December 12, 2024

8 thoughts on “Asses&Villains: Impeachment Edition

  1. Yes, indeed, ALL the news that NEEDS to be printed.

    As to the world of Joe we are now mired in, like quicksand, Al Jazeera had an article on 14 October 2022 titled “The flaws and fantasies of the new Biden doctrine” by Marwan Bishara that captured the world of Joe quite well, I thought, to wit:

    United States President Joe Biden’s newly released National Security Strategy is an amalgam of his predecessors’ doctrines.

    So, where this pompous exercise in grandeur falls short on coherence, it makes up with easy cliches about the indispensable nation’s role in the creation of a “prosperous” and “inclusive world”.

    From the outset, Biden makes a number of fanciful — even delusional — assumptions about US world leadership.

    “Around the world, the need for American leadership is as great as it has ever been,” the document claims, because “no nation is better positioned to lead with strength and purpose than the United States of America.”

    Such assumptions may have been true in the post-Cold War period but can no longer be justified — not after three decades of failures and fiascos, overreaction and later overreach; and not after the country’s recent retreat and retrenchment from the global stage.

    Yet, the NSS pronounces that “we must proactively shape the international order in line with our interests and values”.

    There’s no escape from American righteousness, even when those liberal values are backsliding at home and abroad.

    * * * * *

    But China and Russia view America’s “rules-based international system” as the incarnation of US imperialism.

    They pay attention mainly to what the US does — not to what Biden says.

    They regard US strategic containment, military buildup, and alliance formation and expansion with alarm and hostility that will certainly undermine the cooperation and coordination needed to meet global challenges.

    Another problem lies with the NSS’s choice of resources and methods to achieve its objectives.

    It speaks of a desire to build a “free, open, prosperous, and secure international order” where people can “enjoy their basic, universal rights and freedoms”.

    However, to achieve such a worthy, even noble objective, the US plans to grow its power, amplify its influence through international coalitions, and modernise and strengthen its military.

    This comes even as the US already spends more on its military than the next nine biggest spenders, all of which — with the exception of China and Russia — are its allies.

    In other words, the Biden administration speaks as a healer but acts like a hammer, believing the US could and should act as the world’s policeman, despite a long and bloody history.

  2. When knee-jerking, short-sighted, shallow-thinking Joe Biden is involved, you can be doubly sure that STOOPID is the order of the day as Joe runs down our weapons stock to keep his war of choice against his feared enemy Putin going in Ukraine, this as Joe also depletes our SPR for Ukraine while running up our national debt for Ukraine, which is a corrupt fascist dictatorship with the twerp Zelensky in charge:

    Associated Press

    “Push to arm Ukraine putting strain on US weapons stockpile”

    By Ben Fox, Aamer Madhani, Jay Reeves and Dan Huff

    May 3, 2022

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The planes take off almost daily from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware — hulking C-17s loaded up with Javelins, Stingers, howitzers and other material being hustled to Eastern Europe to resupply Ukraine’s military in its fight against Russia.

    The game-changing impact of those arms is exactly what President Joe Biden hopes to spotlight as he visits a Lockheed Martin plant in Alabama on Tuesday that builds the portable Javelin anti-tank weapons that have played a crucial role in Ukraine.

    But Biden’s visit is also drawing attention to a growing concern as the war drags on: Can the U.S. sustain the cadence of shipping vast amounts of arms to Ukraine while maintaining the healthy stockpile it may need if a new conflict erupts with North Korea, Iran or elsewhere?

    The U.S. already has provided about 7,000 Javelins, including some that were delivered during the Trump administration, about one-third of its stockpile, to Ukraine, according to an analysis by Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies international security program.

    The Biden administration says it has committed to sending about 5,500 to Ukraine since the Russian invasion more than two months ago.

    Analysts also estimate that the United States has sent about one-quarter of its stockpile of shoulder-fired Stinger missiles to Ukraine.

    Raytheon Technologies CEO Greg Hayes told investors last week during a quarterly call that his company, which makes the weapons system, wouldn’t be able to ramp up production until next year due to parts shortages.

    “Could this be a problem?”

    “The short answer is, ‘Probably, yes,’” said Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and former government specialist on Pentagon budget strategy, war funding and procurement.

    He said that Stingers and Javelins were where “we’re seeing the most significant inventory issues,” and production of both weapons systems has been limited in recent years.

    The Russian invasion offers the U.S. and European defense industry a big opportunity to bolster profits as lawmakers from Washington to Warsaw are primed to increase defense spending in response to Russian aggression.

    Defense contractors, however, face the same supply chain and labor shortage challenges that other manufacturers are facing, along with some others that are specific to the industry.

    Biden’s proposed 2023 budget sought $773 billion for the Pentagon, an annual increase of about 4%.

    The war will mean increased sales for some defense contractors, including Raytheon, which makes the Stinger missiles Ukrainian troops have used to knock out Russian aircraft.

    The company is also part of a joint venture with Lockheed Martin that makes the Javelins.

    A White House official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity, said the Pentagon is working with defense contractors “to evaluate the health of weapons systems’ production lines and examine bottlenecks in every component and step of the manufacturing process.”

    The administration is also considering a range of options, if needed, to boost production of both Javelins and Stingers, the official said.

    Cancian, the former government specialist on defense budget strategy, said the fact that Stingers and Javelins were not included in the most recent tranche of weapons the Biden administration announced it was sending to Ukraine could be a sign that Pentagon officials are mindful about inventory as they conduct contingency planning for other possible conflicts.

    “There’s no question that whatever war plan they’re looking at there is risk associated with the depleting levels of Stingers and Javelins, and I’m sure that they’re having that discussion at the Pentagon,” he said.

    The U.S. military effort to move weaponry to Eastern Europe for Ukraine’s fight has been Herculean.

    From Dover Air Base in Delaware, U.S. airmen have carried out nearly 70 missions to deliver some 7 million pounds of Javelins, Stingers, 155mm howitzers, helmets and other essentials to Eastern Europe since February.

    The big defense contractors face some serious challenges.

    Raytheon, for example, can’t simply crank out Stingers to replace the 1,400 that the U.S. sent to Ukraine.

    Hayes, the Raytheon CEO, said in a recent conference call with analysts that the company has only limited supplies of components to make the missile.

    Only one undisclosed country has been buying them in recent years, and the Pentagon hasn’t bought any new ones in nearly 20 years.

    Sanctions further complicate the picture.

    Companies must find new sources of important raw materials such as titanium, a crucial component in aerospace manufacturing that is produced in Russia.

    Concerns about the Stinger stockpile have been raised by House Armed Services Committee chairman Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., and the top Republican on the committee, Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama.

    The two in March wrote to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, describing the stockpile issue as one of “urgency.”

    Rogers said he remains concerned that the matter hasn’t been properly addressed.

    “I’ve been asking the DoD for almost two months for a plan to replenish our Stinger stockpile as well as our Javelin launch units,” Rogers said.

    “I worry that without a readily available replacement or fully active production lines, we could leave Ukraine and our NATO allies in a vulnerable position.”

    end quotes

    Which is very short-sighted and very stupid, indeed.

    I was in Viet Nam as an infantryman when artillery shells were being rationed because they were in short supply.

    And we still had to do the missions regardless.

    A real stupid way to wage a war, but that is Joe Biden, so that is the news!

  3. I wonder if Joe Biden and all his pack of rocket scientists are at all aware of this:

    The Washington Examiner

    “‘It was very difficult’: Electric vehicle owner took 15 hours to drive 178 miles”

    Heather Hamilton

    18 October 2022

    A Colorado electric vehicle owner called a road trip across the state of Wyoming “very difficult” after it took 15 hours to drive 178 miles.

    Alan O’Hashi used to live in Wyoming and explained that a trip back to the Cowboy State in his electric Nissan Leaf required lots of patience.

    “It was very difficult,” O’Hashi told the Cowboy State Daily.

    “For example, [it took] 15 hours to get from Cheyenne to Casper.”

    The distance between Cheyenne and Casper is 178 miles, which with the speed limit taken into account should take less than 2 1/2 hours.

    “What I’ve learned from driving this thing is patience,” O’Hashi said.

    Since that first attempt, O’Hashi has made the trip again but was only able to cut the total travel time down to 11 hours.

    While waiting to charge, he noted that he often spends extra money shopping or eating, in addition to the charging cost.

    O’Hashi added that the unpredictability of a battery’s range causes anxiety because electric vehicle owners must factor in extra distances to charging stations, along with hilly terrain and winds that negatively impact battery range.

  4. COMMITTEE FOR A RESPONSIBLE FEDERAL BUDGET

    “The Biden Administration Has Approved $4.8 Trillion of New Borrowing”

    SEP 13, 2022

    Prior to the pandemic, the U.S. national debt was on an unsustainable path.

    In 2020, policymakers appropriately enacted $3.4 trillion of additional borrowing to help fight the pandemic and stabilize the economy.

    Once the economy was strong enough, Congress and the White House should have stopped engaging in new borrowing and pivoted to focusing on implementing reforms to slow the growth of the national debt.

    Instead, policymakers have added to the deficit, and borrowing has continued and at a very high level.

    We estimate the Biden Administration has enacted policies through legislation and executive actions that will add more than $4.8 trillion to deficits between 2021 and 2031, or nearly $2.5 trillion when excluding the effects of the American Rescue Plan.

    This is on top of the trillions of dollars we were projected to borrow before President Biden took office.

    Excessive borrowing will lead to continued inflationary pressures, drive the national debt to a new record as soon as 2030, and triple federal interest payments over the next decade – or even sooner if interest rates go up faster or by more than expected.

    This $4.8 trillion is the net result of roughly $4.6 trillion of new spending, roughly $500 billion of tax cuts and breaks, and $700 billion in additional interest costs, partially offset by $400 billion of spending cuts and $600 billion of revenue-increasing policies.

    Of the non-interest deficit increases, about $3 trillion is from legislation – including a net $1.6 trillion passed on a partisan basis and $1.4 trillion passed on a bipartisan basis.

    Another $1.1 trillion comes from executive actions.

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