortable with that.