The challenges ahead (Biden's America)

[N.E. Brigand]

Would it be illegal for someone who had never communicated with Hunter Biden and acting of their own volition to mail a postcard to every home in Delaware which says that Hunter Biden was only charged after Congressional Republicans got their supporters to make threats against prosecutors in order to scare them into scrapping the plea deal they'd previously offered to him? A project like that could probably be done for less than $750,000. (One million Delaware residents, $0.53 per stamp, $0.04 per postcard, and I don't know how much for printing and to buy a mailing list.)

Prosecutors want the court to prevent Hunter Biden from making that argument. In light of how Donald Trump has apparently found a way around Judge Merchan's gag order in New York, I got to thinking about the possibilities for concerned citizens to make potential juries aware of such facts.

[N.E. Brigand]

President Biden today announced new or increased tariffs on Chinese electric cars, "solar cells, batteries, battery materials, cranes used at ports, and certain medical supplies, as well as steel and aluminum". It's the kind of move that tends to appeal in swing states, but is this good or bad for American manufacturers? For American consumers? For national security? I don't know. Biden says, "I want fair competition with China, not conflict".

The President did get in a funny quip after signing the order.

[N.E. Brigand]

Drug overdose deaths in the United States increased every year from 2019 through 2022, i.e., for the last two years of Donald Trump's presidency and the first two years of Joe Biden's presidency, but ABC reports that they fell in 2023, and while that's only a 3% decrease from the 111,000 deaths in 2022, I think 4,000 lives saved is nothing to sneeze at.

[N.E. Brigand]

In fact, those are rare bright spots in a long, bleak history. The only years that saw a decrease in the number of fatal drug overdoses in the past five decades (1974-2023) were 1976 (the last year of Gerald Ford's presidency), 1977-1980 (all four years of Jimmy Carter's presidency), 1987 (the seventh year of Ronald Reagan's presidency), 1990 (the second year of George H.W. Bush's presidency), 2018 (the second year of Donald Trump's presidency), and 2023 (the third year of Joe Biden's presidency).

Comparing Trump and Biden's presidencies: U.S. drug overdose deaths increased by 11.4% in Trump's first three years and by 17.2% in Biden's first three years. They increased by 30% in 2020, the last year Trump was president, and by 16% in 2021, the first year Biden was president. For Trump's full term, they increased by 44.9%, so I think it's likely that a year from now, the percentages will favor Biden's record, but the raw numbers are better for Trump: 271,596 deaths while he was in the White House compared to 352,271 deaths while Biden has been there, with a year to go.

Drug overdoses increased by 74.6% during Barack Obama's presidency (2009-2017), totaling some 365,248 deaths (much more in his second term than in his first), and by 109.3% during George W. Bush's presidency (2001-2008), totaling 250,234 deaths.

[N.E. Brigand]

"S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, Dow Jones Shatter Record Highs In Unstoppable Bull Market Rally" (Business Insider).

After a dip in April, the Dow Jones average closed at 39,908 today, breaking the record of 39,807 set on March 28.

(The peak during Donald Trump's presidency was about 31,000 in his last week in January 2021.)

[N.E. Brigand]

Meanwhile, the New York Times:

[N.E. Brigand]

For the first time ever, the Dow Jones rose above 40,000 today.

That Wall Street Journal article says this is "a milestone that appeared implausible little more than two years ago when the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates to cool an overheated economy. Gloom and doom forecasts abounded. When the central bank ended the era of ultralow rates that prevailed in the years following the global financial crisis, economists predicted painful consequences: a U.S. recession and rising unemployment." And 2022 did see the largest annual decline in market value since 2008 (there was a huge decline in March 2020, but it had largely recovered by the end of that year). But since then, as has been amply documented here, the market has climbed and climbed while unemployment remained low.

[N.E. Brigand]

The Dow did not remain above 40,000 today and in fact closed slightly down (-0.097%) from yesterday, but the Biden campaign still seized the moment:

[N.E. Brigand]

An intruder broke into the home of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and attacked her 82 year old husband Paul Pelosi with a hammer, injuring him significantly. While no motive has been established, it is reported that the intruder was yelling "where is Nancy" before attacking her husband.

Today David DePape, the man who attacked Paul Pelosi with a hammer was sentenced to 30 years in prison. (Prosecutors had asked for 40 years.)

[N.E. Brigand]

The Dow did not remain above 40,000 today and in fact closed slightly down (-0.097%) from yesterday, but the Biden campaign still seized the moment.

And there it is! Today the Dow Jones closed above 40,000.

That's never happened before. And as noted above, Donald Trump said in 2020 that if Joe Biden won the presidency, the stock market would crash.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And yet the polls will still say that Biden can't be trusted to run the economy as much as businessman Trump.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

An intruder broke into the home of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and attacked her 82 year old husband Paul Pelosi with a hammer, injuring him significantly. While no motive has been established, it is reported that the intruder was yelling "where is Nancy" before attacking her husband.

Today David DePape, the man who attacked Paul Pelosi with a hammer was sentenced to 30 years in prison. (Prosecutors had asked for 40 years.)

Or maybe not.

[RoseMorninStar]

Ugh.

[N.E. Brigand]

The Wall Street Journal editorial board is big mad about the commencement address that President Biden gave at Morehouse College (a historically Black institution in Atlanta), which presumably means they're afraid it was effective. Sample passage:

He also told the graduates that Republicans don’t want blacks to vote. “Today in Georgia, they won’t allow water to be available to you while you wait in line to vote in an election. What in the hell is that all about? I’m serious. Think about it. And then the constant attacks on black election workers who count your vote,” he said.

Yes, think about it. The 2022 Senate race in the Deep South state of Georgia featured two black men as the major-party nominees. The Democrat won after the election reforms that Mr. Biden caricatures as racist.

Mr. Biden also turned the Jan. 6 Capitol riot into a racial event: “Insurrectionists who storm the Capitol with Confederate flags are called ‘patriots’ by some. Not in my house. Black police officers, black veterans protecting the Capitol were called another word, as you’ll recall.” The riot was a disgrace for which hundreds have been severely punished, but that day wasn’t driven by racial hatred.

Notice how there's no response to Biden's statement about voters being denied water. Notice how there's no response to the fact that some Jan. 6th insurrectionists bore Confederate flags.

[N.E. Brigand]

"Biden releasing 1 million barrels of gasoline from Northeast reserve in bid to lower prices at pump" (Associated Press).

This move, announced by Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, is not a campaign stunt meant to lower gas prices and improve President Biden's electoral chances (though it certainly will do the former in parts of the country). Following the devastation of Superstorm Sandy in 2012, Congress set up a special oil reserve for northeastern states. The March budget deal requires the government to sell off and close that reserve.

[N.E. Brigand]

The Wall Street Journal editorial board is big mad about the commencement address that President Biden gave at Morehouse College (a historically Black institution in Atlanta), which presumably means they're afraid it was effective.

There were a few complaints from the left that President Biden's remarks at Morehouse were too centrist, but the right doesn't see it that way. They feel that Biden exploited racial divisiveness by admitting that there is such a thing as structural racism. (That's a link to Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio speaking on Fox News.)

- - - - - - - - - -
More jobs have been created during Joe Biden's presidency than during Donald Trump's presidency whether you compare all four years of each man's term (+394,000/month for Biden; -57,000/month for Trump) or if you only compare Biden's post-pandemic record (+270,000/month since July 2022) to Trump's pre-pandemic record (+180,000/month through February 2020) -- even within those constraints, Biden did 50% more than Trump.

In the past 60 years, no president has had a lower unemployment rate than Joe Biden, who ties with Lyndon Johnson for first place:



Notice how Ronald Reagan is tenth among those eleven presidents in that regard.

President Biden has also seen the highest average hourly wages in that period, and that's adjusting for inflation.

More charts here.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

You can say that it is poor messaging, but people are going to believe what they want to believe, no matter how untrue it is.

[RoseMorninStar]

The media silos are a real problem. A decades or so ago the various nightly news channels and main news outlets would disseminate roughly the same information so that the average person (who wasn't looking for subversive, conspiracy laden views) had a similar news intake as their neighbor. Now, 'alternative facts' and outright lies are fodder for mainstream news.

[Frelga]

Meanwhile, Harris announced that the administration would move to not consider medical debt when calculating a credit score. We should be hearing loud cheers, and yet.

[N.E. Brigand]

You can say that it is poor messaging, but people are going to believe what they want to believe, no matter how untrue it is.

Turtles all the way down: people's "want to believe" itself has to come from somewhere. And in my opinion, that somewhere is their environment, i.e., from what other people tell them. And media decisions plays a huge role. It may not be as simple as countering the facts. It's also about countering the mood. So even Fox News repeatedly reports that the stock market is up -- record-breaking highs! -- and yet somehow that poll you've cited finds that 49% of Americans think it's down. Why? Because stock market aside, Fox and conservative politicians all keep saying the economy is bad. And social media repeats it, and mainstream media does too little to counter it, and liberal politicians do too little to counter it, and we do too little to counter it, and as Rose notes, people are siloed. So they answer survey saying that their personal finances are good, but because all the hear from everywhere is that the economy is bad, that's what they repeat in surveys.

And that can be changed. It wasn't always this way. Until the past five to ten years, people's perceptions about the economy generally tracked with reality (though often lagging a bit). There was some partisanship. But it's really gone off the rails since Joe Biden took office. That widespread misperception is not an act of God. It's the collective actions of millions of people but driven by the mood-setting of thousands of people.