How Bad was Biden while POTUS?

[Pack Rat]

[jusplay4fun]

How many Biden Aides take the Fifth? AND what are they HIDING? The Truth, that Biden was a BAD President. And NO silly video by the P(resident) rat will refute any of this.

(AI Overview)

As of August 1, 2025, three former Biden aides have invoked their Fifth Amendment rights during testimony before the House Oversight Committee in an investigation primarily focused on allegations of a cover-up related to former President Biden's mental health and potentially unauthorized executive actions.
The aides who have pleaded the Fifth are:
Dr. Kevin O'Connor: Biden's former White House physician.
Anthony Bernal: Former Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to the First Lady.
Annie Tomasini: Former Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of Oval Office Operations.

and

Joe Biden's Associates Pleading Fifth Amendment Raises Red Flags

Three Biden associates have now invoked Fifth Amendment privilege during testimony before the House Oversight Committee, raising red flags for some amid a probe pertaining to concerns over former President Joe Biden's health.

Legal analysts, however, reiterated to Newsweek that taking the Fifth does not necessarily mean witnesses are guilty of any crime.

Why It Matters
On Friday, Annie Tomasini, a longtime former aide and deputy chief of staff to Biden, invoked the Fifth Amendment during questioning, just days after Anthony Bernal, who served as an aide to Jill Biden, did the same. Joe Biden's former doctor, Kevin O'Connor, also invoked the Fifth Amendment during a hearing into the "investigation into the cover-up of President Joe Biden's mental decline and potentially unauthorized executive actions" last week.

The move raised eyebrows among conservatives, who have alleged Biden officials sought to cover up concerns over whether the former president was experiencing a mental decline while in office. The investigation also focuses on pardons allegedly signed by autopen, which have come under GOP scrutiny. (...)

Representative Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican, wrote on X, "If there's nothing to hide, why plead the Fifth? The American people deserve answers and we will get to the truth."

https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-associates-pleading-fifth-amendment-raises-red-flags-2099993

[Dukasaur]

It's funny, I've been thinking about this today.

You've been ranting for four pages about various alleged wrongs that Biden has committed, but you never commented on the one really bad thing that Biden did.

Possibly the most consequential blunder of the Biden years was weaponizing SWIFT. In the near term, Trump's trade wars are seen as the greatest threat to world trade, but I think in the long term, economists will mark the expulsion of the Russian banks as a more serious blow.

[HitRed]

It's funny, I've been thinking about this today.

You've been ranting for four pages about various alleged wrongs that Biden has committed, but you never commented on the one really bad thing that Biden did.

Possibly the most consequential blunder of the Biden years was weaponizing SWIFT. In the near term, Trump's trade wars are seen as the greatest threat to world trade, but I think in the long term, economists will mark the expulsion of the Russian banks as a more serious blow.

Wow, I agree.

If you own a hamburger company you want everyone buying your burgers. I want everyone using SWIFT.

[jusplay4fun]

It's funny, I've been thinking about this today.

You've been ranting for four pages about various alleged wrongs that Biden has committed, but you never commented on the one really bad thing that Biden did.

Possibly the most consequential blunder of the Biden years was weaponizing SWIFT. In the near term, Trump's trade wars are seen as the greatest threat to world trade, but I think in the long term, economists will mark the expulsion of the Russian banks as a more serious blow.

And do you DENY any of these allegations, Duk? Aren't they BAD ENOUGH, without ADDING another Biden SIN?

Isn't Biden the guy who was on the WRONG side of every major foreign policy issue in the last 30 years?

But since you brought up THIS BIDEN MISTAKE, Let's look at some reasonable analysis, and not mere speculation or opinions:

Will the Recent SWIFT Sanctions End the U.S. Dollar's Dominance?
The European Union's recent move to ban several Russian banks from SWIFT has caused some to argue that it will have significant unintended consequences. One popular argument is that market participants will switch from the U.S. dollar to other currencies out of fear that they or their counterparties could be removed from SWIFT in the future at the urging of the U.S.4

But there are several reasons this is unlikely. First, as a message system, SWIFT is open to any currencies and not tied to the U.S. dollar. According to its 2020 annual report, nearly half of SWIFT messages are sent within the region of Europe, Middle East and Africa to itself. It is not clear why the dollar is more likely to be abandoned than currencies like the euro when some banks are removed from SWIFT.

Second, the notion misses the fact that payment decisions are made by bilateral economic choice, rather than by coercion. Market participants will not switch to non-dollar currencies on non-SWIFT platforms if their counterparties will not do the same. In economics, it is known as the network effect. Of course, the network effect is a double-edged sword: The opposite can happen and trigger a self-fulfilling "run" from the dollar or from SWIFT. But the anchors of history, social norm and switching cost give the dollar some incumbent advantage.

Third, let's use Gmail as an example of why banning some banks from SWIFT wouldn't cause abandonment of the dollar. If some users are banned from writing emails in English with Gmail, they will likely look for other email systems rather than abandon English. Similarly, banks may first look for another message system — like SPFS in Russia or CIPS in China — before abandoning the dollar.

But these platforms have notably fewer counterparties, mostly domestic banks.5 The vicious cycle of network effect mentioned above may also explain the low number of participating banks. Also, transfers in these platforms are denominated in local currencies, so banks need to obtain the local currencies from an offshore market or directly from local markets. But the limited offshore market trading of these currencies and their capital control may deter participation.

Would Banks Switch to Other Currencies?
As shown in Table 1, the dollar is facing competition with other types of money. How likely are banks to switch to gold or even cryptocurrencies like stablecoins? An appeal of cryptocurrencies is that they do not rely on intermediaries or governments, which leads to over-centralization of market power. Also, unlike account-based payments where identities are known to the message system (and hence the government), the anonymity feature of cryptocurrency circumvents the individual-specific sanctions.

However, the prices of cryptocurrencies and gold are not very stable, and they are not widely adopted as a payment instrument due to the regulation concern of cryptocurrencies and the lack of supporting payment services. And a big advantage of the dollar is the access to the Fed’s facilities like the discount window and overnight reverse repos.6 For other currencies like the euro and the yen, their lower (or even negative) returns on reserves may discourage the switch from the dollar. For currencies of emerging countries, their markets are much smaller and less liquid than the U.S.

https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/economic_brief/2022/eb_22-09

and

But that begs a critical question: What would replace the dollar? Some say it will be the euro; others, perhaps the Japanese yen or China’s renminbi. And some call for a new world reserve currency, possibly based on the IMF’s Special Drawing Right or SDR, a reserve asset. None of these candidates, however, is without flaws. In fact there is no obvious alternative to the dollar lurking in the wings, just waiting to take center stage. To paraphrase Winston Churchill’s famous remark about democracy, the dollar may turn out to be the worst choice—except for all the others.

https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2009/09/cohen.htm#:~:text=Some%20say%20it%20will%20be,%2C%20however%2C%20is%20without%20flaws.

and here is a good recent article, too:

Through the mediation facilitated by the European Commission, the U.S. and the EU collaboratively formulated a comprehensive set of sanctions to exclude Russia from global financial networks. This strategic decision included the exclusion of certain Russian banks from accessing the SWIFT system to complicate Moscow's management of the interbank transaction system. Since about half of all worldwide payments are made in dollars, transactions using systems like SWIFT often require intermediary banks. These banks, usually under U.S. oversight, act as go-betweens. However, these banks are cautious about upsetting U.S. authorities by handling payments for entities in sanctioned countries. This caution leads to limited access to foreign currency and prevents the transfer of assets abroad for Russia. While technically feasible, conducting international transactions without SWIFT is costly and complex. The feasibility of implementing such measures was facilitated by the centralized nature of global financial networks, wherein key intermediaries in these financial exchanges fell under European and American political authority, as exemplified in the case of SWIFT

https://www.hikmasummit.com/archive/weaponizedswift

And MORE:

Do these historic sanctions signal the end of the dollar’s dominance? We believe that any imminent change is highly unlikely. Paradoxically, the recent events may have even buttressed reliance on the dollar and highlighted its appeals: deep and liquid capital markets; tradability and convertibility; and network effects. In the long run, any alternative needs to be able to compete on those metrics.

https://warontherocks.com/2022/09/what-does-the-weaponization-of-global-finance-mean-for-u-s-dollar-dominance/

BOTTOM LINE: the problem you raise, Duk, is not that big an issue, based on what I read. BUT we can ADD this to the list of Biden SINS and mistakes. The List keeps growing. Let's Go, Brandon....!

[Dukasaur]

Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile, lol.

And do you DENY any of these allegations, Duk? Aren't they BAD ENOUGH, without ADDING another Biden SIN?

Isn't Biden the guy who was on the WRONG side of every major foreign policy issue in the last 30 years?

I said nothing of the kind.

[jusplay4fun]

Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile, lol.

And do you DENY any of these allegations, Duk? Aren't they BAD ENOUGH, without ADDING another Biden SIN?

Isn't Biden the guy who was on the WRONG side of every major foreign policy issue in the last 30 years?

I said nothing of the kind.

Do you have any comments on ANY of those things, Duk? How Bad was Biden while POTUS?

Please don't be like others who scream "Epstein..!"

And you did not comment on ANY of my information on SWIFT. You only commented on the inch and not on the Mile, Duk.

[Pack Rat]

Rewriting History?

Just another distraction to protect our Commander in Chief of Pedophilia.

Release the Epstein Files!

Just more lies (SURPRISE!)

[jusplay4fun]

Rewriting History?

Just another distraction to protect our Commander in Chief of Pedophilia.

Release the Epstein Files!

[b]Just more lies (SURPRISE!)

[b]CORRECTION
[youtube]video #498 on this topic posted by pee rat [/youtube]

How Bad was Biden while POTUS?

Postby jusplay4fun on Tue Aug 12, 2025 5:54 am
Please don't be like others who scream "Epstein..!"

I guess you did not realized that I was referring to you, pee rat. You are of a one track mind, what we called in my day a BROKEN RECORD.

Sound like a broken record is an idiom we use to describe a person who says the same thing repeatedly. This idiom dates back many years to when everybody still used a record player because, with a scratch in a phonograph record, sometimes the stylus stays in the same groove and plays it over and over.

Today we can call you LOSER. When you post a video, almost NO ONE watches. And when they do, they then realize (thanks to Mookie) that it is an AI Generated LIE. Well Done, pack rat. Keep up the good LOSER work.

https://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=242731

[Dukasaur]

Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile, lol.

And do you DENY any of these allegations, Duk? Aren't they BAD ENOUGH, without ADDING another Biden SIN?

Isn't Biden the guy who was on the WRONG side of every major foreign policy issue in the last 30 years?

I said nothing of the kind.

Do you have any comments on ANY of those things, Duk? How Bad was Biden while POTUS?

There's nothing you've said that I haven't addressed in the past.

You obsess about immigration. I agree the immigration rate was too high, but I don't see it as some kind of calamity. Probably should have been fixed sooner, but his heart was in the right place (trying to restore some humanity to the immigration process), and the resulting problems are minor annoyances that only the right-wing media blows up into a "crisis".

You try to blame Biden for the high inflation rate in the first half of his term. I've pointed out the inflation was mainly the result of Trump's deficits. There is a significant time lag between when a government pumps money into the system and when the inflation actually shows up. The juicing of the economy started with Bush, continued under Obama, and reached psychotic levels under Trump Version 1. Biden actually pulled back the throttle on the deficit machine to some degree. I have admitted he did throttle it back slower and to a lesser degree than I would have liked, but he did throttle it back somewhat, so if fiscal conservatism is your basis for hating him, then you're barking up the wrong tree -- of the last four presidents, Biden was probably the least wasteful.

Furthermore, the new money Biden did spend was mostly spent on useful pursuits -- attempting to rebuild America's crumbling infrastructure, giving aid to vulnerable groups, and boosts to technological research. On that count alone, he stands head-and-shoulders above Trump, whose main source of deficits has been tax cuts for the rich to support their embarrassingly profligate spending.

You've joined the baying of the righteous hypocrites about the fact that Biden pardoned his son. I've pointed out that any father would have done the same, but especially when he knew that he was being succeeded by Trump, and you know damn well that Hunter would not have gotten fair treatment under a Trump-controlled Justice department. Ultimately, Hunter was a typical spoiled rich kid who squandered money on hookers and blow, and for any other spoiled little rich kid those things would have been negotiated away as misdemeanours. Only the political target on Hunter's back got them prosecuted as felonies. A Trumpist Justice department would have made his life a living hell, and quite honestly a blanket pardon was the only way to prevent the maniacal witch hunt that many Trumpists were planning.

You've also joined the tinfoil-hat brigade in postulating conspiracy theories about the Bidens influence-peddling. I don't think I've said much about that nonsense. If there was any real evidence, there would have been an impeachment. Even now, with Trump in complete control of the law-enforcement machinery, nothing has been charged. If the tiniest bit of evidence existed for this nonsense, you can be sure the Trumpists would be stroking it from dawn to dusk, but they haven't said a peep about it since the election, because even with the most biased look possible, they see nothing to make a case out of.

I'm sure I've forgotten some of your allegations, but I addressed them all at least once and see no reason to repeat myself yet again. Basically Biden was a flawed person, but not bad as a president. Brought the U.S. out of the insanity of the Trump years as best he could, soft-landed the economy, supported research and develpment, did his best to save Ukraine from the neo-Stalinist juggernaut to the east, walked the fine line of supporting Israel's basic right to defend itself while attempting to curtail Nutty Yahoo's worst abuses of the civilian population. He was senile by the end and did commit the cardinal sin of hubris in running again, but that doesn't make him a monster. Overall a C+ or a B- as president.

I don't know if you feel there are some of your accusations that I've missed, but I really don't care. They don't need to be answered over and over again. Scroll back in the thread and find the original responses, if you care that much.

[jusplay4fun]

We can agree to disagree, Duk.

I do not share your assessment and find that you suffer from TDS; that is the basis of your overall evaluations.

You make some good points, but they are not cogent. I think there are other valid viewpoints, and still I find that BIDEN WAS A HORRIBLE President. All my allegations are not refuted to the point where you have presented enough facts and arguments to suggest that my viewpoint is invalid.

The pardons issued by Old Joe will not allow investigations to prove allegations of the Biden Crime Family. NOTE that THIS IS THE ONE pardon Old Joe did NOT sign via Autopen. That SAYS LOTS. Biden is a crook and makes Trump look like a SAINT, and NOT that Trump is close to being a Saint, in RL, imo. THAT'S How Bad was Biden while POTUS.

AND IMMIGRATION? Your points are NOT proven. Let's do a RECAP: You AGREED with me that the US (AND ANY nation) needs to have an orderly system to allow immigrants IN, and THEREFORE BIDEN had, in comparison, essentially an OPEN BORDER; there was LOTS of CHAOS, and Kamala FAILED at the task given to her by Biden. You then said it was NOT QUITE an open border, and go off on some tangent.

I think I can summarize our other points of contention and prove that my position is still valid. Your arguments are not conclusive, Duk. Sorry.