Don's Tuesday Column

       THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson    Red Bluff Daily News   9/05/2023

        Well, that didn’t take long…

“That” will be explained below.

In 2009, we planned a short RV trip south of San Francisco, hoping to find a place we camped in Big Sur on our honeymoon. It was timed to attend a Jimmy Buffett concert in Mountain View, at Shoreline Amphitheater.

Having “grassy area” tickets, “seating” meant getting there early, spreading a blanket on our “space,” and eventually holding our blanket while rubbing elbows with the throng. Ironically, I can use “Google maps” to zoom in to the venue and see our grassy spot. Neither Google maps nor the Internet were part of our dial-up’s ability to do any of that.

We drove our detached truck and claimed a parking space while fans arrived. We witnessed a phenomenon as vehicles filled it to capacity, disgorged occupants who knew the routine and dressed for their roles. A couple of white-shirt-and-tie office guys got out and transformed before our eyes into pirate and “parrot-head” costumed personas.

Then came blenders. Not your kitchen variety but blenders-on-steroids, with two-stroke motors delivering the power to turn any sized ice chunks into that “booze in the blender, and soon it will render that frozen concoction that helps me hang on,” as the lyrics to “(Wasting away again in) Margaritaville” go.

Before getting to hear all of his iconic tunes, including “Cheeseburger in Paradise” and others, we saw his arrival in a sea plane landing in the Shoreline Lake appendage to San Francisco Bay. To fans, it was like seeing Air Force One arrive. Rest in peace, Jimmy Buffett. Here’s hoping you find that heavenly beach and cheeseburger in paradise.

“That” is the apparently inoperable admonishment to avoid the Trump vs. Biden literary war on this page. That was my understanding from the publisher and editor: local and state issues, please. Glad to oblige, “I’ll see what I can do,” I said.

Surprisingly, Mr. Stellar—whose integrity is such that I would trust him with the keys to my car or my home if I needed someone to keep an eye on them—wrote a Republican debate-framed missive referring derogatorily to Trump no less than 18 times. Not willing to unilaterally disarm column-wise, I provide an “equal time” take on Joe Biden. Back to “local or state issues” next week.

Calling attention to Joe Biden’s lies is like saying he only lies on days ending in “y.” How does his duplicitous mind work? He bald-facedly lied to people in Maui about almost losing his Corvette in a house fire, with a tale of lightning, heating ducts and a near conflagration—while the official fire department report described a “kitchen fire” that was put out in about 20 minutes.

Someone mockingly said Biden could relate to the fires because he walked on a beach barefoot once and, boy, was it hot. The arrogance, or narcissism for Joe—having to insert his personal, made-up stories into every address—cannot be dismissed as age-related.

Witness the videos of Biden boasting about educational accomplishments, interactions with world figures (Chinese leader or Nelson Mandela), and the infamous verbal plagiarism over being the first in his family to go to college, repeating British politician Neal Kinnock’s biographical story as if it were his own. He embarrassingly dropped out of that run for president over it.

What has never changed is his bombastic self-assuredness, head held high as he lies to his audience, whether to reporters, fellow Senators or, more recently, an audience of dignitaries where he spun his tale of forcing Ukrainian leaders to fire a prosecutor, Viktor Shokin. With flourishes about having to get a result before his flight left, dramatically looking at his watch and invoking President Obama’s name for the threat to withhold a billion-dollar loan, he capped it off with his now infamous “Son of a bitch, he got fired.”

Set aside the admission-against-interest over the fact that Shokin was investigating corruption involving Burisma, an energy company on which board his son, Hunter, sat—having zero qualifications.

For a man that endlessly proclaimed his lack of any involvement, knowledge or benefits from his son’s documented largess derived from that apparently “honorary” board seat, you would think that Biden would be reluctant to tell the world of his personal efforts to cancel an investigation, and fire a prosecutor looking into business corruption in a company paying his son millions.

Documents recently revealed that then-V.P. Joe Biden’s account of things is one of the most self-aggrandizing fabrications ever to come out of the mouth of a supposedly legitimate politician. That billion-dollar loan had already been approved by Obama’s people based on the confirmation of honest efforts to root out corruption by that same prosecutor, Viktor Shokin.

Joe Biden was using a previously approved transaction to give himself a cudgel to force the firing of Shokin, who was removed from efforts to expose the very corruption in which Hunter Biden was involved. Don’t take my word; search: “NEW: Stunning Docs Show That Then-VP Biden Defied U.S. Gov't” (Redstate.com)

America’s news industry would “hold the presses,” change the network or cable lead story, and shout from every microphone about this sort of lying, self-serving, influence-peddling monetary corruption—if it involved a prominent Republican who had been Vice President at the time, and was now the President.

Impeachment would be the least of such a Republican’s worries. It should leave such a stain on Joe Biden’s entire career that he be relegated to infamy as was President Warren Harding over the Tea Pot Dome scandal. That scandal pales in comparison to using an official position, and massive amounts of taxpayer funds, to force a foreign government to take actions that accrued to that “leader’s” financial benefit.