Street Smart

I have to admit that I seriously underestimated the Biden/Harris administration. Shortly after the election, I made several predictions regarding how I expected Biden/Harris to dismantle all the accomplishments of the Trump administration. I’ve been pretty accurate on my predictions so far, but it never dawned on me that they could screw things up so quickly. We’re not even five months into the year. These two are clearly over achievers!

I anxiously watched Biden’s press conference on March 25. Biden was unusual in the fact that he took so long to address the nation via a press conference, so I was really curious about what he had to say. Now, I kind of wish I hadn’t watched it at all! Because I feel compelled to be as accurate as possible in this column, I’ve watched it twice. The first time was painful. The second time was excruciating! I strongly believe it’s every voter’s duty to be informed. Regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum, I strongly recommend that all voting age Americans watch this press conference. It’s easy to find on YouTube and is very enlightening. Pay attention to the comments from viewers that accompany the video. Many of the comments I read were submitted by people from other countries and I was unsettled by what was written. One from a Brit really stuck with me. It simply said, “The Americans must be so embarrassed.” That writer was correct, I’m ashamed. Beyond that, I also feel bad for Biden. Take the time, watch the video and then finish reading this. You’ll see what I mean.

Assuming you watched the video, I think everyone would agree that this is scary stuff! The so-called “leader of the free world” can’t hold a press conference without a script. He can’t take questions from reporters who haven’t been pre-screened. He then couldn’t coherently answer the presumably pre-screened questions. He rambled often and couldn’t stay focused. I could go on and on but don’t see the point. If you watched the video, you know. This poor guy has obviously diminished cognitive ability. I’ve had family and friends who began to fail as they aged and that’s a painful experience for all involved. I think it’s cruel that he was even put in that situation. It’s frightening to imagine that part of his job is dealing with the leaders of other nations, many of whom are not our friends. It’s sad, embarrassing and our enemies are loving every minute!

So, what next? Assuming you get your news from reliable sources and stay on top of current events, there is no good news on the horizon. We’re on a ship going full speed with no one at the helm.

Let’s look at my current favorite screw up, the situation at the border. I predicted a crisis situation and Biden/Harris have certainly delivered. For grins, I went to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) website and studied the numbers of encounters with illegal immigrants at the southern border. The most glaring example of a crisis was the number of encounters in March of 2020 (under Trump policies) compared to March 2021 under Biden. In March of 2020, the CBP documented 34,460 encounters with illegal immigrants. In March of 2021, there were 172,331! During his bungling and embarrassing March 25 press conference, Biden assigned the inept Kamala Harris as the “lead person” in his administration to deal with the border situation. As I write this, Harris still has not even visited the border! How is she going to fix a problem she knows absolutely nothing about?

The Biden/Harris administration aren’t the only people ignoring this border crisis. The liberal media is too. I utilized a recently learned feature on my iPad, and placed the Fox News app on half of my screen and the CNN app on the other half. I then typed the words “border situation” into the search feature on each app so I could do a comparison on coverage of the topic (try it!). I found dozens of informative articles regarding the border situation on the Fox News app. I found two articles on the CNN app that mentioned immigrants in a general sense, but not one word on the current border situation. There was even a CBP video on Fox News of a trafficker dropping two toddlers from the top of the border wall. I thought that was a pretty significant incident, so I checked for that on CNN and (you guessed it), that video wasn’t there. I’ve learned too that the media has been banned by the administration from photographing or videoing the border facilities. One doesn’t have to be a genius to figure out why. The administration doesn’t want video evidence of what’s happening at the border. Biden did say during his press conference that he’d be transparent and allow media to document the border situation once he has everything in place, so there’s that!

I wish I had more room, but I’ll close with this. Domestically, we’ve seen what happened with the Keystone Pipeline. Thousands of Americans out of work. The U.S. oil industry is in turmoil and gas prices are rising. Crime in all of the Democrat-run big cities is at record levels. Tax increases are projected. Internationally, pay attention now to what is happening with Russia and China. The Russians are hovering around Ukraine and the Chinese are doing the same with Taiwan. All of this is happening while the Biden/Harris infrastructure plan is projected to divert money from our military. The Biden/Harris (it’s hard for me to separate the two because I’m not really sure who’s in charge) administration is anemic and not at all feared or respected by our adversaries. We’re in serious trouble and I fear it won’t end well with the current leadership. Or, more appropriately, the current “leadership vacuum.”

Blaine Blackstone is a retired Los Angeles Police Sergeant who enjoys the simpler life in Thompson Falls.