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  • Media Avoids the Elephant in the Room: Who Runs the U.S.?

Media Avoids the Elephant in the Room: Who Runs the U.S.?

William L. Kovacs

June 2021

Media Avoids the Elephant in the Room: Who Runs the U.S.?

Mainstream media, for whatever its political objectives might be, avoids discussion of the proverbial “Elephant in the room.” While uncomfortable someone must ask – who runs the United States?

It’s a mystery. Perhaps no one knows. Perhaps a group of people we never heard of? We have a president that his staff tightly guards so he does not speak in public, address complex issues or answer non-approved questions. And when he does speak in public, he needs notes on the issues. He regularly gives muddled answers and then makes a brisk emphatic statement to look strong. Even when he meets privately with Republicans to find common ground, it appears staff has the power to reverse his decisions. The latest example is Biden’s meeting with seven Republican Senators on his $2.2 trillion infrastructure plan. Several Senate Republican negotiators indicated after the meeting that a plan in the range of $1 trillion to $1.2 trillion would be acceptable. What Biden agreed to, however, is now in question. Who changed the president’s mind in literally minutes?

It is a mystery as to how a country of 328 million people could elect a seventy-eight-year-old man that does not seem capable of comprehending the complexity of the world or the intricacies of the issues confronting his administration.

Is Joe Biden making any decisions, other than nodding his head so he gives the semblance of functioning as the constitutionally elected decisionmaker? The Biden mirage started in his first few days in office by issuing a massive number, 52 Executive Orders and Presidential Memoranda requiring only a signature while offering the press a photo-op to look as if he is leading.

It is difficult to believe that even a smart transition team could prepare that many documents between the election and being sworn into office. Such preparation was a sophisticated game plan that had to be prepared by special interests, years in advance. Alternatively, since the Democrats were certain they would win in 2016, maybe it’s a Hillary Clinton plan that Biden adopted. She had eight years during the Obama administration to develop it?

While this is wild speculation on my part, it was weird how Biden won. Keep in mind he lost all the early primaries finishing 4th in Iowa, 5th in New Hampshire, and 2nd in Nevada. In two previous runs for president, he never won a primary and never received 1% of the vote.

Did magic really happen when Congressman Clyburn endorsed Biden? Or was it a very intentional deal that gave Joe Biden exactly what he wanted – the title of president for his tombstone in return for letting an unknown power control the presidency?

Reports had the “wheels coming off the Biden campaign” as the South Carolina primary debate was underway. Biden was stumbling and fumbling in the first part of the debate. Clyburn reached Biden during a break in the debate and reminded him of his commitment, which obviously he forgets – to announce he would nominate minority women to the U.S. Supreme Court if elected president. Biden merely mimicking Clyburn’s wishes during the debate, earned him Clyburn’s endorsement. The other leading candidates, other than Bernie Sanders, immediately vanished. Biden easily won the Democrat nomination.

From the position of long-term, historic loser to being elected president on the endorsement of one man is the scenario as close to magic as can occur in politics.

Perhaps Joe Biden won on his promise to unify the country? Unfortunately, from the moment he took office he abandoned that promise and set out to aggressively further divide the nation. He immediately opened the southern border to anyone, including gangs, drug smugglers, human sex traffickers, and people with coronavirus in the middle of a pandemic. All actions are contrary to majority public opinion.

As to discovering the cause of the pandemic, information desperately needed to prevent future pandemics, Biden firmly refused to press China on its origins, leaving China free of all responsibility. When reality started to bite, Biden capitulated to mounting evidence that the lab in Wuhan might be a source of information. Following Biden’s lead, Facebook courageously withdrew its ban on discussing the origins’ of Covid-19. Who makes these decisions?

Polls find 79% of parents want in-school learning for students. Biden promised that would occur in his first 100 days. Unfortunately, Biden sided with the teachers’ unions to keep many schools closed for a year while promoting the preaching of Critical Race Theory as part of the curriculum.

Biden promised to be the “labor union president” yet on energy policy, he canceled the permits for the Keystone XL pipeline which reduced long-term oil supplies and put thousands out of labor union workers out of work. Hackers took out the Colonial pipeline, dramatizing the fragility in our energy supply system. Biden however, continued to reduce oil and gas supplies, an action that only helps Russia sell more oil and gas. Why?

Biden’s obsession with massive spending obstructs analysis of China’s surging economy, its goal of surpassing the U.S. as the world’s top economy. Foreigners commit cyber espionage against our government on a regular basis while we invest taxpayer money in achieving racial equity in science, and Teachers’ Unions push to dumb down math so poor achieving students feel better about themselves.

These policies are antithetical to most Americans. So why is a president who ran as an uniter being so divisive? Is this the work of Biden, if so, we really didn’t know you Joe for those fifty years in public life?

A more realistic answer might be the obvious one. Big Business, usually Republican, and Big Tech and Big Labor, usually Democrat, combined efforts to defeat Trump, a threat to their business models. Why?  This answer may be in front of our eyes. Big Business wants open access to China, its cheap or even slave labor, and a market of over a billion consumers. Big Tech wants to avoid the promised Trump regulatory clampdown for its censorship of conservative viewpoints. By remaining free of liability for its control of the Internet, Big Tech is free to misinform, mislead, propagandize and censor based on its political goals. And, combined Big Business and Big Tech have the power to ensure any proposed tax reform to pay for Biden’s dreams, is nothing but a dream. Corporations and the wealthy have reduced their taxes since Reagan was president; those reductions will continue.

Big Labor wanted cash to shore up bankrupt pension funds drained by union corruption.

In the Time Magazine article The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election, the author proudly describes the inner workings of a little-noticed cabal between the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (representing big business, including Big Tech) and the AFL-CIO. (Big labor). The cabal’s goal was to secretly “…influence voter perceptions, change voting rules and laws, steer media coverage, and control the flow of information” [received by voters], to elect Democrats.

Based on the efforts and contributions of Big Business, Big Tech, and Big Labor, the cabal achieved its purpose – it changed the voting system by changing, in the middle of election season, laws and regulations governing the election, generating negative media coverage of Republicans, and controlling the flow of information voters were able to receive. To this day, social media prohibits many types of political information from conservatives that it views as objectionable. In an opinion piece by James Freeman of the Wall Street Journal, he notes “…that the most consequential use of this censorship tool in 2020 was an abusive blocking of true information.”

Big Business secured trillions in subsidies and 4 – 7 trillion dollars in interest-free money from the Fed. Big Tech preserved its immunity from lawsuits, leaving it free to continue manipulating and censoring the flow of information in the United States. The unions received the bailout money. The Teachers union secured one year of no-school days for teachers while inflicting psychological harm on many students. The Bigs won!

So, again, who runs the United States?  Who will make decisions should China take over Taiwan? Who is pushing Biden to give Iran billions in cash to ease its financial hardships as it builds nuclear bombs and flies drones over Afghanistan to disrupt U.S. withdrawal? Who is responsible for allowing thousands of drug or sex traffickers into the nation? Does anyone in the Biden administration care about the massive national debt?

The American people will never know the answer to – who is running the U.S. – until mainstream media decides to look at the Elephant in the room.

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  • Joe Biden: Will he be the 21st c. James Buchanan?

Joe Biden: Will he be the 21st c. James Buchanan?

Willliam L. Kovacs

March 2021

Joe Biden: Will he be the 21st c. James Buchanan?

For those unfamiliar with the name James Buchanan, he was the nation’s 15th president. Most historians consider Buchanan the nation’s most inept and worst president. His term of office was 1857 – 1861, the years before the Civil War when our nation was deeply divided over the issue of slavery. Instead of working to bridge the divide, Buchanan, not only allowed regional tensions to fester, he lobbied the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold slavery and advocated for Kansas to join the union as a slave state. Within months after the end of his presidency, the Civil War ignited.

Today, president Biden, like Buchanan, is governing a nation deeply divided over racial equity, wealth inequality, massive debt, open borders, and illegal immigration. Biden has adopted a governing stance similar to Buchanan’s, do nothing to heal the divide and tear off any remaining stitches holding the union together. Taking this path begs the question: Will Joe Biden be the 21st century James Buchanan?

The philosopher, George Santayana wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Comparing the campaigns of Buchanan and Biden, the promises each made, and the intentional avoidance of both presidents to address extraordinary tensions in the nation, we can only hope that president Biden finds the courage to change course before it is too late.

Biden and Buchanan: both lifetime politicians

Buchanan and Biden both had long careers in politics before assuming the presidency. Buchanan was a member of the Pennsylvania legislature, a Congressman and Senator from Pennsylvania, Secretary of State, and Ambassador to Great Britain and Russia. Biden was literally in government his entire life as a Senator from Delaware and vice president of the U.S.

Biden and Buchanan ran similar campaigns for president

Buchanan and Biden were regular contenders for the Democrat party nomination throughout their careers. Buchanan sought the presidency in 1844, 1848, 1852 and finally secured the nomination in 1856. Biden unsuccessfully sought the Democrat nomination for over thirty years, pitifully losing primaries in 1988 and 2008. Finally, in 2020 he secured the nomination.

Buchanan and Biden found excuses to avoid discussing the divisive issues facing the nation. During the 1856 campaign, Buchanan was serving as Ambassador to Great Britain and could not actively campaign for president. His campaigning was limited to writing letters pledging to uphold the Democrat platform. Biden used the pandemic as an excuse to sit in his basement in Delaware.

An even more odd similarity, neither man strenuously sought the presidency in the year they secured their nominations. Rather both relied on others to make them look acceptable. Simply, by avoiding active campaigns and any discussion of the issues, Buchanan and Biden secured the Democrat nominations in troubled times.

Buchanan’s two primary opponents were harmed by taking strong positions on the slavery issue. President Franklin Pierce held pro-slavery views and Senator Stephen Douglas was the primary sponsor of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, a law allowing for popular sovereignty over the slavery issue in the new territories. Its passage resulted in violent uprisings causing Pierce and Douglas to lose large numbers of convention delegates from the north and west. Additionally, Buchanan promised to only run for one term, allowing his supporters to tell Douglas that support for Buchanan would help him secure the nomination in 1860.

Buchanan was perfectly positioned to take advantage of the chaos. The prominent historian William Cooper described Buchanan as a “[A] smooth, pleasantly dull [northern] conservative,” having “ideological ties to the South.”

Biden had many primary opponents and a rocky path to the 2020 nomination. He finished poorly in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada to Bernie Sanders, an articulate, energetic, socialist. Biden’s candidacy was in “roadkill” and “also-ran” status until Congressman James Clyburn (D-SC) endorsed him in the South Carolina primary. Clyburn’s endorsement gave him huge support from the black community and delivered Biden’s first-ever primary win in thirty years of running. In fact, it was the first time Biden had ever received more than 1¼ % of the vote, his high in 2008.

The deal sealing the Clyburn endorsement, however, was Biden’s willingness to follow Clyburn’s instructions and publicly announce in the South Carolina presidential primary debate that he would nominate a black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court. With that promise, Biden collected on Clyburn’s offer and won South Carolina with 49% of the vote. From that time forward, the Democrat Party lined up behind Biden, whose competitors, except the socialist Sanders, dropped out almost immediately.

Like Buchanan, Biden was out of sight most of the campaign. Buchanan rarely addressed the riots over the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Biden did not address the riots in major U.S. cities. Biden ran a “bunker strategy” from the basement of his home. He made few statements or public appearances. And like Buchanan, he was far from exciting. His personality is described as driven to seek approval, wanting others to view him as a friend, and often praised and flattered others as an image of goodwill. Buchanan and Biden, seemingly nice guys achieved victory based on avoidance of the issues and promises to support specific people in the future.

Now that Biden is President, does he continue to track Buchanan’s disastrous presidency?

While Biden promised to unify the nation, his initial presidential actions are throwing gasoline on the flames of division, just as Buchanan did in his initial months in office. In just two months Biden:

  1. issued 43 Executive Orders and Presidential Memorandum that reversed almost every policy and de-regulatory enactment of the Trump administration;
  2. demonstrated his support for socialist environmental proposals, by canceling Trump’s major permit approvals for billion-dollar oil and gas pipeline projects, and for drilling on federal lands, decisions that terminated tens of thousands of good-paying jobs and revenues for energy-producing states;
  3. rejoined the Paris Climate Accord, a policy that will result in massive regulatory controls on U.S. energy and manufacturing industries; thereby increasing the costs of consumer purchases;
  4. immediately stopped construction of the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico and literally opened the borders of our country to unlimited illegal immigration, the operation of drug cartels and foreign terrorists;
  5. pushed through a massive $1.9 trillion dollar spending bill under the guise of Covid-19 relief, yet less than ten percent of the monies went to pandemic-type efforts. The remaining ninety percent went to state and local governments, schools, unions, child tax credits, Obama Care subsidies, and supportive corporations;
  6. continuously blaming the Trump administration for every problem of the Biden administration, including the riots at the Capitol, the mess on the southern border and the lack of vaccines;
  7. supported the first impeachment of a president after he left office, and the first time ever a president was impeached twice;
  8. allowing the continued censorship by big tech of conservative media and speech; and
  9. is open to the use of “Truth Commissions,” a group of government officials to investigate the activities of the Trump administration and other Americans deemed objectionable. Historically these commissions press (i.e., pressure) individuals to reveal so-called, hidden facts outside of the established constitutional proceedings. These types of tactic are generally used in authoritarian and third-world countries to punish political opponents.

These first two months of the Biden administration point to the use of massive federal powers to punish those deemed objectionable, to pilfer the treasury of the nation to reward friends, to censor differing political opinions, and to impose a massive number of new regulations on the American people. All actions meant to divide rather than unify. All actions without one single vote from an opposition party.  Buchanan acted to divide the nation. He caused horrible harm to the nation. Hopefully, president Biden will return to his stated belief in unity before it is too late?