The Morning Dispatch: Biden’s Business-as-Usual Nepotism

Plus: The Biden administration OKs Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

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514

Happy Thursday! The Dispatch’s softball team rides again tonight. Time to bring the thunder to the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

  • Overall life expectancy in the United States fell by one-and-a-half years in 2020 per new Centers for Disease Control data, the largest one-year decline since World War II.

  • The United States and Germany announced an agreement yesterday that will allow the Nord Stream 2 natural-gas pipeline connecting Russia and Germany to be completed. The pipeline’s completion will strengthen Russia’s grip on the European energy market, allowing double the supply of Russian natural gas to be shipped westward via a route that bypasses Ukraine, which had urged the United States to impose sanctions preventing construction on the pipeline to finish.

  • House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday rejected two of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s five recommendations to serve on the January 6 select committee, prompting McCarthy to decry the committee as a “sham process” and withdraw all five nominations. Pelosi had said the appointment of Reps. Jim Banks and Jim Jordan would impact “the integrity of the investigation.” 

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  1. Kaybmorrow

    On 8/25/2021, my husband and I celebrated our 65 anniversary, too. Covid kept us homebound this year, too. We are lucky that our son and wife live near us now after having their own life. Adult children are great. Look forward to it.

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  2. B Phillips

    Seems a bit harsh to say the Biden admin replaced the previous admin's swamp with a swamp of it's own. The people you mentioned in the article are not exactly high level positions, and no one related to the president, and all seem perfectly qualified for the job. As far as Hunter goes, I'm not sure what you can do about a private citizen who happens to be related to POTUS. Kind of reminds me of "Billy Beer" back in the Carter days. Good to keep an eye on such things, but I don't see much there.

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    MikeH

    Great article from the Worth Your Time segment today on California. I thought it was well balanced and made some great points, including David French's point from an article earlier this year about the negative impacts caused by the lack of a strong opposition party. I always enjoy the Dispatch team's work, and it's also great to get pointed towards other worthwhile articles that, quite frankly, I never would have stumbled across on my own. Thanks!

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  4. CatoTheElder

    Public Announcement: It has come to the attention of some that I once laughed at a tasteless joke presented by now-deceased comedian Sam Kinison. The joke had to do with world hunger, starvation, and people living in places without much arable land. It was tasteless, cruel, improper, insensitive, and it may have contributed to the utterance and/or performance of tasteless jokes by other comedians, comedy duos, and so forth, even as far away as Japan.

    I apologize for having laughed at the joke, and to those who were hurt by my enjoyment of humor imbued with cruelty. I plan on checking in to a Chinese re-education camp in order to learn how to avoid showing any pleasure at inappropriate humor in the future.

    Again, I'm sorry to have contributed to senseless offenses against people with lesser privilege in life. I hope to see you all on the other side of my re-education. Thank you.

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      Pat Riot

      His routine about being Jesus after spending a "weekend with the boys" was a classic...

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    2. CatoTheElder

      I just received notice that I will be sharing a room with a Japanese man who until recently was working as director of opening ceremonies for the Tokyo Olympics. Apparently, in 1998 he participated in a tasteless humor sketch invoking the Holocaust. Though this was six years after Kinison's death, and probably a decade or so after I laughed at Kinison's joke, I no doubt contributed to the circumstances in which the Japanese comedian/director, Kentaro Kobayashi, made his own insensitive joke. We will no doubt have many things to talk about.

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      1. CatoTheElder

        But there will be no jokes. Humor will not be one of the things up with which the staff at the camp will put. And especially not reruns of "All in the Family".

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  5. ExploreOK

    It's DC, it's a swamp (including in terms of climate), but it could be just a big coincidence that family members are being hired at higher rates than you'd expect.

    It's not the Trump administration. But let's not pretend that wrong is right just because the previous guy set the bar so low.

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  6. Kaybmorrow

    Love that the administration is keeping Canadians out while a million from who knows where are crossing illegally from Mexico with the virus.

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      Bill Nelson

      Blame it on Canada. Better yet, Canadian Bacon. OKLAHOMA!

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      Pat Riot

      There are not millions from Mexico crossing the border with the virus.

      Statistically-speaking, the most dangerous sort of person in American right now, from the standpoint of spreading the virus, is a Republican.

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        Bada Bing

        Small correction-MAGA. Every MAGA may be a Republican but every Republican is not a MAGA.

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  7. Jack Zentrist

    She has a conscience and acts on it.

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    Jen

    Amy Klobuchar has introduced a bill that would make Facebook and Twitter legally liable for covid misinformation. I think David and Sarah have already talked about this possibility and why it would be bad. For me the biggest thing is who gets to define what is misinformation? And what about something like the lab leak theory which at one point I’m sure would have been considered misinformation (and maybe still is by some). I think this bill is a terrible idea and hopefully it goes nowhere.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-22/klobuchar-takes-aim-at-online-covid-lies-with-section-230-bill

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      Pat Riot

      I agree that Klobachar's bill is pure badness for the reasons you mentioned and more.

      The lab leak story, as reported by the Republican Media Complex, *was* disinformation: we really did have *no* significant evidence about this before and that's what the non-Republican press reported. Republicans, meanwhile, broadcasted rumors and conspiracy theories. That there might (and it's still nowhere near conclusive at this point) be evidence is simply a case of a, "stopped clock is right twice a day".

      If a Republican watches a news story about a crime and says, "it was a black dude", and we later find out it *was* a black dude--that doesn't make their statement any less racist.



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  9. Gene

    Does it bother you that the Biden White House has replaced the Trump swamp with a swamp of its own? Yes.

    I’m also resigned to the fact that nepotism and shady wheel-greasing is always going to be a part of our governance, but it’s especially galling when the administration parades its woefully deficient altruism daily.

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      Pat Riot

      Nice try, but Biden is doing no such thing. It's pure partisan blinders to believe that Biden is even remotely in the same universe as Trump was/is.

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      1. Gene

        The way to rationally dispute the specific facts offered by TMD is not with unsupported generalities. And the phrasing, "woefully deficient altruism” is just a dramatic way of saying the same thing. Maybe over dramatic, but just phrasing.

        If one can get past the disgusting speech of Trump, there’s considerable evidence to support the claim that much of his implemented policies benefitted the nation, while that’s a highly dubious claim for Biden so far.

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          Pat Riot

          Yep, you think Trump was awesome for the country and therefore it's in your interest that Biden is every bit as bad as Trump was when it comes to corruption. I get it.

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          1. Gene

            Another unsupported claim: I think Trump was awesome for the country.
            Easy to hurl epithets, but also juvenile.

            Please re-read:
            "If one can get past the disgusting speech of Trump, there’s considerable evidence to support the claim that much of his implemented policies benefitted the nation, while that’s a highly dubious claim for Biden so far.”

            Better yet, let’s discontinue this exchange as it’s unproductive.
            That’s what I’m doing right now.


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  10. Gene

    “The regime is afraid—afraid of betrayal, afraid of people, afraid of other countries, so I’m sure we will come to the point when it will be evident for everyone that [there’s] no future with Lukashenko.”

    If it becomes evident for “everyone”, hopefully they will have sufficient weapons and the will to use them against the regime, or the benefit of crushing sanctions by Western powers against Lukashenko.

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