At the press conference of President Joe Biden, there were some dubious statements.The president spoke yesterday in a live televised conference about a variety of topics, including the defeat of Democrats’ vote bill and America’s withdrawal. He also discussed his mental well-being. Biden made a number of exaggerations and half-truths throughout the two-hour-long event. Biden has been taken to task by fact-checkers over comments about economic growth and the pandemic.
For instance, Biden made the dubious claims that his “Build Back Better” plan wouldn’t “raise a single penny in taxes on people making under $400,000 a year”—a proposition that folks at the Tax Foundation dispute—and that it would cut the deficit. The Congressional Budget Office claims that the House of Representatives version would increase the deficit by $158billion over 10 years.
Glenn Kessler at The Washington PostWe pointed out several Biden statements which were either misleading or lacking context. These included claims regarding inflation, job growth and taxes.
Here’s a fact-check from the Associated Press:
BIDEN:“We have made unexpected medical bills illegal within this country.”
THE FACTSTrump was the one who signed this consumer protection legislation before his departure in 2020. The achievement is Trump’s….
BIDEN:We created six million jobs and more in one year than ever before.
FACTSHe takes too much credit. As Trump did before him, Biden makes some grandiose economic claims that gloss over one central reason for historic growth — the U.S. population is far larger than in past decades (and continued to grow last year, despite COVID-19 deaths).
Although the economy saw a 6.4 million job increase in 2021, it was the highest on records going back to 1939. Part of this is a natural rebound after the 9.4 million jobs that were eliminated in 2020.
The U.S. has seen a population increase of more than 100,000,000 people since 1970. Any hiring spike under Biden is likely to be greater in numbers than those achieved by his predecessors. The percentage increase in jobs in the U.S. was 4.5% in 2021. That is still a sizeable increase — the biggest since 1978 — but not a record-breaker.
Biden’s press conference received mixed reviews. The usual media outlets of the Partisan Party have tried to defend themselves, and Democrats are praising President Biden’s work while Conservatives mock it mercilessly.
According to the conference, it “was filled with smart observations and displayed a mastery over the realities of power.” The New Republic. The rest of the time, New York Post called it “an exercise in self-delusion” and “an utter disaster” and Fox News host Jesse Watters called it “a political field sobriety test — that he failed.”
The truth may be less shocking than these two sides suggest. Biden made mistakes, overstated and at times sound a lot like Donald Trump. Biden whined about his rivals refusing to let him party do what he wanted, and then blamed it on some anti-Biden agenda and not just differing values. Biden stated, “I didn’t anticipate there would be such a strong effort to ensure that the President Biden did nothing.”
Biden also made some eyebrow-raising statements, like suggesting that if the Democrats’ voting rights legislation didn’t pass (and it didn’t), the legitimacy of this year’s elections—or at least people’s sense that they’re legitimate—couldn’t be assured. From Roll Call:
[Biden]Multiple times, he was asked if he believed that upcoming elections could be legitimate without voting rights bills being on his desk.
Biden explained that it was up to Biden to convince the American people of the fact that the plot to alter the result of the election is underway.
He said later in the news conference that, in reference the midterms he stated, “The increase in probability it being illegal is directly proportional to our inability to pass these reforms.”
Biden did some other admirable acts, such as standing firm in withdrawing American troops Afghanistan. (I make no apology for what I did”) And semi-admitted the fact that Democratic talk about corporate concentration being responsible for our current inflation problems doesn’t cut it. Biden said, “It hasn’t been the reason why we’ve experienced high inflation today.” It’s not the reason we have high inflation today. Only reason.”)
Biden did, however, seem to be able to utter a lot more of the platitudes his base loves to hear.
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FREE MINDS
There are reasonsNick Gillespie of NBC talks with Bob Corn-Revere First Amendment lawyerAuthor of the book The Mind of the Cynsor and the Eye of the Beholder:
Corn-Revere told me that, although nobody admits to being an editor these days, there are many attempts to undermine the First Amendment. This is especially true when it comes down to restricting speech to protect the feelings of sexual, religious and ethnic minorities. Corn-Revere states, “Looking at the history of it, you’ll see that the protections of individual speech rights has made possible mass movements by previously marginalized persons and minorities.” Corn-Revere says that without the civil rights movement, there wouldn’t be a gay rights or women’s movement. Certain, the civil rights movement was an important time to protect the speech of individuals.
He discusses worrying shifts in defense of the First Amendment among Millennials, Gen Z and why any plan to place elected officials in charge would be worse than trusting a relatively unregulated marketplace for ideas. And why he is ultimately positive about the future freedom of expression.
Listen here.
FREE MARKETS
SHOP SAFE Act provides protection against online counterfeits. Do not buy it. The SHOP SAFE Act has many problems. Its supporters overestimate the problem they are trying to solve, and it will resonate well beyond what it is trying to address. There are reasonsRobby Soave of the Washington Post provides more information on this awful bill. Democrats might add it to the bipartisan Endless Frontier Act.
QUICK HITS
• Drone footage of a U.S. military strike that killed 10 civilians (including seven kids) last August clearly shows that children were nearby prior to the strike.
• Some good news on omicron:
The number of new Connecticut cases has fallen more than 30% since the beginning of last week in Maryland, NJ, NY, and Connecticut. The number of cases has fallen by over 10% in Colorado and Pennsylvania. California cases could have reached a peak.
By@DLeonhardt https://t.co/a4Haov8epK— Cliff Levy (@cliffordlevy) January 19, 2022
• There are reasonsRon Bailey from’s discusses the “ginned out tempest of online moral indignation” that erupted over an Elon Musk debate about artificial wombs.
• Efforts by Democrats in the Senate to change filibuster rules have failed, as has their voting bill. Noting that “the twin defeats were not in doubt”, The New York Times. “They were successful in getting the Senate to debate the bill. This led to many hours of heated arguments about civil rights and racism as well as how election are conducted.
Here it is, the 52-48 vote on the amendment to the filibuster regulations for this bill fails pic.twitter.com/a1qXxHZPwP
— Grace Panetta (@grace_panetta) January 20, 2022
• A Supreme Court decision yesterday means the National Archives can turn over Trump documents to Congress’ January 6 committee that the former president asserted were covered under executive privilege.
• Biden’s approval rating is now at a low for his presidency. A mere third of the people surveyed said they wanted him to run in 2024 for reelection (though 48% of Democrats believe so). And a majority—56 percent—disapproves of how he’s now doing as president.
• New legislation in Kentucky would “make operating a charitable bail organization unlawful.”
• It never fails…
The @LASheriffDeptTo justify an enormous increase in police presence in Inglewood during the week leading to the Super Bowl, he uses debunked myths about human trafficking.
Sex workers, be careful out there.https://t.co/MdEYWHt4pg
— Mike Stabile (@mikestabile) January 19, 2022