Old Yeller was certainly in fine form on Thursday last. It was a sterling performance: squinty eyes, scowl, jerky mannerisms and the best hey-you-kids-get-off-my-lawn angry old man voice in which to blame Republicans for every problem created by his administration. Which he did, and facts be damned.
It’s now clear why he was so late to the party: it wasn’t the hordes of Democrat Hamas supporters barricading the White House. Joe’s handlers were waiting for the crank to kick in before they poured him into the limo for a trip to Capitol Hill. Sometimes, gauging the proper dose is tricky, particularly when one has to fight Sundowner Syndrome to come up with simulation of real life…
Drugs aside, the speech was one of the more odious among states-of-the-union – a speech usually intended to uplift and unify Americans. Probably because it did neither, while hosing the audience with vitriol.
From the beginning, Joe got it wrong. Casting back to the great clash of the 20th century, he clearly wants us to see him in the same light as FDR – a bit autocratic, but only for our own good. It’s for our own good that Biden’s justice department calls half of America a threat to democracy. That’s why his administration spies on observant Catholics and duck hunters; why his FBI and Treasury Department monitor American citizens’ speech and bank accounts. Why they conspire with those who control both social and legacy media to skew the popular narrative in their direction and to muzzle any opposing voice, no matter how reasoned. That’s why one Joe’s most successful political opponents is beset by a wave of lawsuits based not on crimes but on politics. And in at least two cases these prosecutions appear to be coordinated by the White House.
Sorry. Joe chose the wrong authoritarian thug as a model.
In the minutes that followed, one could be forgiven for mistakenly thinking that the Union Joe was droning on about was the Ukraine, not ours. Theirs are the borders he apparently wants to defend. Our own, he’s content to leave wide open. After all, thinking people remember that Donald Trump closed our southern border against the active wishes of a Democrat-controlled Congress. So when Joe complains about the failure of a “bipartisan border bill” negotiated in secret which collapsed the moment the full Senate saw what it really said, we should all understand that he wants the funding not to stem the assault but to speed up the processing of illegal entrants into the country, where they can wait for the next step – a Democrat-party-proposed amnesty, with voter registration to follow.
If one is seeking a “bipartisan border bill,” why not instead demand the Senate take up HR2, the “Secure the Border” bill which the House passed to the Senate in May of 2023 – where it has languished. Chuck Schumer daren’t bring it to the floor, because it would pass – and our borders would for all intents and purposes be closed to illegal entrants henceforth.
The doublespeak is so thick even George Orwell couldn’t cut it.
A major portion of the speech was devoted to what the Democrats clearly see as their saving issue – Roe v. Wade and preservation of the sacred right to kill unborn children. Yep, that’s what it is; no reason to sugar-coat it. The Democrat party is absolutely Hell-bent (no pun) on assuring that every American woman, and as many more as we can finance anywhere else, should be assured the right to kill her unborn child anytime, for any reason, right up to the point of birth. Or maybe a little longer in some instances; we know that happens too, so no one should be clutching their pearls right now.
There was an economic section in the speech too, but it was of a quality one would have expected from a writer of fiction and based on government statistics which have proven surprisingly mutable. It did contain a recurrent theme, however: the excoriation of “big business” and a concurrent demand that it “pay its fair share” of the tax burden. Which is a pretty rhetorical trick, nothing more. For proof, show me a concrete figure Joe has ever proposed as “fair.” It doesn’t exist; it’s one of those political chestnuts like “racism” and the world ending at a conveniently future point that Democrats love to drag out when they feel the argument is not going in their favor.
According to the Tax Foundation in 2023 (’22 incomes) the uppermost 1% of taxpayers paid 42.3% of all income taxes. The top 10% paid 73.7%. The bottom 50% of taxpayers paid exactly 2.3%. These percentages have not changed substantially for decades. So what percentage of income would Biden’s socialist comrades consider “fair?” I’m betting you’ll never hear a number; without one socialist Democrats are free to criticize and caricature, without the possibility of any real thought on the subject.
Then there was the “illegal migrant” imbroglio. The sordid facts are widely known: Jose Ibarra, 26, his wife and child entered Texas illegally through Biden’s open border in May of 2022. They eventually would up in New York, where he was arrested for child endangerment. The couple broke up and Jose, who seems to have had gang ties to MS-13, moved to Atlanta, where on February 22 of this year he encountered Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student out for a morning run. For reasons not yet clear, he beat her to death. He was arrested for the crime shortly thereafter.
Dealing with the tragedy, the White House’s utter moral bankruptcy was on full display. In an impromptu moment during the State of the Union speech, Biden referred to the killer as an “illegal,” which prompted an explosion among the usual suspects among “progressive” democrats. From Rep. Ilhan Omar’s juvenile “No human being is illegal,” to Rep. Chuy Garcia’s “extreme disappointment” at the use of the term, the Democrat party’s real leadership were aghast at their sock-puppet president’s gaffe.
He duly recanted the following day. In an interview with MSNBC he said “… I shouldn’t have used illegal, I should’ve… It’s undocumented.” When asked in followup whether he regretted the use of “illegal,” he answered simply, “yes.”
He hasn’t yet apologized for mispronouncing the first name of the victim. Apparently, she’s not as important as the feelings of her illegal migrant killer. Yes, “illegal.” It refers to Jose Ibarra’s first act upon entering the United States, not to his existential qualities as a human being if there are any other progressive Democrats out there as dense or obdurate as Reps Omar and Garcia.
Then we had the White House’s attempt to disavow the president’s regret. No, it absolutely wasn’t an “apology,” announced White House press spokesperson Olivia Dalton. Evidently “I shouldn’t have…” and “regret” have different meanings in Ms. Dalton’s universe.
Yes, Old Yeller was clear about few things last Thursday:
– He thinks Ukraine’s border is worth protecting, but ours is not.
– He thinks half the country is a menace to Democracy because it disagrees with him, and he
will use the Judicial branch of the Federal government against it.
- He thinks the only natural right worth defending is the right to kill unborn children.
- He thinks wealthy and successful people should pay more taxes – even though his son has
not, for years.
– He prefers those who have entered the country illegally to its citizens, saying the former
“built the country.”
– He blames others for his mistakes and their outcomes – even those that are directly fatal.
On November 5 of this year we will all have a chance to tell Old Yeller whether or not we agree. And I certainly hope we say we don’t.