Tag Archives: Joe Biden

national news

Biden has locked himself in on a VP pick

REUTERS/Brian Snyder 

I have to admit that Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s commitment to selecting a woman as his running mate — presuming his nomination as the Democratic Party’s candidate for president — was a gutsy call.

He has effectively locked himself in. He must select a woman. To do otherwise, in my view, would doom Biden’s campaign against Donald John Trump.

Yet we hear the occasional chatter out there that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose daily coronavirus pandemic briefings have produced a sort of cult following of their own must be considered a potential VP selection for Biden.

Hold on! The only way Biden is going to select Andrew Cuomo is if the governor undergoes a sex-change operation … as in right now! It ain’t gonna happen. Therefore, Joe Biden is not going to consider Andrew Cuomo for a vice-presidential slot on the 2020 Democratic ticket.

I’ll certainly concede that Cuomo well could find himself serving in some high-level capacity in a Biden administration. I can think of two tailor-made Cabinet posts that would work well for the country: attorney general and homeland security secretary come immediately to mind.

However, Joe Biden clearly is dialing in on a potential VP running mate. Whoever she is must rise to the one level of consideration that stands over all the rest: Is she equipped and qualified to step into the presidency?

This process will be exciting to watch unfold.

political news

Still prefer old-fashioned voting method, unless danger lurks

Readers of this blog know already that I prefer voting in person on Election Day, standing in a voting booth, selecting my candidates in secret.

That is how I would like to vote for president of the United States on Nov. 3. However, circumstances — and you know what they are — might force all of us to change the way we cast our ballots.

I am OK with that change, if the coronavirus pandemic isn’t sufficiently put down in time for Election Day.

A Texas judge has issued a ruling that greatly enhances absentee and mail-in voting in Texas. The ruling’s most direct impact will be on the July primary runoff contests that were pushed back from late May. That damn pandemic got in the way of our runoffs, too.

Looking ahead to the big day in November, it remains my fervent hope that federal election officials are seeking ways to allow all Americans the chance to vote by mail if circumstances demand it. And — of course — Donald John “Liar in Chief” Trump is railing against voting by mail.

He has leveled a specious argument that is similar to what he alleged after the 2016 election, that mail-in voting invites illegal voting by individuals. Again, just as he always does, Trump has leveled a charge without a scintilla of evidence to back it up. Do you recall how he alleged that 5 million undocumented immigrants cast votes in California enabling Hillary Rodham Clinton to roll up her impressive popular vote margin in 2016 over Trump? He never produced a shred of proof for any of that.

He’s at it again, saying a system that has worked well in the states that use mail-in voting is corrupt and that the results aren’t to be believed.

There is ample, overwhelming evidence to suggest that “widespread voter fraud” in this country is a phony argument. Yes, some ballots are cast illegally, but they comprise a teeny-tiny fraction of all the ballots cast.

Donald Trump likely is going to face Joe Biden later this year. The pandemic might preclude an election that we’ve always known it, resulting in a nationwide mail-in balloting system. We need not reinvent the wheel here.

Election experts in several states can help develop a mail-in national election system that is secure, that can be protected against potential fraud.

I am one American who prefers the pageantry of Election Day. I want to be able to cast my ballot the way I always have done when voting for president. If we cannot do so safely, without endangering our health, then I am all in on a mail-in system.

We must not knuckle under to the demagogic trash spewed by a president who — and this only is just my view — is sounding like someone who is petrified at the result a mail-in presidential election would produce.

national news

Stars are aligning for a Trump election defeat, however …

As I look ahead to the upcoming presidential election, I am tempted to fill myself with hope that we well might change presidents when all the ballots are counted.

Joe Biden is the presumptive Democratic Party nominee. He has to win a few more primary elections to corral enough convention delegates to win the nomination when the party convenes its convention, be it a virtual event or one with actual delegates meeting in Milwaukee.

Biden has garnered the endorsements of virtually all his former rivals in what once was a huge and diverse field of contenders. He also has scored the endorsement of the most popular Democrat in America, former President Barack Obama.

The economy has collapsed. Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has been pathetic, feckless, confused, chaotic. He once downplayed the threat and then has been caught flat-footed as it has killed more than 20,000 Americans; the number is going up.

However, let’s remember that the stars aligned in 2016 for a Trump defeat. Then he won. He captured enough Electoral College votes to defeat a supremely more qualified candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Trump defeat shocked virtually every political observer on Earth.

That result gives me pause to suggest that former Vice President Biden is a shoo-in to defeat the former reality TV celebrity/carnival barker/con man/charlatan/conspiracy theorist/habitual liar.

My sincere hope is that Biden’s campaign brain trust learns from the fluke that produced a Trump election in 2016, studies how this travesty occurred and attacks with full force the record that Donald Trump has produced.

Trump’s team already knows what it has to do to win re-election. It has to retain its base and energize it. They’ll turn Trump loose and allow him to rail and rant in that incoherent fashion that seems to play well in front of those campaign rallies.

At this moment, the stars are lining up to defeat this fraudulent president. Oh, how I hope they remain aligned … and how I hope that Joe Biden can deliver on his pledge to “restore the nation’s soul.”

medical news, national news

Trump uses health crisis as re-election campaign forum … disgusting

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I caught a few minutes today of one of Donald Trump’s frequent White House press briefing/campaign rallies.

As before, I came away shaking my head wondering how in the world this guy gets away with this idiotic charade.

I watched Trump chide Joe Biden over a statement that came from the former vice president, who’s become the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. I was astounded to listen to Trump actually question whether Biden wrote the statement, suggesting the text came from his campaign staff, which Trump managed to suggest comprised some “very smart” aides.

As usual, the president’s rambling was at best semi-coherent.

And this occurred before Trump opened the floor for questions from the media gathered in the White House press briefing room. I turned away from the Trump Show to take care of some household chores.

The more I see of Trump’s daily “briefings” on the coronavirus pandemic the more convinced I am that he performs not a scintilla of public service when he stands in front of the nation in this fashion.

You know what Trump needs to do … but he won’t. He needs to stand down and leave the actual information conveyance to the experts who comprise the White House pandemic response team headed by Vice President Mike Pence; for that matter, Pence should step into the shadows, too, for I am sickened by the sucking up he demonstrates whenever he talks about the “outstanding leadership” that Trump provides to deal with this crisis.

However, these so-called “briefings” become only a platform for Trump to campaign for re-election. He uses this venue to criticize the media, Democrats, previous presidents (and chiefly just his immediate predecessor) and everyone else not associated with his administration.

He keeps insisting he is unifying the nation. He accuses congressional Democrats of “politicizing” this national emergency while doing the very same thing himself. He calls out media for reporting “fake news” without ever recognizing the extreme irony that he — the “kind of fake news” — would accuse anyone else of doing the very thing he has turned into something of an art form.

Therein lies the reason I refuse to listen to what this clown has to say. I want to rely on the scientists, the doctors and assorted other emergency response experts to provide me with information I can use.

If only Donald Trump would shut his mouth.

national news

Cuomo to replace Biden? Seriously?

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Who in the world is actually thinking seriously about New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo being nominated by the Democratic Party to run against Donald Trump in the 2020 election?

Whoever harbors that thought has rocks in his or her noggin? It ain’t gonna happen! Nor should it happen!

Oh, and I believe I heard the former vice president of the United States declare categorically that he is going to recommend a woman to run with him once he secures the party’s presidential nomination. So, that rules out Gov. Cuomo to run as VP, unless he undergoes an emergency sex-change operation.

A reporter asked Cuomo about those two matters today at the governor’s daily coronavirus pandemic briefing in Albany, N.Y.

Joe Biden has earned the title of presumptive nominee by vanquishing a huge and qualified field challengers in the Democratic primary contest. He still needs about 600 more delegates to have enough votes to be nominated.

The notion that Gov. Cuomo, whose conduct during his daily briefings has been nothing short of spectacular, would somehow emerge as a late-blooming nominee is preposterous.

Cuomo today shot down the twin rumors in flames. He’s not going to accept a VP nomination and he’s not going to run for president. He said he’s got a full plate in front of him now, managing the impact of a killer disease on residents of the state he governs.

Let’s stop the political gossip, shall we?

national news

Why hasn’t Obama weighed in for Biden? Here’s why

Donald Trump chided Joe Biden this week, wondering out loud why Barack Obama hasn’t endorsed the former vice president who now wants to run against Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

Well, Trump knows why, but I’ll offer my belief here.

President Obama has chosen to take the conventional route in presidential primaries. He didn’t want to enrage loyalists for other candidates still running by backing the man who served with him for eight years from 2009 until 2017.

The last candidate facing Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders, has bowed out. Now the road is clear for the former president to weigh in.

Earth to The Donald: There it is for you. Spelled out.

Trump, of course, doesn’t adhere to that playbook. He has weighed in repeatedly during Republican primaries in 2018 and again this year. Some of the endorsees have won, others have lost their primary fights. There’s been plenty of GOP backbiting after the votes have been counted, with Republicans arguing with each other over the impact that Trump’s endorsement might have brought to the result.

President Obama doesn’t want to get involved in that sort of intra-party squabbling.

It’s been a time-honored strategy.

I am pretty certain now that Joe Biden is the last man standing in the once-huge Democratic Party primary field that Barack Obama will cut loose.

It will be fun to watch.

national news

Trump team unveils its xenophobia

Ahhh, so this is how the 2020 presidential campaign is going to proceed.

The Donald John Trump re-election team is going to fabricate straw men, prey on people’s xenophobia and then suggest that a true-blue, red-blooded American politician is actually an agent representing a hostile power.

The Trump campaign has released a minute-long ad that implies that former Washington Gov. Gary Locke, who was born in Washington and who served as U.S. ambassador to China during the Obama administration, is a Chinese government agent.

Oh, I should mention that Locke is Chinese-American. He also is a friend and ally of Joseph R. Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

This is, as former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, described it, “utter garbage.” He said also that “Gary Locke is as American as the day is long.”

The ad is intended to suggest that Biden is more loyal to China than he is to the United States, that he and his son, Hunter, have business dealings in the People’s Republic of China … which I guess in Trump’s vacuous noggin makes him disloyal.

It’s reprehensible in the extreme. The campaign’s effort to cast a native-born American as a foreign agent makes it even worse. Wherever he is, the late U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy — the infamous commie-hunter of the early 1950s — must be nodding in approval.

Disgraceful.

national news

Biden wasn’t No. 1 choice at first; he is now

(AP Photo/John Minchillo)

I find myself trying to stop the head-spinning caused by the trajectory of the Democratic Party presidential primary contest.

Joe Biden is now the presumptive nominee of the party that will challenge Donald Trump for the presidency. He claimed that title when Bernie Sanders dropped out of the race.

I need to make two key stipulations. One is that I am glad to support former Vice President Biden’s nomination and his election as the next president of the United States. The second is that Joe Biden was not my first choice among the 22 candidates who lined up originally to seek the Democratic nomination.

I wanted someone new. I wanted a fresher face than the one Biden presents. He wasn’t among the top five Democrats in the field, but surely within the top 10.

To be candid, I didn’t have a favorite among the thundering herd that started this race. I like Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker … all of them brought plenty to the table. My hope early on, prior to the field being formed, was for the Democrats to nominate someone who would leap out of the proverbial tall grass, a total surprise.

I thought there might be another Jimmy Carter out there; bear in mind, I make the Carter reference only in hoping someone would surprise the political world the way Carter did in 1976.

None of those candidates made the final cut. Joe Biden is the last man standing.

I am all in for Biden now. Yes, I think he was — as President Obama has described him — the “finest vice president we’ve ever had.” He was consequential, a critical member of the Obama team. He served as a bridge between the president and congressional Republicans who over many years had developed abiding respect and love for the nation’s No. 2 politician. We need a president today who can rebuild that bridge.

Donald Trump has governed just as he campaigned. He appeals only to his base. I am going to place my faith in Joe Biden to actually deliver on his own pledge to “restore the soul” of our nation.

My journey to this place was full of fits and starts. However, here is where I stand. I do so proudly.

national news

DNC did not conspire to torpedo Bernie’s bid for POTUS

I do not believe in conspiracy theories.

Therefore, I do not believe the Democratic National Committee conspired to deny U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders the party’s presidential nomination for this year’s election.

What undercut Sanders’ bid to run against Donald John Trump was the quality of the ideas he was espousing. Sanders is an admirable man in many ways, but his far-left political platform was too far out of the mainstream for most Democratic primary voters to swallow.

That’s it, man! Medicare for all didn’t fly because it’s too expensive; nor did free college education; nor did his notion of vast wealth redistribution. Yes, he appealed to younger voters who became attracted to his tuition-free college education plan. They constitute a fraction of the total voting population.

Sanders had to surrender his bid for the party nomination because he lagged too far behind the guy who so far has gathered far more convention delegates, Joseph R. Biden Jr.

I happen to be a firm believer in the value of the “marketplace of ideas.” Biden’s ideas, which tilt more toward the middle, are more to the liking of Democratic primary voters. He wants to enhance and expand the Affordable Care Act rather than providing Medicare for all Americans; Biden believes granting free college education to every student in the country is too expensive; and he won’t buy into the wealth redistribution notion that Sanders has sought for as long as he has served in the U.S. Senate.

Conspiracy? I don’t think so. The former vice president’s ideas play better to a broader audience that those of the “democratic socialist.”

Let’s cool it with the conspiracy nonsense. That means you, too, Donald Trump.

national news, political news

Bernie calls it a campaign

The long and winding road to the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination has begun finally to show signs of straightening out … even as it is paused for a time while the nation wages war against the coronavirus pandemic.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ decision to drop out of the race leaves the nomination wide open for former Vice President Joe Biden, who now becomes the party’s presumptive nominee. I had hoped Sanders would have made this call sooner, but then again no one is talking overly seriously just yet about politics while the nation is essentially shut down during this health crisis.

Sanders did put up a valiant fight. I’ll give him credit for that. The 78-year-old independent senator from Vermont has written a significant chapter in the nation’s 21st-century political history. He helped push forward some important progressive ideas and possibly dragged much of the Democratic Party along with him.

Many of those ideas, though, were non-starters with mainstream Democrats: Medicare for all comes to mind, as does free public college and across-the-board college debt forgiveness.

Indeed, the self-described “democratic socialist” cannot claim too many legislative victories during his lengthy time in Congress.

He fought hard and now it’s time for him to rally his legions of supporters behind the remaining candidate who can rid this nation of the Liar in Chief who masquerades as president.

Sanders and Biden share the same overarching goal: defeating Donald Trump. Any sort of third-party effort from the left is certain to produce a second term for the man many of us consider to be the most fundamentally unfit human being ever elected to the U.S. presidency.

I’m glad to hear the news that Sen. Sanders has called it quits in his bid to become president. It soon will be time to get to work to usher Trump out of the Oval Office for the final time.

But … first things first. We all have to wage this difficult fight against a killer disease.