The challenges ahead (Biden's America)

[N.E. Brigand]

President Biden met yesterday in San Francisco with China's leader, Xi Jinping, for what media reports describe as a modestly productive discussion. Biden issued a statement saying that he believes China and the U.S., while disagreeing about many issues, can "compete responsibly."

When asked after the meeting if he would still describe Xi as a dictator, Biden said, "Well, he is," and correctly noted that China is a Communist country without democratic procedures. When Donald Trump as president took heat for referring to Xi as "brilliant," he replied that he obviously was brilliant because he "runs 1.4 billion people with an iron fist."

The Chinese government is upset that President Biden yesterday affirmed his prior description of Xi Jinping as a dictator.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Did you happen to see the face of Secretary of State Antony Blinken when Biden said that?

[N.E. Brigand]

Did you happen to see the face of Secretary of State Antony Blinken when Biden said that?

That's great! Here's a real photo from 2012 that someone has captioned in light of something else Biden said about his meeting with China's president:

[Frelga]

I mean... Does Xi object to bring called a dictator? Also what kind of a non-serious gotcha question was that? Biden couldn't possibly say that China is a democracy. It doesn't claim to be one.

[RoseMorninStar]

I agree Frelga. The question was a bad one because there was no good answer. I've heard Xi doesn't particularly like being called a dictator but that's previously what he is, a communist dictator. Even if Biden had diplomatically sidestepped the question people would have taken exception and accused him of avoiding the question.

[N.E. Brigand]

In the U.S., the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner this year, measured as a percentage of the "typical worker's weekly earnings," has fallen from where it was the previous two years and is equal to the average cost from 2017 to 2019.

[N.E. Brigand]

Lauren Gurley of the Washinton Post reports that "Ford, GM & Stellantis workers have voted by 64% in favor of ratifying their contract deals, the United Auto Workers union says. The contracts offer larger wage increases than UAW workers have received in the past 22 years combined."

[N.E. Brigand]

As you know, a theme of my posts in this thread is media tendencies to downplay Joe Biden's accomplishments. In that vein, I appreciated this analysis by media commentator David Roberts of a recent Washington Post article about Wisconsin voters for what it accidentally reveals. These voters are frustrated and exhausted by politics in general because "the broader political backdrop — the impeachments, Trump’s torrent of falsehoods about the 2020 election, the Capitol insurrection, the band of hard-right Republicans ousting their speaker — has blocked out notice of what both sides cast as accomplishments". In other words, they're upset at Republican malfeasance but either don't know it or won't say it. What do these voters want? "They long for compromise. They want to feel heard and understood. Most Americans, for instance, desire access to abortion, tighter restrictions on guns and affordable health care. Many wonder why our laws don’t reflect that." They want what Democrats are offering! But they either don't know it or won't say it. One person interviewed said, "I can’t really speak to anything [Joe Biden] has done because I’ve tuned it out, like a lot of people have. We’re so tired of the us-against-them politics."

Roberts proposes what could have been a different way to present this article: "'The right's quest to make politics toxic and to destroy citizens' trust in basic political and media institutions is working.' The lead anecdote is about a woman seeing a psychic for answers."

[N.E. Brigand]

In the U.S., the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner this year, measured as a percentage of the "typical worker's weekly earnings," has fallen from where it was the previous two years and is equal to the average cost from 2017 to 2019.

Reality didn't stop Fox News last night from letting former congressman Jason Chaffetz -- who just seven years ago was the chair of the House Oversight Committee -- claim that because of what President Biden has supposedly done to the economy, he had to pay $90 for a turkey this year.

At an average price of $1.25 per pound, that means he bought a 72-pound turkey.

"What, the one as big as me?"

[River]

Was it organic, raised outdoors, and sung to as it died or something? Or is he including some fancy single-malt he bought with the turkey? Kinda like the guy who complained about the price of his airport lunch...that included a glass of single-malt whiskey.

[RoseMorninStar]

Organic hen turkeys were $3.49 per pound at Costco. $90 would be a 25-26 pound turkey. I'm sure a regular shop or purchased directly from a farm, they would be even more expensive. But yeah, that strikes me as duplicitous and elitist because one realizes he's not talking about a run-of-the-mill turkey most people are buying/can afford.

[Frelga]

At my, generally reasonable but not bargain basement, grocery store, I could get 18lb of fresh organic turkey for $75. Or 20lb of fresh "natural" turkey for $40. Large chain stores also seem to charge just under $2/lb for non-organic birds.

[N.E. Brigand]

CNBC reports that U.S. gas prices this Thanksgiving, expected to average $2.25 per gallon, will be lower than they have been for this holiday since 2020 (when they dropped to $2.11 per gallon because of the Covid-19 pandemic and associated economic shock). I'm not sure how much connection there really is between gas prices and the popularity of an incumbent president or the president's party. The price was about $2.90 per gallon when Barack Obama won reelection against Mitt Romney in November 2012. The price was about $1.50 per gallon when Hillary Clinton, a member of Obama's party, lost to challenger Donald Trump in November 2016. The price seems to have averaged about $2.00 per gallon for most of Donald Trump's presidency prior to the pandemic. It spiked to $4.25 per gallon in May 2022, some 18 months ago.

Edited to add this bit from the Wall Street Journal article I quoted in the Roe v. Wade thread: "Kelvin Vasquez, 36, a strongly Republican father of two in New York City, said that if people have children and can’t afford it, they start relying on the government to make ends meet. 'Five years ago, I filled up my tank with $25,' he said. 'Now it’s like $40 or $50.'"

Is he lying or does he just not remember? The average price for gas in 2018 was about 80% what it is now. If he was paying $25 then, he's paying about $32 now. If he's paying $40 now, then he was paying about $32 then. If he's paying $50 now, then he was paying about $40 then.

[N.E. Brigand]

This could also go in the fraud thread, but since it was announced by Joe Biden's Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen:

"U.S. Treasury Announces Largest Settlements in History with World’s Largest Virtual Currency Exchange Binance for Violations of U.S. Anti-Money Laundering and Sanctions Laws" (Treasury Department).

"Remarks by Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen at Press Conference Announcing New Treasury Action Against Illicit Finance" (Treasury Department).

"CEO of world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange pleads guilty to money laundering violations" (CNN).

That cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, has agreed to a "FinCEN settlement of $3.4 billion and OFAC settlement of $968 million". (FinCEN is the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and OFAC is the Office of Foreign Assets Control.) Yes, that's a total of nearly $4.4 billion. Additionally, Binance's chairman, Changpeng Zhao, "one of the most powerful figures in crypto," will step down and will pay a fine of $200 million. Secretary Yellen says:

Our work revealed that Binance claimed to have exited the U.S. market years ago, but actually did not, retaining U.S. users and other significant ties with the United States. It also had critical gaps in its anti-money laundering program and practices, from a lack of risk-based procedures for various offerings to instructing staff to withhold information from law enforcement. It deliberately undermined its own sanctions monitoring controls, and it failed to report suspicious transactions.

This meant Binance was allowing illicit actors to transact freely, supporting activities from child sexual abuse, to illegal narcotics, to terrorism, across more than 100,000 transactions. That includes transactions associated with terrorist groups like Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Al Qaeda, and ISIS. Binance processed these transactions, but it never filed a single suspicious activity report. And it also allowed over 1.5 million virtual currency trades that violated U.S. sanctions. ...

Binance is also required to report the suspicious transactions it has failed to report to date and to establish an effective anti-money laundering program to support the global AML/CFT regime. And the settlement agreements subject Binance to increased scrutiny for five years through a third-party monitor, overseen by FinCEN, who will ensure Binance’s complete exit from the United States. The monitor will be able to access Binance’s systems, transactions, and accounts and will review and report on all actions included in the settlement agreements. Failure to live up to these obligations could expose Binance to substantial additional penalties.

The result of these agreements will be an end to company behavior that has posed risks to the U.S. financial system, U.S. citizens, and our country’s national security for too long.

[RoseMorninStar]

CNBC reports that U.S. gas prices this Thanksgiving, expected to average $2.25 per gallon, will be lower than they have been for this holiday since 2020 (when they dropped to $2.11 per gallon because of the Covid-19 pandemic and associated economic shock). I'm not sure how much connection there really is between gas prices and the popularity of an incumbent president or the president's party. The price was about $2.90 per gallon when Barack Obama won reelection against Mitt Romney in November 2012. The price was about $1.50 per gallon when Hillary Clinton, a member of Obama's party, lost to challenger Donald Trump in November 2016. The price seems to have averaged about $2.00 per gallon for most of Donald Trump's presidency prior to the pandemic. It spiked to $4.25 per gallon in May 2022, some 18 months ago.

Edited to add this bit from the Wall Street Journal article I quoted in the Roe v. Wade thread: "Kelvin Vasquez, 36, a strongly Republican father of two in New York City, said that if people have children and can’t afford it, they start relying on the government to make ends meet. 'Five years ago, I filled up my tank with $25,' he said. 'Now it’s like $40 or $50.'"

Is he lying or does he just not remember? The average price for gas in 2018 was about 80% what it is now. If he was paying $25 then, he's paying about $32 now. If he's paying $40 now, then he was paying about $32 then. If he's paying $50 now, then he was paying about $40 then.

I'm going to go with he is conveniently misremembering. Most people don't recall the gas prices of a particular week - they'll recall a particularly high or particularly low price they paid during a general time frame (an administration, for example) and make that comparison favorably or unfavorably as it fits their narrative. I recall gas at one point in the Bush administration topping $5.00 a gallon because it cost my daughter so much to drive to a job where they'd only have her work 2 hours that it wasn't worth it. That didn't last the entirety of the Bush administration but it sure stuck in my mind.

For what it's worth, gas here is $2.94 for regular.

[N.E. Brigand]

From the Axios story to which I just linked in the Israel-Hamas thread:

"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier Tuesday that he had spoken to President Biden in recent days and asked him to help improve the deal. 'It was improved so that it will include more hostages for a lower cost,' Netanyahu said. 'President Biden helped and I thank him for that.'"

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Facts, and alternative facts.

[N.E. Brigand]

Multiple outlets are reporting on a Financial Times story that the U.S. government thwarted the attempted assassination of a Sikh activist on American soil and that the Biden administration advised the government of India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, that the U.S. has reasons to believe the plotters have ties to his administration. A few months ago something similar happened regarding a different Sikh activist in Canada. Both activists are separatists who want to carve a separate Sikh state out of India, and it does sound like they may have made some extreme statements worth investigating (the targeted American seems to have implied that it wouldn't be safe to fly on Indian airlines because of his activities, although he says he was just calling for a boycott), but obviously Canada and the U.S. can't stand quietly by and let foreign assassins operate on this continent.

[N.E. Brigand]

Wow, that car in Niagara Falls was airborn.

[N.E. Brigand]

Organic hen turkeys were $3.49 per pound at Costco. $90 would be a 25-26 pound turkey. I'm sure a regular shop or purchased directly from a farm, they would be even more expensive. But yeah, that strikes me as duplicitous and elitist because one realizes he's not talking about a run-of-the-mill turkey most people are buying/can afford.

Chaffetz eventually posted an image of the price label, and as one wag has quipped, the price was so high because he bought a woke turkey.