Tag Archives: Joe Biden

national news

It isn’t ‘political correctness,’ Mr. POTUS

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A reporter stood before Donald Trump today to pose a question; he said he had to speak loudly because he was wearing a surgical mask.

“You’re being politically correct,” Trump told the reporter, speaking in that dismissive tone he uses to discuss measures people are taking to avoid being sickened by the coronavirus.

The reporter answered that he was merely being cautious, that he doesn’t want to catch the killer virus.

And so it goes on and on with the Dipsh** in Chief, who continues to dismiss the wearing of masks as a preventative measure by Americans.

Trump won’t wear one in public. He says a mask makes him “look ridiculous.” He poked fun today at his likely election opponent, Democrat Joseph R. Biden, for wearing a mask during Memorial Day services in Delaware. Biden was asked by a CNN reporter whether wearing  mask is a sign of “strength” or “weakness.”

Joe Biden’s answer? It’s a sign of “leadership.” Bingo!

Donald Trump has failed every leadership test he has ever taken since becoming a politician.

Oh! There’s this: The disease that would in Donald Trump’s words disappear “miraculously” when we had recorded 15 cases is about to claim its 100,000th fatality.

media news, national news

Campaigning via Twitter? Sweet!

We are witnessing the birth of a new style of presidential campaigning. OK, it’s not entirely a brand new thing, but it’s taking on a life of its own.

The world is being treated to a presidential campaign conducted via Twitter. The antagonists? Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

For those of us who came of political age in an earlier — and decidely more quaint — era, this is a strange evolution to watch. However, I am learning to get used to it.

Donald Trump has perfected the Twitter gambit. It has become something of an art form with this guy. He has an 80-million follower crowd, many of whom hang on his every word. I admit to following Trump on this medium, but it’s primarily a way to keep this guy in front of me at all times. Better to keep the bad guys visible than to have them lurking unseen or unheard in the shadows.

He blathers, bellows and bloviates via Twitter constantly. He most recently has taken to the medium to fire back at criticism of his golf outings in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. He accuses Biden of having a poor work ethic while serving as vice president in the Barack Obama administration.

Biden has fired back. He said, also via Twitter, that Trump should concentrate on the pandemic rather than firing off tweets aboard his golf cart.

So it will go until the end of this presidential campaign … and likely far into the future of presidential campaigns. It’s a new age.

national news

Looking ahead to a brighter day

I like playing a mind game that enables me to look ahead to the short- or the medium-term future. I don’t have a name for it … but what the hey!

The game I am playing at the moment involves the moment when Donald Trump walks away from the presidency. It could happen Jan. 20, 2021 or (gulp!) on Jan. 20, 2025. Oh, how I want it to be the first date.

But still, Donald Trump has become — in addition to being the most unqualified, unfit and uninformed person ever elected president — a first-class, top-tier boor. His treatment of others has become almost legendary in its crassness.

So what might happen at the moment the new president takes over from Trump? The transition from one president to another is filled with niceties, photo opportunities, pro forma courtesies. Let’s assume for a moment that the new president will be Joseph R. Biden Jr., the 2020 Democratic nominee-in-waiting.

In a normal political environment, Joseph Biden and his wife, Jill, would go to the White House. The first couple, Donald and Melania Trump, would greet them. They would exchange some small talk, pose for pictures, then go inside for some more chatter, perhaps have a meal.

This campaign, though, will be far from “normal.” It will be as abnormal as it can get. Trump will sling epithets and baseless accusations at Biden. The former vice president will fire back with his own attacks. Trump won’t like the things Biden says about him and he’ll ratchet up the rhetoric.

How low it stoops is anyone’s guess.

Then there will be the inaugural ceremony. The new vice president and the president take their oaths of office, then the president — and I do hope it’s Biden — will begin his remarks. In a more genteel time, the new president would turn to the outgoing president and thank him for his service to the country. My favorite moment of that nature occurred in 1977 when President Carter turned to President Ford — whom he had defeated in a bruising campaign — and thanked “my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land” after Watergate.

It is difficult for me to believe we will witness any of that kind of dignity and decorum whenever Donald Trump’s time as president has expired. This individual has poisoned the atmosphere.

Ugh!

national news

Trump vs. Obama … ‘er Biden?

Donald Trump has been asking for it. He’s been needling, ridiculing and criticizing his immediate presidential predecessor since the moment he won the 2016 election.

Now he’s getting a portion of what he has dished out. He doesn’t like it. He called former President Barack Obama a “grossly incompetent president.” Indeed, Trump’s response to Obama’s chiding tells me plenty about the fundamental differences between these two individuals.

One of them is urbane, erudite, sophisticated. He speaks with high-minded nobility, such as what we heard Saturday night during his “virtual” commencement remarks to the nation’s high school class of 2020.

The other one is, well, crude, petulant, petty. He resorts to name-calling. He deals in innuendo, defamation of character. We have heard that, too, and we’re going to hear a lot more of it from this fellow.

Barack Obama and Donald Trump just might go at each other’s throats before this election season winds down.

But wait! Only one of these guys is running for public office in 2020. It’s Trump! He’s got an opponent out there and it’s not Barack Obama! It’s the guy who served nobly for two terms as vice president of the United States during the Obama administration.

Joe Biden has been holed up in his Wilmington, Del., basement during the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, the former president has endorsed Biden’s presidential candidacy and has made it abundantly clear he intends to work hard to ensure his election this November.

Biden and Obama, though, have a difficult dance to perform. Biden will emerge in due course — and I hope it’s soon — as the Democratic Party’s titular leader. He slogged and slugged his way through a grueling primary process against a record number of primary opponents. Biden stands alone as Donald Trump’s most pressing immediate political threat.

However, Barack Obama’s standing as the nation’s most engaging political figure threatens to eclipse the former vice president. None of this, of course, doesn’t matter one damn bit to Donald Trump, who’ll continue his insufferable tirades against the former president.

Through it all, we just might be able to take a full measure of the smallness of the individual who wants a second term as president of the United States. If Barack Obama can reveal more of that to us through his measured, dignified commentary on the quality of our current leadership, then so much the better … for Joe Biden.

national security, political news

What happens if Trump loses?

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REUTERS/Sarah Silbiger

This notion, as preposterous as it sounds, is worth pondering nevertheless, given Donald Trump’s extreme penchant for unpredictability.

What happens if Donald Trump loses the presidential election and (a) rejects the results and (b) refuses to vacate the White House?

You are entitled to snicker and maybe even guffaw at the notion. However, some learned political pros are talking about it out loud. That tells me that even though they dismiss the reject and refuse-to-leave notion as implausible, they are still talking about it … which means it’s, well, possible.

I have posed this notion already not long after Trump took office. Some of my Trumpster friends and acquaintances scolded me for suggesting such a thing. However, with this guy nothing on this good Earth is beyond the realm of possibility.

He has ranted already about “rigged” elections. He accused “millions of illegal immigrants” of voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016 but hasn’t yet produced a shred of evidence to back up the spurious claim. When every pundit on Earth was predicting Hillary would defeat Trump, the Huckster in Chief said he would lose only because the election would be rigged in Hillary’s favor.

Does anyone with a half a noodle in their noggin actually believe that Donald Trump would orchestrate a smooth and orderly transition to Joseph Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee?

The campaign already is shaping up to be the most hideous, the nastiest, the most innuendo-filled, defamatory campaign in anyone’s memory. It makes me shudder to ponder what could happen in case Donald Trump loses this election.

Trump will say anything, will resort to any tactic he can consider to win a second term. If he loses, well, we ought to prepare for the worst.

national news

Good news: This will be Trump’s final campaign!

Millions of us have been lamenting the presidency of Donald J. Trump since the moment he took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2017.

It’s been a serious downer damn near every step along the way. Here, though, is some news that might bring the hint of a smile to your puss. This upcoming election will be Trump’s final campaign for the presidency.

Yep, win or lose, this is it! The U.S. Constitution — despite Trump’s public ruminations to the contrary — sets in stone that presidents can be elected to just two full terms in office. The Imbecile in Chief managed to get elected to that first term in 2016. He wants a second term … over my strongest objection imaginable.

Joe Biden must defeat him. How that will occur remains a work in progress.

Might a defeated Donald Trump seek another public office? Oh, sure. I suppose he can do that. The presidency, though, appears to be out of the question if Joe Biden is able to do what I hope he is able to do on Election Day 2020.

Having revealed a snippet of cheer for us to ponder as we gird for this campaign, I also feel the need to remind us of what is about to unfold. If you thought the 2016 campaign for president was as low as it could get, well I want to tell you that 2020 is likely to make the Donald Trump-Hillary Clinton scrap resemble a Girl Scout cookie sale.

Donald Trump is as ruthless an individual as any of us have ever witnessed in public life. He has no conscience, which means he lies without understanding the consequence he might suffer. He doesn’t care. He is not equipped with an ounce of shame.

So when he accuses Biden of committing crimes while serving as vice president during the Barack Obama administration, he does so blindly and with no thought to the defamatory nature of what flies out of his mouth. He will do the same thing with President Obama, just as he did for years fomenting the “birther” lie that Obama was not qualified to run for president.

We need to get ready for what is to come. The good news is that this will be the final time we’ll have to listen to this idiot’s campaign pitch. The best news will occur if Joe Biden emerges victorious from the campaign carnage that will ensue.

national news

Where is the truth to be found?

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I admit readily that I don’t understand a lot of things in this crazy old world of ours.

One of those unknowable things — at least to me — is this: How do we establish the truth between someone who levels an allegation against a politician and the person who has been accused of behaving badly?

I present to you Joseph R. Biden and Tara Reade.

Reade has accused Biden of assaulting her sexually in 1993; she says Biden, then a U.S. senator from Delaware, pinned her against a wall in the Capitol Building, shoved his hand under her skirt and touched her where he shouldn’t have touched her.

Biden denies it. Categorically. Emphatically. Says it did not happen.

Who is telling the truth? I don’t know. Nor do I understand fully how we get to the truth.

Do the accuser and the accused submit to polygraph exams? That’s dicey for this reason: Polygraph examinations cannot be used as evidence in a court trial, which often renders the results potentially suspect.

Biden is now the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. His opponent this fall will be Donald J. Trump, who’s got a lengthy list of accusers who have alleged he has done many things to them. Indeed, Trump can be heard on an audio recording bragging about how he has grabbed women by their genitals; he has admitted to philandering; he has boasted of the boorishness he has exhibited with women. In this context, though, that is beside the point.

The crux of this blog post deals with how Biden can possibly put this matter aside beyond merely denying he did what Reade says he did.

I suppose this matter falls the category of “Whom Do You Believe?”

I am inclined to believe Biden. Reade reportedly filed a sexual harassment complaint against the Biden Senate office. Indeed, Biden has acknowledged behaving in a manner that some women have said crossed the line into sexual harassment. He has apologized for it and has vowed to keep his distance among women. Sexual harassment, though, is a huge distance away from sexual assault.

Reade waited only until now to allege a sexual assault? Victims of such acts often have good reasons for not wanting to file complaints in the moment.

I don’t know what to believe. Nor am I aware of anything Biden can do to push this accusation aside. A flat-out denial never is good enough. Indeed, even proper “vetting” of such an accusation will not dissuade the most hardened cynics/conspiracy theorists from believing there’s more to the accusation than meets the proverbial eye.

This is the kind of story that gives me an upset stomach. I need to gulp some Pepto.

national news

Republicans for Biden? Hmm, sounds plausible

Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee, has let slip a notion that has more than a tiny ring of truth to it.

He has said that some major Republican officeholders are pledging to help him defeat Donald Trump in this year’s election. These would be the so-called “never Trumpers” who believe — as I and many others do — that Trump is more of a cult leader than the head of a major political party.

Biden long has boasted of his ability to work across the aisle with Republicans. He did so for more than three decades as a U.S. senator and was able to swing a deal or three for President Obama during his eight years as vice president in the Obama administration.

This is far from unprecedented, of course. In 1972, Republican President Nixon had the “Democrats for Nixon” crowd work for his re-election against Democratic nominee Sen. George McGovern, who was considered too far out in left field to suit their taste. That one hurt, of course … but I digress.

Trump is not an actual Republican. He has no moral compass. He doesn’t adhere to an ideology. Trump panders to whoever has his attention in the moment. And don’t get me started on his categorical unfitness for the office of president of the United States.

“It is literally just forming,” according to one former top GOP official, speaking to the Daily Beast. “I’ve had several conversations with people who have approached me. It’s going to take off, it’s going to happen. The question is to what degree and form it does,” the official said.

We shall see. I am one American who hopes it does “take off.”

national news

How can Trump justify any of this?

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I am running out of ways to explain to myself — let alone to others — how Donald J. Trump continues to bob and weave his way out of political trouble.

On this man’s presidential watch we are witnessing a pandemic that I will acknowledge immediately he did not create. However, his nonresponse early on has led to the deaths that have caused unspeakable tragedy for tens of thousands of American families.

He is focusing mainly on the economic devastation. He says he wants to restart the economy. He is placing his emphasis on that desire. Meanwhile, the jobless rate today was reported to have surpassed 14 percent and non-farm private-sector jobs declined by — gulp! — more than 20 million in just the past month.

He blows it off! It was expected, he said. No worries, Trump said. The economy will bounce back bigger and better than ever. When? He doesn’t know. He cannot possibly know. Yet he pretends to know it’ll happen “soon.”

The Trump cultists buy into this clap trap.

The video and audio record is full of example after example of Trump declaring the pandemic was “under control.” That it would vanish like a “miracle.” My goodness! It has gone in precisely the opposite direction.

Americans are suffering. Business is shattered. In my entire life I’ve never witnessed anything like this. I tend to look toward Washington for some inkling that the president actually cares about me, my family, my friends, all Americans. This guy? He doesn’t give a sh**!

And yet …

He keeps showing signs that he just might wiggle his way back to a second term as president.

How does this clown do this?

The Democratic Party has a presumptive nominee, Joe Biden, who is laying low at the moment. He faces an allegation from a woman who accuses him of a sexual assault. Donald Trump has several such female accusers out there, so it behooves Trump to keep his mouth shut on this particular issue.

My hope is that Biden is able to make the coronavirus pandemic a campaign issue that he can hang around Trump’s neck. My loathing of Trump is well known to readers of this blog. He needs to go. He has disgraced the high office he occupies and continues to bring shame to the nation.

First things first. Joe Biden has to step off the sidelines and get back onto the field of play.

national news

Biden is not Kavanaugh

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I feel the need to look briefly at two men who faced allegations of sexual assault. One of them has been a known quantity to Americans for nearly 50 years; the other one burst on the national scene only two years ago.

Americans know plenty about Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee. Tara Reade has accused him of sexual assault in a 1993 incident on Capitol Hill. Biden became a national figure the  moment he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972; he was 29 years of age at the time of his election. Then his wife and daughter died in a tragic auto accident. He took office under the crushing burden of unfathomable grief.

Yes, we know Joe Biden. No one ever has said anything publicly about this man being the kind of beast that Tara Reade alleges he became when he assaulted her.

What’s more, don’t you think Barack Obama, the nation’s first African-American president, would have vetted Biden with utmost care and diligence when he selected him as vice president in 2008?

Then we have Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Donald Trump nominated him to the high court in 2018. Few of us knew a thing about Kavanaugh when he got the nod to join the court. Then up stepped Christine Ford, who accused him of sexually assaulting her when they both were much younger. Kavanaugh denied the allegation angrily.

The difference between Biden and Kavanaugh, I submit, merely rests in what we know about both men. I feel as though I know Biden, given that I have watched his public career from afar almost since the moment he joined the Senate in 1973. I find it difficult to believe he would behave with such boorishness as has been alleged. Justice Kavanaugh? I know next to nothing about him, other than his conservative judicial philosophy. I cannot make any kind of determination on the veracity of the allegation brought against him.

Joe Biden is another sort of politician altogether. I am going to stand with the former vice president until Tara Reade can persuade me she is telling the whole truth. I don’t believe she will deliver the goods.