Tag Archives: Joe Biden

legal news, national news

DOJ shoots down another Trump lie

I cannot shake this feeling that Donald J. Trump is furious at the Department of Justice.

He selected the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, perhaps believing the AG and his team would pledge fealty to the president of the United States.

So, what does DOJ do? It files a court brief that says it can find no evidence that former President Barack Obama ordered a wiretap on Trump’s campaign office at Trump Tower in late 2016.

Do you know what that means? It means Trump’s defamatory lie was exposed for what it was — by members of the president’s own Justice Department team!

Man, the boss must be spittin’ mad, right?

Well, maybe not.

Trump keeps yapping about becoming more “presidential.” He’s going in the opposite direction. I do have one suggestion for the Man at the Top to ponder if he’s ever going to turn that “more presidential” corner: own up to your lying, prevaricating ways.

I’m not suggesting he needs to say “I’m a liar.” He can acknowledge in more fanciful language that he has been known to pop off without thinking, which is about the most charitable thing I can suggest about the wiretap lie.

It’s just that when the president’s handpicked attorney general’s Department of Justice has exposed this accusation as the lie most of us know it to be, then — to paraphrase former Vice President Joe Biden — that’s kind of a big … deal.

It requires an out-of-the-ordinary response … at least for this president it would be totally unexpected.

I will keep breathing normally, though, given we all know this president is incapable of admitting to doing a single thing wrong.

medical news, national news, political news

So many lessons to learn from health care failure

Where in this world does one start to sort through the wreckage created by the Republican failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with … something else?

Most of know the story by now. Donald J. Trump got elected president and promised to “repeal and replace” the ACA. Congressional Republicans, having retained control of both legislative chambers, finally had a president on their side. Repeal and replacement were slam dunks.

Or so they thought.

Then they cobbled together something that didn’t pass conservative and progressive muster. They couldn’t round up the votes to repeal the ACA, let alone approve something called the American Health Care Act.

Arm-twisting, threats and last-second negotiation resulted in the president’s first major legislative failure. HouseĀ  Speaker Paul Ryan — a partner with the president on this fiasco — canceled the vote today.

Lessons learned here? Let’s take a peek at some of them.

* Trump bitched today at the White House that he had “no Democrat votes.” Really! He said that out loud to a room full of “enemy of the people” reporters. Well, irony apparently isn’t something that’s on Trump’s radar. President Obama didn’t have a single Republican vote when he got Congress to enact the ACA in 2010; but he damn sure tried to get some GOP support.

* Trump campaigned for the presidency on his record as a take-no-prisoners business mogul. He had no public service experience prior to running for president. His whole adult life had been geared toward personal enrichment. Then he discovered something about politics: It is that politicians have their own constituencies to worry about. If the voters who elect them don’t like what they’re doing, they have this annoying habitĀ of voting them out of office.

Congressional Republicans didn’t like the AHCA because their voters back home didn’t like it. Do you get that, Mr. President? Your Republican colleagues don’t work for you; they work for the citizens in their congressional districts and in their states.

This ain’t reality TV, Mr. President. Politics is practiced by those who know what the hell they’re doing. Just because you’re the president doesn’t mean you get your way whenever you demand something of others.

* The ACA isn’t perfect. I’ll concede that along with anyone with half a brain. But as Speaker Ryan conceded today, it is “the law of the land.” Here’s a thought for the speaker and for the president: Why not try to tinker with the ACA? Fix what’s most egregiously wrong with it. If premiums are costing too much, find a method to cap them. If Americans are having trouble finding medical care within certain networks, find a way to streamline the process.

Throwing out a landmark health insurance overhaul simply because it was the creation of a president from the “other” party isn’t smart. What’s more, the ACA is patterned after a plan adopted in Massachusetts, which at the time was governed by a real Republican, Mitt Romney; you remember him, correct? The ACA in fact has Gov. Romney’s fingerprints all over it.

Ryan said today that “doing big things is hard.” No kidding, Mr. Speaker. Barack Obama learned that lesson, too. Indeed, as Vice President Joe Biden once said, “This is a big f****** deal.”

So … the Affordable Care Act remains on the books. Now the president and Congress can turn their attention to something else.

I just hope there aren’t more screw-ups on the horizon.

national news

Biden deserves the high praise

A question came to me after my post about Vice President Joe Biden receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction today from President Barack Obama.

It came from a reader of this blog who asks, simply: “What were Vice President Bidenā€™s accomplishments?” The reader recalled when Biden in 1991 chaired the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee that decided whether to recommend Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court. He called Biden a “duplicitous blowhard.”

My sense, though, that Biden brought a kind of maturity to Barack Obama’s inner circle. He brought decades — three decades’ worth — of Senate experience; moreover, he broughtĀ several years, before his election to the Senate in 1972, of public service in Delaware.

Was there a signature achievement? Did the vice president author a policy or a strategy that the president followed? Was Joe Biden singularly responsible for a public policy decision?

I don’t believe he was successful in an outwardly visible way that the public would recognize.

I’ll accept the president’s accolades as a testament to the guidance and wise — and private — counsel that the vice president gave him during the tough times.

The gentleman who asked the question likely knows all of this. He did ask it, though, and I believe it’s worth sharing a brief response here to others who read these musings.

I suspect a lot of Americans perhaps are wondering the same thing about what Joe Biden accomplished during his eight years as vice president. We might not see it with our own eyes, but the man with whom he served in the White House surely did.

That’s good enough for me.

national news

Yes, Americans will miss this team

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Presidents and vice presidents haven’t always had the kind of relationship that Barack Obama and Joseph Biden have developed.

Lyndon Johnson famously summoned Hubert Humphrey to the White House for a conference … while LBJ was sitting on a commode; Dwight Eisenhower once respondedĀ to a question about what Richard Nixon contributed to his administration by saying: “If you give me a week, I’ll think of something”; John Nance Garner once referred to the vice presidency as being worth “a bucket of warm piss.”

To watch the current president bestow the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the current vice president is to witness a true friendship that doubled as a national governing partnership.

The president added a final “with distinction” honor to the presentation, noting that such an honor is bestowed only rarely. He noted that his three immediate predecessors honored Pope John Paul II, President Reagan and Gen. Colin Powell “with distinction.”

With that, Vice President Biden joins some heady company.

And he deserves to stand with them.

Their partnership and friendship no doubt will make me miss them once they leave the public stage.

military news

POTUS pays glowing tribute to those ‘who do the work’

Barack Obama said it as well as it can possibly be said.

The president bid farewell this week to the men and women who serve and protect us. They wear the uniform of the “greatest military in the history of the world,” he said.

The president reminded them — and the rest of the nation — that he is the “front man.” As commander in chief of that awesome military establishment, he gets his share of the credit for the successes achieved in defense of the nation.

“You do the work,” he told the men and womenĀ who he served as commander in chief.

Americans heard a lot of rhetoric during the recent presidential campaign about a military establishment in decline. They heard from the president-elect, who declared he knows “more about ISIS than the general.” Americans were subjected to put-downs and insults of our military forces who fight every day against international terrorists.

That kind of characterization does them a profound disservice.

I was glad to hear the commander in chief say the things he said to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, to Vice President Joe Biden, to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to the service secretaries and to the warriors who take essentially the same oath taken by the president himself.

President Obama also stated correctly that the young Americans who answer the call to put themselves in harm’s way “are among the greatest generations.”

Let us never forget what they do.

Thank you as well, Mr. President, for your service to the country.

medical news

VPOTUS to continue ‘moon shot’ work to fight cancer

Vice President Joe Biden has let it slip.

He didn’t mean to tell us about his post-public-office plans. But he did. They involve continuing his “moon shot” effort to find a cure for cancer through the Biden Trust.

Allow me to cheer this accidental scoop.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-accidentally-reveals-post-inauguration-plans/ar-BBxRH4f?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

Biden let it slip and the news was picked up by a C-SPAN microphone.

He’ll set up his “moon shot” operation at the University of Pennsylvania. The Biden Trust will administer the work that the vice president will do, presumably to raise money dedicated to continuing the scientific research that’s underway to find a cure for cancer.

The vice president, of course, has some serious skin in this game. His beloved son, Beau, died of brain cancer in 2015 and it is believed that Beau’s death — and his father’s profound grief that followed — prevented the vice president from running for president in 2016.

Indeed, I was hoping the vice president would be retained in some capacity by the new administration to continue his “moon shot” work using the imprimatur of the White House, the surgeon general or the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Biden Trust, though, is a valuable venue to continue this important work.

I wishĀ the vice presidentĀ well and pray his “moon shot” hits pay dirt.

national news, political news

Go with a brand new face, Democrats

A pollĀ offers some clear instructions for Democrats interested in coming back from the shock of watching Donald J. Trump elected president of the United States.

Go with someone shiny and brand new to the national scene, Democrats.

No more Clintons should run for high office, namely the presidency.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/theres-a-clear-democratic-front-runner-for-2020/ar-BBxq70O?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

USA Today/Suffolk University has released a poll that says Democrats need someone new. It doesn’t specify an individual. Just go with someone new to the national scene.

If you think about it, Republicans might have had the right idea by going with someone “new” as their presidential nominee in 2016. Donald J. Trump wasn’t exactly new to the limelight. He’s been basking in it for 30-plus years.

He burst onto the political scene when he rode down that escalator at Trump Tower and then made his first presidential campaign promise: he’ll “build a wall” to keep those illegal immigrants from coming in.

Trump was a familiar entertainment face, but was new to politics.

He’s not so new to politicsĀ these daysĀ as he prepares to become president.

Democrats are facing a serious quandary as they ponder their choices for 2020 and, believe it, they are pondering them at this very moment.

One individual did fare pretty well in this poll of Democrats. It is Joe Biden, the current vice president who’ll be 78 years of age on Jan. 20, 2021 when we inaugurate someone after the 2020 election. Personally, I wanted Vice President Biden to run this time around. He didn’t go for it. I fear it’s too late for him next time.

Poll respondents apparently think so, too.

Democrats had better start beating the bushes for their next presidential nominee. The poll results suggest they need to find a fresh face.

I mean, if Hillary Rodham Clinton — a former U.S. first lady, U.S.Ā senator and secretary of state — can lose to someone as unqualified and unfit for the presidency as the guy who beat her, then it’s time to start with a clean slate.

Get busy, Democrats.

national news, political news

Glenn tributes take note of his political decency

glenns

John Glenn was a bona bide American hero. An icon. A legendary figure.

He earned all of that mostly through his exploits as a wartime Marine Corps pilot and, a test pilotĀ then as an astronaut. Glenn was the first American to orbit the planet. He came home and accepted the nation’s gratitude for helping it keep pace with the Soviet Union in the bilateral space race that had commenced.

Glenn died today at the age of 95 and observers areĀ looking back at another part of this great man’s life: his political career.

Ohio voters elected him to the U.S. Senate in 1974. And throughout the day — and likely for the days and weeks to follow — I’ve been hearing folks talk about his decency as a politician. Yes, I know, it’s difficult to see the words “decency” and “politician” written in the same sentence.

“Why don’t we have people like this in the Senate any longer?” That’s a question I’ve heard asked.

Glenn was known to stand up for former foes because it was the right thing to do. I’ve heard statements today about how this hero/icon never surrendered his small-town values. Some of his colleagues and political pals talked about how he sought to do what was right for the country, that he didn’t seek the easy political solution.

MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews noted today that Glenn’s most endearing quality arguablyĀ was that he was “a square.” He wasn’t flashy. He wasn’t flamboyant.Ā Sen. GlennĀ and his childhood sweetheart Annie were married forĀ 73 years.

Glitz and glamor were not his gig.

Political life has taken a seriously grim turn since the days when John Glenn served in the Senate. Every so often, one can hear politicians praise each other from across the aisle that separates them. Some of them did so Wednesday when Vice President Joe Biden said farewell to his former Senate colleagues. Republicans and Democrats all sang from the same sheet in praise of the vice president. So, it’s good to ask: Why is that such a big deal? My answer: Because it’s so damn rare!

John Glenn embodied a kinder, gentler time in American politics, and from what I’ve been able to glean from the tributes today, that is how he served his beloved state of Ohio and the nation.

national news, political news

‘Ready for Joe!’ in 2020?

Vice President Joe Biden addresses the Human Rights Campaign Spring Equity Convention in Washington, Friday, March 6, 2015. Biden said the same human rights that African Americans fought for in Selma, Alabama, are at stake for gay rights activists today. Biden is drawing parallels between the civil rights and gay rights movements in a speech to the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

Joe Biden said “farewell” today to the U.S. Senate, where he served for 36 years before becoming vice president of the United States in 2009.

Then he joked that he might not be going anywhere after all.

Or … was he joking?

The vice president said he won’t rule out a run for the presidency in 2020. He’s not saying he will, mind you. He’s just not saying “no.”

Here we go with the speculation.

It’s how it goes these days. We get through one presidential election and the guessing begins for the next one. The VP hasĀ leavened the discussion just a bit.

There was this from NBCNews.com: “I doubt that there is any member of the caucus that would say if you’re making alist of the top three people he’s just about at the top of that list,” said House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland.

Hoyer was talking about Biden, of course.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/farewell-visits-capitol-hill-joe-biden-teases-2020-run-n692626

I’m not going to get into the guessing game here. Let’s just note the obvious, which is that the vice president will be 78 years of age in 2020. Who was the oldest man to seek the presidency? That would be Sen. Bob Dole, who was 73 when he lost to President Clinton in 1996.

I wanted Biden to run this year. Four years from now?

I’m going to wait before getting too worked up.

national news, political news

Palin emerges in Trump Cabinet search … finally!

aaky9hd

Therrrre she is!

Sarah Palin has come out of hiding. The former half-term Alaska governor — and 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee — now might be in the running for a spot in Donald J. Trump’s Cabinet.

For what post, you might ask? Secretary of Veterans Affairs.

And what, you also might ask, are Gov. Palin’s qualifications for that post? About the only thing I can come up with is that her son served a couple of tours during the Iraq War, then came home and got arrested on weapons charges, to which he pleaded guilty. Palin then blamed the Obama administration for ignoring veterans’ health care issues and suggested that was the cause of her son’s legal troubles.

There you have it. That’s all the qualification the president-elect might need in this highly critical position.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-may-consider-sarah-palin-for-va-secretary-source-tells-nbc/ar-AAkY9HF?li=BBnb7Kz

Palin has not distinguished herself since she and Sen. John McCain lost the 2008 presidential election to Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden. She has starred in her own reality TV show, been a contributor to the Fox News Channel, been the subject of some gossip tabloids, watched a few of her kids get into trouble with the law.

My biggest concern for the president-elect, if he’s seriously considering Palin to head the Department of Veterans Affairs, is whether she’ll “go rogue” in the manner she did while running as Sen. McCain’s VP running mate.

We keep hearing how Trump doesn’t much cotton to subordinates stealing his thunder. The way I see it, Palin has made a bit of a habit of doing that very thing.

Still, the idea that Trump might even be thinking about placing Palin in his Cabinet suggests — to me, at least — that the GOP talent pool available to the president-elect is mighty thin.