digitalpigsmuggler

Biden’s poll numbers look grim as he preps for reelection bid Joe Biden became president promising a 180-degree turn from Donald Trump. But the two men do have one big thing in common: similarly poor approval ratings heading into the start of their reelection bids. Biden has not yet officially announced he’s running again next year, though he has said he plans to. Polls show his approval rating is hovering in the low 40s, right around the mark where some of his predecessors who were denied second terms sat at this point of their presidencies. According to FiveThirtyEight, Biden’s average approval rating stands at 43 percent, about 9 points lower than his 52 percent disapproval rating. That’s only 1 point higher than Trump’s FiveThirtyEight approval rating on April 15, 2019, at the same point in his one-term presidency. Determining the extent to which Biden’s poor job rating endangers his likely reelection bid is not just an academic exercise. A deep dive into the numbers reveals Biden isn’t just struggling with independents and near-unanimous disapproval among Republicans. He’s also soft among Democrats and left-leaning demographic groups, a weakness that suggests a diminished enthusiasm for his candidacy — though something that could be papered over by partisan voting patterns in the general election. That’s because the possible “alternative” to Biden next November could be Trump, whose personal favorability ratings are generally worse than Biden’s. Even as Trump has expanded his lead in the GOP presidential primary, he remains less popular than his Oval Office successor. For Biden, the polling presents both serious warning signs and reasons to think his peril may be overstated. Here’s why: Biden’s tenuous place in history Biden’s 43-percent approval rating at this juncture of his term puts him roughly even with past presidents who have both won — Barack Obama (43 percent), Ronald Reagan (41 percent) — and lost, like Trump (42 percent) and Jimmy Carter (40 percent). But to underscore how things can change between mid-April of the year before the election and the next November, both George H.W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush, sported high approval ratings at this point. George H.W. Bush was just a couple of months removed from the successful Operation Desert Storm and had an approval rating of 77 percent in mid-April, according to Gallup, which maintains the deepest archives of presidential job ratings. The elder Bush would go on to win only 37 percent of the vote in a three-way race with Bill Clinton (43 percent) and independent Ross Perot (19 percent), owing to economic woes that overshadowed the credit he’d gotten from the first Iraq war. George W. Bush had a 75 percent approval rating in a Gallup poll in mid-April 2003 — about a month into the second Iraq War. He won reelection, though by just 2 percentage points over Democrat John Kerry. For Biden, not only is 18 months a long time, but he faces challenges both foreign and domestic, including slowing-but-persistent inflation and a possible economic recession. Trouble with swing voters Biden ousted Trump from the White House thanks to a coalition that combined the entire Democratic base with key swing groups who don’t identify with either party. But now both blocs show significant cracks in their approval of Biden. Among independents, a group Biden won by double digits in 2020, the president is now underwater by a roughly 2-to-1margin, according to two polls released in late March from Fox News and Quinnipiac University. In the Fox News poll, only 35 percent of voters approved of the job Biden is doing, while 65 percent disapproved. In the Quinnipiac poll, Biden’s numbers with independents are even worse: just 26 percent approve, and 67 percent disapprove. Biden is 17 points underwater among suburban voters in the Fox News poll and 23 points in arrears in a Pew Research Center survey from late March and early April. Swingy suburban voters are a group Biden won narrowly over Trump in both the network exit poll (Biden +2 among suburban voters) and AP Votecast (Biden +10), a voter survey commissioned by The Associated Press and Fox News. Biden won self-described moderates by 20 to 30 points in 2020, but the same group is evenly split on his job approval, according to the Fox News poll: 47 percent approve and 51 percent disapprove. Softness among Democrats and core constituencies Perceptions of Biden’s job performance are uniquely tepid among base voters — Democrats and other left-leaning demographic groups — in ways that his most recent predecessors, Trump and Barack Obama, never experienced. Even as they inspired enmity among members of the opposite party, both Trump and Obama won the same level of approval from their own party. But that’s not happening with Biden. Virtually all Republicans say they disapprove of his job performance — 90 percent or greater in each of the three polls referenced above — but Democrats aren’t answering with their own approval. In the Fox News and Quinnipiac polls, approval of Biden’s job performance among Democrats is around 80 percent. The Pew Research Center survey combines Democrats with independents who say they lean more toward the Democratic Party — still a must-win group for Biden — and finds his approval rating lower, at 67 percent. Moreover, Biden is struggling with key subgroups of the Democratic base. He won around 9-in-10 Black voters in 2020, but only 59 percent of Black respondents to the Pew Research Center poll said they approve of how Biden is handling his job as president. So far, Biden isn’t facing a credible threat for the presidential nomination within the Democratic Party. Should he enter the race, the only announced challengers with any degree of name ID he’d face are Marianne Williamson, who dropped out of the 2020 race before voting began, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of the senator whose most prominent public advocacy in recent years has been against vaccinations (according to the latest Kaiser Family Foundation polling, only 8 percent of Democrats say they won’t receive the Covid vaccine, underscoring how difficult it will be to sell primary voters on an anti-vaccination platform). Still, Biden faces a distinct — and without recent precedent — lack of enthusiasm for his candidacy among Democrats. In a CNN poll from last month, only 68 percent of Democrats said Biden deserves to be reelected next year. In this way, Biden’s approval rating might actually overstate his electoral position: Around 1-in-10 Americans who say they approve of Biden’s job performance, 11 percent, say they don’t think he deserves to be reelected. In other words, they think he’s doing a good job, but harbor doubts about another term. CNN noted that the 11 percent is a greater share than the overlap between Trump and Obama approvers and those who thought they deserved second terms. Those numbers were 3 and 5 percent for Trump and Obama, respectively. But there’s also reason to believe Democrats will come home next November. Even as his approval rating and reelection numbers lag, Biden is still running neck-and-neck with Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in general-election matchups — and winning most Democrats in the process. In the Quinnipiac poll, despite his 80 percent approval rating with Democratic voters, Biden wins 93 percent of Democrats in a head-to-head with Trump and 94 percent in a faceoff with DeSantis. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/15/bidens-base-blues-the-president-heads-into-2024-with-his-party-feeling-meh-about-him-00092190

Nice to see a little hope in the minors.

Egypt secretly planned to supply rockets to Russia The Washington Post obtained access to another document from mid-February, where they found that Egypt had plans to produce 40,000 rockets for Russia in secret. The Post said President Abdul Fatah al-Sisi told officials to keep production and shipment secret "to avoid problems with the West". An official is quoted as saying he would "order his people to work shift work if necessary because it was the least Egypt could do to repay Russia for unspecified help earlier". It is unclear what the earlier help refers to. In January, Reuters reported that Russia's share of Egyptian wheat imports had risen in 2022, offering one possible explanation. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65238951

Lula says US should stop ‘encouraging’ war in Ukraine The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said the US should stop “encouraging war” in Ukraine “and start talking about peace”. In that way, the international community would be able to “convince” the Russian and Ukrainian presidents that “peace is in the interest of the whole world”, Lula told reporters in Beijing at the end of a visit where he met President Xi Jinping. The United States needs to stop encouraging war and start talking about peace. The European Union needs to start talking about peace. https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/apr/15/russia-ukraine-war-live-brazils-president-accuses-us-of-encouraging-war-in-ukraine-after-meeting-xi-jinping The United States needs to stop encouraging war and start talking about peace. The European Union needs to start talking about peace.

Ukraine economy taking a hit Polish government bans grain and food imports from Ukraine https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/polish-government-bans-grain-food-imports-ukraine-2023-04-15/

CIA aware of widespread corruption in Ukraine, embezzlement of US aid, claims Seymour Hersh New Delhi: Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has published a report that alleged the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was aware of widespread corruption in Ukraine and the embezzlement of US aid. The report said the Ukrainian government has been using US taxpayer money to purchase diesel from Russia to fuel its military. The report further suggested that Ukrainian officials are also “competing” to set up front companies for export contracts to private arms dealers around the world. The issue of corruption was raised during a meeting between CIA Director William Burns and Zelensky in January. An intelligence official with direct knowledge of the meeting told Hersh that Burns delivered a stunning message to Zelensky. Ukraine’s long battle with corruption Widespread systemic corruption is steeped in Ukraine long before Russia’s invasion last February. A 2016 report by the watchdog group Transparency International found that between 38 per cent to 42 per cent of Ukrainian households said they paid bribes to access basic public services such as education or healthcare, reported Time. Al Jazeera noted that year Ukraine was the second most corrupt nation in Europe, with Russia being the most corrupt at 136. Ukraine performed slightly better and was placed in 116th position out of 180 nations in the 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index released on Tuesday (31 January). Russia was ranked 137th on the index. “Unfortunately, this type of widespread systemic corruption is complicated to tackle and requires sustained efforts for at least a generation or even more,” Cristian Nitoiu, a lecturer in diplomacy and international governance at Loughborough University, told Al Jazeera in June last year. https://www.firstpost.com/world/cia-aware-of-widespread-corruption-in-ukraine-embezzlement-of-us-aid-claims-seymour-hersh-12448952.html

A federal probe into Hunter Biden's suspected tax and foreign lobbying violations began in 2018, after banks filed dozens of suspicious activity reports (SARs) regarding foreign transactions that were flagged. Some of the SARs involved money funneled from "China and other foreign nations," sources close to the probe tell Fox. "If David Weiss can't have me in front of his grand jury explaining what I know as a witness, that's a fraudulent grand jury," said McCormick. "It's a fraudulent use of the American judicial system to cover for Barack Obama and Joe Biden's crimes in office." https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/joe-biden-criminal-says-ex-obama-whistleblower-alleging-family-kickback-scheme

Violent Videos Raise Questions About Ukrainian Military Recruiters Videos have been posted online showing Ukrainian recruitment officers wrestling with civilians on the streets, and even dragging them into vehicles. The authorities say these are isolated incidents, but a lawyer from Ukraine's Helsinki Committee says there are "quite a lot" of court proceedings against recruitment centers. https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russia-war-recruitment/32310040.html LULZ sure doesn't seem like, "the good side".

Ukraine forces pull back as Russia mounts 're-energised' Bakhmut assault, UK says Ukrainian troops have been forced to withdraw from some territory in the battlefield city of Bakhmut as Russia mounts a renewed assault there with intense artillery fire over the past two days, Britain said in an intelligence update on Friday. "Russia has re-energised its assault on the Donetsk Oblast town of Bakhmut as forces of the Russian MoD and Wagner Group have improved co-operation," it said, referring to Russia's defence ministry and its main mercenary force. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-forces-pull-back-russia-mounts-re-energised-bakhmut-assault-uk-says-2023-04-14/

All that info is public record. You just want to attack the source because Biden has been exposed. Even by America's own intelligence . Ukraine is not going to retake massive amounts of territory. China is providing supplies. U.S. doubts Ukraine counteroffensive will yield big gains, leaked document says https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/04/10/leaked-documents-ukraine-counteroffensive/ US intelligence reportedly warned in February that Ukraine might fail to amass sufficient troops and weaponry for its planned spring counter-offensive, and might fall “well short” of Kyiv’s goals for recapturing territory seized by Russia https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/11/us-ukraine-counter-offensive-pentagon-leaks-reveal A document tagged as “top secret” quoted by the Washington Post said that Kyiv was facing significant “force generation and sustainment shortfalls” and was therefore only likely to achieve “modest territorial gains”. Another document, dated 23 February and seen by the Guardian, gives an overview of the progress of building 12 “combat credible” new brigades to lead the counter-offensive, equipped with a target of 253 tanks and about 1,500 other armoured vehicles of different kinds. Three brigades were to be generated by the Ukrainians alone, while the remaining nine were to be established with the help of the US, allies and partners. The planned brigades were a long way from readiness at the time of the documents, with five yet to begin their training. Six of the brigades had half or less the equipment they needed to hand.

WWIII ESCALATION Ukrainian forces are finding a growing number of components from China in Russian weapons used in Ukraine, a senior adviser in President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's office told Reuters Ukraine says it is finding more Chinese components in Russian weapons https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-says-it-is-finding-more-chinese-components-russian-weapons-2023-04-14/

For $80 Billion (And Counting) U.S. Taxpayers Have Bought A Bloody Stalemate In Ukraine The trove of recently leaked intelligence documents related to the Ukraine war should prompt Americans to start asking tough questions about our involvement in that conflict, which one of the documents, a Feb. 23 overview of fighting in Ukraine’s Donbas region, describes as a “grinding campaign of attrition” that has reached a “stalemate.” U.S. taxpayers have poured nearly $80 billion into this war over the past 14 months. At what point are we allowed to ask whether a “stalemate” in a “grinding campaign of attrition” is a good deal for Americans? https://thefederalist.com/2023/04/13/for-80-billion-and-counting-u-s-taxpayers-have-bought-a-bloody-stalemate-in-ukraine/ 80 Billion for Ukraine but not 5 billion for the wall to keep out drugs and illegal criminals.

RIP Boeing. Jim Kramer just advised people to Buy

Putting American boots on the ground is purely an escalation. No BS spin though. Blank check Biden has done nothing but give the more and more money and further reaching weapons.

Real wages continue to drop. Opponents of Biden should be hammering him on this. Yes, earnings grew an average of 5.2% year-over-year in 2022, which is almost double the pre-pandemic average. But after considering inflation, which averaged 7.1%, workers are finding it harder to make ends meet. This is a big problem for Biden. If real wages don’t turn positive and soon, preferably through a significant slowdown in inflation, then voters will give his administration no credit for all the jobs created. Make no mistake — it only gets tougher for Biden on the jobs front from here. With a significant slowdown in the economy forecast this year, or even a recession, the median estimate of more than 50 economists surveyed by Bloomberg is for the unemployment rate to rise to 4.4% by the end of 2023 and to 4.8% in 2024 — both higher than pre-Covid levels. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-opinion-how-to-assess-joe-biden-second-year-in-office/

LIAR!! Biden wants escalation and a blank check for a stalemate. Biden says putting U.S. troops on ground in Ukraine is 'not on the table' https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-says-putting-us-troops-ground-ukraine-is-not-table-2021-12-08/

Biden wants WW3 Ukraine war: Leak shows Western special forces on the ground According to the document, dated 23 March, the UK has the largest contingent of special forces in Ukraine (50), followed by fellow Nato states Latvia (17), France (15), the US (14) and the Netherlands (1) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65245065

He is not. He is a leftist environmentalist whacko. Trying to claim he is a Republican when he and his entire family have been life long democrats is delusional.

White House Tells Journalists They Have ‘No Business’ Reporting On Leaked Intel https://www.dailywire.com/news/white-house-tells-journalists-they-have-no-business-reporting-on-leaked-intel US was spying on allies, and estimates that the Ukraine counter offensive will be lack luster and only make limited gains. Foolish to think the media will not report on it.

https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/02/28/ex-biden-adviser-said-administration-was-pushing-for-digital-dollar/ YUCK!