The first 100 Days of Joe Biden

Hello this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 21st of May 2021 and, on this Report, I will be talking about the first 100 days of the Biden Administration. These are the halcyon days for the administration, at least traditionally, and we should therefore take a look at how things are going and what has been accomplished.

Things are going well for the Castle family as we start the transition away from a masked society to an unmasked one. So far so good for us here in the River City, but in California, the family daughter continues under the reign of Governor Gavin Newsome, but all things said we are all doing well.

The Hundred Days

The first 100 days are traditionally a time of idyllic peace and goodwill for an incoming new president. The press does not question him too forcefully and he is allowed time to get his bearings and adapt to being emperor of the world. However, when a President signs 33 executive orders within one week of taking office, most on the first day, he has in my opinion, waived any right to favorable treatment he might otherwise have had. He has, essentially, converted himself from executive leader to chief legislator in one week. His actions were in violation of the Constitution so his first action after taking office was to violate his oath of office.

Worse than Jimmy Carter?!?

I saw a meme the other day that sums up the Biden Presidency to date, “From energy independence for the first time in 50 years to gas shortages in 4 months. Quite an accomplishment.” Now, let’s let former President Trump put his two cents worth in:

I see everybody is comparing Joe Biden to Jimmy Carter. It would seem to me that is very unfair to Jimmy Carter. Jimmy mishandled crisis after crisis, but Biden has created crisis after crisis. First there was the Biden Border Crisis (that he refuses to call a crisis), then the Biden Economic Crisis, then the Biden Israel Crisis, and now the Biden Gas Crisis. Joe Biden has had the worst start of any President in United states history, and someday, they will compare future disasters to the Biden Administration—but no, Jimmy was better!

My guess is that a lot of Democrat politicians secretly see that quote and say that they hate him more when he is right. There is a lot of correct information in that quote if you leave out the references to Jimmy Carter, and the worst in history which is impossible to know or judge. Let’s look at some of the allegations one at a time and see if we can find any truth in any of them.

The Joe Biden Border Crisis

The Biden Border Crisis seems to be virtually all Joe Biden’s fault or at least the fault of those puppet masters who manipulate the strings. Estimates are that more than 100,000 have crossed the border in the first 100 days. I would like to say they crossed illegally but the truth is that they were invited. I believe the first executive order that the new president signed was one completely opening the borders to anyone.

That means to anyone from anywhere not matter what their intentions were upon entering this country. No one was permitted to inquire about those things. Tens of thousands of children without parents have crossed the border and thousands were being held in cages at the border until the Federal Government could find employees from the departments of Interior and Agriculture among others who would agree to take care of these children. Twenty state governors have told the administration that their states cannot take any more illegal immigrant children.

What does this say about Mexico?

What kind of country allows parents to send small children across a desert without any escort to try to find someone to take them into America. What kind of leader would allow that? I wonder if it has occurred to anyone besides me that the entire border disaster gives the lie to the idea that America is systematically racist and cannot be reformed because it is in white DNA, i.e., Critical Race Theory. A lot of Mexican people don’t seem to see that or at least they don’t mind. They are willing to cross deserts, endure hardships for months or years just for the opportunity to get here.

Joe Biden refuses to acknowledge it

The border invasion, invited by the Biden Administration, is a catastrophe of epic dimensions. How can you have a country if you are unable to decide for yourself who crosses your border and who doesn’t? If I want to be open and inviting to people in my home, I at least reserve the right to decide for myself who sleeps there. Other than diluting Republican voters and adding more Democrat voters I don’t see why a man would so callously devalue his own country. Last Sunday, May 16th the New York Times reported that people from 160 different countries have been seen crossing the border from Mexico into the United States. It’s so irresponsible and uncaring it would be hard to overstate it.

During the time when this crisis at the border has been happening the administration has refused to acknowledge it or refer to it as a crisis. Oh, the President did appoint Vice President Harris to handle it, but she has refused to even visit the place. I guess it might be a little rough and nasty for her sensibilities. Once again, the Democrats insist on being protected from the damage their policies cause. In fairness the Vice President agreed to “look into” what was causing all these people to want to leave Mexico as if poverty low wages, no opportunity versus a wonderful country with tremendous piles of free money was not obvious. Results from the border crisis, there is no border.

The Joe Biden economic crisis

The second crisis that we listed was the economic crisis. Here our President is caught on the horns of a dilemma. He is squarely in the middle of what the press during the Carter years referred to as the misery index. By that I mean the big three, interest rates, inflation, and unemployment all in double digits at the same time. Interest rates need to go up to chill inflation especially on critical items such as food and fuel, but the Federal Reserve cannot raise rates right now. Biden is doomed if he does and doomed if he doesn’t so the prospects look rather difficult and very bleak.

Inflation is raging right now, and anyone can see it. Food and fuel are skyrocketing due to supply chain problems, energy production problems, and transport problems, but primarily to flooding the country with excess money. Also, to factors such as the virus and to insane environmental policies and Democrat grandstanding on pipelines. Inflation of fuel and food prices cannot be allowed to accelerate until food stamps will not buy enough to feed a family or the administration is risking violence and chaos. The way to kill inflation when it is running away is the way Paul Volcker did it when he was Fed Chairman under Reagan. When he took office in 1981 inflation was at about 15% and by 1983, he had it down to 3%.

How Paul Volcker killed inflation

He was able to accomplish that because he had the backing of Reagan and he was not afraid to be hated. He was hated by those who knew that it was going to cause pain to cure the disease caused by others, but to not endure the pain meant the death of the patient. He raised interest rates to 20% so that the housing industry dried up and unemployment ran above 10% for awhile and the economy sunk into temporary recession.

The plan took about 3 years, but it worked, and it launched an economic boom that resulted in Reagan being reelected in a landslide. Right now, if the Fed, at the urging of the administration, raised interest rates to counter inflation it would put the government on shaky ground regarding debt service. According to the Office of Management and budget, this fiscal year’s spending is projected at $4.829 trillion of which $378 billion is debt service or 7.8% of the budget. That is without the trillions in new spending authorized by the administration and with interest rates at current near zero levels.

Raising taxes won’t do it

To halt inflation as Paul Volcker did by raising rates the rates would have to go up significantly until debt service ate most of or at least half of the budget. Instead, the administration will try to accomplish it by raising taxes at the same time they are pumping new money into the economy. The administration is on a dangerous knife edge balancing act that will be very difficult to come out of without disaster.

And now – a Joe Biden Gasoline Crisis

The gas crisis takes us back to the meme about the transition from energy independence to gas lines. President Biden canceled the Keystone Pipeline with an executive order on his first day which was obviously to send a symbolic message. I suppose the message both symbolic and real was that we would reject energy independence in favor of foreign purchases. Never mind that the foreign purchases involve alliances with the Saudis and a constant military involvement in the ethnic Middle East Wars.

Canceling the pipeline dooms the US to foreign dependence unless, of course, the utopian dreams of green energy materialize to save us. For the government officials elected to represent us to tell us that we must completely alter our way of life so that in 10 to 15 years we will all be electric hopefully falls on deaf ears. The recent ransomware attack on the Pipeline that services the East Coast sent much of the Eastern US into gas lines. The recent freighter that bottomed in the Suez Canal disrupted 12% of the world’s shipping. The lesson in all this is that energy and food supplies are fragile right now and bureaucratic blocks are what we don’t need.

The Memphis-Arkansas Bridge and its bottleneck

The bridge that spans the Mississippi River from my city of Memphis to the Arkansas side with Interstate 40 has been discovered to have a crack or fault in it, so it is closed. All cross-river traffic is diverted to the old bridge which causes massive traffic jams, and this will continue for months at least. Barge traffic was temporarily halted upriver and more than 1000 barges carrying materials from all over the world into the nation’s heartland stopped. The result is that people are becoming aware of rapidly increasing prices and panic is being seen just around the edges.

In addition to disruptions in the supply chain, and the necessity to send troops into other peoples’ ethnic disputes the efforts to shut down American production costs 10’s of thousands of jobs. When told that those high paying jobs in the oil fields are being lost the new climate czar, John Kerry, reportedly said that they could work in the solar fields. An honest answer would have been that we don’t really care what happens to them, but we will create some computer blips and give them away so that everyone will vote Democrat because we are generous not like those tight-fisted Republicans.

About electric vehicles

What about the end of the internal combustion engine the President keeps talking about? Are you in favor of that and do you own a Tesla or some other electric car? Well, neither do I and from what I understand those cars are of rather limited range which would serve to limit the mobility of Americans. First you tell us that we can’t fly but if we do, we have only limited destinations then you tell us not to drive but if we do the trip must be very short. In the meantime, you have your armored limousines, and your air force jets all funded by the labor of hard-working Americans. I hope that someday enough of us get sick of it to stop putting up with it.

Conclusion

In conclusion, propaganda, Critical Race Theory, cancel culture, woke culture and other such idiocies are all subjects for another day. The issue of the deep divisions within American society so that we no longer are one people with a common purpose is all on the Obama Biden Administrations. They have not been content just to divide us, no, they could not rest until we all hated each other. My assessment of the first 100 days is a disaster of epic proportions. The legacies of Barack Obama and Joe Biden will be that they made the American people hate each other. With regard to President Biden he did it in only 100 days.

Finally, folks, how could President Biden, make things worse than he already has? It would be a tough task, but I’ll wager he is up to it. He could start a war with Russia or China. That would certainly make things worse.

At least that’s the way I see it.

Until next time folks,

This is Darrell Castle.

This article appeared on the author’s own site and appears here by permission. – Ed.