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During the US presidential debates of 2020, many across the political spectrum raised questions about Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy and, should he win, his fitness to serve in the Oval Office, starting with what his repeated gaffes and exercises in incoherence said about his mental state and its apparent decline. Beyond that immediate concern there was the blatant censorship and suppression by Big Media and Big Tech of reports about his family’s corruption, all captured in Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell”, with its windows on sly dealings with China and, just for good measure, explicitly documented drug use, pornographic selfies and home movies of the soon-to-be First Son exploring innovative sexual techniques with what appear to be underage prostitutes.
Does anyone doubt that, were the hard-core content of the abandoned laptop to feature a Republican — one of the Trump kids, for instance — it would have led every news bulletin from sea to shining sea? Instead, only the Taiwanese media presented the laptop footage while the rest of the world’s media yawned and looked away. (editor’s note: the footage is so unsettling Quadrant Online declines to provide a link. The curious and the prurient can find it for themselves.)
Step back from the senile and salacious and the greater worry is that Biden was and remains a Trojan Horse — a useful idiot might be the better term — to advance the agenda of the Democrats’ radical wing. As various commentators on the right side of politics have argued, the Biden administration would be more aptly called the Harris administration. Kamala Harris, along with socialists such as Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, constitute the ventriloquists providing the talking points for a President who is very often barely able to string a sentence together without losing the thread.
This was made abundantly clear at Biden’s long-delayed first press conference, which occurred more than 50 days after his inauguration — the longest a president has gone without accommodating the Fourth Estate in 100 years. Not surprisingly, Biden’s rambling remarks, which often vanished into an inarticulate private fog, affirmed the reality that America’s mainstream media outlets have assumed the role of Biden’s eager press agents. They aren’t there to quiz him but to protect him. Hence, there were no questions about the state of the economy or how Biden’s approach to addressing the COVID pandemic differs from that of President Trump. As to the trillion-plus dollars of reckless spending, presented as the administration’s remedy for COVID’s economic malaise, no reporter 
went anywhere near noting that the pork-barrelling package was essentially the Green New Deal, plus much more, cooked up by Ocasio-Cortez.
As a poorly produced theatrical farce, the Biden press conference reached its nadir with questions about the flood of illegal aliens pouring across America’s southern border ever since the inauguration sounded a starter’s gun. With stories of “coyote” smuggling gangs, the involvement of drug cartels, an epidemic of rape and children being housed in overcrowded camps, the assembled hacks could not avoid the topic. Biden’s responses were erratic, vague and deeply worrying, not least because, as unguarded over-the-shoulder camera shots showed, Biden came prepared with cheat sheets (above). Not only were tame reporters identified in the order they would be asked to proffer their questions, the President’s answers were pre-scripted and recited on cue. Even with that help and a sympathetic audience, Biden still failed to present as anything but a presidential parody. How sympathetic? Watch the clip below.
Moreover, Biden’s press conference answers were littered with falsehoods. A list of the disinformation that flowed from his lips has been laid out by Ian Haworth of the Daily Wire. Truth be told, this wasn’t a press conference — it was, as JP Sears comedically noted, a choreographed dialogue with state media.
Mainstream media outlets have been relentless in presenting Biden as a redeemer delivering America from the grip of the Orange Tyrant. One such memorable instance came when, prior to asking her question, Public Broadcasting Service reporter Yamiche Alcindor gave Biden a tongue bath by presenting the chaos on the Mexican border not as an example of bad policy incompetently implemented but as a testament to Biden’s decency (emphasis added):
Thanks so much, Mr. President. You’ve said over and over again that immigrants shouldn’t come to this country right now; this isn’t the time to come. That message is not being received. Instead, the perception of you that got you elected — as a moral, decent man — is the reason why a lot of immigrants are coming to this country and entrusting you with unaccompanied minors.
There is comfort, a small measure, in knowing that such sycophancy turned the stomachs of a few left-leaning pundits and columnists. Take Matt Taibbi as one of those rare examples of journalistic integrity. Taibbi likens the ‘phony objectivity’ of mainstream media outlets to USSR-era Pravda, which tirelessly legitimised one-party orthodoxy, promoted a near-religious faith in the wisdom and goodness of the reigning authoritarians and denounced as enemies of the state any and all those who begged to differ. Taibbi appropriately refers to the US version as the “Sovietisation of the American Press.” While the US may not be an authoritarian state at present, Taibbi warns that it may soon descend into one, primarily through the stranglehold on the distribution of information. Never forget, it was Twitter that decided voters had no need to be informed of Hunter Biden and arbitrarily banned all mention of him and it, even to the extent of suspending the New York Post‘s right to post links to its stories on the hard drive’s contents.
Alas, the same media that sniped and bombarded Donald trump with concocted ‘gotchas’, from the Russiagate hoax to asserting that he wished to see Americans drinking fish-tank cleaner and shooting themselves up with disinfectant, is ‘all in’ for his successor. Until the cues come that it is time to replace him with Kamala Harris, there will be no mainstream media coverage of his decrepit mental state and follies, starting with the catastrophe unfolding on the desert body to the south. The truth is that Biden has given the world no reason to believe he is more than a puppet. When the crunch comes, as it always does when official incompetence collides with reality, it will be the press corps’ lickspittles who must share the blame.
They won’t share the blame though will they.
They (being the 4th estate) will benefit entirely from every aspect of the mess they have created as clickbait income is assured.
Very good summary.
“Mainstream media outlets have been relentless in presenting Biden as a redeemer delivering America from the grip of the Orange Tyrant.”
In Australia too judging by Paul Kelly’s extraordinary piece in yesterday’s Oz.
My comment in the Oz letters page:
“While reading Paul Kelly’s article I very soon got a strong feeling of déjà vu. What was it? Ah yes ‘It’s Time’. That worked out well, didn’t it?”
Yes well, as they say, this only the presidency we are talking about.
Sure, Biden, and soon Harris, are very significant figureheads, and many Americans and others want the US presidential figurehead to look and sound…sound.
And yes, the US president has many powers to act independently of the Congress and the SCOTUS -the other arms of the US governance system.
But note that even the nominal/figurehead “president” is tightly controlled by the White House in-group, esp so in the case of Biden and Harris, given they are both creatures of leftist-greenist-anti-Westernist forces in the US polity-Big Tech-Big-Media complex.
And anyway, most of the actual administration of how resources are used is controlled by the US equivalents of our public services at Federal, State, Territory and Local levels.
And no Presidential Admin, no act of Congress, and no determination by the Supreme Court, can control what the leftist/greenist/anti-Westernist “public servants”do day-by-day.
Time we pro-Western non-“public-servants” realised this, and acted on it.
(And remember: “public servants” include the people in the ABC and SBS, and in the education systems, and in much of the law industry.)
The main article on the ‘world news’ page in the West Australian newspaper today was?———— Donald Trump’s desk (a copy of the desk in the Oval Office) in his office in Florida. Nothing about the chaos at the southern border, the highly dubious activities to say the least of Hunter Biden, the removal of sanctions against Iran, China’s continued military provocation adjacent to Taiwan and many other vastly more important issues! This is the media we have to put up with in the socialist dictator state of WA. We can no longer trust the media to give us coverage of real news.
As Peter O’Brien said, Paul Kelly’s piece in the Australian was indeed extraordinary. Indeed, it highlights just how far the standards of his and the Australian’s political commentary have fallen in recent years.
The actual cause of our calamity is well-expressed by consideration of comments about its imminence, viz:
“Gee, how could it be that the mainstream media is not helping us?”
Bit like the debate about “how did it come to this” on the deck of the Titanic as she slid under.
Only, we have had at least half-a-century to wake up to the causes of the collapse of our once quite good version of Western Civ.
Deric Davidson–I share your frustration with the main newspaper in our “socialist dictator state of WA” (well put). Under the previous editor, it seemed to me that the West Australian was slightly right of most of the media; but since Anthony De Ceglie took over, it’s little more than a woke, soft porn magazine. (Exhibit A: yesterday’s back shot of a fully nude Greg Norman, without even pixilation). Paul Murray and Gemma Tognini are about the only contributors with any sense, and Murray was an utter failure when the panicdemic started. To his credit, I have a strong suspicion that he’s at least partly seen the error of his ways; and his was a very lonely voice before the election, trying to point out that there are important issues besides maintaining WA’s Berlin Wall (my words, not his).
Non-leftist politicians and editors of nominally non-marxist newspapers must chase the market -which is shooting sharply to the Left.
I read your comment, and a few others, Peter O’Brien, to check that the decision I made around a year ago to stop wasting my time reading Kelly is still the right one. It is.
Rebekah Meredith, I too have noticed the sharp swing to the left under the new chief editor. I thought Brett McCarthy did a pretty good job in the years he was editor. I used to be a regular contributor to the letters page of The West Australian. However, for the past couple of years, nothing I have sent in with a political theme gets a guernsey, whereas the usual left-wing lunatics get lengthy coverage of every utterance. So if I write in on climate change, the ABC, COVID, and similar politicised themes, it doesn’t get published. I have pretty much given up bothering now. I still get the West delivered, but I can’t see that lasting much longer while the current editor is in place. The only highlight the rag offers me is the cryptic crossword, and even that seems to be getting easier and easier to the point where it is hardly worth bothering with .
Greg Williams, last April and May I had three letters published in the West. Since June I have sent in nearly twenty letters, on several different subjects, not one of which has seen the light of day. I can only assume that anything coming from my e-mail address is being directed to spam. I don’t really know why, because the rag does publish some conservative letters. Several times, letters saying similar things to mine HAVE been published, but not on the same day (that is, mine wasn’t passed over for a different one). It almost makes one wonder if one must join a club to be a correspondent, now; if my name were Kim Keough, Stephanie Woods, Anthony Negus, etc., I might have no trouble being published.
Rebekah, Much the same for me, which is why I have basically given up. I do note that it is rare for a “conservative” epistle to get the multi column leniency that the opposite viewpoints seem to enjoy. I thought mine might be going to spam as well, but I do get the “thank you for your letter” automatic response, so it must be hitting the server somewhere.
I don’t actually follow Australian news any more, unless there is a threat of some local flooding. There is nowhere to actually follow it anyway.
If I need to travel interstate I will check the totalitarian’s websites to find out what new restrictions have been enacted on we socialist slaves. When I go to local events I just rock up and wait to be told off by a sheeple for, I dunno, not standing sufficiently in the shadows or something, or maybe touching the wrong sacred object of Covid, or for not having a tracking phone that works properly.
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I have heard via hear-say that there have been some scandals in Canberra. Oh, really? Big news. Have also heard that Sco-Mo is turning ever further left. Wow, surprise. I can take it for granted that nothing is happening to make Australia a stronger nation, that everything is about leftist navel gazing – don’t need the newspaper to tell me that.
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Occasionally I still look at American conservative opinion sites, from which can be gleaned current affairs updates. But since stolen-election 2020 they’re just becoming a litany of bemoaning the inevitable diktats of socialism, and kidding themselves that there is a resistance, or that Trump will lead the march back to sanity, or that Ron De Santis is a really a good guy and not a self-enriching politician.
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I think it’s time to stop kidding ourselves that we are living in anything but a socialist dictatorship (cargo-cult elections notwithstanding): this, our humanist paradise.
Rebekah and Greg: Ditto and Ditto!
The main question is:
Who are the key dozen people in the WH -and elsewhere- who puppeteer Biden and will soon puppeteer Harris.
(And Harris will be a tougher case to handle than Biden, as Harris cannot keep a straight face while lying, or speaking any lines really. And she has a partial vacuum where most people have a capacity for determining what is actually important about any matter -while emotionally, she requires adulation just for existing. Bit like Paul Keating, Julia Gillard, Penny Wong, and Plibersek, in some ways.)
For those concerned about the US situation:
The GOP’s prospects for 2022 mid-terms are ultra-significant.
Why?
Because the Congress actually has more powers/influence than the President in many critical sectors.
Assessment of the various factors that will determine the control next Congress -House and Senate- is the money shot.
Harris will likely be President by mid-2022 and her prospects for re-election will rest partly on perceptions of her ability to secure funding and Dem votes in the Congress and at State and City/County levels.
Sure, and the task of reducing Dem control over who votes for whom how many times is a separate but critically important matter.
He fiddled around at one time saying to himself and the world at large in response to a question “I have a card somewhere on that”. Fixed answers and fixed questions and the fix is definitely in. As long as he can hold a pen someone will give him something to sign, and if he muddles his cards up in any public event he can just put on his most sincerely concerned voice and speak directly to camera about how he’s working hard on this (whatever issue it is) just like he learned how in his old working class hometown as a young ‘un. Yessir. We’ve got us a folksy forgetful and dementing ole grandpa here with just a touch of keep an eye on grandpa when he’s in a room full of kiddies; along the lines of well, you never know.
Quite sad, really.
‘America’s Commander in Cheat”
Great headline, btw.
It is useful, indeed necessary, to be aware of who has actual power to influence what is done to whom, when and how, at whose expense, using whose money and other resources, at what opportunity costs.
That is, if one genuinely wishes to comprehend what happens, here on Earth.
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UPDATE
On Inauguration Day, I said to a friend you have got what you wished for. Biden is not going to last 6 months.
What an obvious disaster he has been for the US. Harris will be no better.
Isn’t this joe biden person meant to be one of the greatest American comedians. Because, there is some bird brained turkey called kar-mar-lar who cackles at everything he says….then there’s a foam headed lonely lass who writes his gags under the pseudonym aoc … and his manager is a trembling fancy Nancy who moves like she’s got ants in her pants.
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I thinks he’s got the whole gender diversity routine covered now….complete with its constituents of madness, incompetence, falseness, nepotistic bias, corruption and selfishness.
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His famous routines of “How to get onto an aeroplane” and “You can’t have a gun but I’m allowed to have a garage full of them” are classics.
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But this is funny, I’m in the bank the other day fully masked up with beanie on head, you could only see my eyes … then in walks this guy with motorbike helmet on ….well full scale emergency erupts with screaming etc…they thought he was gonna rob the bank without a mask on !?
Biden is simply the lead act in the Circus.
Harris soon will be.
Question:
Who are the Ringmasters?
Meanwhile, it’s the control of the House and the Senate -and how that might change at the Nov ’22 election- that is actually more important now than the Biden-followed-by-Harris shows.
Question:
Will the GOP be able to get various courts to restrain the Democrat/Dark Force alliance from stealing the 2020 Congressional, State and City/County elections -and enforce clean balloting and counting to increase the chance of a plausible if not fully valid result?
But yes, who are the Ringmasters of the Biden/Harris Presidential Skits?