Tag Archives: Joe Biden

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.

national news

Pandemic response becomes overarching 2020 campaign issue

Should the federal government’s stumble-bum response to the coronavirus pandemic take center stage for the 2020 presidential campaign?

Oh, boy howdy, hoss! Damn straight it should!

This very moment might not be the right time to start campaigning on Donald Trump’s belated call to urgency. However, once we reach our “apex” and we start seeing declines in the infection rate among Americans, then I do believe it would be an appropriate issue to raise in the contest for the White House.

Are you listening, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.? I’m talking to you.

Even though it might be premature for a presidential contender to raise the issue, I consider it fair game for, oh, those of us on the outside, such as bloggers.

Donald Trump has done a terrible job coordinating the federal response. He has politicized the effort all along the way, and that came after he said initially that the pandemic wasn’t that big of a deal.

Nine thousand American deaths later, it most certainly a huge deal. It is so huge that it boggles my mind — and the minds of others — that the Trump administration would disband a pandemic response team assembled as part of the National Security Council during the Obama administration.

Trump’s supporters, of course, are quite willing to accept the president’s non-response as OK. Some of them are readers of this blog and are critics of what I post on this blog; they are likely to respond to this brief post. That’s fine. Let ’em have at it.

I am not going to remain silent, even in this terrible time, over what I see are egregious shortfalls in the president’s response. Donald Trump has been far too slow to get off the proverbial pot.

When the time comes to make this non-response a campaign issue, then my hope is that Trump’s adversaries zero in and remind us of what many Americans already know: Donald Trump is unfit to lead this nation.

national news

Beginning to look past the pandemic

One of the ways I occupy my mind during this coronavirus pandemic is to consider what lies on the other side of this crisis.

Namely, I think about the issues I want to ponder once we are able to push the pandemic a bit toward the back of the shelf. Yeah, I know it sounds more than a little bit nerdy.

A few things come to mind.

  • The presidential election is probably Issue No. 1. I want to see a new president take office next January. It looks like my choice will be Joseph R. Biden Jr. He’s way ahead in the march toward the Democratic Party presidential nomination. He’ll get nominated somehow, even if it’s not in the standard way: going to a convention full of delegates, having them barter and bicker over campaign platform planks. Then I want to focus on ways to encourage Biden to defeat Donald John Trump.
  •  The 2021 Texas Legislature will convene in January. Democrats might be able to wrest control of the House of Reps from Republicans. Not so sure about the Texas Senate. Democrats need to flip just nine of the 150 House seats to become the new majority. Perhaps a new House majority can enact some smart laws that can survive a veto by GOP Gov. Greg Abbott.
  •  Climate change needs our undivided attention. I worry about what’s happening to our polar ice caps and the wildlife they nurture. Polar bears are in dire peril if they cannot hunt for seals on the Arctic ice. I want a robust debate on climate change, but I fear that won’t happen if Donald Trump gets re-elected.

I know there’s a wide range of issues to discuss once we “socially distance” the pandemic to a manageable problem. I don’t believe the virus is going to disappear until we find a vaccine and manufacture enough of it to inoculate every human being on Earth. I’ll say a prayer to the scientists who are working on that matter at this moment.

That would be the way I define “returning to normal.” I hope it’s not a pipe dream.

national news

Just pick up the phone and call, Mr. VPOTUS

Joe Biden reportedly is considering whether to talk to Donald Trump about how the president can — or should — respond to the coronavirus pandemic.

Biden’s campaign team has been commenting on the possibility of the phone call. Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway has been openly critical of Biden for not calling her boss. I guess her needling got through to the former vice president, the frontrunner for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination.

Here’s where I come down on this matter.

All Biden has to do is call the White House. He knows the number. He and the president can talk privately; there is no need to blab all over creation about what they discuss. It could be just the two of them.

I cannot predict how either of them would handle such a conversation. I don’t know who between them would spill the beans to the media.

To be frank, I don’t care what they say to each other. They’re both grownup. Biden has sat at the center of power, the place now occupied by Trump. He knows a thing or two about how to wage the kind of fight that this struggle requires. I don’t know with any certainty what Trump understands, other than what he says about his alleged knowledge of these medical matters.

If there’s going to be a conversation between these two politicians, let it happen … even it if is out of sight and out of hearing.