Biden Improves Supply Chain, Clearly Cites Sources; Brownshirts Obfuscate

Incoherent Trumpist carpetbagger Ron Moeller (congrats on three straight blog lead-ins, Ron, and welcome to the show!) eagerly peddled the conservative-media lie that President Joe Biden’s quoting of Walmart CEO John Furner in his November 23 speech on America’s growing economy proved that Biden has dementia.

The insulting and deceptive tweet Moeller retweeted to promote this lie was deleted because, as even Fox News had to admit, it was baloney:

Social media users have pointed out a brief video in which U.S. President Joe Biden is heard saying “end of quote” – with some claiming this was a mistake on his part, and shows him repeating a script that is being fed to him. The clip, however, has been taken out of context: full footage shows he was indicating the end of a quote said by Walmart U.S. CEO John Furner [Reuters Fact Check, “Biden Was Quoting Walmart U.S. CEO in Viral Clip Taken out of Context,” Reuters, 2021.11.24].

While Moeller recovers from falling for anything the Bannon brownshirts tell him, let’s look at the substance of what President Biden said, which is part of his explanation of what he is doing to loosen up our kinky supply chain. I’ve bolded the portion that gave rise to Moeller’s fiction-based insult:

It starts with my Port Action Plan — a proactive three-month effort to invest in our ports and relieve bottlenecks.  Forty percent of the goods, for example, that come into this country on the West Coast come through two ports: Los Angeles and Long Beach.

To help ease the congestion at these ports, I brought together labor and management and asked them to step up and cooperate, to move from operating the ports at 40 hours a week at those ports to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

And I provided the resources to other key ports — including Savannah, Georgia, and on the East Coast — on the East Coast and — to help reduce congestion and undo the damage caused by COVID.

We also met with the CEOs of Walmart, Target, Home Depot, TJ Maxx, and others.  Those retailers — large retailers and others agreed to move products more quickly, stock their shelves more quickly.

And, by the way, you may have heard the CEO of Walmart yesterday on the steps we’ve taken.  He said, and I quote, “The combination of private enterprise and government working together has been really successful.”  He went on to say, “All the way through the supply chain, there’s… a lot of innovation.”  Because of the actions we’ve taken, things have begun to change.  End of quote. 

In the past three weeks, the number of containers sitting on docks, blocking movement, are down by 33 percent.  Shipping prices are down 25 percent.  More goods are moving more quickly and more cheaply out of our ports, onto your doorsteps, and onto store shelves.

And so, all those concerns, a few weeks ago, there would be a — there’d not be ample food available for Thanksgiving — so many people talked about that, understandably.  But families can rest easy.  Grocery stores are well-stocked with turkey and everything else you need for Thanksgiving.

And the major retailers I mentioned are — have confirmed that their shelves will be well-stocked in stores this holiday season [President Joe Biden, “Remarks on the Economy and Lowering Prices for the American People,” WhiteHouse.gov, 2021.11.23].

Far from droning mindlessly, President Biden was carefully and accurately quoting CEO Furner to support his statement that his Presidential actions are improving the supply chain situation:

The statement in question was made by Furner on Nov. 22 during an interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle ( youtu.be/yaDO1unt7P8?t=203 ). Asked about the recent meeting Walmart and other major retailers had with President Biden, Furton said:

“Well, the combination of private enterprise and government working together has been really successful. We’ve had a lot of participation, been able to participate in solving some of these congestion issues, so I would like to give the administration credit for helping do things like help get the ports open 24 hours a day.”

Around timestamp 04:04 ( youtu.be/yaDO1unt7P8?t=244 ) , he continues to say: “And then all the way through the supply chain, there’s been a lot of innovation and you know, week after week in the third quarter, in particular, sequentially each month of the quarter got stronger” [Reuters, 2021.11.24].

Someone like Moeller, whose nascent political career is apparently based on mindlessly mouthing the words of fascist figureheads, may have trouble understanding this concept of building an argument on clearly cited sources. That doesn’t mean Moeller suffers dementia. It just means he’s an ideological dupe who’s not paying attention to facts.