February 15, 2024 | www.joplinglobe.com
A masterpiece of duplicity is President Joe Biden. You would assume that after decades in the Senate, he would have gained some knowledge of how to legislate. But no. Instead of making any attempt to actually solve the border crisis, he puts up a weak, glorified illegal invasion management bill — not to stop illegals, just to manage them better and faster.
First, the timing couldn’t be more perfect. It’s an obvious play to try to appease Republicans and independents to capture more votes. But he couldn’t even do that right. Instead, he attached other priorities to it, rendering it a quadruple failure.
It’s a simple analysis. It should have been obvious to him not to tie his other priorities to a meaningless border bill. Republicans obviously were going to have an issue with it. And they did. Going forward, he will be in turmoil as he attempts to secure even more funding for a foreign war in which the U.S. has no obvious strategic stake.
It is common knowledge that the border has nothing to do with laws but everything to do with the whims of the current executive. In today’s radical politics, the border is either open or it is closed. Migrants are either coming into the United States in droves or they’re being stopped whenever possible. By implementing executive orders, for example, President Donald Trump halted the influx of migrants, maintaining total migrant encounters of 1.3 million over a 24-month period. Biden, however, repealed and reintroduced provisions that transformed the border and Border Patrol into a processing station for illegals rather than a barrier or point of entry. This not only increased encounters but practically encouraged them, increasing that amount to 5 million over a similar period.
That is not what any rational elite would desire. A rational elite does not want their country to be overrun by people who inevitably will become public charges — people who will ultimately depend upon the government for assistance at every turn, whether it be for food, shelter or other necessities. Fixing the issue does not require new legislation; all that is required is his determination to safeguard the nation. But perhaps getting more democratic voters is more important to him and his party.
The other thing, objectively, is that this is as good as it gets for him. Ukraine isn’t turning around. We will not reach 2% inflation in the near future. Youth and the left wing of his party refer to him as “Genocide Joe” in reference to Gaza as a result of his party’s inability to control their fringe left-wing sect. Additionally, the number of targets in the region is insufficient to appease the Houthis in Yemen or the Iran proxies in Iraq and Syria with a few explosives. They can only be appeased through troops on the ground — something that he will absolutely not do during an election year, lest he be accused of genocide by his party once more. As a result, those locations will continue to deteriorate.
The border will not recover from its present state of disarray in the absence of critical actions that he continues to decline to undertake. It’s possible that he will argue that all he wants is for Republicans to reject this major bill because it was the “fix,” but the fact that the law was passed so quickly makes his case, at best, tenuous.
Unfortunately for Democrats, Biden’s presidency is marked by a series of miscalculations and missteps, particularly regarding his handling of the border crisis and his legislative strategy.
He has not only failed at every turn but also has increasingly made America a more dangerous and divided place than ever before.
Armstrong Williams is manager/sole owner of Howard Stirk Holdings I & II Broadcast Television Stations and the 2016 Multicultural Media Broadcast Owner of the year.
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