The Wile Politician – Joe Biden

The wile politician never sustains his positions very long. He says what is necessary to keep his constituents happy for the next election. After all it is his job that provides pay and perks that are outstanding. No one really knows his positions on issues.

That is my best description of Joe Biden. He is the empathetic politician who plays his part well enough to win an Oscar.

The contradictions in his life are publicly known.

Starting with his religion. He is a Catholic who attends services frequently. The Roman Catholic Church – opposes abortion in all circumstances. So how can he support abortion rights?

This summary of his position on school busing in the New York Times is worth your consideration.

In 1974 Mr. Biden, who was then a senator for Delaware, voted two times to protect court-ordered busing to achieve desegregation, including the decisive vote on an amendment that would have effectively done away with it.

But months after an angry crowd in a school auditorium criticized him for that vote, Mr. Biden said in a speech on the Senate floor that he had become “more and more disenchanted with busing as a remedy.”

In a television interview in 1975, Mr. Biden called busing an “asinine concept” and said he had “gotten to the point where I think our only recourse to eliminate busing may be a constitutional amendment.”

Mr. Biden is a supporter of Free Trade agreements despite his denials. In the Senate, Biden voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement and permanent normal trade relations with China. As then-President Barack Obama’s No. 2, he supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But today he says he is opposed to those agreements.

The controversial 1994 crime law that Joe Biden helped write is explained at this site, Vox. The summary:

The 1994 crime law passed by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton, which was meant to reverse decades of rising crime, was one of the key contributors to mass incarceration in the 1990s. They say it led to more prison sentences, more prison cells, and more aggressive policing — especially hurting black and brown Americans, who are disproportionately likely to be incarcerated.

The law imposed tougher prison sentences at the federal level and encouraged states to do the same. It provided funds for states to build more prisons, aimed to fund 100,000 more cops, and backed grant programs that encouraged police officers to carry out more drug-related arrests — an escalation of the war on drugs.

From the Detroit News. To be fair to Biden, he was an exceptionally incompetent and indecisive chairman (of the Senate Judiciary Committee), easily cowed and unable to control the hearings. After promising to support Bork, he switched his vote. After promising to afford Thomas some semblance of due process, he presided over what the future justice famously called a “high-tech lynching.”

Biden now claims to regret that he “couldn’t come up with a way” to give Hill “the kind of hearing she deserved.” What does Biden think Hill deserved? Without any supporting evidence, the Senate gave her the opportunity to make her case. She was given enormous coverage by the media when her allegations emerged — leaked to the press, most likely by Democrats — despite the obvious problems with her story from the start. No one ever stopped Hill from telling that story. Hill still tells her story. Hill wrote a book telling her story. There are hagiographic movies and documentaries about her story. Even today, journalists interview her without a hint of journalistic skepticism.

The Senate confirmed Thomas by a vote of 52 to 48 on Oct. 15, 1991.

From a Doyle McManus column in the Los Angeles Times: Richard A. Harpootlian, a South Carolina state senator who’s long been a Biden supporter, “You can’t judge people by what they did 50 years ago,” Harpootlian argued. “To measure what they said then by today’s standards is just wrong.”

I am not a politician but I have held the same views on critical issues all of my life. Why can’t politicians? I answered that question in the second sentence of this posting.

Biden Townhall

Donald Trump has contended that Joe Biden can’t put two sentences together. That argument was put to bed at this townhall event. His answers were cogent and given without hesitation.

There were no hardball questions thrown at Joe Biden. No one knows if he was prepared for any tough questions. One woman who said she was a Republican questioned the $600 weekly unemployment support that ended in July saying that it had discouraged people going back to work. Biden responded saying the money was needed to help pay their rent or mortgage and that was a clear answer.

CNN provided a good summary of six lines.

• Trump’s response to the pandemic: “But he knew it. He knew it, and did nothing. It is close to criminal. … The idea that you are not going to not tell people what you have been told that this virus is incredibly contagious — seven times more contagious than the flu — you breathe the air and you get it sucked into your lungs — what has he done?”

• Police must be held accountable: “The vast majority of police are decent, honorable people. One of the things I’ve found is, the only people who don’t like bad cops more than we don’t like them are police officers. And so what we have to do is we have to have a much more transparent means by which we provide for accountability within police departments,” Biden said.

• When it comes to the pandemic, trust the science: “I don’t trust the President on vaccines. I trust Dr. [Anthony] Fauci. If Fauci says a vaccine is safe, I would take the vaccine. We should listen to the scientists, not to the President,” Biden said.

• Characterizing his campaign: “I view this campaign as a campaign between Scranton and Park Avenue,” Biden said. “All Trump can see from Park Avenue is Wall Street. All he thinks about as the stock market.”

• Trump’s troubling administration: “I’ve been doing this a long time. I never, ever thought I would see such a thoroughly, totally irresponsible administration.”

• Bridging the divide: “I plan to unite the nation. I’m running as a Democrat but I’m going to be everyone’s president. I’m not going to be a Democratic president. I’m going to be America’s president.”

Throw Everything at the Wall

Donald Trump is trailing in every election poll. This past week has been a disaster for him thanks to his own words.

He privately disparaged dead American soldiers as “losers” and “suckers.”

In a February interview with Bob Woodward admitting to that the coronavirus was much more deadly than the flu and easily transmitted through the air — while saying virtually the opposite publicly and most recently Trump has insisted that the U.S. is “rounding the turn” on coronavirus.

So there is only one thing he can do to win on November 3. Throw everything he can say about Joe Biden at the wall and hope some of it sticks.

September 10, 2020 Tweet, ‘If I don’t win, America’s Suburbs will be OVERRUN with Low Income Projects, Anarchists, Agitators, Looters and, of course, “Friendly Protesters”.’

“If Biden gets in, this market’s going to crash,” Trump asserted in an interview on Fox Business Network with host Maria Bartiromo. Invoking Biden’s tax plans, Trump also claimed that the former vice president would “tax this country into a depression like in 1929.”

Fox News will broadcast an interview tonight Saturday, September 12, 2020 in which Donald Trump accuses Joe Biden of taking performance-enhancing drugs. What drug would that be? A Consumer Reports doctor says there’s virtually no good evidence that such products can prevent or delay memory lapses, mild cognitive impairment, or dementia in older adults. Some may do more harm than good.

He previously accused Joe Biden of not being psychologically fit for office.

With 53 days to go until election day Trump will keep throwing the mud. Sadly Biden is too quiet. Unless he starts punching some of that mud is going to stick.

If Trump does win you can say good-bye to the American democracy.

Michael Cohen says Trump is not joking about staying in office for more than 2 terms

This is serious and frightening. I have been writing about this repeatedly. By Paul LeBlanc, CNN Updated 12:44 AM ET, Thu September 10, 2020 (CNN) President Donald Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen said Wednesday evening that Trump isn’t joking when he floats the notion of attempting to stay in the White House beyond two terms. “Donald Trump believes that he should be the ruler — the dictator of the United States of America. He actually is looking to change the Constitution. When Donald Trump jokes about 12 more years … he is not joking. Donald Trump does not have a sense of humor,” Cohen told CNN’s Don Lemon on “CNN Tonight.” “So I want you to understand that when he says 12 more years, if he wins he is going to automatically day number one start thinking how he can change the Constitution for a third term, and then a fourth term, like what he said to President XI and like what he said to so many other people. It’s why he admires the Kim Jong Uns of the world.” Even during an uphill reelection campaign, the President has repeatedly advanced the idea of a third term while also looking to sow doubt in the integrity of November’s election. “We are going to win four more years,” Trump said at a rally in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, last month. “And then after that, we’ll go for another four years because they spied on my campaign. We should get a redo of four years.” Expanding on his warning against reelecting Trump on Wednesday, Cohen went on to describe the White House as “like a cult” with a culture that forbids anyone from challenging the President. “Not only is the Trump Organization like a cult, but so is the White House,” he said. “Anybody that wants to work there, God forbid you say something wrong. God forbid you do something wrong. You’re fired. That’s exactly why there have been so many people coming in and out of the administration. I think he set all sorts of records. He likes records. Well, he certainly set the record for the most people in and out of the administration.” Pressed on how Trump has been able to command loyalty within the Republican Party, Cohen offered: “Because he is a cult leader.” “And people somehow follow him. Why? I don’t know why. I did it when I had my daughter, my wife, my son continuously telling me, ‘Stop, we don’t want you to work for him. Quit, you don’t need to work for him. What are you doing? The things that you are doing are morally wrong. You lost your moral compass, wake up.” His comments come one day after the release of his book where he unleashes on the President as “a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man.” Cohen had been a vocal surrogate for Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign before he pleaded guilty in 2018 to tax fraud, lying to Congress and campaign finance violations for facilitating hush money payments to two women who alleged past affairs with the President. Trump has denied having affairs with the women. When pleading guilty, he implicated the President, telling a federal judge that he had made the payments “in coordination with and at the direction of” Trump, who prosecutors identified in court filings as “Individual 1.” “If you look at the end of the book it’s really a call. It’s a warning call to anybody who is reading the book. Put the Visine in your eyes, clean your eyes out and see that Donald Trump cares for no one or anything other than himself. So he doesn’t care if your family member dies as long as it’s not him. He doesn’t care about anything other than himself and this election,” Cohen said Wednesday. “And he is willing to sacrifice your life so he has four more years.”

Is there a Reason to Vote for Joe Biden?

“Mr. Trump, you want to talk about fear?” Biden asked last Monday.

“Do you know what people are afraid of in America? They’re afraid they’re going to get Covid. They’re afraid they’re going to get sick and die, and that is in no small part, it’s because of you.”

Joe Biden’s only chance of winning the election on November 3 is to convince voters that Trump’s mismanagement of the virus spread and the collapse of the economy is reason enough to deny him another four year term.

The collapse of the economy is a consequence of the spread of the disease. If there had been no virus Trump would be repeating over and over the claim that the low unemployment and the high stock market is the result of his management of the economy.

Joe Biden would be left with only two campaign issues. Donald Trump is a racist and social justice for all Americans.

On this Labor Day Biden accurately bemoans the loss of jobs in Pennsylvania and other rust belt states but that is not an issue caused by the Trump presidency. Factory job losses are an issue that is decades old. Businesses have been moving jobs overseas to save money. There is no way Joe Biden or Donald Trump can bring those jobs back to America.

I recently bought a new computer, printer, and a webcam. The computer was assembled in Mexico from parts made elsewhere. The printer was made in Thailand. The webcam was made in China. My new undershorts were made in Honduras.

Do you actually believe any of those items will ever be made in the United States in a future time?

Trump’s loss of the election will likely be the result of his own ineptitude and a set of beliefs and ideas that are not in tune with most Americans. His lack of respect for the military and his support of right wing conspiracy groups are his biggest Achilles heels. His push for a vaccine before election day will only bring cheers for his loyal supporters.

Biden’s loss of the election will likely be the result of his lack of specific ideas on how to help the economy recover and White fear of a minority invasion.

On the subject of social justice Joe Biden was one of 95 senators who voted for the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. From FactCheck.org “Biden, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, largely wrote and shepherded through the legislative process. The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 received bipartisan support at the time but has been criticized for some of its provisions, such as mandatory minimum sentencing, and its impact on mass incarceration.”

That law “grants to increase police presence, to expand and improve cooperative efforts between law enforcement agencies and members of the community to address crime and disorder problems, and otherwise to enhance public safety.” That law put people in jail for drug use rather than rehabilitation.

It was none other than Kamala Harris, in the first primary debate, who pointed out that Biden opposed school bussing as a way of encouraging integration.

Social justice, better paying jobs, a racially integrated society. Great ideas but I would not count on Joe Biden to make those goals a reality.

Biden’s campaign says he is doing just what a candidate should — pushing broad ideas while leaving room to negotiate the details.

This is troubling for me. What does Joe Biden stand for?

I am voting against Trump because he stands for hate, division, and destruction of the republic.