Yesterday, we published what we thought might be a speech by Biden in Maui announcing a “climate emergency”. The goal of that was to pre-empt the White House by catching them off-guard, and hope it might have an impact due to the factual commentary we provided.
I’ll never know if we did or did not have an impact. But one thing is clear – in his actual speech, he didn’t mention the word “climate” once. I’ll take it as a win, no matter how it came to be. The full speech follows. Note that the strikethrough/corrections were added by the White House.
AUGUST 21, 2023
Remarks by President Biden Paying Respects to the Lives Lost in Maui and Reaffirming His Commitment to Supporting Residents
Lahaina Banyan Tree Park
Lahaina, Hawaii
12:47 P.M. HST
THE PRESIDENT: Well, hello, people of Maui. You’ve shown such absolute, incredible courage, and that’s not hyperbole. I want you to know, on behalf of the United States of America and all the nation, the American people stand with you.
Governor Josh Green, you’ve been incredible. From the day we’ve spoken on this, you’ve been way ahead of the curve. Lieutenant Governor Sylvia Luke; Brian Schantz [Schatz], our senator; Senator Mazie Hir- — by the way, Mazie, I told my granddaughter, whose name is Maisy as well — she said, “That’s why I like her.” (Laughter.) Anyway. But her name is Maisy as well.
And — and Jill To- — Tokuda, Representative Ed Chase, and Mayor Rick Bassen [Bissen]. Rick, when we talked on the phone, I never — you look like you played in defensive tackle for — I don’t know who, but somebody good. But, anyway, I want to thank you for your leadership in this unimaginable — during this unimaginable travedy — tragedy.
To my left is the banyan tree beloved by this community for over 150 years here in the former capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii, that has stood for generations as a sacred spot of exceptional significance.
One of the people who took me under his wing when I first got to the Senate was Danny Inouye. He used to talk about — used to talk about the Kingdom of Hawaii. He was J- — came from Japan, but it was amazing to listen to him.
Today, it’s burned, but it’s still standing. The tree survived for a reason. I believe it’s a powerful — a very powerful symbol of what we can and will do to get through this crisis. And for this — for as long as it takes, we’re going to be with you — the whole country will be with you.
You know, we will be respectful of these sacred grounds and the traditions that rebuild the way the people of Maui want to build, not the way others want to build. We’re going to rebuild the way the people of Maui want to build.
But, you know, it’s going to be hard. America’s deadly wildfire — deadliest wildfire in over a century.
And Jill and I have what’s left of — walked Front Street, what’s left of it. We’ve surveyed the damage from the air as well. The devastation is overwhelming.
To date, 114 dead. Hundreds of people are unaccounted for.
I remember when I got the call — my first wife and daughter — I was a young senator, and I got a call in Washington. I hadn’t been sworn in yet. I wasn’t old enough. And I was hiring staff in the Capitol in Teddy Kennedy’s office. And I got a phone call saying — from my fire department, and a young first responder kind of panicked and said, “You’ve got to come home. There’s been an accident.”
I said, “What happened?”
He said, “Your wife, she — she’s dead. Come home. Come home.”
A tractor-trailer had broadsided her and killed her in a car accident along with my little daughter. And — and I remember all the way down from Washington home wondering what a lot of people here are wondering: What about my two boys? How are they? They were in the car. I never got a read on that. Were they going to be all right or badly injured? Were they going to make it? Had they made it? It wasn’t until I walked into the emergency room, and I saw that they were there.
The difference between knowing somebody is gone and worrying whether they’re available to come back are two different things.
You know, and I — I remember one of the people who helped me the most was Danny Inouye. He helped bring me back. So I know the feeling that — as many of the people in this town, this community, that hollow feeling you have in your chest like you’re being sucked into a black hole, wondering, “Will I ever — will I ever get by this?”
You know, it’s one thing to know, but it’s quite another thing to have to wait, to wonder whether your family members are going to be okay.
Imagine being a parent wondering where your child is — where he is. I remember, as I said. You know, press reports of grandfathers crying for lost neighbors while trying to be strong for the ones who survived. Of a woman distributing clothing to survivors who says she didn’t lose her home, but she lost her hometown.
But I also want all of you to know the country grieves with you, stands with you, and we’ll do everything possible to help you recover, rebuild, and respect culture and traditions when the rebuilding takes place.
My administration has been in constant contact with the governor and congressional delegation and local leaders. As soon as I got the governor — governor’s request, I signed the master — the major disaster declaration that mobilized the whole-of-government response, which means whatever you need, you’re going to get.
For example, the Coast Guard and Navy immediately supported maritime search and rescue operations, while the Army helped fire suppression.
Here’s what — here’s what we’ve been doing since. First, we focused on search and rescue, which is still going on. Right now, there are over 450 search and rescue experts working around the clock.
Second, I’ve identified FEMA’s Administrator Griswell [Criswell] to lean forward, as she always has done, to help survivors get immediate aid. FEMA has quickly provided 5 — 55,000 meals, 75,000 liters of water, 5,000 beds, 10,000 blankets. We’re working to help remove the debris, repair roads, and restore power.
Additionally, my Department of Homeland — of Housing and Urban Development is working with the state to make sure survivors can move from emergency shelters into temporary housing to finally have a permanent place to call home as well.
The Small Business Administration is making low-interest federal disaster loans available to Hawaiian businesses — many of them you see here — burned to the ground; homeowners and renters; and nonprofits.
If you need help, you can visit FEMA’s disaster recovery center at Maui College or go to DisasterAssistance.gov — DisasterAssistance.gov.
Today, I’m appointing Bob Fenton, who’s here — where are you, Bob?
MR. FENTON: I’m right here, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: There he is. I’m appointing Bob Fenton as our Chief Federal Response Coordinator for Maui to lead our long-term recovery work. He’s one of the nation’s most experienced disaster response and recovery experts in America, and I’m dict- — I’m directing him to make sure the community has everything — everything the federal government can offer to heal and to rebuild as fast as possible.
And we’re focused on what’s next. That’s rebuilding a long — long-term — rebuilding for long-term and doing it together to help get us back on our feet, to rebuild the way we want to rebuild by making sure your voices are heard, by respecting your traditions, by understanding the deep history and meaning of this sacred ground and establishing your community, not to change it — its character, but to reestablish it.
We’re also going to bring the capabilities to help you rebuild so your critical infrastructure is more resilient in the future. All this matters.
Let me close with this. From stories of grief, we’ve seen so many stories of hope and heroism, of the aloha spirit. Every emergency responder put their lives on the line for — to save others.
Everyday heroes, neighbors helping neighbors, Native Hawaiian leaders offering solace and strength.
And this banyan tree. One called it the diamond in the rough of hope. Another referred to — “Fire cannot reach its roots” is what he said. “Fire cannot reach its roots.”
That’s Maui. That’s America. And to the people of Hawaii, we’re with you for as long as it takes, I promise you.
May God bless all those we’ve lost. May God find those who we haven’t determined yet. And may God bless you all. And may God protect our troops.
Now I’m going to — happy to turn this over to the governor, Governor Green.
12:56 P.M. HST
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What about the Governor?
He might be toast.
“God save the Queen, man.”
Did they fly the state flag of Hawaii?
No, good ol’ Joe didn’t mention climate change in his speech referenced in the above article, but he did state this (from his second to last paragraph as quoted above):
“May God find those who we haven’t determined yet.”
Are the any good translators out there able to decipher what that means?
Even in context???
And, yes, that statement, verbatim, is in the official White House transcript of that speech.
I believe he was trying to say
“May God find those who we haven’t determined (are dead) yet.”
Maybe it’s just as well he garbled it.
Perhaps . . . but I have trouble believing God ever lost them in the first place.
Such hubris to ask God to do what humans have not been able to accomplish!
He means that the people which were completely incinerated in the fire could not be determined (found), but that God may (will) find them.
And he had to, yet again, bring up his first wife’s car crash, as if it showed empathy. The logic of the terminally stupid.
He probably remembers the time he was out in the fields cutting pineapples when Zeros flew loud and low overhead. And he grabbed his cell phone and called down to Pearl to warn them. Later on the 11:00 news he saw President Roosevelt who thanked him for saving all those lives, like he later did ending oil cancer. Blithertwiddle!
Guess they left off the FJoeB’s off the cuff statements, as reported elsewhere.
“I don’t want to compare difficulties, but we have a little sense, Jill and I, what it’s like to lose a home,” he said while at the Lahaina Civic Center.
“To make a long story short, I almost lost my wife, my ‘67 Corvette, and my cat. But all kidding aside, I watched the firefighters, the way they responded…And they ran into flames to save my wife and save my family. Not a joke,” he added.
So Joe, Almost loosing a car and cat and having to wait almost a year to fix the kitchen fire damage is Equal to 450 kids missing for a week and no one has seen nor heard from them for 10 days and the homes are ash piles. But he will send you $700 for your loss & just ignore the Billions sent the Ukraine.
And really Joe, you didn’t need the add the “Not a Joke” tell when you are making up stories.
I’ve heard the same story about the Corvette and the cat. I was afraid it might be a fake story, because who could be that tone deaf? Dementia Joe Brandon is enough of a disgrace to this country already without making up stories about him. I’m glad there’s video to back it up.
https://twitter.com/willcain/status/1693792869637582865?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1693792869637582865%7Ctwgr%5E572d208e1084807781360dade004daf955b03c56%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fd-14244916493148300526.ampproject.net%2F2308112021001%2Fframe.html
He was in Washington when he watched the firefighters. No joke.
I sometimes bring up my young daughter passing away when in a discussion with someone who just lost someone, but I don’t think I would have put it in a speech the way he did, trying to sound folksy and causal about it. Wouldn’t it have been enough to say, and more appropriate too, to say something like “having experienced a loss of loved ones, I know it can feel worse when you don’t know what’s happened to those missing, ” and then mention whatever extra aid to help resolve that issue quicker?
Still sounds weird. How about something simpler: “may God help us get through this.”
Why is he even there? Does it really help having him there, photo-opping – being pompous about “his department” of this or that doing something that they already know how to do and have prepared for?
If it was me in charge, I would not want to distract the people dealing with the disaster; definitely I would try to comfort and reassure everyone there that the government is mobilizing everything to help – I might even add something to say contact me directly if some policy or rule gets in the way of providing effective relief (yah, that wood probably open up a whole other can of worms…).
If anyone here has gone through a disaster, please let us know if it helped having the president come by.
It may mean more money coming to resolve the consequent problems. If the President doesn’t care I’d bet FEMA sets a smaller budget. In fact isn’t that what happened over the rail disaster a while back? Highlighting the failure to authorize a new pipeline that would have been safe, and occurred in Republican voting territory.
The sign of a hastily re-written speech.
“Second, I’ve identified FEMA’s Administrator Griswell [Criswell] to lean forward, as she always done…”
Identified?
Probably using the old hair sniffer PCman. Although the id was a bit off … hmmm coconut oil with hints of botanicals, must be that Griswell girl.
Headline:“Biden’s ‘Dementia’ Hell: Calls to Invoke 25th Amendment
https://radaronline.com/p/joe-biden-dementia-25th-amendment-disease-confusion-unsure-next-move/
reckon the only reason theyre not using 25th is because kackles would be even worse??
Biden has not been in charge since the day he took office. Why would those that are in charge get rid of him at this point? They will keep him in absolutely as long as possible.
When he wasn’t demented he was dangerous to governance because he was entirely self-serving, dishonest and oblivious or indifferent to the needs of the majority of voters. Now that he has no clue he is dangerous because he facilitates the goals of others with similar motivations who jockey in the dark to enrich themselves and their friends while eroding the constitutional rights of all. If those of us with the right to vote keep electing people like this we will suffer the consequences of our own poor judgment.
We WILL? We ARE!
Interesting use of language
“”The difference between knowing somebody is gone and worrying whether they’re available to come back are two different things. “”
He might have been thinking of Trump.
Or maybe Queen Elizabeth.
Both would be an improvement.
Yes, there is a loss of grammar in this sentence, probably caused by not keeping the starting sense in mind throughout the whole sentence. So he ends up saying that the difference is two different things, when he meant to say that the two things are different.
But I wouldn’t attribute any significance to it. The speech as a whole is quite coherent, maybe a bit rambling, but its logical, reasonably structured and covers the necessary topics in reasonably good order.
There are fairly frequent non-sequiturs and odd anomalies of this sort in his speeches, but I don’t detect any obvious signs of dementia in them. There are some rare ones that are a bit more worrying, phrases and sentences that seem to come out of nowhere, like ‘God Save the Queen’. Those feel like a personal associationof ideas is surfacing into expression without there being any idea that the are not appropriate or relevant to the content of the speech.
We also need to consider that in American English, some of this is quite normal. Take the expression ‘same difference’, for instance. Its usually grammatical nonsense but the meaning is usually perfectly clear.
Dementia is something different. What you are definitely not seeing in any of his speeches is the kind of characteristic incoherence you encounter with dementia, when someone uses words in correct grammatically formed sentences, but with no meaning, or simply cannot find words for ordinary things and has to speak in a very roundabout way. I don’t see any evidence of the strategies people with this problem use to get around it and conceal their difficulties.
I very much doubt its dementia, its probably a mixture of fatigue and a tendency to lose the thread of the expression while keeping that of the idea. There’s no difficulty with understanding what he’s getting at, its just that the expression is a bit clumsy and sometimes confused.
Losing a sense of where one is, not knowing which way to go, or why one is to go somewhere, that is more worrying. But it can happen to people who are not in any way demented, they haven’t driven to a nearby place in a few years, for instance, and have lost the mental map of the route and get confused.
A classic is when people go into hospital for a few days and come back and can no longer remember their house layout.
I don’t see any signs of that. But the occasional loss of a sense of which direction to go in is a bit worrying. You have the sense that there is sometimes a limited amount of attention, and some things are just not making it into memory and awareness.
I only said interesting use of language
Yes, you didn’t imply anything. I was really commenting on what I have come across in other contexts, people claiming that elements of his behavior are indicative of dementia. I don’t think they are.
It’s obvious Biden did not write the speech himself. You might notice that the instances of unscripted spontaneous speech, public comments or answers to questions from the press are increasingly rare. In this speech the muddled parts are where he went off script…
I see dementia. He looks and acts like my 91 years old mother. He is reading his speech, so the fact that it has some internal coherence is not his doing. The fact that he can’t pronounce people’s names and gets lost in his text is. The fact that he looks lost trying to leave the stage is dementia pure and simple.
I tried to edit this comment but it didn’t go through. My mother and sister have both been diagnosed with dementia. Both can construct coherent sentences, and do not have delusions (where they say something that is utterly ridiculously untrue). Mom can read, sis not so much. Both walk exactly the way Biden walks, without a sense of where they are going unless directed. On the other hand, 95 year old MIL also has dementia, and constantly discusses things that never happened. All go through periods of not recognizing family members.
My point here is that dementia is not a one size fits all condition, and many people manifest it differently at different stages. When I look at Biden, I see an old man with dementia.
The Babylon Bee has several nice takes on Joe in Maui. All richly deserved.
Best source of real news in the U.S.
C’mon man….Joey took time from his vacation to fly over which cost hundreds of tonnes of CO2…to the taxpayers – not Joey. Remember. Joey doesn’t even know what planet he’s on.,,,he even believes he’s gonna be runnin’ for office in 2024.
Replace the words “Climate Change” with “Moloch” and we are just a mere graven image away from returning to the gods so popular several millennia ago.
Several millennia ago they were sacrificing their children into the fire for the sake of Moloch, while we are kinder and gentler by hacking them up or napalming them in the womb.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
Good move with putting that “maybe” Speech out there, I am sure some of them at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave keep an eye on your Site too!
Thanks,
Frits
He walked away from the podium looking like a lost child, sort of following his wife, not knowing where he was going or why.
It is literally sickening watching this ugly man.
He has the perpetual countenance of the man who’s finger went through the toilet paper,
😂
Because he is too concerned about telling stories about a kitchen fire. What a piece of BLEEP this creep is.
Was the discussion he had about his house burning due to lightening not part of his speech?
Apparently made elsewhere in an unscripted set of comments. It was a sunny day when the lightning struck and he was in Washington when he watched the heroic firefighters. That is why he remembers it so well.
Probably because their polling has revealed to his handlers that the public isn’t buying it anymore. The weasel-named “inflation reduction act” just added to the pain that the public is feeling at the grocery store and everywhere else in the name of climate.
It was all fun and games as long as the masses thought someone else was going to get the tab, but that gig is up. So now they’ll pretend it never happened.
There appears to be some interesting rewriting of history going on here. Compare the statement from yesterday
“What follows is a likely speech (if Biden decides to do it), preemptively written by Anthony Watts and Charles Rotter.”
with today’s claim:
“Yesterday, we published what we thought might be a speech by Biden in Maui “
Now clearly they never thought that yesterday’s version was a speech by President Biden since they wrote it themselves.
And it does seem like a fairly weird way of operating. You start by publishing something that is clearly false just to poke fun at it and then when events don’t go according to your false prediction you insinuate that it is because people noticed your attack on the straw man and so decided to behave differently. And the best part of it is that you can continue to do it again and again.
Are you confused? Sure seems so.
I any event, I don’t see any issues. (now comes the blathering rebuttal)
I am not confused. It is clear what you are doing. My objection is to the way you have recast the past which is intellectually dishonest. The claim that “we published what we thought might be a speech by Biden” is not a fair way to represent what you did which is that you made up a speech by President Biden and which you knew was not by him. Stating that you “thought [it] might be a speech by Biden” makes it sound like somebody sent
you a leaked draft rather than what was actually happened.
If you want to make up speeches that never happened and are not likely to ever happen
then you are free to do so. Especially if they drive traffic to your ad supported web site. But it is more like click-bait than real journalism.
Izzy the yawn-maker.
Zero sense of humour…
Actually… just zero sense at all !
The far-left, that you are part of, are the very last who should complain about click-bait or intellectual dishonesty…
It is all you have !!
It is all you are capable of.
So, stop the idiotic, child-like whinging,
Nobody could give two stuffs about your petty objections. !!
“I am not confused. “
Yes, you are, Izzy.
Permanently and irretrievably.
It is your natural state of existence.
It is because he is clothed in self-doubt.
Can someone please give me a definition of “intellectual dishonesty”? – as opposed to, well just plain old dishonesty.
He is a warmist/alarmist that is why he is unable to be honest and rational.
Your endless inability to be rational strikes again since it has made profoundly clear that it was clearly stated BEFORE the “Speech” section, LINK
Then after that “speech” is this statement,
Then after Biden made his real speech an update was posted:
They were open and honest with you the entire time what is your excuse for ignoring all of the statements they wrote?
You are the one who is confused yet persist in making a fool of yourself in the end denying your obvious confusion as it was clearly pointed out that this “speech” was written by Anthony Watts and Charles Rotter, how can you be so blind.
You need to start reading the BabylonBee.
Well, we did hear more about demented Jo Biden’s “remembered/invented” history. That’s about all.
A very unedifying, pathetic, creepy load of self-important garbled crap, was about all he could manage.
Basically nothing of any importance to the people suffering in Maui.
Yeah, about a Car which he as a Millionaire can easily replace while many dead people can’t be brough back to life by their love’s ones.
Biden is dark soul.
Ha ha no you are the one who demonstrated poor reading skills and the confusion that comes with it.
Meanwhile you ran away after your claim was SMASHED with hard evidence by leftists media in the other post about Biden speech:
===
YOU write, LINK
the smashmouth reply to which you ran away to here the next day spreading more manure you live on a farm Izaak?
===
bnice2000
Reply to
Izaak Walton
August 21, 2023 2:49 pm
It’s all coming from the far-left that you are part of… pay more attention to your cult leaders. !
Biden faces calls to declare climate emergency as he heads to Maui – POLITICO
Biden considers issuing climate emergency declaration – The Washington Post
Editorial: Biden says he’s ‘practically’ declared a climate emergency. Why won’t he do it for real? (msn.com)
===
I saw these speculative discussions on several more media outlets than what Andy posted in the red yet you never saw it………. LOL
Chuckle.. more than 3 links puts a comment into auto-mod.
Yes there are far more.. all over the place.. all coming from the far-left media.
Why bother making a boring, nit-picky comment about something everyone understood, even I who didn’t see the original parody pseudo-speech?
Focus on this: he is the only lefty who hasn’t tried to someone link this tragedy with climate change – isn’t that earth-shattering? That he and his political masters aren’t taking advantage of this disaster?
Joey doesn’t write his speeches…he just mumbles/stumbles thru what is on the teleprompter…he will be repeating his best speech in the future a lot – NO COMMENT! Trump should get a cardboard cutout of Joey to stand next to him for a “debate” becuz there is no way Joey can or will do it.
FJB
FJT
Had to look that up: enjoyed the outcome, however!
Were I POTUS I’d be contacting various American philanthropists like Jimmy Donaldson (Mr. Beast) and asking them “Can you help Maui? Anything you need to move, the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, we’ll get it to Maui.” “Yes, you can put it on YouTube.”
Didn’t mention climate change: damn, he is so forgetful nowadays!