{"id":57815,"date":"2021-03-26T10:51:16","date_gmt":"2021-03-26T14:51:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=57815"},"modified":"2021-03-26T10:51:16","modified_gmt":"2021-03-26T14:51:16","slug":"bidens-first-presser-was-a-trip-to-the-twilight-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=57815","title":{"rendered":"Biden’s First Presser Was A Trip to the Twilight Zone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Biden Post-Mortem: Cheat-Sheets & A Trip Into An Alternate Reality<\/h1>\n

ZeroHedge.com<\/p>\n

RealClearPolitics’ Philip Wegmann noted,<\/a>\u00a0reflecting on yesterday’s first ‘meet the press moment’ for Joe Biden, that\u00a0the new president started with good news.<\/strong>\u00a0Joe Biden told reporters assembled at the White House for his first official press conference that he now expects 200 million doses of the COVID vaccine will be administered by the end of his first 100 days in office. And that\u2019s not all.<\/p>\n

He expects the majority of K-8 students will soon be back in the classroom. He announced that more than 100 million Americans have cashed their $1,400 relief checks. He was pleased to report that unemployment is down and economic growth projections are up.<\/p>\n

There was more work to do, certainly, Biden admitted, \u201cbut I can say to you, the American people, help is here and hope is on the way. Now, I\u2019ll be happy to take your questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

And with that brief victory lap, the global pandemic that has taken some 547,000 lives in this country alone was quickly forgotten, at least by Biden\u2019s media interlocutors.\u00a0<\/strong>The president was confronted instead with questions about voting rights, the situation at the southern border, his plans for the 2024 campaign, the Senate filibuster rule, the lack of bipartisanship on Capitol Hill, American troops remaining in Afghanistan, and more.<\/p>\n

It was exactly one hour and two minutes of a certain sort of normal — very different from that of the last four years. The press didn\u2019t shout, and the president didn\u2019t yell or call the reporters names. But the return to normal came courtesy of the same old Biden.\u00a0For anyone not already familiar, it was an introduction to the 78-year-old politician in all his long-winded, sometimes meandering, gaffe-prone glory<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Biden insisted the surge in illegal immigrants is not the result of a change in policy,<\/strong>\u00a0despite the fact that he publicly placed a 100-day moratorium on deportations, reaffirmed his commitment to \u201cDreamers,\u201d and halted construction of the border wall — all on his first day in office. No, the challenge on the border, the situation his administration has refused to call a crisis, he said, is just the normal cyclical course of events.<\/p>\n

The question of immigration reform finally funneled down to the filibuster, and then things went a little sideways for the new president:<\/p>\n

“Let’s deal with the [filibuster] abuse first,”\u00a0<\/strong>Biden said, noting that he wouldn\u2019t oppose certain changes, like making senators filibustering actually hold the floor and keep talking until they no longer can. But while the president said he agrees the procedure is \u201ca relic of the Jim Crow era,\u201d he does not support abolishing it just yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to say something outrageous,\u201d the president said before noting something he repeated again and again on the campaign trail: \u201cI\u2019ve never been particularly poor at calculating how to get things done in the United States Senate.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then came a word-salad:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe best way to get something done, if you hold near and dear to you that you like to be able to … anyway, we\u2019re ready to get a lot done.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And finally, in the same answer, was a warning to Republicans:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we have to, if there\u2019s complete lockdown and chaos as a consequence of the filibuster, then we\u2019ll have to go beyond what I\u2019m talking about.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The White House press corps was not in the mood to push back Thursday<\/strong>. Left unsaid was the fact that,\u00a0according to the RealClearPolitics average<\/a>\u00a0of the presidential approval ratings, Biden has yet to unite the country. While 53% of the public likes the job he is doing, 43% does not.<\/p>\n

There were plenty of other questions. Most didn\u2019t lend themselves to the victory lap that the White House would have liked to take on vaccine distribution or stimulus checks.<\/strong>\u00a0Biden was asked what he thought of Republican efforts at the state level to overhaul voting laws and include new restrictions. He said they were \u201cpernicious\u201d and \u201cun-American\u201d and \u201csick.\u201d The effort in Georgia, he said in one strained metaphor, \u201cmakes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle.\u201d<\/p>\n

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As the conference wore on,\u00a0<\/strong>Nebojsa Malic notes in an excellent RT op-ed,<\/em><\/a>\u00a0that Biden started rambling more and more.<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Afghanistan, he said the decision to miss the May 1 withdrawal deadline was \u201ctactical\u201d (the\u00a0actual talking point is \u201clogistical\u201d<\/a>), then said \u201cif we leave,\u201d only to correct himself to \u201cwe will leave, the question is when.\u201d<\/p>\n

On China, he said the US doesn\u2019t seek confrontation but competition \u2013 before going off on a tangent about a civilizational clash of \u201cautocracies\u201d and \u201cdemocracies\u201d that will shape the world for years to come. When asked about gun control, he gave a lengthy, rambling answer about\u2026 infrastructure.<\/p>\n

It was at that point I had a sudden flash of recognition: I\u2019m watching Taravangian, on one of his bad days.<\/p>\n

The character from the prolific fantasy author Brandon Sanderson\u2019s door-stopper saga \u2018The Stormlight Archive\u2019 had made a bargain with a supernatural power \u2013 to save humanity, he says. As a result, he wakes up feeling different every morning: either a genius or a barely functioning idiot, with his sense of compassion inversely proportional to his intelligence.<\/p>\n

As with every analogy, this one isn\u2019t perfect. But after Thursday, President Kamala Harris looks like something that will happen sooner, rather than later.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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As\u00a0Stephen Lendman raged<\/a>\u00a0following what he called\u00a0“a charade of a presser,”<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0Biden showed the world yesterday that\u00a0he is too cognitively impaired to carry out the duties of the office he was selected, not elected, to hold.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Biden has lost touch with reality, affairs of state handled by others in his name – including contacts with foreign leaders by unelected president-in-waiting Kamala Harris.<\/p>\n

Biden needed cheat sheet notes to answer questions…<\/strong><\/p>\n