Beginning Research on Biden

Unofficial Reverand Alex · Nov 1, 2021

I recently asked for prayers before doing political research; a little prayer & peace before getting involved in politics seems like a good idea. Now that I've begun the research, this thread will be an ongoing compilation of the best information I can find. This helps me keep organized, and I pray it helps others be informed.

I'm beginning with things I heard about already, digging a little deeper to make sure when I heard is accurate, and having links to share is more useful than trying to find a newspaper article from 2 weeks ago.

First issue was the Equality Act. I wanted to make sure I understood Biden's stance on it, and he makes it quite clear in his own press release:

Statement by President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. on the Introduction of the Equality Act in Congress | The White House

As a dissenting opinion, I found this article to be meticulously well done. I haven't been impressed by a lot to what I've seen in the Federalist, this is a very well done article, constantly citing the source (very important) and various precedents related to it. I tried to dodge opinion sources, as this seems to be, but if you can defend your opinion well, I'm willing to hear it.

5 Things To Know About The Extremist ‘Equality Act’ The House Passed

If you're interested in the source text & tracking it's progress, GovTrack compiles information on bills very nicely.

Equality Act (H.R. 5)

Another thing I heard about was issues at the southern border, especially regarding Haitian refugees being turned back in mass numbers. Unfortunately, this seems to be true:

Biden Admin's Handling Of Haitian Migrants Is Angering Democrats

Searching the Internet (particularly White House press releases), I found statements from Biden on earthquakes in Haiti over the summer, but nothing more recent, nothing that addresses what the previous article said.

I don't plan to make an opinion on Biden until the end of the week, the earliest. This is just ongoing research, attempting to find the most respectable sources to form my opinion on whether or not this is a man to support, or to respect his office while voting for someone else.

anna ~ grace · Nov 1, 2021

Interesting. Thanks, Alex.

Bradskii · Nov 2, 2021

Unofficial Reverand Alex said:
I don't plan to make an opinion on Biden until the end of the week, the earliest.

So no info after Monday will be considered? Are we talking midnight on Sunday or breakfast on the Monday? I need to know to prepare the details.

Unofficial Reverand Alex · Nov 2, 2021

Bradskii said:
So no info after Monday will be considered? Are we talking midnight on Sunday or breakfast on the Monday? I need to know to prepare the details.

Sunday brunch, to be specific. 11:59am, Eastern Time (US/New York/GMT-5:00), is the precise cut-off. Also the only time I accept input! ^_^

But seriously, giving the end of the week as a time is more a way to keep myself in check than anything. Of course I already have an opinion on Biden, one that's being strengthened in some ways & weakened in others by what I'm finding out. The point is just to rebel against a culture of jumping to conclusions far too quickly. I want to speak an educated opinion, or else I don't want to speak one at all, not to any serious degree. Dig?

Now, to continue today's findings...

One thing I found interesting was the list of priorities outlined by the Biden Harris administration, making it clear which issues are at the forefront of their thoughts. From the other press releases I've seen on the White House website, Covid, environment, and economy are at the forefront, with infrastructure heavily focused on environment (clean energy transit) and economy (jobs in clean energy innovation).

Priorities | The White House

~~~

This one isn't an oft-discussed topic, but libraries are worth mentioning here. I now work at a public library, where I'm not allowed to read books on the job (ironic :scratch:

), but I am allowed to read about libraries on slow days. As I quickly found out, libraries are remarkable prevalent in the political realm, and this proclamation from Biden includes a mention of $200,000,000 being sent out to the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

A Proclamation on National Arts and Humanities Month, 2021 | The White House

In much more detail on libraries, here's an article that explains the value of this money being sent to American public libraries.

Libraries are getting $200 million in stimulus funds. Here's why - CNNPolitics

Working at a little library in a very small town in Indiana, I see a lot of what this article discusses, and more. The Department of Child Services (DCS) uses one of our meeting rooms twice a week for the children being able to meet with their mother who lost custody of them, when she was incarcerated at the same time as her husband. People use our fax machine most every day, often to send paperwork to DCS or senior citizen insurance. I've taught people how to open the Internet, helped them use printers when the one at home poops out, and created a game group to foster a young adult community in a town that has none. We have mobile wi-fi hotspots that people check out regularly, increased the wi-fi range to cover the whole parking lot when the building was closed, and just provide a space where people can use the restroom, read a little news, or for kids to get away from their alcoholic-abusive parents for a time every day. Sometimes, libraries & schools are the only places away from home these kids can go to, and schools have a lot more bullying. :sigh:

~~~

I came across a couple articles in a magazine that I was (fortunately!) able to find online, well-written editorials that helped me see things in a different way. The British perspective was new to my understanding of the Afghanistan withdrawal, and brought up various points from an international diplomacy angle.

Why does Biden care more about the Taliban's opinion than the British?

And this one is a history lesson that I never learned, to the amazement & disappointment of my dad. I was born in '98, and went through some very good public schools with some remarkable history teachers, and still I never learned that the US was active in Berlin.

A tale of two airlifts

~~~

This one references something I'd never heard of, called the African Growth & Opportunity Act. Not sure on the details, but it seems to involve foreign aid to African nations. The gist is that Ethiopia, Guinea, and Mali are being cut off from US support, largely due to these nations' continual human & political rights violations. Having a friend on a Green Card from Ethiopia, this caught my attention, and says "...things are not pleasant back home. African politicians are a real problem for the continent."

A Message to the Congress on the Termination of the Designation of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (Ethiopia), the Republic of Guinea (Guinea), and the Republic of Mali (Mali) as beneficiary sub-Saharan African countries under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) | The White House

Having seen the situation with Hatians, and the drastic pull-out from Afghanistan, I have been increasingly concerned that the Biden administration has been facilitating humanitarian disasters, an accusation I hope to never have reason to make towards any world leader, let alone one in my own nation. Yet the aforementioned preventable crisis over turning back mass numbers of Haitian refugees, along with the headlines across the world on the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, make me deeply concerned that this is what's happening.

In this action towards Ethiopia, Guinea, and Mali, some semblance of cracking down on governments with other humanitarian issues sparks a bit of hope that Biden may be concerned about these things, even if it's hard to see his own drastic faults in this regard. Yet I promised myself to hold off on declaring an opinion for at least this week, so I shall continue research before storming the editorials & disputing with my friends on this matter.

That is all for today. It's really occurring to me just how many angles there are to researching a president. Diplomacy? Military? Covid? Corruption, anger, general stupidity? Whatever it may be, please pray for me & for our president as I continue to try to be educated on him.

c02daf4a97d28d7ae27906733410b847--prayer-quotes-bible-quotes.jpg

Albion · Nov 2, 2021

Unofficial Reverand Alex said:
Biden Admin's Handling Of Haitian Migrants Is Angering Democrats

But the Biden Admin's Handling of Cuban migrants seeking to escape equally desperate economic conditions AND ALSO totalitarian rule didn't seem to result in "Angering Democrats" because the Cubans (like Cuban immigrants of past generations) would be expected to vote Republican rather than Democratic. It's quite the opposite; the Administration ordered them returned to Cuba to be imprisoned by that country's dictatorship.

This, after all, is the only reason that the Administration wants to flood the country with illegal Central American immigrants...because when these are given the vote here, they are expected to vote for the party that gave them 'free everything' at the expense of America's own poor.

Bradskii · Nov 2, 2021

Unofficial Reverand Alex said:
Sunday brunch, to be specific. 11:59am, Eastern Time (US/New York/GMT-5:00), is the precise cut-off. Also the only time I accept input!

But seriously, giving the end of the week as a time is more a way to keep myself in check than anything. Of course I already have an opinion on Biden, one that's being strengthened in some ways & weakened in others by what I'm finding out. The point is just to rebel against a culture of jumping to conclusions far too quickly. I want to speak an educated opinion, or else I don't want to speak one at all, not to any serious degree. Dig?

Now, to continue today's findings...

One thing I found interesting was the list of priorities outlined by the Biden Harris administration, making it clear which issues are at the forefront of their thoughts. From the other press releases I've seen on the White House website, Covid, environment, and economy are at the forefront, with infrastructure heavily focused on environment (clean energy transit) and economy (jobs in clean energy innovation).

Priorities | The White House

~~~

This one isn't an oft-discussed topic, but libraries are worth mentioning here. I now work at a public library, where I'm not allowed to read books on the job (ironic ), but I am allowed to read about libraries on slow days. As I quickly found out, libraries are remarkable prevalent in the political realm, and this proclamation from Biden includes a mention of $200,000,000 being sent out to the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

A Proclamation on National Arts and Humanities Month, 2021 | The White House

In much more detail on libraries, here's an article that explains the value of this money being sent to American public libraries.

Libraries are getting $200 million in stimulus funds. Here's why - CNNPolitics

Working at a little library in a very small town in Indiana, I see a lot of what this article discusses, and more. The Department of Child Services (DCS) uses one of our meeting rooms twice a week for the children being able to meet with their mother who lost custody of them, when she was incarcerated at the same time as her husband. People use our fax machine most every day, often to send paperwork to DCS or senior citizen insurance. I've taught people how to open the Internet, helped them use printers when the one at home poops out, and created a game group to foster a young adult community in a town that has none. We have mobile wi-fi hotspots that people check out regularly, increased the wi-fi range to cover the whole parking lot when the building was closed, and just provide a space where people can use the restroom, read a little news, or for kids to get away from their alcoholic-abusive parents for a time every day. Sometimes, libraries & schools are the only places away from home these kids can go to, and schools have a lot more bullying.

~~~

I came across a couple articles in a magazine that I was (fortunately!) able to find online, well-written editorials that helped me see things in a different way. The British perspective was new to my understanding of the Afghanistan withdrawal, and brought up various points from an international diplomacy angle.

Why does Biden care more about the Taliban's opinion than the British?

And this one is a history lesson that I never learned, to the amazement & disappointment of my dad. I was born in '98, and went through some very good public schools with some remarkable history teachers, and still I never learned that the US was active in Berlin.

A tale of two airlifts

~~~

This one references something I'd never heard of, called the African Growth & Opportunity Act. Not sure on the details, but it seems to involve foreign aid to African nations. The gist is that Ethiopia, Guinea, and Mali are being cut off from US support, largely due to these nations' continual human & political rights violations. Having a friend on a Green Card from Ethiopia, this caught my attention, and says "...things are not pleasant back home. African politicians are a real problem for the continent."

A Message to the Congress on the Termination of the Designation of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (Ethiopia), the Republic of Guinea (Guinea), and the Republic of Mali (Mali) as beneficiary sub-Saharan African countries under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) | The White House

Having seen the situation with Hatians, and the drastic pull-out from Afghanistan, I have been increasingly concerned that the Biden administration has been facilitating humanitarian disasters, an accusation I hope to never have reason to make towards any world leader, let alone one in my own nation. Yet the aforementioned preventable crisis over turning back mass numbers of Haitian refugees, along with the headlines across the world on the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, make me deeply concerned that this is what's happening.

In this action towards Ethiopia, Guinea, and Mali, some semblance of cracking down on governments with other humanitarian issues sparks a bit of hope that Biden may be concerned about these things, even if it's hard to see his own drastic faults in this regard. Yet I promised myself to hold off on declaring an opinion for at least this week, so I shall continue research before storming the editorials & disputing with my friends on this matter.

That is all for today. It's really occurring to me just how many angles there are to researching a president. Diplomacy? Military? Covid? Corruption, anger, general stupidity? Whatever it may be, please pray for me & for our president as I continue to try to be educated on him.

I commend you for putting in the time and the effort to find out what the government policies actually are. It's not too hard to find out, but as you imply, trying to decide how they will pan out in the real world is entirely another matter. The fact that umpteen people have spent a considerable amount of time formulating even the most straightforward of policies whilst sifting through gargantuan amounts of sometime conflicting information leaves Joe Public at a distinct disadvantage in trying to decide if it's a good idea or not.

For reasons I won't bother going into, I've been thinking of supporting the independent candidate in my area at the next election. But if I'm going to support her policies (which I generally do) then I'll need to get up to speed on why I support them. So I need to start investigating them in detail. And it's not something I could do in a few hours onlne. I've given myself 6 months to become familiar with all the arguments for (and against) them.

Who has time to do that to make a completely informed decision? Hardly anyone. So there's a certain amount of trust involved that the sound bytes we get and the political statements we hear are based on the facts of the matter. But sorting the facts from the spin is almost impossible. Which is why every government needs a good opposition to keep them honest. To spend the time in pointing out the flaws. But which means that we have to listen to the opposition's arguments and honestly appraise them as well as we do to the government's version.

Tough gig, isn't it, Alex...

bekkilyn · Nov 2, 2021

Thank you for this thread, Alex. I haven't been too fond of Biden of late, but one thing I'm liking about his administration is he reversed one of the previous administration's decision to remove regulations that protected migratory birds. Deregulations that harm wildlife and nature, particularly in protected areas, are one of my biggest issues with the GOP in general, and one of the big reasons why I've voted against them even if I agree on some other things. I'm not sure if it's enough to encourage me to vote for him again but then I also don't know if I could ever stomach voting for Trump and all his lunacy. It's all still a ways away though so anything could happen before then.

Tanj · Nov 2, 2021

Albion said:
But the Biden Admin's Handling of Cuban migrants seeking to escape equally desperate economic conditions AND ALSO totalitarian rule didn't seem to result in "Angering Democrats" because the Cubans (like Cuban immigrants of past generations) would be expected to vote Republican rather than Democratic. It's quite the opposite; the Administration ordered them returned to Cuba to be imprisoned by that country's dictatorship.

To clarify then:
Biden sends Haitians back is the exact opposite of Biden sends Cubans back

Fascinating. Also pure fantasy.
U.S warns Cubans away from sea crossings amid protests, but most cross on land

"But Cuban migrants are largely flocking to the U.S.-Mexico land border, not the U.S. coast. And in a sharp break from his predecessor Donald Trump, President Joe Biden has been letting most in"

Kettriken · Nov 3, 2021

Unofficial Reverand Alex said:
I came across a couple articles in a magazine that I was (fortunately!) able to find online, well-written editorials that helped me see things in a different way. The British perspective was new to my understanding of the Afghanistan withdrawal, and brought up various points from an international diplomacy angle.

Why does Biden care more about the Taliban's opinion than the British?

And this one is a history lesson that I never learned, to the amazement & disappointment of my dad. I was born in '98, and went through some very good public schools with some remarkable history teachers, and still I never learned that the US was active in Berlin.

A tale of two airlifts

Good job, trying to research objectively! If you work in the library I would expect no less.
The Washington Examiner is a bad source, no matter how well written their opinion pieces. Check a few more British sources before painting them all with the same brush.

Unofficial Reverand Alex · Nov 3, 2021

Albion said:
But the Biden Admin's Handling of Cuban migrants seeking to escape equally desperate economic conditions AND ALSO totalitarian rule didn't seem to result in "Angering Democrats" because the Cubans (like Cuban immigrants of past generations) would be expected to vote Republican rather than Democratic. It's quite the opposite; the Administration ordered them returned to Cuba to be imprisoned by that country's dictatorship.

This, after all, is the only reason that the Administration wants to flood the country with illegal Central American immigrants...because when these are given the vote here, they are expected to vote for the party that gave them 'free everything' at the expense of America's own poor.

Tanj said:
To clarify then:
Biden sends Haitians back is the exact opposite of Biden sends Cubans back

Fascinating. Also pure fantasy.
U.S warns Cubans away from sea crossings amid protests, but most cross on land

"But Cuban migrants are largely flocking to the U.S.-Mexico land border, not the U.S. coast. And in a sharp break from his predecessor Donald Trump, President Joe Biden has been letting most in"

Immigration from Cuba is something I haven't heard anything about. There's so many issues to know about, even those who obsess over the news can still be clueless on another matter.

Bradskii said:
Who has time to do that to make a completely informed decision? Hardly anyone. So there's a certain amount of trust involved that the sound bytes we get and the political statements we hear are based on the facts of the matter. But sorting the facts from the spin is almost impossible. Which is why every government needs a good opposition to keep them honest. To spend the time in pointing out the flaws. But which means that we have to listen to the opposition's arguments and honestly appraise them as well as we do to the government's version.

Tough gig, isn't it, Alex...

Hard to say when (if?) someone ever truly knows what they're talking about. Too much to learn, too many angles to take in, and the constant possibility that things will work/won't work "against all odds". That being said, I can still get closer to knowing what I'm talking about than where I am now, and that's what I'm trying to do.

bekkilyn said:
Thank you for this thread, Alex. I haven't been too fond of Biden of late, but one thing I'm liking about his administration is he reversed one of the previous administration's decision to remove regulations that protected migratory birds. Deregulations that harm wildlife and nature, particularly in protected areas, are one of my biggest issues with the GOP in general, and one of the big reasons why I've voted against them even if I agree on some other things. I'm not sure if it's enough to encourage me to vote for him again but then I also don't know if I could ever stomach voting for Trump and all his lunacy. It's all still a ways away though so anything could happen before then.

Birds...another topic we never hear about. Immigration & guns & drugs are what they all talk about, but there's issues like birds & libraries that still swing some people's votes. I know there's people who make a living off of determining which issues to harp on the most, though I always have to wonder how accurate they are.

Kettriken said:
Good job, trying to research objectively! If you work in the library I would expect no less.
The Washington Examiner is a bad source, no matter how well written their opinion pieces. Check a few more British sources before painting them all with the same brush.

The Economist & BBC are the British sources I know best. The editorial by Hannan was clearly written by a Briton, but I didn't know the magazine itself was British. In any case, lousy sources can still occasionally put off a good article, and I weigh the merits of a particular argument over the merits of the source it came from; to do otherwise is the typical "ad hominem" logical fallacy.

~~~

As I was occupied today with troubleshooting my computer to burn a CD for my parents' anniversary, there was far less time set aside to research Biden. That's okay, this anniversary gift is a higher priority at this time. Still, I wanted to read a little about him, so here's the letter from the United States Conference on Catholic Bishops (USCCB) on the inauguration of Joe Biden. It addresses a variety of issues, and the USCCB makes their own principles quite clear, something few commentators take the time to do.

USCCB President's Statement on the Inauguration of Joseph R. Biden, Jr., as 46th President of the United States of America | USCCB

Semper-Fi · Nov 4, 2021

Biden Administration Plans to Kill America's Energy Sector | Opinion
Biden administration plans to kill America's energy sector | Opinion
-

'Hard to know where pandemic relief money went,' admits federal spending watchdog
'Hard to know where pandemic relief money went,' admits federal spending watchdog

"It's even harder for us to tell you what it was used for," reports the statutory oversight authority for $5 trillion in federal COVID relief spending. "Government award data is full
of dead ends."

SimplyMe · Nov 4, 2021

Semper-Fi said:
Biden Administration Plans to Kill America's Energy Sector | Opinion
Biden administration plans to kill America's energy sector | Opinion

I'm not sure why we should care about a politically biased editorial written by one of Pres. Trump's senior advisors, particularly when he talks about the "thousands of pipeline jobs" that Biden killed (which has been proven to be a false claim).
-

Semper-Fi said:
'Hard to know where pandemic relief money went,' admits federal spending watchdog
'Hard to know where pandemic relief money went,' admits federal spending watchdog

"It's even harder for us to tell you what it was used for," reports the statutory oversight authority for $5 trillion in federal COVID relief spending. "Government award data is full
of dead ends."

This would seem to be off-topic, as it deals with the pandemic money distributed by Pres. Trump; from the article, "The PRAC was established in 2020 by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act." Joe Biden was not President until Jan 2021. I will agree, there were a lot of questions about how the Trump administration allocated Pandemic relief monies, specifically how they seemed to actively reject any attempt to make them accountable for how and who the allocated that money to.

Citizen of the Kingdom · Nov 21, 2021

Vylo · Nov 22, 2021

The simplest summary of Biden:

Lackluster conservative that is the cause of things like Trump, but was better than Trump so people held their nose.

We can do better, but some people are bent on us doing even worse.

cow451 · Nov 22, 2021

On his worst day, Joe Biden is twice the President Trump was. But Trump set a low bar.

Bradskii · Nov 22, 2021

cow451 said:
But Trump set a low bar.

I read that archaelogical experts have been called in with powerful ground penetrating radar to determine its exact location.

Unofficial Reverand Alex · Dec 6, 2021

Bradskii said:
I read that archaelogical experts have been called in with powerful ground penetrating radar to determine its exact location.

If you set a bar low enough in America, does it become a high bar in China? Just thinking geographically here.

And yes, yes, a truly straight line through the Earth would end up in the Indian Ocean. But come on, who digs a truly straight hole?

DaisyDay · Dec 6, 2021

cow451 said:
On his worst day, Joe Biden is twice the President Trump was. But Trump set a low bar.

Trump made W look impressively presidential.

Beginning Research on Biden

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Newbie

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Well-Known Member

Senior Veteran

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Stick with the King!

Standing with Ukraine.

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I Did Nothing Wrong!! ~~Team Deep State

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