Biden administration

Cockburn was weighing his post-Thanksgiving options this past weekend: the fifth leftover sandwich of the day or the rest of the pricey claret that his hedgie brother had brought to lunch (a rare act of generosity from the spoiled brat). Just as he had settled on the correct answer to this conundrum (both), his appetite was quickly satisfied by a particularly juicy morsel buried the pages of Politico. Christopher Cadelago and Meridith McGraw report that after his 2020 victory, Joe Biden called Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt to “say thank you for the group’s work helping him get elected.

Are you a sexist and a racist? For her supporters, that’s the only possible explanation for why Vice President Kamala Harris is so unpopular. A pair of dovetailing pieces this weekend in Politico and CNN extensively document how hard done by the Veep feels by the Biden administration. CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere and Jasmine Wright write that Harris allies “fume that she's not being adequately prepared or positioned, and instead is being sidelined” and that Harris herself “has told several confidants she feels constrained in what she's able to do politically.” Politico says that Harris’s “allies outside of the administration have argued she’s been set up for failure by the portfolio she’s been handed.

“Every man has two countries — his own and France.” A variation of this line, frequently misattributed to Thomas Jefferson, came to Cockburn as he saw the latest footage from Kamala Harris’s trip to Paris. Everyone, he realized, has two accents — his own and French. And so it is with Momala. On a Tuesday tour of the Pasteur Institute, the vice president opted for a very Fraaanch pronunciation in her conversation with zee scientistes. See for yourself: https://twitter.com/AmericaRising/status/1458489403513491460 Now, Cockburn readily admits that Harris’s Franglais (or should that be Framerican?) is a little more subtle than his own garbled intonation when asking for directions on the Riviera.

For months, Democratic negotiations over Joe Biden’s twin spending bills were stuck in a cycle of infighting that felt it would never end: the unstoppable force of progressive overexcitement up against the immovable object of moderate resistance. That deadlock was finally broken late on Friday night, when the House passed an infrastructure bill worth $550 billion in new spending. The breakthrough came after a head-spinning day on the Hill (a day that progressive congressman Mark Pocan described as a “clusterfuck”).

Tuesday was a very bad night for the Democratic Party. They lost the Virginia governorship and House of Delegates, almost lost the New Jersey governorship, and lost several local school board seats in crucial electoral states such as Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Colorado. Blue states that kept schools closed or mostly shuttered for the duration of the pandemic now play host to legions of angry, fed-up parents. Nationally, Joe Biden’s approval ratings are crashing harder than Hunter Biden after a stint at the Chateau Marmont, and his domestic agenda is stalled in Congress, thanks to two Democratic senators who clearly saw the writing on the wall and the red wave coming: Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

How’s the ice cream in Rome? Joe Biden is about to find out. Word is he is excited about the gelato, which is A-OK, since it may distract him from the fact that he has nothing to report when he gets there. The president — I mean, Joe Biden — was supposed to reestablish “normality” to an office so badly bruised by the mad tweeter — no, make that “ex-tweeter” — who came before. “Normality” was one big selling point. The other was Biden’s vaunted foreign policy experience. Reality check one: was Joe Biden’s performance at that town hall with Anderson Cooper last week an exhibition of “normality”? Or was it yet another disagreeable instance of elder abuse, parading a man suffering from senile dementia before the cameras?

During the 2020 election, Joe Biden positioned himself as the Democrat who could win the working class from President Donald Trump. "Joe from Scranton," as the media affectionately calls him, was bringing normalcy back to the White House. But Joe from Scranton is a fiction and a fake. Trump may love a good show  — "stay tuned!" — but it is Biden who oversees the most inauthentic administration, one that is shockingly divorced from the lives of everyday Americans. The country is currently facing a massive breakdown in the global supply chain, leading to shortages of goods and increased prices for consumers. My local grocery store boasted large gaps on food shelves Thursday morning. A friend of mine was unable to buy a simple coffee from Starbucks.

Last week, the State Department learned that twice this summer China had tested a new hypersonic missile weapon with nuclear capabilities. According to the Financial Times, the rocket employed a “fractional orbital bombardment” that also had the guidance ability to “glide” around the earth in orbit. The test reportedly stunned the Biden administration, and comes on the heels of a string of embarrassing global events for the US, including the fall of Afghanistan and Russia opting not to raise natural gas supplies to Europe after the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Secretary of State Tony Blinken reacted with a series of “deeply concerned” letters. The State Department had once again been caught flat-footed. But fear not: Blinken has his priorities straight.

The Biden administration announced Tuesday that Rachel Levine, the assistant secretary of health, will be sworn in as a four-star admiral in the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. Levine will not only be the first openly transgender four-star officer in the uniformed services — according to the Biden administration, Levine will also be the "first female four-star admiral" of the health corps. Allow Cockburn to be the first to congratulate Ms Levine — sorry, Admiral Levine! — on this historic achievement. How inspiring that Rachel, formerly known as Richard, only had to identify as female for about 15 percent of her life before becoming one of the most successful women in the world.

Despite the constant barrage of people telling us they are best suited for the job, politics ain’t bean-bag. There is no surefire way to become competent at governing. A politician may have decades of experience or a Harvard degree or millions of Twitter followers or the backing of the mainstream media — and they could still prove to be an utter disaster when given the reins. Look no further than 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, home to some of the 'best and brightest’ political minds in the country, or so David Ignatius tells us. What does America have to show for having this elite braintrust in the White House? For one, gas prices, inflation and illegal immigration are all sky-high. Plus we have a supply chain crisis on both coasts.