Joe Biden is a good man, husband, father and president. He is a wise manly father figure who cherishes and is loyally supportive of his wife, family and neighbors while not taking himself too seriously. He is also a competent public servant who consistently puts welfare of the constituents he swore to protect from foreign and domestic enemies before personal pecuniary benefit. He honors his marriage vows, and oath of office, both of which are important to me.

An experienced politician he calmly assembled a team of competent public servants, and then without fanfare, restored order to the Office of President of The United States of America during the most chaotic transition of power this nation ever endured.

Our Capital had just been invaded by violent insurrectionists who were attempting to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power, as designated in the Constitution of The United States of America, and seize the presidency for their leader. Joe Biden calmly transformed chaos into a quietly competent transition of power while, at the same time, dealing with a raging pandemic that eventually resulted in more than one-million American deaths and the worst economic collapse in decades.

Joe Biden's first priority was control of the pandemic so Americans could return to living normal lives. He presided over distribution and administration of miracle vaccines that dramatically reduced the severity of the disease among persons who chose to take advantage of his generosity.

His second priority was restoration of the economy which is very complicated given economics is an unscientific art. The economy runs on people spending cash. Sending people too little, or instead sending cash to banks for them to hand out as was done in 2009, would slow recovery and could lead to recession. Sending too much cash directly to people, businesses and institutions can lead to inflation. He chose to gamble on the second option of sending too much to people, businesses and institutions which dramatically created jobs, increased wages and got the economy going -- but also increased inflation.

His third priority was addressing control of climate change which increasingly severe floods, heat waves, droughts, fires and freezes are making that harder to ignore. Getting Congress to address this problem took longer but finally passed after 20 months of relentless effort.

1. A bipartisan infrastructure bill to repair road and bridges, renovate ports and public transportation, expand broadband access and replace every lead pipe in America.
2. A COVID-19 relief bill that gave $1,400 per person to financially struggling Americans, extended unemployment support and provided billions of dollars to help businesses, schools, colleges and universities pay employees and stay open.
3. Distribution of an amazingly successful Covid-19 vaccination program that resulted in vaccination of 74% of all Americans.
4. Expansion of access to affordable health care to five million more Americans.
5. Creation of six million jobs and the lowest number of unemployment claims since 1969.
6. A bill to address climate change that increasingly disastrous floods, freezing, fires and heat waves makes difficult to ignore.
7. Addition of a 15% income tax on corporations making more than $1 billion in profit per year and a slight increase in income tax for families earning more than $400,000 per year.

Afghanistan collapsed. President Trump had quietly made a deal with the Taliban that if they did not attack us we would withdraw all United States forces by May 1, 2021. Taliban leaders used the truce to bribe local and military Afghan leaders then attacked the central Afghan government as we evacuated our troops. While President Biden mobilized the largest and most successful mass airlift evacuation in history the televised chaos of thousands of men, women and children trying to escape the Taliban was horrific. Our short attention spans help everyone, but persons directly connected to Afghans, to forget the many decades of Americans being maimed and killed in that "graveyard of empires."

Putin's invasion of Ukraine was a surprise. Seven decades of peace, economic interdependence and prosperity made it easy to consider NATO an obsolete relic of World War II. Invasion of Ukraine violently ended that complacency and Russian aggression is serious given Putin's threat to retaliate with nuclear weapons should his regime be in danger of collapse.

Biden's response was to quickly reactivate NATO which was relatively easy given nations bordering Russia consider themselves Putin's next target.

Having just begun to enjoy the prosperity and pride of being an emerging democracy Ukrainians are determined to repel the invasion. Incompetence of the Russian military, combined with NATO and United States provision of modern weapons to intensely patriotic Ukrainians, stalled Putin's invasion.

President Biden's second response was to turn Russian money laundering into a weapon of war.

Russian financial institutions, government agencies, and wealthy individuals bank outside Russia to protect their money from theft. President Biden mobilized the International Banking Community to "lock" all Russian government, business, and individual accounts making it impossible for them to pay bills, purchase anything and conduct business. Almost all international companies fled Russia; the luxury assets of Putin's closest associates have been seized and Russia is finding it increasingly difficult to fund Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

China is increasingly aggressive and the Central Intelligence Agency is concerned that Taiwan may soon be attacked. Until very recently Americans believed helping China prosper would result in it becoming more like us and until recently that appeared to be what was happening. Things changed in 2013 when Xi Jinping became President for life of the People's Republic of China.

His installation of a repressive government in Hong Kong, detainment of millions of Uyghurs in concentration camps, construction of a 600 ship navy and military bases in the South China Sea, threats against Australia and the Philippines, constant violations of Taiwan airspace and aggressive interceptions of ships in international water are current reality.

President for Life Xi has a problem. Unlike most autocrats he must face Communist Party reaffirmation of his position at periodic national conferences, the next of which is in November 2022. Afraid for his life he cannot risk the "loss of face" that would occur if he abandoned trying to reassert dominance over Taiwan.

President Biden's strong response to Putin's invasion of Ukraine may make war with China less likely. President Biden's organization of a NATO like Asian alliance that includes Australia, England, India, South Korea and Japan, and demonstration of the power of the Economic War he launched against Russia, have resulted in angry Chinese denunciations of The United States of America like those we ignored in the fifties and sixties.

Eleven Chinese professors "home-stayed" with my wife and me. All sincerely believe China is the "Central Kingdom" around which the world revolves. On the other hand all experienced the Cultural Revolution and are rightly fearful of civil unrest. They endure constant surveillance, repression and autocracy because that is the price of upward economic mobility.

While China is militarily stronger than before, and while China could destroy Taiwan, doing so would destroy the Chinese economy. Economic War, like President Biden and the International Banking Community are using to contain Russia would likely create civil unrest what Chinese leaders like Xi fear most.

Paternalistic authoritarianism, often with a religious bias, is how almost all nations are governed today, and have always been, governed. Our forefathers knew authoritarian leaders always eventually become corrupt so they deliberately limited the power of the executive. They created a tripartite check and balance system wherein elected representatives propose law, the executive administers law and judges determine legality of the law.

Our forefathers deliberately made it hard for an executive to make things happen which is frustrating. Humans want a father to protect and provide for us and to make wrongs right. We become frustrated when the new president we voted for is not able to issue an edict that immediately solves whatever problem we elected him to solve.

There is a world-wide movement to replace democratic republican governments with authoritarianism. The January 6th insurrection was an attempted coup. Hitler, Castro, Chavez and other dictators failed in their first attempted coup, corrected their mistakes and then succeeded in taking control of what were often democratic republic governments.

There is no guarantee frustrated citizens will not seize control of the presidency and replace our presently check and balanced President with an authoritarian who will ignore The Constitution of The United States of America, replace civil servants with cronies, and turn our democratic republic into a Kleptocracy. "KLEPTOCRACY is government by those who seek chiefly status and personal gain at the expense of the governed" (https://www.merriam-webster.com)

2207-JLB