(REUTERS) -U.S. President-elect Joe Biden said on Tuesday he did not want to see a guarded border between Ireland and the United Kingdom, adding that he had previously discussed the matter with the British and Irish prime ministers and other European leaders.
Biden had stressed the importance of protecting Northern Ireland’s peace deal in the Brexit process in a call with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson earlier in the month, after Biden won the Nov. 3 U.S. election against President Donald Trump.
Johnson’s government is seeking a trade deal with the European Union but says it is willing to leave without one. That could complicate the situation at the sensitive Northern Irish border with Ireland – the UK’s only land border with the EU.
Biden told journalists in Wilmington, Delaware, that the border must be open.
“We do not want a guarded border,” he said, answering a question from a reporter on what he would say to Brexit negotiators.
I seem to remember the Left getting all in a tizzy about the Trump team talking to foreign leaders in 2016… but here we are.
by Owen | 2019, 23 Nov 2020 | Politics | 1 Comment
It looks like mostly retreads and lackeys. On the bright side, there don’t appear to be any overt communists yet. Perhaps the Bernie wing of the Democratic Party is to be frustrated yet again.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden on Monday tapped Obama-era officials for top national security and economic roles, signaling a stark shift from the Trump administration’s “America First” policies that disparaged international alliances and favored deregulation and tax cuts.
The picks include former Secretary of State John Kerry to take the lead on combating climate change. Biden is also expected to choose Janet Yellen, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama to lead the Federal Reserve, as the first woman to become treasury secretary.
Biden’s emerging Cabinet marks a return to a more traditional approach to governing, relying on veteran policymakers with deep expertise and strong relationships in Washington and global capitals. And with a roster that includes multiple women and people of color — some of whom are breaking historic barriers in their posts — Biden is fulfilling his campaign promise to lead a team that reflects the diversity of America.
The incoming president will nominate longtime adviser Antony Blinken to be secretary of state, lawyer Alejandro Mayorkas to be homeland security secretary and Linda Thomas-Greenfield to be ambassador to the United Nations. Avril Haines, a former deputy director of the CIA, will be nominated as director of national intelligence, the first woman to hold that post.
But make no mistake: now that Biden’s won the election, he owes this country real racial justice reform.
He must start with the most obvious steps: executive orders that address the immediate need for federal remedies to protect Black and Brown citizens from police brutality; appointing a special prosecutor to investigate both criminal and civil rights violations in the Floyd, Taylor, Blake, Cole and Anderson cases. More broadly, Biden must recognize that poverty and racism are pandemics in their own right, each of which has been exacerbated by Covid-19. Beginning to remedy them will require not just an emergency economic stabilization package, but a national moratorium on foreclosures and evictions for the next 12 months, and a prioritization of funding for the communities of color hit hardest by the virus.
These demands are not coming from Kenosha alone, but from all across the country, where the Black Lives Matter movement – the largest social uprising in our nation’s history – has inspired a new generation of voters and activists. So while racial justice leaders may have helped Biden take back the White House, come January 2021, we’ll be reminding him exactly who got him there.
The Trump appointee in charge of initiating the formal transition to a Joe Biden-led administration has so far refused to sign off on the necessary paperwork to begin the process, raising concerns over whether there will be a smooth transfer of power.
Emily Murphy was tapped by President Trump to head the General Services Administration, the agency in charge of federal buildings.
By law, if a new president is elected, the GSA administrator is required to sign paperwork that officially hands over millions of dollars to the transition team of the incoming administration, formally launching the handover process.
by Owen | 0858, 2 Nov 2020 | Politics | 6 Comments
Ouch. It’s going to be a long four months before Harris takes over if he wins.
‘Sleepy’ Joe Biden was caught napping twice during a rally in Michigan on Saturday, missing his cue to appear on stage and then forgetting his mask as he walked off it.
The 77-year-old was speaking at a rally in Flint alongside Barack Obama when he suffered the ‘senior moments’, just the latest in a series of gaffes that have dogged his presidential run.
The first came as Obama had just finished warming up for his old Vice President, and tried to welcome him to the stage by shouting: ‘My friend, the next President of the United State of America, Joe Biden!’
But Biden was nowhere to be seen, prompting Obama to shout for him again.
Eventually Biden emerged, jogging over to the stage from a nearby school building as Obama tried to get the crowd – who were confined to their cars as a Covid precaution – fired up, shouting: ‘Honk if you’re ready!’
During the rally itself, Biden also appeared to stumble over the word ‘healthcare’ while lining up a shot against the latest member of the Supreme Court – a Trump nominee – Amy Coney Barrett.
‘Donald Trump thinks health care is a privilege, Barack and I think it’s a right to have badakathcare,’ he said.
He fumbled again at the end of the rally, as Obama returned to the stage wearing a facemask and the two waved to the crowd before going off together.
Biden – who was wearing a mask as he emerged – appeared to forget he wasn’t wearing one as he departed.
Obama stopped him at the top of the stage steps and said a few words to him, after which he jogged back to the podium in search of the face covering.
After about 20 second of fumbling, Biden eventually found the face covering in his pocket and put it back in place.
People in the securities and investment industry will finish the 2020 election cycle contributing over $74 million to back Joe Biden’s candidacy for president, a much larger sum than what President Donald Trump raised from Wall Street, according to new data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
Biden also received a ton of financial support from leaders on Wall Street in the third quarter. Going into the final two weeks of the election, Biden, the DNC and their joint fundraising committees had over $330 million on hand. That’s $110 million more than for Trump, the Republican National Committee and their joint committees. Biden’s campaign is on track to raise $1 billion in the six days until Election Day.
He certainly has shown to be willing to sell American policy to the highest bidder.
Speaking at an ‘I Will Vote’ virtual concert, Biden said: ‘Not because I’m running, but because who I’m running against, this is the most consequential election in a long, long, long time. The character of the country, in my view, is literally on the ballot. What kind of country we’re gonna be? Four more years of George, um, George…’
His wife Jill could be seen repeatedly muttering the word ‘Trump’ under her breath as he stumbled to remember the name of the president – ironically enough, a question often put to concussion patients in hospital to check if they’re cognitive functions are working properly.
A vacant-looking Biden hesitated then added: ‘Gonna to find ourselves in a position where, if Trump gets elected, we’re going to be in a different world.’
The fact that Biden briefly thought he was running against George W. Bush, whose presidency ended eleven years ago – and I have to assume he meant that George, not Dubya’s late father President George H.W. Bush, or it really is time for another urgent cognitive test – was a toe-curling mistake, and one that will be seized on by Republicans desperate to portray Biden as a man suffering from the onset of senility.
Especially as it came just two days after Biden said during a campaign video: ‘We have put together, I think, the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.’
Tony Bobulinski issued a statement on Wednesday saying that he personally witnessed Biden discuss business deals with his son, Hunter, contradicting claims by the former vice president.
‘I’ve seen Vice President Biden saying he never talked to Hunter about his business.
Bobulinski claimed that the Chinese were pursuing the deal as a ‘political or influence investment’ and that Hunter Biden was ‘using the company as his personal piggy bank by just taking money out of it as soon as it came from the Chinese.’
He said in his statement that he ‘took steps to prevent that from happening.’
Bobulinski also said in his statement that he was one of the recipients of the email from one of Hunter Biden’s business partners which involved a deal with a Chinese energy firm in May 2017 which promised a 10 per cent cut for a person known as ‘the big guy.’
Bobulinski claimed in his statement that ‘the big guy’ is Joe Biden.
The FBI has seized Hunter Biden’s laptop and has confirmed the former vice president’s son’s emails are ‘authentic’, while dispelling earlier claims that they are part of a Russia disinformation campaign.
Senior federal officials told Fox News on Tuesday that the bureau is now in possession of the computer allegedly containing emails that could purportedly implicate Joe Biden in his son’s international business dealings during his time as VP.
Insiders said both the FBI and the Department of Justice have concurred with National Intelligence John Ratcliffe’s assessment on Monday that there is no evidence to support the files are part of a Russian disinformation scheme.
Democratic nominee Joe Biden opened the door to expanding the number of justices on the Supreme Court, depending on how the rest of Judge Amy Coney Barrett‘s confirmation process is handled.
‘I have not been a fan of court-packing because it generates, whoever wins it just keeps moving in a way that is inconsistent with what is going to be manageable,’ Biden said Thursday night at an ABC News townhall.
But with prodding from George Stephanopoulos, Biden said it would be something he’d consider though it ‘depends on how this turns out,’ telling the ABC News anchor he would announce a clear position by the November 3 presidential election.
by Owen | 2145, 8 Oct 2020 | Politics | 5 Comments
There is no other way to interpret this answer. You lefties OK with this? You do realize that if Biden does it, then the Republicans will also do it the next time they are in power? Eventually, we will have a SCOTUS with 79 members.
‘They’ll know my opinion on court-packing when the election is over,’ Biden said Thursday as he arrived in Arizona for a campaign stop with running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris.
Unfortunately, I think that our civics education has become so intentionally bad that only a minority of voters will even understand what an assault this is on our Republic.
Again. And this time because he was pandering. Again.
Joe Biden said last year that he kicked off his academic career at Delaware State University, a historically black university, but the institution has now denied that claim.
The Washington Times reported that a spokesperson for Delaware State University said the Democratic presidential nominee was never a student at the school, but he did make two appearances for commencement speeches.
‘Vice President Biden did not attend DSU,’ Carlos Holmes, Director of News Services, told the publication.
From the start of his campaign, Biden has mostly ignored Latino voters. Already enjoying overwhelming African American support, he chose to focus his campaign efforts in battleground states on winning back white working-class voters who had supported Obama but voted for Trump in 2016. Latino communities seemed to be barely an afterthought.
The result is what pundits have taken to calling Biden’s “Latino problem.” This kind of enthusiasm gap can be extremely dangerous to a candidate. Hillary Clinton learned this the hard way in 2016, when significant numbers of disaffected or unmotivated voters simply didn’t vote. Alarm bells should be ringing at Democratic headquarters.
Democratic strategists have said they hope to keep the pro-Trump Latino vote under 30 percent. The Trump campaign, however, is aiming to obtain more than 40 percent of the Latino vote. So far, the Trump campaign seems to have done far more door-to-door politicking to influence Latino voters in key states.
Democrat Joe Biden leads Republican President Donald Trump 47% to 43% in a new Wisconsin poll by the Marquette Law School.
Biden had led by 5 points among likely voters when Marquette last polled in early August, so the new poll shows little change in the race even though this was Marquette’s first survey since the two party conventions and since the turmoil and protests in Kenosha,
MILWAUKEE – A new Marquette Law School Poll finds 46 percent of Wisconsin likely voters supporting Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and 40 percent supporting Republican Donald Trump in the race for president.
I’d feel pretty good about that poll if I were the Trump campaign (one might remember that Trump won Wisconsin by 0.7% with 3.6% going to the Libertarian candidate).
Biden supporters came out in small groups to gather outside events he held at a church and a school chanting “Let’s go Joe!” and “Dump Trump!” His appearances were low key, even sombre.
Heh. I guess that position wasn’t as popular as he thought.
During Biden’s first joint interview with running mate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., on Aug. 21, Muir asked Biden if he’d be prepared to shut the country down if the coronavirus crisis combined with the flu season as scientists have warned is a possibility.
[…]
When Muir pressed whether he shut down the country if the scientists advised him to do so, Biden responded, “I would shut it down. I would listen to the scientists.”
Then…
“There’s going to be no need, in my view, to be able to shut down the whole economy,” Biden said. “I got asked by David Muir a question, if I was asked to shut everything down. I took that as a generic question if — am I going to follow the science? I am going to insist, and I insist now, without any authority, that every responsible person in this country, when they’re out in public or not, with the cohort that they have lived with — because they know they haven’t spread it to their husband, wife, etc. — that they wear a mask.”
As I interpret that word salad, I think he’s saying that he’s going to force everyone to wear a mask so it won’t be necessary to shut down the whole economy. Am I understanding him? Is he understanding himself?
During a news conference in his hometown of Wilmington on Wednesday, Mr Biden was asked whether he agreed with his running mate, Kamala Harris, that the officers in the Blake and Taylor cases should be charged.
“I think we should let the judicial system work its way,” he said. “I do think at a minimum, they need to be charged, the officers.”
[…]
Mr Biden also mentioned the gunman, identified in US media as a far-left activist, who fatally shot a Trump supporter on the streets of Portland, Oregon, last weekend.
The Democratic nominee stopped short of calling for charges in that case, but said: “They should be investigated and it should follow through on what needs to be done.
“Let the judicial system work. Let’s make sure justice is done.”
I’ll believe it when I see it. Will he actually mingle and talk to people? Or will this be just another pre-scripted event with no questions and no interaction with the public?
On the heels of President Donald Trump’s trip to Kenosha to support law enforcement in the wake of protests in the community, Joe Biden announced he too will visit the city — marking the former Vice President’s first campaign stop in the state since declaring candidacy.
Biden and his wife Jill Biden will hold a community meeting on Thursday in Kenosha “to bring together Americans to heal and address the challenges we face,” according to a statement from Biden’s campaign. Following the meeting, the Bidens will make an unidentified local stop.
Biden’s visit will come just two days after Trump met with local law enforcement, National Guard members and business owners in Kenosha to push for “law and order” to address protests in the city following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, on Aug. 23.
It will be interesting to watch the coverage. The media was accusing Trump of politicizing the event and sowing divisiveness – even though he is the President stopping in a ravaged city. Biden is just a political candidate. He has no official capacity. He can’t even pretend that this is anything other than a campaign event. Will the media portray it that way?
Anyway, I hope he can find his way. He hasn’t been West of the Ohio River in ages.
Last week’s Democratic National Convention did not give Joe Biden even the modest polling “bounce” that some previous nominees have enjoyed, according to the new Yahoo News/YouGov poll.
Yet the virtual, COVID-era event, which most viewers thought went better than expected, did boost Biden’s favorability rating and solidify his support, preserving his 11-point lead over President Trump heading into this week’s Republican National Convention.
by Owen | 2126, 21 Aug 2020 | Politics | 134 Comments
This is precisely why he should not be elected. He would throw away our jobs, our savings, our lives, and our futures. He has no judgment and no ability to balance competing interests and conflicting information. The notion that he would shut down the country – as if POTUS even had that authority – because “the scientists” said so is disgusting.
Former Vice President Joe Biden said in an exclusive interview with ABC “World News Tonight” Anchor David Muir on Friday that as president, he would shut the country down to stop the spread of COVID-19 if the move was recommended to him by scientists.
“I would shut it down; I would listen to the scientists,” Biden told Muir Friday, alongside his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., during their first joint interview since officially becoming the Democratic Party’s presidential and vice presidential nominees.
