Beltway Insider: Biden/2024, Clinton, Ukraine/EU, SCOTUS/Roe, COVID/Vaccine Totals, Uvalde, Watergate

Details: Category: Beltway Insider; Published on Sunday, 19 June 2022 15:16; Written by Janet Walker

President Biden, who has confirmed his expected 2024 candidacy, is confronting a swelling group of GOP contenders and even some top democrats who are wondering if he can steady the skyrocketing inflation and stabilize the rocking economy.

The President's job approval rating, according to the website fivethirtyeight.com, for the period ending June 19, 2022 decreased by 0.4% to 39.8% of those polled who approve of his effectiveness as President and those who disapprove of his effectiveness increased by 0.6% to 54.2% of those polled who disapprove of his effectiveness. A slight 3% of the population polled have no opinion. Ratings are calculated weekly.

Beltway Insider: Biden/Bi-Partisan Gun Deal, Ukraine, US Economy COVID/Vaccine Totals, Uvalde

Biden Expected to Run in 2024

President Joe Biden, who became the oldest president at 78 to be elected to lead the nation, has repeatedly confirmed his candidacy for the 2024 Presidential election, and even added, he expects a rematch with former President Donald J. Trump, 76, who by all accounts is expected to mount a challenge.

"Now, the economy appears poised to slow — potentially sharply — in ways that could limit wage growth and cause job losses even as prices remain elevated. But instead of rushing to the economy's aid by giving Americans money, as they did in March 2020, policymakers are engineering this slowdown," reported The New York Times.

With a tanking economy, ballooning gasoline and grocery prices, rising interest rates, Americans, and even some top democrats are wondering if he is the leader to steady the out-of-control inflation and stabilize the rocking economy.

The job market has evened out, with more Americans able to dictate their employment. Even so, inflation and interest rates which, for many Americans who have any debt, will carve out a higher slice of the weekly budget, have created doubt in the leadership.

Unless the economy steadies, inflation rates decline, and gasoline prices fall, it will be hard pressed to convince Americans the current leadership is working.

Securing the Party's Hold

As securing the party's hold on governing the priority, it is important to align the party contenders and sedate any challenges for another four years. The American people need to see a united front to believe the party has unity and has the economy and other pressing homeland issues under control.

The idea that another democrat or an independent such as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who spoiled the 2016 Hillary Clinton run by evangelizing a false doctrine, which resulted in a fractured party vote come November, allowing Trump to secure the election, to appear during the primary season is expected.

Clinton Backs Biden's Re-Election

Former Democratic Presidential contender Hillary R. Clinton, who has ruled out a 2024 run said, "We are standing on the precipice of losing our democracy, and everything that everybody else cares about then goes out the window. Look, the most important thing is to win the next election. The alternative is so frightening that whatever does not help you win should not be a priority," Foxnews.com reported.

The expectation is the President Biden will announce his candidacy in Spring of 2023, and it is expected that Vice-President Kamala Harris will also remain on the ticket. The Democratic National Committee is expected to stave off any potential challengers and remained aligned with the democratic leadership.

Age Verses Economy

The predominate factor in the race and in the eyes of the American public is not age, even as many pundits believe that age is the single most determining factor. At this point the skyrocketing prices at the pump, which feels more like the price gouging and pickpocketing the American public of their hard-earned salaries while employers are refusing to raise wages to cover some distance appears to be pandemic payback.

"The presidency is a monstrously taxing job and the stark reality is the president would be closer to 90 than 80 at the end of a second term, and that would be a major issue," said David Axelrod, the chief strategist for Barack Obama's two winning presidential campaigns," The New York Times reported.

Should Biden decide not to run, the party is already at odds as to who should step into his place. A premature succession, which had been beat to the ground during the first election, would remain the same. The vice president, as always, would move into the presidential position and a new vice-president would be appointed.

Few party leaders agree that Vice-President Kamala Harris can hold the party together alone. In fact, it is doubtful, that she would not be challenged on every side.

Top names in that scenario would be former Secretary of State and 2016 Presidential contender Hillary R. Clinton, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, (I-VT), Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Senator Cory Booker, (D-NJ) although the severity of corruption in his home state of New Jersey casts real doubt on a successful president bid.

World News: World Wearies as Ukraine War Drags On

SCOTUS Delays Abortion Decision

The United State Supreme Court has delayed, yet again, the controversial Dobbs v. Jackson ruling which is expected to strike down the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that confirmed Abortion has a women's legal right to choose.

A preliminary draft of the expected decision was leaked in May 2022 and published in its entirety on the online magazine Politico. The leak, Chief Justice John Roberts explained, "was a singular and egregious breach of that trust that is an affront to the Court and the community of public servants who work here," Politico.com reported.

With only one week remaining before the summer recess, law enforcement is gearing up for widespread violence in response to the decision which is expected to be handed down on either Tuesday, June 21, 2022, or Wednesday, June 22, 2022.

However, the volatility of the decision could cause further delay and a decision released after the June 26, 2022, summer recess, and after the justices have left Washington.

After the January 6, 2022, Capitol Insurgence, security around many of Washington, D.C. legislative buildings have been increased. After the leak of the Dobbs draft, an eight-foot non-scalable fence was erected around the Supreme Court building.

On May 11, for the first time in history, the Senate voted on extending police protection to immediate members of the justices' families.

The lack of restraint on behavior, which seems to touch every corner of the nation, has motivated deranged and disturbed individuals, who mask themselves as contributing members of society to secretly plot to move forward agendas by any means, including removing a dissenting conservative opinion from the court.

A man was recently arrested outside Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh home in Maryland, with a clear agenda, "was charged with "attempts to kidnap or murder, or threatens to assault, kidnap or murder" the justice, according to a charging document in the case," NPR.com reported.

The Department of Homeland security recently released a heighted threat environment that explained in the upcoming months the threat environment is expected to become more dynamic and include a wide range of targets.

Moreover, the shifts in ideologies, including the expected Dobbs decision, have made the landscape more susceptible to homeland insurgent and those individuals who hold extremist beliefs, even if they are considered mainstream.

If Roe v. Wade is overturned, Abortion rights revert to individual states to regulate. It is expected that within weeks of a decision 13 states will move immediately to ban abortion, and 13 others will follow quickly.

World News: U.S. Ukraine Aid Isolates European Union

Ukraine Receives EU Invitation

With the war in Ukraine raging on after nearly four months, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met this week with European Leaders from France, Germany, Italy, and Romania, which appears to solidify Ukraine's future as a European Union nation, they did not offer the heavy weapons needed to aid in furthering dismantling Russia stronghold.

"Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany said that he and his fellow leaders had come "with a clear message: Ukraine belongs to the European family. The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, is expected to announce on Friday its official recommendation on Ukraine's application to become a formal candidate for membership," reported The New York Times.

The British Ministry of Defense, through Twitter, provided a current map of the Russian control Donbas region, as well as current air strikes. The communique also stated that Russian morale is waning due to poor leadership, limited rotation of troops, heavy casualties, combat stress, poor logistics and confusion of purpose.

The fighting is the most intense along the Russian border, with concentrated fighting by both sides, which control the ports on the Black Sea and the Mariupol region. The expected strategy for Russian troops remains the Donbas region north to Kharkiv and south to Kherson, counterattacks from Ukraine are heaviest in the Kherson region and north in Kharkiv. For Ukraine to push back advancing Russian troop, especially along the ports in the Black Sea, they will need additional assistance.

The general belief is that Russia, despite global sanctions, a crippled economy, and poor morale, will fight until Russian President Vladimir Putin dies to return Ukraine, a nation that is no longer part of the Russian nation, to his control.

Vaccine Totals

Bloomberg.com has built a vaccine tracker which can be seen here. "In the US, 592 million doses have been given so far. During the last week, shots were administered at an average rate of 148,442 doses a day," Bloomberg.com reported.

Coronavirus Totals

Mandates have been altered or lifted in most urban areas with limited exceptions, and the population is encouraged to maintain personal protective practices. Masks are optional and tolerated. Vaccines and boosters are still considered the most effective agents against contracting the Coronavirus.

For the one-week period ending June 19, 2022, coronavirus cases globally increased by 3,588,905 new confirmed cases, bringing the total of confirmed cases worldwide to 538,577,833 people with a total worldwide death toll of 6,314,564 deaths, and a 7-day death rate increase of 9,043. (Data from The New York Times).

COVID US Totals

Infections rates in the United States are also on the rise. For the seven-day period ending June 19, 2022, the total confirmed cases rose to 86,111,910 people with new confirmed cases increasing by 685,643 with a 7-day average of 97,949 cases per day. The coronavirus has claimed 1,009,866 total deaths, adding 2,040 more deaths over the 7-day period. (Data from The New York Times).

Pentagon's Diary Gets Personal

Protecting for gain of function knowledge only aides those who initiated the constitutional violations. It does nothing to combat the homegrown terrorism or the narcissistic above the law belief. The best obtainable version of the truth. And the truth is so bizarre you can't even wrap your mind around it.

Uvalde Questions Persist

As the initial reports continue to unravel, the details are now the subject of microscopic scrutiny, with new information emerging, corroborated by sources, that reveal two missed opportunities by officers to shoot the perpetrator before he entered Robb Elementary School on May 24, 3022.

"At least two law enforcement cars arrived in close succession at the school, according to investigatory documents reviewed by The New York Times. One was driven by an officer from the small police force that patrols Uvalde's schools. Another arrived less than a minute later, at 11:32 a.m., with officers from the Uvalde Police Department. At that point, the gunman was still shooting outside of the school," reported The New York Times.

The investigation into the nation's most horrific school shootings since Sandy Hook, in 2012, has remained in the consciousness of Americans, even as in rapid succession, several additional mass shotting have followed.

There is a clear determination to expose all the details, to understand each decision, to investigate every action, to know and understand the thought process, that led to the killing of 19 fourth graders and two educators and to understand the reason for the delayed response.

Texas Mass Shooting: 14 Children, 1 Educator Dead, 14 Others Injured

While the focus has been on the police decision-making process, other factors, including an examination of personal lives of those on the forefront of this tragedy, will also become part of the scrutiny of the investigation process.

The unfortunate reality is the same, 21 dead, 19 students who had their entire lives ahead of them, two educators who cared deeply, a town marred by senseless tragedy, and the countless relatives, mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, grandfathers, grandmothers, sisters, brothers, friends, all wounded and until every person who knew any of those murdered have passed away, the memories, and pain, of those taken will remain.

Watergate at 50

The Watergate Scandal, which shook the nation and resulted in the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon, in 1974, is gearing up for a summer of retrospective as one of the most egregious abuses of power in American history became a blueprint in investigative journalism.

For many the story of two young reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, essentially off the streets, in a time when excessive education and prestigious universities were not the qualifier for journalism careers, stumbled on a story much deeper than a minor break-in at the Watergate Hotel, in Washington, D.C.

What followed, over the course of two years, became filled with sound bites, cloak and dagger clandestine meetings, wiretaps, and ushered in a new era in investigative journalism and more importantly announced to newspapers across the nation that no branch of government or person is above the law.

The Watergate Scandal dismantled the Nixon Whitehouse and exposed the integral workings of the president when presidential power was defined as complete control and any means to stop any investigation would be utilized.

The Washington Post published a timeline. In our start-up and express route riches society it seems almost illogical to add for budding journalists, those who will enter the noblest profession, the Watergate scandal is a must read.

For more information on President Joe Biden w ww.whitehouse.gov.