Tag Archives: Joe Biden

national news

Digesting this VP choice

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I admit my political bias regularly and without apology. I mean, we all have bias, we are imbued in it, it propels our political principles.

At least it propels my principles.

I lean toward the Democratic Party. I have been voting for president every four years since 1972 and not once have I cast a presidential vote for a Republican. I don’t regret my votes, although as I look back on one of them with decades of experience under my belt, I might have thought differently about the 1976 race between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford.

I say all this as a cautionary tale to the excitement many of my fellow pro-Democratic Party voters are feeling today with the selection of Sen. Kamala Harris as the party’s latest vice-presidential pick.

She’s already made history by being the first woman of color to be chosen. She is black and she is of Indian descent; her father hailed from Jamaica, her mother from South Asia. That’s historic!

Sen. Harris now stands on the brink of making even more history in 88 days by being elected the first woman as vice president.

I am trying mightily to temper my excitement. I am going to succeed in tamping it down. How do I know that? Because I fear that Donald Trump, the current president of the United States, has the resources and the willingness to deploy them to win re-election to a second term. He will do whatever it takes to win.

Now, I most certainly don’t want that to happen. It is a fear that well might keep me up at night as we get closer to Election Day.

My bias remains as strong as ever. My desire to see Joe Biden elected president is at full boil. I intend to use this blog toward that end. I feel compelled, though, to reel in my excitement at the prospect until we get much closer to the election. I need assurances that the excitement is warranted.

I am hoping Kamala Harris can excite millions of Americans who are as frightened as I am at the prospect that Donald Trump can repeat the astonishing political fluke he performed in 2016.

national news

Sen. Harris? Let’s ponder this pick

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I will start with a bit of candor about U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris.

She was not my favorite choice for Joseph R. Biden’s vice-presidential running mate. Of the names that rose to the top, my preference gravitated toward Susan Rice, the former national security adviser during Barack Obama’s second term as president.

I also would have gotten fully behind U.S. Rep. Val Demings, U.S. Rep. Karen Bass, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Harris, though, is the one.

Now, that all said, I am left to place my faith in the selection process that Biden — himself a former vice president — used to make this dramatic selection. Biden served with great distinction as VP during the eight years of the Obama administration. President Obama has said many times that his selection of Biden was the “first major decision I made” as a presidential nominee and he never regretted it.

So, Biden presumably went through the same grueling process to which he was subjected during his own vetting to be VP during the Obama years.

In one respect, Biden’s selection of Harris suggests that the former VP, indeed, holds no grudges. It was Harris who drew blood from Biden during one of the Democratic primary debates when she challenged his boasting of being able to work with segregationist senators. Biden could have held that against her. He didn’t.

As some observers have noted already, this new Democratic team reminds them of Republicans Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush teaming up in 1980 after Bush called Reagan an adherent of what he called “voodoo economics.” The Reagan-Bush team steamrolled to two landslide victories.

Do I have any concerns now about Kamala Harris? Again, I will defer to Joe Biden’s knowledge of the vetting process. If she checks all the boxes to Biden’s satisfaction, then that is good enough for me.

Just as Joe Biden wasn’t my first pick to lead the Democratic challenge against Donald Trump, Kamala Harris wasn’t my first pick to join him in that effort.

Now that they’re a team, I’m all in.

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Who’ll make the call?

(AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Tradition is a big part of Election Night.

The TV networks and news agencies, with their analysts on hand to parse the results, make their calls on states as the vote totals roll in. Eventually, we get a winner. Someone crosses the 270-electoral vote threshold to become elected president of the United States.

In November, we’ll go through it again.

One of two men, Joe Biden or Donald Trump, will emerge the winner. I hope it’s Biden. You know that already.

Suppose the polls we see today showing Biden winning big on Nov. 3 hold up. Biden wins. Tradition dictates that the person who falls short calls the winner to concede, to offer his congratulations and, presumably, his support and cooperation during the transition.

Then, according to tradition, the winner strides to a microphone to declare victory. While making that declaration, though, the winner usually mentions the “gracious and warm phone call” he gets from the opponent.

Ahh, that’s where it might break down … if the guy I want to win actually wins.

You see, Donald Trump has said a number of things that seem to put that Election Night tradition in some jeopardy. He might not accept the election result. He might challenge  it. He’ll accuse someone of “rigging” the result. What’s more, we’re likely to slog our way through the campaign with heaps of mud being slung … from Trump to Biden and perhaps some in response from Biden to Trump. These men will not end this campaign as friends.

I have this fear that the tradition we long have boasted about — the peaceful transition of power from one party to the other one — might not play out once we get the ballots counted.

Does anyone expect Trump to say anything gracious about his foe no matter the result? For that matter, should we expect Biden to speak well of his foe given what we can expect to come from Trump throughout the remainder of this political bloodbath?

Tradition is in trouble, I fear, as we await the result of what is sure to be a most consequential election.

Then again … we can hope that sanity prevails on Election Night.

national news

Where’s the second-term message?

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Donald J. Trump continues to flail and flounder not only on the administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic but also on the president’s re-election message.

I suppose the two things are connected, given that he can’t craft one strategy let alone two at the same time.

Truth be told, I care only about the first thing, the response to the coronavirus that has killed more than 160,000 Americans. I don’t give a sh** about the second matter, the re-election effort. I want his butt tossed out of the White House.

However, I want to look briefly at the consequences of Trump’s failure to craft a message worthy of re-election.

He is running against himself. Trump continues to paint a gloomy and forbidding picture of life in America. He’s been president for nearly four years. He was going to “drain the swamp,” provide health care for everyone, unify the nation, make America great again, put America first. He said that “I, alone” can do all those wonderful things.

He has failed to deliver the goods.

What’s left for him to promise? More of the same?

That ain’t a winning strategy. Again, it’s not that I want him to craft a vision for a second term. I want him kicked out. I want him as far away from the seat of power as he can possibly get.

One way for him to ensure his earliest possible departure — short of resigning from office in the next 15 minutes — is to continue on the clumsy path he has blazed for himself. That’s fine with me.

Joe Biden stands poised at this moment of relieving the nation of the misery that Trump has brought upon us all. That, of course, will depend on whether he can withstand the withering assault that is coming his way.

Look, the former vice president wasn’t my first choice to challenge Trump. Biden did survive a grueling primary process. He’s now the only choice we have. I now am all in.

The campaign will unfold –, given the pandemic’s effect on political life — in a way we haven’t seen ever before. Be smart, Joe. Be restrained. Be presidential, which I know you can do.

Just let Trump be Trump.

media news

‘Fake news’ from its originator

I continue to be astonished that Donald J. “Fake News Purveyor in Chief” Trump continues to hurl epithets at the media in that petulant fashion he has adopted.

He calls the media “fake news.” My ever-lovin’ goodness, the man has no shame, no self-awareness.

He did so again today during that campaign riff disguised as a “news conference” in Bedminster, N.J. He said the media don’t report the progress he supposedly is making against the pandemic, calling them “fake news.”

I feel the need to call Trump out because he, alone, is responsible for more than 20,000 reported instances of misleading statements and outright lies since becoming president, according to the Washington Post. He lies and lies some more. His “base” gives him a pass because, in their twisted view, he is “telling it like it is.”

The most egregious act of fake news, of course, came when Trump kept alive the lie that Barack Obama was born in Africa and wasn’t qualified to run for president. It was a blatantly racist attack on the first African-American ever elected president. He followed that up by questioning President Obama’s academic credentials at Harvard University.

Trump’s familiarity with fake news is well-known to everyone on Earth … except him. A certifiably pathological liar is prone to say things without any realization that he’s lying. That’s what Trump does. He blurts statements out. He gets fact-checked and he is told that what he says is untrue. He doesn’t care.

He recently told Fox News’ Chris Wallace that Democratic nominee-in-waiting Joe Biden wants to “defund the police,” which Wallace challenged on the spot. Trump ignored what Wallace said.

Fake news, anyone? Anyone?

The upshot of all this, maddeningly, is that those who continue to endorse Trump also continue to buy into his claptrap nonsense about “fake news.” They applaud the president for his declaration that the media are the “enemy of the people.” They, too, see the media as peddlers of “fake news.”

I never thought such idiocy would be contagious. Silly me. I was wrong.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump keeps peddling his own version of fake news. The difference between what he seeks to pawn off on us and what he accuses the media of peddling is that Trump is dealing in the real thing.

Donald Trump is a liar.

religious news

Yeah, but what about … ?

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They call it “what about-ism.” It’s when someone makes a critical statement about someone and you respond with “what about” the time so-and-so did something worse.

Donald Trump has accused Joe Biden of being “against the Bible” and “against God.” That he wants to “hurt God.”

I want to revisit that idiocy for just a moment.

You see, that Donald Trump — of all people! — would say such a thing is laughable on its face … except that it isn’t funny.

Biden is a lifelong practicing Roman Catholic. Trump has no religious experience that anyone has been able to identify.

Then there’s this:

Trump has admitted to never asking for God’s forgiveness; he once had a one-night stand with a porn star (allegedly) and then paid her 130 grand to keep quiet about an event he said never occurred; Trump also boasted to a TV host that he grabbed women by their genitals because he was a “celebrity” and that his celebrity status enabled him to “move on them like a bit**.”

Trump’s assertion about the presumed Democratic Party presidential nominee must be judged for what it is: a cheap, tawdry political stunt.

national news

This question is vital

David Gergen has hobnobbed at the center of power for decades, going back all the way during the Ford administration.

He has served Republican and Democratic presidents. The CNN political analyst has crystallized the Big Question that Joe Biden must be able to answer as he ponders who he wants to run with him on the Democratic ticket against Donald Trump. According to CNN.com, it goes like this:

But the Biden campaign should be paying the most attention to this question: If history calls, will his vice president have the capacity and talent to become a first-class president?

There you have it. Compatibility with the presidential nominee is important; so is personal chemistry; same for whether she will be a political asset.

The threshold question must be whether the VP is ready from Day One to step into the big job.

Look, let’s be candid. Joe Biden will be 78 years of age were he to take the oath of office next January. He will be the oldest president by a good bit ever to assume the office. That does not mean that the vice presidential nominee should start preparing for the job.

Lyndon Johnson was selected by John Kennedy to run for VP in 1960. Kennedy was 43 years old, the youngest man ever elected president. Fate intervened on Nov. 22, 1963. JFK chose well, as it turned out.

Joe Biden will have to choose equally well as he selects the person to run with him in what figures to be the nastiest, filthiest campaign in modern history … maybe of all time!

The other stuff is window dressing. The first and last criterion must be presidential readiness.

Read Gergen’s essay here.

The man knows his stuff. Pay attention to the advice this guy offers, Mr. Biden.

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Trump chides Biden on race matters? Really?

Donald J. “Narcissist in Chief” Trump’s utter lack of self-awareness is on full display … once again!

Joe Biden made what one could call a bit of a “gaffe” when he suggested that Latinos are a more “diverse” ethnic population than African-Americans. The presumed Democratic presidential nominee then “clarified” his remarks, offering what amounted to an apology.

Trump’s response? He went on Twitter to suggest that Biden has totally disparaged African-Americans. Now, think about that for a moment.

First of all, Biden did something that is foreign to Trump. He sought to walk back what to many seemed like an insensitive remark. Would The Donald ever in a zillion years do such a thing? Of course not! Second of all, for Donald Trump — whose relationship with ethnic and racial minorities is built on mutual distrust and hostility — to make political hay over this nothing burger is laughable on its face.

Therefore, I conclude that not only is Trump the nation’s supreme narcissist, he also lacks any semblance of self-awareness over how others might perceive anything that flies out of his pie hole.

Keep spewing that idiocy, Donald.

religious news

Hurt the Bible, hurt God?

Shawn Thew/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Hmm. I have to wonder whether Donald J. “Demagogue in Chief” Trump is campaigning like a man who believes he is going to lose his job as president of the United States.

He said today that Joe Biden wants to “hurt the Bible, hurt God.”

I am shaking my noggin in utter disbelief.

How do I assess what flew out of Trump’s mouth?

For instance, how does a worldly politician “hurt God”? Well, I won’t go there. You get my drift. The Almighty is beyond being “hurt” by a mere human being.

However, I do want to discuss the utter astonishment at hearing Donald Trump — of all people — accuse a political foe of denigrating issues and matters of sincere faith.

Joe Biden is a lifelong Catholic. He smudges his forehead with ash on Ash Wednesday. He goes to Mass regularly. He takes communion. Trump? His association with matters of faith is, um, for show only. I need only to point you directly to that hideous photo op across the street from the White House a few weeks ago when Trump stood in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church, holding an upside-down Bible. He didn’t go into the house of worship. Oh, no. He stood outside to have pictures taken.

Donald Trump has no basis on which he can criticize another individual’s religious faith. Donald Trump has never sought forgiveness for his sins; he has never admitted to mistakes; he once referred to a New Testament book as “Two Corinthians.”

Trump’s desperation has become evident as he stands in public places and says things such as what he said today about Joe Biden.

Consider, too, that he said Biden is “against guns. He is against God.” Think of the idiocy right there. Guns and God juxtaposed in adjoining sentences.

When I discuss the incoherence Trump displays while speaking to the nation, this is precisely to what I am referring. To think, therefore, that Trump brags about “acing” a cognitive exam, which is given to determine whether someone is afflicted with dementia.

So, we are witnessing Donald Trump trying to find something, anything, to hang on a foe who at this moment seems headed for a smashing victory over a president who doesn’t have a clue about the job he was elected to perform.

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How does Trump defend his record?

How is this supposed to work?

Donald Trump campaigned for the presidency in 2016 by proclaiming that the country was in dire peril. He said “I, alone” can fix the nation. He won the election and then delivered an inaugural speech remembered for one line: “This American carnage ends right here and right now.” It was a dark, foreboding speech.

Four years later he is campaigning for re-election by summoning voters to the same fear he harvested in 2016.

How is that supposed to make voters feel better another four years under the leadership of the Carnival Barker in Chief?

Donald Trump is presiding over a nation that is in infinitely worse condition than it was when he took office. How does he tell us he can repair what is so badly broken now?

To be fair, he didn’t cause the pandemic that has killed 160,000 Americans. His failure to respond proactively at the front end, though, clearly must be considered the cause for so many of those deaths. Oh, and the economy? It has collapsed. The one aspect that Trump sought to hail as his signature positive argument has been destroyed by the pandemic.

He is going after Joe Biden, the presumed Democratic nominee, hammer and tong. He is accusing Biden of wanting to ruin the suburbs, take our guns away, of being “against God,” of being a “far-left” politician.

Where are the accomplishments on which Trump wants us to re-elect him? They don’t exist. Trump’s campaign looks almost identical to the previous one.

How does this equate to a re-election strategy?

I am baffled.