Tag: biden approval
GOP Blames Biden On Gas Prices, But Fact Checkers Debunk The Slur

GOP Blames Biden On Gas Prices, But Fact Checkers Debunk The Slur

As gas prices across the United States continue to soar, Republican lawmakers are using the moment as an opportunity to blame President Joe Biden; not Russian President Vladamir Putin, the dictator who started the war that led to this economic domino effect.

Now, fact-checkers are weighing in to refute the lawmakers' claims. According to Yahoo! News, multiple Republicans have attempted to spin the truth about gas prices this week.During a press conference this week, House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) claimed, "These aren’t Putin prices. They’re President Biden’s prices.”

While speaking to Fox Business this week, former Vice President Mike Pence said, "In the four years of the Trump-Pence administration, we achieved energy independence for the first time in 70 years.”

He added, "We were a net exporter of energy. But from very early on, with killing the Keystone pipeline, taking federal lands off the list for exploration, sidelining leases for oil and natural gas – once again, before Ukraine ever happened, we saw rising gasoline prices.”Despite Republicans' bogus claims, Yahoo News explains:

"Fact-checkers have pointed out that the main cause of increasing gas prices over the past year is disruptions to global supply and demand following the coronavirus pandemic. Only a 10th of the Keystone XL pipeline was complete when Biden cancelled it and it was not likely to become operational until 2023 at the earliest."

Kurt Bardella, a Democratic National Committee (DNC) advisor, has also pushed back against Republicans' flawed claims criticizing their attempts to score "political points.""It just goes to show that there are no lengths to which Republicans won’t stoop to try to score political points, in this case using the unthinkable and tragic situation that the Ukrainian people find themselves in.

“To try to exploit that and use it to effectively lie and mislead the American people about conditions here at home is an unconscionable act of political cowardice.”

Bardella also pointed out that Republicans were in favor of Biden imposing sanctions on Russia prior to the surge in gas prices.“Republicans were so vocal about how the Biden administration needed to do sanctions on Russian oil and then they start attacking him. You can’t win because everything that they do is basically an illustration of how they operate in bad faith."

He added, "Joe Biden could do every single thing that the Republican party wants and they would still attack him at the end of the day. Republicans just seem to operate in a purely craven political dynamic. It’s irresponsible and downright un-American, and it’s exactly what they would have said if Democrats had done this in the wake of 9/11 or in the run up to the war on terror.”

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet

Biden Approval Rises Despite GOP Attacks On Ukraine Policy

Biden Approval Rises Despite GOP Attacks On Ukraine Policy

Multiple polls over the last few days have shown President Joe Biden's approval rating is on the rise, bolstered by approval of his response to Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine.

A new poll of registered voters released Tuesday by Politico/Morning Consult found Biden with a 4-point jump since the last time the media organization polled in late February. Biden's approval stood at 45 percent with 52 percent disapproving, up from a 41 percent approval and 56 percent disapproval rating a week earlier.

On Friday, an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist survey of adults found Biden's approval surging by eight points. The poll found 47 percent approving of Biden's job performance, up from 39 percent a week prior, while his disapproval rating is down from 55 percent to 50 percent.

Both polls found that most of those polled approve of Biden's handling of the situation in Ukraine. Politico/Morning Consult found a plurality of 47 percent of those polled either "strongly" or "somewhat" support Biden's Ukraine policy, up four points from previous polling, while the NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist survey found a majority of 52 percent of those surveyed approve, an 18-point surge.

Biden's approval rating is up despite GOP criticism of his response to Russia's aggression, which has led to the deaths of more than 400 civilians and caused more than two million people to flee Ukraine for safety.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Monday said that "the United States should have supplied weapons to Ukraine sooner."

However, McCarthy absolved former President Donald Trump for purposefully withholding congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine as part of an effort to secure dirt on Biden during the 2020 election. Trump was impeached on charges of pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to announce an investigation into Biden in exchange for the military aid Congress had already approved. But McCarthy voted against impeaching Trump.

The loudest message coming from Republicans is an attempt to tie rising gasoline prices to Biden's handling of the situation in Ukraine, blaming Biden for buying foreign oil and not increasing American output.

"Joe Biden is fueling Putin's genocide in Ukraine with every barrel of Russian oil he purchases," Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) tweeted on Sunday.

"Gas wouldn't be this expensive if Joe Biden opened up America's oil pipelines. Anyone telling you otherwise is lying," Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) tweeted on Monday.

The GOP claim that the United States can quickly ramp up oil production to lower the cost of gas is false, according to sources cited by Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell.

Rampell noted that it takes between 10 and 12 months to lower fuel prices through increased oil production.

What's more, the GOP argument that Biden's cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline is to blame for rising gas prices is also false, Rampell points out: The pipeline was nowhere close to being finished when he took office, and would not be online now even if construction had continued.

Reprinted with permission from American Independent

President Biden delivering remarks on the American Jobs Plan at the Carpenters Pittsburg Training Center.

Don't Look Now, But The Biden Economy Just Happens To Be Glorious

If Joe Biden takes office, there'll be a "depression the likes of which you've never seen," Donald Trump warned a month before he lost the 2020 presidential election. It didn't happen.

You know that, right?

Also, your 401(k) surely did not "go to hell," as the previous guy predicted. On the contrary, stocks in the S&P 500 are up 26 percent as the first year of the Biden presidency is about to end.

How good is that? "U.S. financial markets are outperforming the world by the biggest margin in the 21st century" is how Bloomberg News put it.

The U.S. gross domestic product is expected to have grown an extraordinary 5.6 percent this year, according to economists. And that's after adjusting for inflation.

The unemployment rate is down to 4.2 percent. Retail sales in the recent Christmas shopping season rose eight percent from the same period last year — the biggest gain in 17 years.

As Bloomberg summed it up, "America's economy improved more in Joe Biden's first 12 months than any president during the past 50 years."

And so how do we explain Biden's lackluster approval ratings, weirdly depressed by discontent on how he's managing the economy? The reasons include distorted media coverage of the economy, a Republican opposition that doesn't want to give Democrats credit, and Democrats who don't want to give themselves credit (and for wholly neurotic reasons).

Now, as always, there are economic concerns. Inflation has been cutting into the good news of fattening paychecks for American workers. However, the bubbly retail numbers point to consumers with the means to spend and happy to do it. That consumer credit grew a record 27 percent in Biden's first year reflects public confidence about the future.

The supply chain blockages seem to be easing, as witnessed in the fake news of bare store shelves this shopping season. The difficulty in getting parts and products shipped from Asia has raised interest in bringing manufacturing back into this country, and that is a good thing.

The biggest driver of inflation, oil prices, could very well be headed down. "Much needed relief for tight markets is on the way," according to the International Energy Agency. The simple reason is rising oil production. Helping matters was Biden's planned release of 50 million barrels of oil from the U.S. strategic reserves, with similar steps being taken in other countries.

Why Democrats don't shout hosannas for this basically strong economy has long been a mystery. One explanation is that some of the loudest voices in the party, mainly on the left, engage in a culture of complaint. The lefties obsess angrily on what isn't being done for the poor and ignore what is.

They've been hollering at West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin for blocking passage of the current Build Back Better plan, even though it is they who screwed it up. All hope is not lost, though. Democrats can trim their overweight wish list, thus avoiding such cheesy tricks as financing the child tax credit for just one year. Manchin does have a point.

The programs most worth saving are universal preschool, strengthening the Affordable Care Act, and fighting climate change. A plan costing $1.8. trillion — a number Manchin has reportedly said he would consider — would still be bold under any previous definition of the word.

Stock market gains do benefit the better-off, but lots of average people have some skin in the game. Sweden has more billionaires per capita than we do while maintaining a dream of a social safety net.

There's nothing wrong with prosperity. "Happy Days Are Here Again" was the campaign song for Franklin D. Roosevelt — just before he launched the New Deal.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

Despite Dismal Polls, Biden Economic Program Is 'A Smashing Success,

Despite Dismal Polls, Biden Economic Program Is 'A Smashing Success,

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

According to Gallup, President Joe Biden's approval rating among independents went from 61 percent earlier this year to only 37 percent in September — and late October polls aren't very encouraging either, with the president's overall approval at 42 percent (Rasmussen), 43 percent (YouGov) or 46 percent (Morning Consult).
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