Biden tries to heal Kentucky flood victims

LOST CREEK, United States: In Lost Creek, Kentucky, Joe Biden promised flood victims Monday that their shattered lives will be restored-a message of optimism he hopes to beam right through a divided America three months before elections that will decide the fate of his presidency.

A disaster zone, where floods have killed at least 37 people, might seem an odd place for optimism. The presidential motorcade rolled past scenes of savage natural violence-trees torn to pieces, yellow school buses tossed like toys, and fragments of people’s houses and belongings festooning the banks of a minor creek that had transformed into a sort of tsunami.

But after visiting victims, including one family whose mobile home had floated clean off its foundations before being wrecked up the street, the Democrat said the natural calamity was a moment to recall deep bonds.

“Everyone has an obligation to help,” Biden said. “I promise you, we’re staying, the federal government, along with the state and county and the city, we’re staying until everybody’s back to where they were. Not a joke.”

Championing unity in an era when Democrats and Republicans are barely able to talk might also seem like fantasy. But Biden is on a roll. If he was being written off as a lame duck only a few weeks ago, the 79-year-old is now celebrating a string of successes, including likely passage of the biggest climate change bill in US history and an extraordinary intelligence operation culminating in the killing of the last top Al-Qaeda leader involved in 9/11.

His administration has even delivered several landmark bills, including on infrastructure spending and gun ownership reforms, that won Republican support-something earlier considered all but impossible.

And the Democrat is clearly bursting to get back into the country after spending nearly two weeks in isolation due to COVID-19 and a rebound infection. With November midterms rapidly approaching and Republicans, who are threatening to scuttle what’s left of Biden’s first term, forecast to take control of Congress, the sense of urgency is growing.