Is It Puppeteers or Puppets in Control in Washington?

Of course Biden in not in control of anything. He is demented. But, his advisors are no better and guarantee a Republican victory in 2022 midterms and 2024 when Trump returns.

This is Obama's third term. Just look at the White House staff: advisors and cabinet members; all important ones from the Clinton and Obama Administrations.
Understand this and then you can begin to understand how we left Afghanistan was planned, not a boondoggle. The Taliban were left with the goodies and we were humiliated. Obama must have been smiling as he then watched the illegals streaming across the Southern border. And remember, Huma's family originated the Muslim Brotherhood and Osama's vipers.

Every cloud has a silver lining. just yesterday, the news reported that the chairman of the joint chiefs had conspired with China to subvert the orders of the previous commander in chief. If that wasn't considered an act of treason, then perhaps disobeying orders from an incoherent, doddering occupant of the White House is now the new normal. We live in very interesting times.

I feel the first scenario, where Biden is a puppet, is the more realistic. He continually comes out with gaffes like : 'I'm not supposed to take any questions' or 'Lets see, I have a list of people I can take questions from'.

This is not a man in charge.

"Every nation deserves the leader they elect" -- Winston Churchill

Now that the Biden administration abandoned shamefully Afghanistan, China can take over., for free, all the minerals from Afghanistan's soil , especially the mineral of the future: lithium.
No other country harbours more lithium than Afghanistan.

How stupid can the US leadership be to leave Afghanistan and its population.

There really must be a full, open enquiry into why USA withdrew all troops from Afghanistan, the method of withdrawal, the mistakes made etc. The enquiry must have power to subpoena all relevent participants of all political shades and all evidence must be given under oath.
The enquiry should have a time limit of say 6 months and have co operation of both Democrats and Republicans.
Even if the enquiry costs a billion dollars , it is cheap if it deters future presidents from enacting future multi billion dollar policies which are devoid of common sense, good quality financial planning and analysis etc.

There are many aspects which must be considered and resolved prior to start of enquiry.
For example the choice and number of judges and should participants who knowingly gave incorrect advice be punished?

The good times are coming.... and we just have to sit quiet & watch.
Iran, Hezbollah, Taliban, Hamas/Abbas, Russia, China, N-Korea & friends.
Great scenario!!

The vote to vote them out is meaningless if the election fraud is not dealt with; if ballot cons, scams, and grifts are not removed. If straight ticket voting, curved precinct counts, names with parties clearly identified, and using misspellings, capital letters or such is not stopped. The counts are not halted, the chain of custody firmly established, voting tabulators allowed wide-open internet links, firmware programs to alter votes; mail in ballots not able to be printed and counted multiple times, voter harvesting stopped, mass mail outs on ballots, illegal voters able to cast votes, no firm voter ID laws in place, so on and so forth! Anyone that is alright with all these measures is crooked, duped, or foolish at best, period. If the fix is in, the votes matter not! As for the crooked and corrupt power elites, they ALL need arrested and tried- PERIOD. The whole lot needs to be fired, pensions lost, and fined or jailed where applicable.

There is another scenario from history. The German people brought Adolf Hitler to power through election - regardless of the NAZI street violence. In America, we hope the people will restore constitutional government through the ballot box. That time may have passed in 2020 with massive media lying and manipulated state election systems, so we have already experienced the 21st Century version of the early 20th Century German experience. And then things get worse.

As someone in their 70s I never thought the day would come when patriotic flag waving Americans would have in the White House a cabal of brainwashing communist meglomaniacs and a dementia patient that has control of the largest arsenal in the world to say it is scary is an understatement.

Good article as always, but I think we Americans should stop and rethink our situation. The rapid changes in both the economy and the culture have brought a new oligarchy to power on the wings of the controversial November 2020 elections and the pandemic. This new oligarchy is an alliance of the Democrat Party, the federal and state bureaucracies (which as an overwhelmingly Democrat constituency I prefer to call the *Wide* State), and the high-tech oligopolies. Everybody should read Joel Kotkin's "The Rise of the Corporate-State Tyranny."

We should be concentrating on improving relations with India. Obama may seriously have damaged them by arriving there in an armed escort of unprecedented size. That should have given us a clue as to how he felt about non socialist Islamist states, insecure.
Israel and India and the nations they have ties to should be our principle concern. I would like to see Gates and other filthy rich people move their factories and investments out of fascist socialist China. A slave state as most Socialist Islamist states are and are likely to remain.
Obama in my opinion is the puppeteer.
Biden has followed the script of Obama, who is not or was strongly criticized for doing unto Iraq what Biden did unto Afghanistan, complete with encouraging and sanctifying fascist Islamist regimes pulling his punches on Assad, he left 20% of the VX series chemical weapons under Assad's control who then boosted chlorine production and ISIS Al-Qaeda deployed chlorine weaponized in Iraq. Also huge amounts of US military aid were seized by ISIS including M1 tanks they knew better to use than the Iraqi Army that had been downgraded to border guard status. Wouldn't wish to make Iran uncomfortable.

Without election reform laws and voter ID it will br impossible to kick the crooks and cronies out of DC.
US will become Venezuela Norte.

From an Australian perspective this current situation is very disturbing. It seems that in many respects the USA is not a democracy or even a republic but it has morphed into what seems like an 'elected' dictatorship. On his very first day as President we watched him sit down and sign off on a heap of executive orders thereby turning the status quo inside out and upside down and chaos seemed to have reigned in the US and much of the rest of the world ever since. Western values are worth fighting for and saving. If it wasn't so people would not be clamoring at our borders to come and live in the Western 'democracies'.
On a positive note this Afghanistan debacle and its associated betrayal and treachery has hopefully woken America's allies up. I seem to recall President Trump lecturing NATO and other allies that they needed to do more of the heavy lifting. Personally, I think it was a fair call on his part. We all need to be more self reliant both in our own lives and families as well as at the national level. (Walk softly and carry a big stick!) In this sinful world the fact of the matter is that if you want peace you must prepare for war. It is also important that politicians take counsel from the military particularly those who have experienced combat. Personally I don't think the Afghanistan debacle was botched at all I believe it was carefully planned and executed.

I have been watching USA since 1960s. I believe corruption in foreign services of USA and financial wizards are behind disgraceful behavior of US policies since 1980s.

How much simpler it would be if someone could just get up and say;
"I move a motion of no confidence in the government"
Passed, the President would have to find a cabinet and a President and then let the congress vote in a new government.
And so many here want a republic al la USA.

Along with all that globalist insanity, I wish someone would investigate if Biden made a deal with China over Afghanistan. Just check.

No point in talking about future elections until we correct 2020. Otherwise, same crooked results with the bad guys consolidating more power.

It is starting to feel like the decline and fall of the Roman empire

At what point will the American nosedive become too steep to recover from? Will we even notice - or care??

Lawrence,
You're asking a good question and keep asking because something's wrong in DC. I watched Biden give a news conference but after he was finished butchering the speech, he was having a pre planed short Q&A. He took a couple of dumb questions with the rehearsed sounding answers. Then a reporter asked him what about Afghanistan and he replied, "I'm not supposed to talk about that" and turned his back to the crowd as he was leaving the room. Who's telling Joe what he can and can't do? Who's really in charge seems like a reasonable question after 8 months of observation.

After the last election, I think there are a lot of citizens that wonder if it matters any more with the blatant constitutional law breaking in most of the swing states and others that remain unresolved to date. Also, these laws about federalizing the elections that congress has batted around the last 8 months would be against the constitution. This is a blatant take over of our institutions IMO. When will the people get back in the drivers seat and put our Gov. back to its original intent?

Is it really up to the electorate? That is the question. Either way, it signals troubling implications for the future. If the election really was fraudulent as fully half the electorate is convinced it was, then there is no confidence that future voting will produce contrary results. And if the election was indeed legitimate, it signals an electorate that lacks the basic ingredients for making informed and rational decisions regarding national policies and who cannot be trusted to recognize, let alone correct, their errors.