Uh Oh! Where Is Joe?
Peek-a-boo! There he is!
Since President Biden struggled through his debate with former President Donald Trump on June 27, 2024, there has been much discussion among both conservative and liberal pundits about his figurative “absence.” There is an absence of faculties, an absence of vigor, an absence of coherence, and an absence of leadership. As rumblings got louder in the weeks that followed that major Democratic donors were looking for alternatives to Biden, the excuses for his weak debate performance seemed to get punier — he had “a really bad cold.” Then began the public calls for Biden to step aside.
The writing was on the wall and, after years of the mainstream media covering up Joe Biden’s deteriorating health, his supporters were starting to turn on him. On July 5th, Biden said he would not withdraw from the race and his press secretary confirmed on July 9th that he was committed to serving a full second term if he manages to beat Trump. On July 11th, Biden made the internationally public blunder of referring to Ukrainian President Zelenskyy as “President Putin” during the NATO summit (absent of mind, for sure). On July 15th, in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, Biden acknowledged that he would be open to stepping down if he was diagnosed with a medical condition. Only two days later, the White House reported that Biden tested positive for COVID (again, despite reportedly being vaccinated and boosted multiple times).
Then, on Sunday, July 21, 2024, President Biden withdrew from the 2024 election. At the time, it had been a couple of days since he was last seen in public, but then he was absent from the public eye for several days afterward. Rather than holding a press conference or providing some other public explanation of his withdrawal, his announcement was delivered by letter — and not even on White House letterhead. The letter was just sort of dropped on us, only a short time after Biden expressed that he was troubled by the “revolt” within the party. It is all quite strange.
Where is our nation’s leader? Well, he finally emerged to speak from the Oval Office on July 24, addressing the public to explain that he is stepping aside for a younger generation. Despite speculation that he may be in hospice, it appears he was indeed taking time to recover from his illness. Biden missed several high-visibility meetings this week, and not just because he had to go to bed (as was reportedly the case when he skipped a meeting on July 9). During this time, it is not like he has not been signing things — did you know that in his absence, Biden recently (July 22) delegated authority to Secretary of State Blinken to confiscate and use frozen Russian assets? Hmm. Interesting timing. Anyway, our nation’s leader has not been present — and not just last week. And even the mainstream media might finally be waking up to (or just finally being honest about) the fact that he has not been fully present for a couple of years. So, who has been calling the shots? If Biden was calling the shots, he would still be running for president in 2024, wouldn’t he? At least according to his own words. He was consistent about that until that unusual letter appeared.
Also, what was his explanation for why he dropped out? Well, he did not give a reason, did he? Is COVID the only reason our president remained silent for so long following the… what descriptive term would you use… coup d’etat?
Assault on Democracy
Yeah, coup d’etat. This was a coup, according to the most revolting criminal on cable news, progressive propagandist Joy Reid. Yes, she is a criminal in the humble opinion of Meet Me in the Middle (read our most recent article for further details, but a man is dead because of the heavy-handed commentary that has stoked irrational fears for years). In her recent July 22 episode of her propagandist television program, ReidOut, Ms. Reid called out Nancy Pelosi and Hakeem Jeffries for leading a “coup” against President Biden. She of course also managed to refer to Donald Trump as “a fascist cult leader who has vowed to be a dictator on day one” while simultaneously discussing the Democrat’s “push to oust Biden.” Rational observations might lead one to understand that Trump’s following is not at all a cult, even if there are followers who support him in a cult-like manner, but a product of terrible political practices by the two parties for generations.
Quick sidebar: We all know Joy Reid is a monster of epic proportions, but she is not the only one who has beat the dead horse on the “vowed to be a dictator on day one” hog wash. Did you know that the conversation she references is one in which Trump literally said, “I’m not a dictator”? He made the point that he was going to do what other presidents (even those inexplicably beloved by the deceitful media — presidents such as Obama and Biden) have done upon taking office (you know, ON DAY ONE). He was talking about reversing policies of his predecessor. Trump is acknowledging that it is a “dictator” move to create policy without going through the legislative branch. So, yeah, Donald Trump was a dictator on his first day in office and will be again if he wins. Obama was a dictator. Biden was a dictator. Harris or Kennedy will be if either of them win, too. AP News reports on it here if you don’t believe it. The vow was to ONLY be a dictator on Day One, not that he was vowing to be a dictator STARTING on Day One. They got it all wrong and they know it. They are liars and frauds — and they know that too. Joy Reid. Rachel Maddow. All of MSNBC. They are evil. Please do not ever give them the benefit of your attention.
The point is that even the partisan propagandist network of MSNBC is calling it a coup d’etat. The Democratic elite are overtly unseating the President of the United States of America in his bid to run for another term, despite his consistently professed desire to do so. The Democrats are sidestepping the democratic process in which WE THE PEOPLE are supposed to be able to elect our government leaders. When a recent president by the name of Trump allegedly tried to circumvent the democratic process, it was an INSURRECTION. It was an ASSAULT ON DEMOCRACY. It was the greatest attack on liberty we have ever seen. Now these monsters are taking the right from the people to select who represents the Democratic Party in the next election. And it did not just start. Robert Kennedy Jr. was driven out of the party because the Democrats would not allow a fair primary election process. The Democrats do not care about you or what you want! They are dictating the choice of Americans! They are hypocrites and they are at least as evil as they would have you believe Trump is.
They are, however, really good at convincing the masses that it is the other side who are evil (and they may very well be evil, as well). At this point, it is unimaginable how anyone can vote for any candidate who aligns ideologically with these cretins.
Nancy Pelosi and her cronies kept saying in recent weeks, “We are waiting on the President to make a decision” about the 2024 election. Simultaneously, Biden continued to emphatically communicate that he was running. His decision was made. However, his decision was simply not the right decision for the Democratic elite. Then, per the New York Times, “Nancy made clear that they could do this the easy way or the hard way,” according to a Democrat “familiar with the conversations.” Previously, Biden said it would take “the Lord Almighty” to make him withdraw from the race. Per the NYTimes insider, “Once she weighs in, it’s done. He wanted the Lord Almighty. Well, this is the Lord Almighty.” Nancy Pelosi is the Lord Almighty? Good Lord! Well, it looks like that is the influence that Nancy Pelosi wields. And even left-leaning NYTimes is acknowledging that this was a coup. But it does not stop there…
Even liberal extremist group Black Lives Matter has publicly declared the Democratic Party to be the “party of hypocrites”! The group stated, “We do not live in a dictatorship. Delegates are not oligarchs. Installing Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee and an unknown vice president without any public voting process would make the modern Democratic Party a party of hypocrites… Black Lives Matter demands that the [DNC] immediately host an informal, virtual snap primary across the country prior to the DNC convention in August.” Wow. Black Lives Matter, a group that actually incited riots in numerous cities, just called out the Democratic Party for installing a black woman as a presidential candidate. It is hard to believe that the Democrats are too corrupt for even BLM.
If you are still buying that anyone other than a Democrat is guilty of an attack on democracy, stop fooling yourself. That is all political theater. Democrats are doing it all out in the open and it can no longer be denied.
If You Blinked…
There was a lot of news in recent weeks, including an assassination attempt, a Republican VP pick, an incumbent president bailing on his bid to get re-elected, and the anointment of a new Democratic presidential candidate without any say from the voters. With all of that going on, you might have missed the July 15 news about a federal judge’s dismissal of the case against former President Donald Trump in which it was alleged that he mishandled sensitive government documents after the end of his presidential term.
Trump’s lawyers filed to dismiss the case in February in what detractors considered to be a far-fetched bid to “scuttle” the case. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon (a Trump appointee) granted the Trump legal team’s request to dismiss the indictment based on the funding and appointment of special counsel Jack Smith being unlawful. Judge Cannon explained in a lengthy order that the U.S. Constitution “gives to Congress a considered role in determining the propriety of vesting appointment power for inferior officers.” She went on to explain that “The Special Counsel’s position effectively usurps that important legislative authority, transferring it to a head of Department, and in the process threatening the structural liberty inherent in the separation of powers.”
Special Counsels are appointed when there is a conflict of interest. They are intended to ensure that the process remains independent of any political influence. When the executive branch is investigating itself (when the Department of Justice is investigating a sitting president, for instance), a Special Counsel is appropriate to ensure that there is no undue influence that one might expect when one is investigating one’s boss. In the case of the Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appointment of Jack Smith, there is no rationale for appointing a Special Counsel to prosecute a former president since there is no issue of independence or conflicts of interest. So far it seems that this ruling only impacts the case involving the classified documents found at Mar-a-lago. However, it could also impact the January 6 case against Trump, which is also being prosecuted by unlawfully appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith.
We here at Meet Me in the Middle are no legal experts, but we do have some other qualifications that lend credence to our interpretation of Judge Cannon’s ruling; specifically, we can read. That does not seem to be the case for Washington Post associate editor Ruth Marcus, who tried to make the case that Judge Cannon ignored precedence in her opinion article, Trump-named judge brushes aside decades of special counsel rulings. However, this author’s propaganda leaves out one important detail: in her ruling, Judge Cannon went into excruciating detail to address precedence (thereby not brushing it aside, wouldn’t you agree?). Judge Cannon dedicates more than 13 of the 93 pages in her order to an explanation of why the specific precedence to which Ms. Marcus refers does not apply in this case. [Side note: As we review legal cases and rulings like this (including multiple other misinterpreted cases in the past), we have learned that supposedly “partisan” or “conservative” judges attacked by the deceitful media tend to be much more thorough in their explanation of the law and the crafting of their rulings than the truly partisan “journalists” that propagate deceitful misinformation about those judges’ rulings.]
Now, there is an appeals process that will surely unfold from here. It could get overturned. It could also make it to the Supreme Court. If it does, we already have some insight into how at least one justice, Clarence Thomas, will rule. In Justice Thomas’s concurrence on the January 6 immunity case, he wrote, “I write separately to highlight another way in which this prosecution may violate our constitutional structure. In this case, the Attorney General purported to appoint a private citizen as Special Counsel to prosecute a former President on behalf of the United States. But, I am not sure that any office for the Special Counsel has been ‘established by Law,’ as the Constitution requires.” He also explains how the Constitution establishes how “an office may be created and how it may be filled,” as spelled out in the Appointments Clause (Article II, Section 2, Clause 2). Per the Appointments Clause, a Department Head like Attorney General Garland may appoint someone to office only if Congress has expressly vested that authority to the Department Head. In this case, Congress did not do so.
Oh Joy…
The news of Judge Cannon’s ruling came a week before the previously referenced hate-filled rant from Joy Reid (a daily occurrence — if you want hate in your heart, watch MSNBC), in which she referred to Trump as “the twice impeached, multiply indicted felon, adjudicated sexual abuser and failed former President Donald Trump.” First, the impeachments amounted to nothing more than a waste of taxpayer dollars while simultaneously steering our lawmakers’ collective attention away from more pressing matters. They accomplished nothing more than providing bullets for the weapons of Ms. Reid and many other pundits, who continue to spit out their hateful commentary for a submissive audience who fails to take the time to step outside of their own echo chamber to gain a fresh perspective on what is actually happening in the world.
Second, he was not proven to be a sexual offender — a much lower standard of culpability is required in civil cases (jurors need only feel guilt was “probable”) as compared to a criminal case (jurors must be convinced “beyond a reasonable doubt”). It is not that we are trying to defend the man — but we prefer to provide complete context, as opposed to Ms. Reid, who prefers only to spew divisive malicious poison. Trump was not convicted of a criminal act in the case of the alleged sexual battery. But, fair is fair — Ms. Reid carefully constructed her sentence to say “adjudicated” sexual abuser. But let us be honest, there is some serious contextual omission going on there.
Ms. Reid also mentioned his multiple indictments on felony counts, which are almost certain to be overturned. So, while we are at it, let’s try to keep score on the ever-unfolding saga of the Trump trials:
Classified Documents Case – dismissed
Federal J6 Case – this case is in peril after the federal immunity decision and the dismissal of the Classified Documents Case
Manhattan Hush-Money Case – currently awaiting sentencing but the conviction is in peril due to unconstitutional basis of decision and partisan judge, and the conviction is in peril due as Trump lawyers have pushed to have conviction overturned following Supreme Court immunity ruling
Election Case in Georgia – Trump may very well be in trouble on this one, but it may not mean much if he gets elected
The historic and unprecedented legal assault on Trump continues, but it has taken some major hits in recent weeks — and he may come out on the other side looking pretty much squeaky clean, at least from a legal standpoint. The unbridled hate from the liberal mainstream media continues to reach new lows. No matter the outcome of the legal battles, the hate will persist, and the rhetoric will pick up that this presidential race will be between a criminal and an attorney who once prosecuted criminals. The political theater continues to be like nothing we could have imagined.
Stay tuned… also, it might be a good time to refill our popcorn!
Goodbye Biden
So, it is official. Biden is stepping aside in hopes that someone else can convince America not to vote for Trump. There will be much said about his lengthy career in politics, but expect the deceitful media to take a celebratory posture rather than being honest about his history in which he was completely opposed to many of his firm stances of today. For now, let’s focus on a few key points that his speechwriters had him make in his Oval Office address. As we address these claims individually, please think about how many you thought were true.
“I’ll continue to lower costs for hard-working families, grow our economy.”
Well, Joe, not all of us are getting bonus cash flowing in from businesses in China, Ukraine, and other foreign countries like you are. Some of us experience the pain of expensive groceries and high gas prices. The stock market might be doing OK, but that means nothing to the working men and women who cannot afford to invest and whose labor is what is driving the success of the stocks.
“I’ll keep calling out hate and extremism.”
Hate? Like the hate that comes oozing out of the MSNBC hosts? Like the hate-fueled commentary from CNN? Liberalism and progressivism has nurtured a culture of hate and, since the Democratic Party is the party of liberalism, the Democratic Party is the party of hate.
As we highlighted earlier, even extremists like Black Lives Matters are calling out the Democrats. That is an indicator that you are more extreme than the extremists.
“I’m going to call for Supreme Court reform because this is critical to our democracy.”
Interestingly, Biden’s former press secretary, Jen Psaki, discussed this comment on MSNBC. She said that it struck her when he talked about reforming the Supreme Court and added, “This is not a phrase that would have come out of the mouth of President Joe Biden even while he has been President Joe Biden.”
But Joe has turned things over to others in power. He is simply not in charge. He was never in favor of ruining one of the last functioning institutions in our democracy, but he is a puppet and someone else is pulling the strings.
“I will keep working to ensure America remains strong and secure and the leader of the free world.”
China recently negotiated a union between rival Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah. Per the New York Times, this union “represents an opportunity to promote an image of Beijing as a peace broker and an important player in the Middle East.” Seems like a missed leadership opportunity for Team Biden.
The BRICS nations (named for core members Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — which includes four of the top ten most populous countries in the world) have been in discussions about establishing their own currency for well over a year, which introduces the prospect of competing with the US dollar for the global reserve currency. The Biden administration has watched as Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates joined BRICS earlier this year, strengthening the group’s global position.
Does that sound secure? Does that sound like what the “leader of the free world” should be allowing to happen? Perhaps if Biden had been a little less absent…
“I’m the first president in this century to report to the American people that the United States is not at war anywhere in the world.”
Tell that to the American soldiers killed in Jordan earlier this year.
And are we to understand that US special forces soldiers in Ukraine do not count as the United States being at war anywhere in the world?
The US is funding and arming the Ukrainian war effort. Nice try, Joe. We know better. We are definitely at war.
“When I came to office, the conventional wisdom was that China would inevitably surpass the United States. That’s not the case anymore.”
Is that because China already surpassed us in the last three and a half years?
Militarily, the US may have the edge in technology, but China is closing the gap and has the numbers in terms of manpower and money.
”We’re also working around the clock to bring home Americans being unjustly detained all around the world.”
Have you ever heard of an American named Gonzalo Lira? He died in a Ukrainian prison earlier this year. He posted on X that, “My crime was making videos critical of the West and their proxy regime in Kiev—and how they are destroying Ukraine.” Joe did say “unjustly detained.” Perhaps we are to assume that Biden and his administration considered Lira’s imprisonment “just”? After all, the Biden administration has a profound history of denying free speech. With all the money the Ukrainian government has mooched from the U.S., was it impossible to get an American guilty of expressing himself (free speech) released from the prison of one of Biden’s buddies, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy? Not impossible at all.
“We were in the worst pandemic in the century, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War, but we came together as Americans, and we got through it. We emerged stronger, more prosperous and more secure.”
The night Biden was elected, he promised more unity. In fact, we emerged from the pandemic more divided, more fractured, more in debt. Biden illegally required government employees to take an experimental medication, a policy which was also extended to government contractors. Our country has declined in global power. Our people are more economically, socially, and emotionally fragile. No, Joe, we are not stronger or more prosperous. And secure? You mean more secure thanks to the millions of illegal immigrants, many of which are committing violent crimes on our soil? Riiiiiight.
“Today we have the strongest economy in the world, creating nearly 16 million new jobs.”
We already had the strongest economy in the world, but it is not currently stronger than it was when the pandemic ensued.
“Wages are up.”
To keep up with inflation, perhaps?
“Inflation continues to come down.”
Inflation has stagnated at or above 3% for the past year. It was well below 2% for the last year of the Trump administration.
“The racial wealth gap is the lowest it’s been in 20 years.”
The problem with these kinds of claims is that the best data is at least a year old. The latest data show that the racial wealth gap has grown since the end of the Trump administration. So, that is what we would call more Biden misinformation.
“We finally beat Big Pharma after all these years, to lower the cost of prescription drugs for seniors, and I’m going to keep fighting to make sure we lower the cost for everyone.”
As far as his Big Pharma claims go, at least he did not mistakenly claim that he beat Medicare like he did during the debate. He is definitely a teleprompter speaker.
The truth is that both the Biden administration and the preceding Trump administration set Big Pharma up for perhaps the greatest windfall in history. Yes, Biden takes all the credit for the vaccine (which has demonstrated a growing list of side effects), but Trump initiated Operation Warp Speed to streamline the approval process. The two administrations effectively created the greatest wealth transfer in the history of humankind by funneling so much of the U.S. taxpayers’ money to Big Pharma.
When Joe’s speechwriters prompt him to say, “We beat Big Pharma,” they mean that they managed what was arguably “the most significant” drug pricing reform in years in the form of the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law in 2022. How significant was it? The Medicare negotiation process kicked off in 2024 and they have set prices for a grand total of ten drugs and the government price controls will go into effect in 2026. If that’s not laughable enough, the manufacturers of these drugs are naturally challenging the legal basis for the government assuming this power — and they will likely win, but only because it was illegal. So far, not a single American has benefited from Biden “beating” Big Pharma, and there likely never will be one.
So, there you have it — a realistic look at Biden’s (or his speechwriters’) grandiose and baffling view of his accomplishments. The reality is just a little too difficult to overlook. Americans are smarter than you give them credit for, Mr. President. We can see the truth. We can feel the truth. And this entire administration has been full of bologna the entire time.
Bringing It On Home
Even before the June debate, Trump had Biden beat. Trump did not even have to try very hard in the debate to completely end Biden’s political career. Republicans knew Biden would lose. Democrats knew Biden would win. So, was it a strategic mistake for Trump to agree to such an early debate? Debates among the “finalists” usually don’t happen until later in the election cycle. Participating in such an early debate gave the Democrats plenty of time to execute their coup and install their handpicked replacement. And we know why the Democratic Party did not give America a voice in the primary process, don’t we? Because they are desperate to hold onto power. They will do anything to hold onto power. Well, anything but earn it.
As we creep closer to Election Day and as the presidential election landscape takes shape, it is a good time to ask ourselves an important question: What do we want from politics? What do you want? What is your vision for the role of the federal government in your life? Do you want the federal government more involved in your life or less? To ask that question a little differently: Do you want to give up more of your individual freedoms to the government or do you want to maintain more of your individual freedoms? Do you want the federal government to have more of your wealth or less? Do you trust the federal government to be a good steward of the money that you provide in taxes? After all, Senator Chuck Grassley reported in 2018 that the Obama administration spent $43 million on a gas station in Afghanistan (!!) and the Trump administration’s DoD was purchasing toilet seats at a price of $10,000 a pop. So, sure, let’s trust the government to spend our wealth wisely.
Government should serve you and should take strides to make your life better. When was the last time you felt a positive impact from a decision made by the federal government? Has funding wars in distant lands made your life better? Does your government create more opportunities for you to have the good things or less opportunities? Do you want things to be better for you and for others? Most people do. Do you really think Kamala Harris or Donald Trump will get you there? Do you think either will unite our society in any meaningful way?
More and more people are waking up to the fact that the Democrat Party is ultra corrupt and their policies are absolutely terrible from a social perspective, from an economic perspective, from a foreign policy perspective, and even from a climate change perspective. Their policies are terrible from every perspective imaginable. It would be a safe bet that every single person who is currently going through this awakening is probably thinking, “But I can’t vote for Trump!” But can you actually vote Democrat?
Are the societal norms that either liberals or conservatives have successfully implemented in many places taking us in the direction that you want us to go? Do you want people and organizations with power and influence to be the ones that control what you understand to be “truth,” even if it is untrue? Do you believe that parents should decide how children should be raised, or should government institutions make those decisions? Take a look at our nation’s declining global standing in education (not even top 10 in the world), which is a direct result of government influence.
Do you feel like the Democrats rigged the primary process by bypassing democracy to give Biden the nomination in the first place? If so, do you believe it was to cloak his physical and mental condition and to obscure his cognitive decline? Do you feel like the installation of Kamala Harris as the Democrat nominee is a violation of democracy? Do you feel like the Democrats have shown a lack of integrity on the scale that the mainstream media would have you feel is characteristic of Donald Trump? If they are all so corrupt, can you see yourself voting for any of them — especially when there is a candidate of substance running as an independent?
While Kamala Harris is now claiming that hers is a “people-powered campaign,” we know the truth that her nomination is actually powered by a cabal of elite Democrats who just ousted the sitting president. In this “Bringing It On Home,” we peppered you with questions to prompt some thoughtful consideration. But we have one more set of questions: have you ever met a true-blue Kamala Harris supporter? Do you know anyone who supported her in her previous presidential campaign and thought she was qualified to be president in 2020? Do you know anyone who were hoping she would be the candidate in 2024? Do you know anyone who can honestly claim they are impressed by what she has “accomplished” during her Vice Presidency?
We correctly predicted last week that Biden would withdraw from the presidential race. We will leave you with another prediction: Kamala Harris will be the first female president, the first female black president, the first president of Jamaican descent, and the first president of Indian descent. Democrats love their identity-politics, and we have far too many identity-based boxes to check with Harris for them to risk her not getting to the Oval Office. We have seen that it is all up to the Democratic elites — not President Biden and certainly not the voters. The follow-on to that prediction is that it will happen before January, after Biden steps down from the presidency. Harris will be sworn in, but she will never be elected president. Just you watch.
As we continue on this wild roller coaster of a presidential race, remember to stay calm, stay rational, stay true to your principles, and please — PLEASE — stay awake to the shenanigans of the institutions of power.