Tag Archives: Joe Biden

Head vs. heart

My head and my heart have declared all-out war against each other and today I got a chance to verbalize my concern over that inner struggle with a good friend of mine.

Tom asked me today about how I think the current political struggle is going to play out. He meant the presidential election … even though he didn’t say it. He didn’t have to say it.

My ticker is pulling hard for Joe Biden’s re-election as president of the United States. He remains on top of his game. Do I worry about the occasional gaffes, misstatements? Hell no! I make many of the same mistakes as he does. I happen to believe I am still bringing my “A game” to this business of blogging.

My noggin, though, suggests a different outcome could be on tap this November. The man President Biden defeated in 2020 wants his old job back. What he intends to do with it simply scares the living sh** out of me!

He vows to sic the Justice Department on the media and on his political “enemies.” He said he might pardon those accused of storming the Capitol on Jan. 6; he calls them “political hostages,” and not the criminals they have been accused of being and in some cases convicted of being.

POTUS 45 pledged to bring in the “best people” to serve with him when he was elected in 2016. The “best people” turned out to be a gang of bumbling nimrods who didn’t know whether to sh** or wind their watches. The next batch would be a gang of blind loyalists who will swear an oath to be loyal only to the man who selects them and not the Constitution they all should swear to support and defend.

I told Tom that my heart hopes for all its worth that this country is smarter than to allow this moron anywhere near the Oval Office. I also said my head tells me I might be overselling out nation’s collective intelligence.

God help us if my noggin wins this war!

Joe Biden: Sure, let’s debate … as in now!

You gotta hand it to Joe Biden. The man knows how to steal the thunder from the twice-impeached, indicted Republican nominee-in-waiting who’s on trial for alleged illegal campaign spending.

President Biden today agreed to meet the former POTUS in a debate in June; the former guy also agreed. The two of them reportedly will meet in a venue sans audience members. It’ll just be the two of ’em in a room, along with a panel of journalists.

I kinda like the notion of the two men going head-to-head like that.

It’s interesting that the former Liar in Chief wouldn’t debate his GOP rivals during the primary campaign but jumped on the chance to joust with the president.

I understand they’ll also meet again in September, probably in a format more like what we’ve seen in recent election cycles.

Whatever. I expect this first debate could smash viewership records, given what’s at stake, which I believe could be the future of our representative democracy.

What happens if … ?

So help me I don’t like even thinking about this possibility, but the reality of the moment requires me to do so.

Here goes: What will happen if Joe Biden actually loses the election this November to the Republican presidential nominee, who at this moment looks as though it will be the dipsh** Biden defeated in 2020?

Specifically, will the president extend an olive branch to the man who has refused to acknowledge his own loss to Biden four years ago?

My gut and my trick knee tell me President Biden likely will do the proper thing. He would place the obligatory phone call; he then will invite the president-elect and his wife to the White House; he will smile and speak about “working with” the new president.

Given all the bad blood, the recrimination, the Big Lie, and all the things that POTUS 45 has said about POTUS 46, I wouldn’t be surprised to see No. 46 stick it in No. 45’s ear.

But then again, President Biden understands the process better than practically any of us. He also is a man who adheres to tradition.

Will the president’s adherence to custom force him to behave like the pro that he is? Probably.

However, if he falls victim to the hurtful blather of POTUS 45, well … I wouldn’t blame him one little bit if he told him to fu** off.

This is no normal year

If only this were a normal presidential election year, but it is far from normal.

We have two major-party candidates who reportedly are the two most unpopular public figures since, oh, The Flood. We also have a third-party goofball, who happens to be a scion of one of the 20th century’s great political families.

Does all this portend a dismally low voter turnout? Not so fast.

We had the same two major-party guys running in 2020. When all the ballots were counted, 158 million Americans voted, a record. Joe Biden was elected president. The other guy called the election “rigged” and said it was “fake.” Never mind that the Republican Party presidential nominee tried like hell to rig the election in his favor.

Oh, and he hasn’t conceded that he lost to President Biden.

In steps Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of the former U.S. attorney general and former U.S. senator from New York. RFK sought the presidency in 1968 and well might have been elected … except for the assassin who gunned him down in the Los Angeles hotel kitchen.

This isn’t a normal election any more than the previous one, or the one before that when the former Liar in Chief got elected.

Joe Biden promised a return to normal presidential behavior. He has behaved like the adult in the room. Unlike the guy he defeated,

Now they’re preparing to square off again. I get that they’re bold old men. Allow me this bit of candor: Time is on neither man’s side, although the chatter almost always seems to focus on Joe Biden’s alleged decline in acuity. I am prepared to argue that the GOP nominee in waiting is exhibiting even more frightening examples of unhinged behavior.

Does any of this mean a dismal turnout in this fall’s election? Hardly.

Both sides are going to gin up their respective bases. My fervent hope is that President Biden wins the day, the election and continues to restore our national soul.

POTUS to debate … him?

Joe Biden kinda/sorta put it on the record, which is that he will debate the likely Republican Party presidential nominee before we cast ballots this coming November.

No date, place or format has been decided, President Biden told Howard Stern. OK. Fine.

Work it out. Do I want the president to debate POTUS No. 45? I guess so, but I am not thrilled about it.

It’s not so much that I worry about the president’s ability to exchange views with the ex-Liar in Chief. It’s that Americans aren’t likely to learn anything new about (a) why POTUS 45 is unqualified and unfit for office or (b) what policies Biden will articulate.

Joe Biden is making the case for his re-election. His immediate predecessor, though, is making the case that he shouldn’t be found anywhere near the Oval Office ever again.

I fear that a one-on-one debate between these men will be an exercise in futility.

Shouldn’t be close, however …

A presidential election that by all rights should be a runaway for the incumbent looks as though it’ll produce a lot of gnawed-off fingernails.

President Joe Biden is sitting on an economy that is on fire. Oh, wait. The Gross Domestic Product data came in this week a good bit cooler than expected. Am I worried that we’re about to implode? Hardly.

Here he is, now facing the probable nomination of the guy he defeated in 2020. The former POTUS is poised to take the Republican nomination despite all those criminal indictments and a history of being impeached twice by the House of Reps during his single term in office.

I’m still reasonably confident that President Biden is going to prevail when they count the ballots. My confidence, though, is tempered a bit by POTUS 45’s persistent poll standing among those who are so fed up with the government that they’re willing to give the former Philanderer in Chief a pass on his wretched behavior.

I have been visiting friends in Germany for the past 12 days. They, too, express alarm at the ex-Liar in Chief’s poll standing. My friends are learned folks. They know the lay of the land.

I am going to stand on my belief that we are better than the polling suggests of us.

This congest, by any reasonable measure, should be a blowout for the incumbent. It isn’t. Nor does it appear it will become one between now and Election Day.

That is … unless the courts deliver us some good news between now and then. Here’s hoping.

Democracy is strong … not ‘fragile’

Vice President Kamala Harris needs to take a deep breath and assess carefully the strength of the democratic republic she is governing alongside President Joe Biden.

Harris told an interviewer that the 2024 election well could be the “last democratic election” this country could have. Really, Mme. Vice President?

She frets that the presumed Republican presidential nominee could get elected and enact a permanent dictatorship. Thus, we have the end of democracy in this great nation of ours, she reckoned.

Kamala Harris agrees with interviewer that 2024 could be last US democratic election (yahoo.com)

Harris was speaking on a podcast hosted by Angie “Pumps” Sullivan. “I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to say this genuinely could be the last democratic election we ever have,” Sullivan said.

“You’re right,” Harris responded.

Excuse me, but I’ll butt in for a moment.

Sullivan is being hyperbolic in the extreme. For the VPOTUS to endorse that hyperbole is folly in the extreme.

All of this seems to presume that the GOP nominee is going to win the election. I am going out on that fragile limb and say, “No way in this world is that moron going to win the election this fall!”

Harris went on: “No, and I’m going to tell you. As vice president, I’ve now met with over 150 world leaders … in the last three international trips I’ve taken — which are going back to the end of last year through this year — world leaders have come up to me, expressing their real concern about this election,” Harris said.

What precisely do they know about the character of Americans? We have it totally within our power to stop this crazed lunatic from ascending to power yet again.

And make no mistake about it, the GOP nominee-to-be is flat-out nuts, a loon, and he poses an existential threat to the very government he once swore to “defend and protect.”

Are we really that stupid?

A member of my family and I disagree on the potential outcome of the 2024 presidential election.

My family member believes the 45th president is poised to regain the presidency. I disagree. He and I had an exchange that went something like this:

Family member: I think he’s going to win.

Me: No. He won’t win.

FM: You said the same thing in 2016 and look what happened.

Me: We have learned from the mistake we made as a nation. We aren’t going to make it again.

FM: I am not so sure about that. I don’t think we’ve learned anything. Besides, Biden didn’t win in 2020 by a landslide.

Me: I know. A few hundred thousand-vote switch in three states would have produced a vastly different result.

The exchange ended shortly after that. My family member does not want the 45th POTUS to win. He doesn’t exactly line up strongly in President Biden’s camp.

I do wish my family member had more faith in the collective intelligence of American voters. But … he doesn’t and I’ll accept his view that we are collection of gullible dummies. I, however, am going to stand on my wellspring of belief that we are smarter than we have demonstrated.

The former POTUS tapped into a heretofore mine of resentment in Americans’ hearts. He now vows to be “your retribution” for misperceived wrongs that have been committed against the former POTUS. He is going to unleash the Justice Department on his foes … and to think he accuses Biden of “weaponizing” the DOJ.

Are we really ready to welcome a return of this kind of political vengeance into the halls of power?

I think not.

Choices are widening

Americans are facing a critical decision that by all rights should be a no-brainer, one that requires hardly more than a scintilla of thought.

It is this: Do Americans want to elect a certifiable overfed, overhyped and over-publicized juvenile fu**ing delinquent to the presidency or do we re-elect a known grownup, someone with years of public service under his belt, someone who has a clear priority list of beliefs and principles?

In a normal context, there would be no debate. We wouldn’t allow our children to behave in the manner displayed by the presumed Republican Party presidential nominee. But here is, standing on the precipice of an astonishing political comeback, on the verge of securing the GOP presidential nomination for the third election cycle in a row!

The former Moron in Chief authorized the distribution of a video showing President Biden hogtied in a rope. What the hell?

He continues to foment the Big Lie about electoral theft in 2020 that did not occur. Didn’t we teach our children to take their lumps when they lose, dust themselves off and go about their next task? My wife and I taught our sons those lessons in life.

The misdeeds are too many to enumerate here. You get my drift.

Joe Biden is the grownup in this contest. The other guy is a petulant little dipsh**.

What is RFK Jr. doing?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s bizarre campaign for the presidency has me baffled and bamboozled.

He announced his candidacy first as a Democrat; then he became an independent. This week he selected an entrepreneur/lawyer, Nicole Shanahan, as his vice-presidential running mate.

Why the bafflement? Well, RFK Jr.’s father, the late U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, was my first political hero. I had the pleasure of shaking Bobby Kennedy’s hand in late May 1968, one week before his own presidential bid ended with an assassin’s bullet in Los Angeles.

I am struck by the notion that RFK Jr. would abandon the Democratic Party, given his family’s long affiliation with the party. I am certain his father would be aghast.

What’s more, RFK Jr. professed profound admiration and affection for President Biden even as he was announcing his Democratic presidential campaign. What the … ?

I am puzzled by the reason he wants to become the next POTUS. His conspiracy theories regarding the murder of his father and his idiotic refusal to accept the vaccine offered to battle the COVID 19 pandemic simply send me into orbit.

Will his campaign harm Biden more than the Republican nominee-in-waiting? I haven’t a clue. I have seen polling data that suggest an even draw-down of votes for both major-party candidates. I don’t necessarily believe those polls.

I remain baffled that Bobby Jr. would do this … and to what end.

I also am convinced that his father would take the kid to the proverbial woodshed …