welcome to realty trivia
biden
february 2022
the candidate
a hollow suit!
JOE BIDEN’S LEGISLATIVE RECORD ANYTHING BUT PROGRESSIVE
...ANDREW COCKBURN: In my Harper’s piece I really went back to the 1970s soon after he got into the Senate, you know, as then a very young senator. One of the sort of, you know, big issues of the day was school busing and an effort by the federal government and the federal courts to bring about school integration, which has been resisted not just in the South, but in the North by moving children around Cincinnati. We are so residentially segregated in this country certainly then and as indeed now. The idea was to bus children from, you know, white districts to black districts and vice versa.
And Joe really came out very strongly and sort of vociferously against that. He made it his signature issue really, in the 1970s and he actually sponsored legislation that really weakened it, prevented the federal government from expending funds to assist school busing, which the then lone African-American senator – I think he was the first one since Reconstruction Ed Brooke of Massachusetts – called it the greatest setback to civil rights since the 1964 Voting Rights Act.
So when he went on from there. In the 1980s among other inequities, he really championed this whole tough on crime approach, which was the effort of the corporate-wing of the Democratic Party to regain, to win the ever-elusive Republican’s swing voter by instituting ever-harsher crackdowns, really on black people with, you know, among other things – the notorious distinction between powder cocaine and crack cocaine. I think it was disparity was 100 to one in terms of sentences. You know, white people use powder cocaine and they got comparatively -speaking light sentences. Thanks to Joe’s legislation, black people with crack cocaine got very heavy sentences. Thanks to Joe.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Andrew, you also go into some history of Joe Biden as it affects banking regulation. Critically important to what happened in 2008 with the economic meltdown here in the U.S. and around the world. There was a bill called the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 that Joe Biden played a role in, Review for our listeners what Joe Biden did in terms of deregulating the banks and repealing the Glass-Steagall Act.
ANDREW COCKBURN: Right. Well that act you just referred to, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, was the repeal of Glass-Steagall and just to remind people, Glass-Steagall was a Depression era, a New Deal era, really piece of legislation that separated investment banks from commercial banks. It meant what it really meant was that banks couldn’t gamble with your money, your money and mine. So that, you know, all money in the bank is protected by the insured thanks to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. And Glass-Steagall meant that they couldn’t then go off and take our money and sort of make bets with it, which had been going on in the run up, to the Great Crash.
And there was a steady, remorseless effort by the banks to get that repealed, especially in the 1990s. And finally in 1999, they succeeded with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley, and Joe Biden voted for that. In fact, he was an active proponent of that, although he was not alone there. I mean, the Clinton administration was all for it. I mean, it was the very, very unfortunate period when the Democratic administration and indeed everyone, I mean, it was a very bipartisan consensus that, you know, Wall Street should be free freed from regulation to do whatever they felt like – which was what they felt like was, of course, we found out in 2000 date was the, you know, the near collapse of the global economy.
BETWEEN THE LINES: From what we know about the record you’ve researched, Andrew, what’s your feeling about Joe Biden and how he’s pitching his campaign as being a progressive guy?
ANDREW COCKBURN: Pretty upsetting because he’s not a progressive guy. I mean nothing in his record even suggests he’s progressive guy. In fact, pretty much everything in his record suggests he’s not a progressive guy. It’s the usual story of the Democratic party. You know, like Obama ran as a populist and really, you know, and made all sorts of progressive noises and his appointment was basically a Citigroup administration stuffed with people from Wall Street. And I wouldn’t look for too much different than a Biden administration.
And Joe really came out very strongly and sort of vociferously against that. He made it his signature issue really, in the 1970s and he actually sponsored legislation that really weakened it, prevented the federal government from expending funds to assist school busing, which the then lone African-American senator – I think he was the first one since Reconstruction Ed Brooke of Massachusetts – called it the greatest setback to civil rights since the 1964 Voting Rights Act.
So when he went on from there. In the 1980s among other inequities, he really championed this whole tough on crime approach, which was the effort of the corporate-wing of the Democratic Party to regain, to win the ever-elusive Republican’s swing voter by instituting ever-harsher crackdowns, really on black people with, you know, among other things – the notorious distinction between powder cocaine and crack cocaine. I think it was disparity was 100 to one in terms of sentences. You know, white people use powder cocaine and they got comparatively -speaking light sentences. Thanks to Joe’s legislation, black people with crack cocaine got very heavy sentences. Thanks to Joe.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Andrew, you also go into some history of Joe Biden as it affects banking regulation. Critically important to what happened in 2008 with the economic meltdown here in the U.S. and around the world. There was a bill called the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 that Joe Biden played a role in, Review for our listeners what Joe Biden did in terms of deregulating the banks and repealing the Glass-Steagall Act.
ANDREW COCKBURN: Right. Well that act you just referred to, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, was the repeal of Glass-Steagall and just to remind people, Glass-Steagall was a Depression era, a New Deal era, really piece of legislation that separated investment banks from commercial banks. It meant what it really meant was that banks couldn’t gamble with your money, your money and mine. So that, you know, all money in the bank is protected by the insured thanks to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. And Glass-Steagall meant that they couldn’t then go off and take our money and sort of make bets with it, which had been going on in the run up, to the Great Crash.
And there was a steady, remorseless effort by the banks to get that repealed, especially in the 1990s. And finally in 1999, they succeeded with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley, and Joe Biden voted for that. In fact, he was an active proponent of that, although he was not alone there. I mean, the Clinton administration was all for it. I mean, it was the very, very unfortunate period when the Democratic administration and indeed everyone, I mean, it was a very bipartisan consensus that, you know, Wall Street should be free freed from regulation to do whatever they felt like – which was what they felt like was, of course, we found out in 2000 date was the, you know, the near collapse of the global economy.
BETWEEN THE LINES: From what we know about the record you’ve researched, Andrew, what’s your feeling about Joe Biden and how he’s pitching his campaign as being a progressive guy?
ANDREW COCKBURN: Pretty upsetting because he’s not a progressive guy. I mean nothing in his record even suggests he’s progressive guy. In fact, pretty much everything in his record suggests he’s not a progressive guy. It’s the usual story of the Democratic party. You know, like Obama ran as a populist and really, you know, and made all sorts of progressive noises and his appointment was basically a Citigroup administration stuffed with people from Wall Street. And I wouldn’t look for too much different than a Biden administration.
topics
*WHY THE WHITE HOUSE STOPPED TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT INFLATION AND CORPORATE POWER
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*OPINION: BIDEN STICKS WITH TRUMP SCHEME TO PRIVATIZE MEDICARE
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*SPECULATIVE “BLANK CHECK” COMPANIES SURROUND TONY BLINKEN, BIDEN ADMINISTRATION
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*LONGTIME BIDEN ADVISER LOBBIED ON BEHALF OF TRUMP’S CORPORATE TAX CUT
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*TRANSPORT UNIONS SAY RAHM EMANUEL LEADING DOT WOULD BE A “BETRAYAL”
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*BIDEN EYES GOP CANDIDATES FOR CABINET SLOTS
*Obama team fully vetted Biden in 2008 and found no hint of former aide's allegation
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Biden on sexual assault allegation: ‘never, never happened’
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Making peace with Joe Biden — whatever the hell that means
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Random Observations on the End of the Democratic Primaries
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*BIDEN IS STILL LYING ABOUT HIS POSITIONS ON SOCIAL SECURITY CUTS, THE BANKRUPTCY BILL, AND MORE(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Biden’s Racism Is More Veiled Than Trump’s — But No Less Real
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*POLITICAL SAVANT RACHEL BITECOFER: DEMOCRATS FACE "MAJOR DISADVANTAGE" GOING WITH BIDEN(EXCERPT BELOW)
*Bernie or Bust: the Sanders fans who will never vote for Biden
(excerpt below)
*Joe Biden Has Cured Democrats of Their Belief in a Savior President
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*BIDEN REFUSES TO COMMIT TO SIGNING MEDICARE FOR ALL BILL AS PRESIDENT
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Biden’s Policies Propose Minor Changes in a Time of Crisis
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Trump Is a Disaster for Abortion Rights — but Joe Biden Can’t Be Trusted to Fight for Choice(ARTICLE BELOW)
*BLACK VOTERS KNOW JOE BIDEN’S CHECKERED PAST ON RACIAL JUSTICE — HERE’S WHY THEY BACK HIM ANYWAY(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Biden’s Flip-Flop on Free Higher Education Exposes His Hypocrisy
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*JOE BIDEN WANTS TO END PRISON PROFITEERING. ONE OF HIS TOP FUNDRAISERS IS A MAJOR PLAYER IN PRISON HEALTH CARE.(ARTICLE BELOW)
*No, Biden: An Argument Against Joe Because of Impeachment
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Reagan Lives On in Biden
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*BIDEN TO HOST HIGH-DOLLAR FUNDRAISER WITH PITTSBURGH-AREA REAL ESTATE MOGULS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Sorry, Ellen and Mayor Pete, but no: We're not ready to forgive Trump voters
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*JOE BIDEN’S FAMILY HAS BEEN CASHING IN ON HIS CAREER FOR DECADES. DEMOCRATS NEED TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT.
DEMOCRATS HAVE SIDESTEPPED THE QUESTION OF HUNTER BIDEN’S ETHICS, AND HOW MUCH RESPONSIBILITY JOE BIDEN DESERVES. REPUBLICANS, THOUGH, HAVE NO SUCH QUALMS.
*DOCUMENTS SHED NEW LIGHT ON CRITICAL MOMENT IN PETE BUTTIGIEG’S SOUTH BEND POLITICAL CAREER(ARTICLE BELOW)
*AFTER CLIMATE FORUM, BIDEN HEADS TO A FUNDRAISER CO-HOSTED BY A FOSSIL FUEL EXECUTIVE(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Joe Biden Catches Heat After Saying ‘Poor Kids Are Just as Bright’ as White Children
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*How Biden’s Secret 2002 Meetings Led to War in Iraq
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Which 2020 Democrats Are Taking Money From the Health Care Industry?
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*JOE BIDEN SAYS HE CAN WORK WITH THE SENATE. THE LAST TIME HE TRIED, MITCH MCCONNELL PICKED HIS POCKETS BADLY.(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Joe Biden Is One of the Most Tone-Deaf Politicians in the History of Representative Government
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*JOE BIDEN WORKED TO UNDERMINE THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT’S COVERAGE OF CONTRACEPTION(ARTICLE BELOW)
Opinion
Biden administration
Why the White House stopped telling the truth about inflation and corporate power
Starbucks, McDonald’s, Chipotle, Amazon – all protect profits by making customers pay more. We need the political courage to say they can and should cover rising costs themselves
Robert Reich
the guardian
Sun 20 Feb 2022 01.00 EST
The Biden White House has decided to stop tying inflation to corporate power. That’s a big mistake. I’ll get to the reason for the shift in a moment. First, I want to be clear about the relationship between inflation and corporate power.
While most of the price increases now affecting the US and global economies have been the result of global supply chain problems, this doesn’t explain why big and hugely profitable corporations are passing these cost increases on to their customers in the form of higher prices.
They don’t need to do so. With corporate profits at near record levels, they could easily absorb the cost increases. They’re raising prices because they can – and they can because they don’t face meaningful competition.
As the White House National Economic Council put it in a December report: “Businesses that face meaningful competition can’t do that, because they would lose business to a competitor that did not hike its margins.”
Starbucks is raising its prices to consumers, blaming the rising costs of supplies. But Starbucks is so profitable it could easily absorb these costs – it just reported a 31% increase in yearly profits. Why didn’t it just swallow the cost increases?
Ditto for McDonald’s and Chipotle, whose revenues have soared but who are nonetheless raising prices. And for Procter & Gamble, which continues to rake in record profits but is raising prices. Also for Amazon, Kroger, Costco and Target.
All are able to pass cost increases on to consumers in the form of higher prices because they face so little competition. As Chipotle’s chief financial officer said, “Our ultimate goal … is to fully protect our margins.”
Worse yet, inflation has given some big corporations cover to increase their prices well above their rising costs.
In a recent survey, almost 60% of large retailers say inflation has given them the ability to raise prices beyond what’s required to offset higher costs.
Meat prices are soaring because the four giant meat processing corporations that dominate the industry are “using their market power to extract bigger and bigger profit margins for themselves”, according to a recent report from the White House National Economic Council (emphasis added).
Not incidentally, that report was dated 10 December. Now, the White House is pulling its punches. Why has the White House stopped explaining this to the public?
The Washington Post reports that when the prepared congressional testimony of a senior administration official (Janet Yellen?) was recently circulated inside the White House, it included a passage tying inflation to corporate consolidation and monopoly power. But that language was deleted from the remarks before they were delivered.
Apparently, members of the White House Council of Economic Advisers raised objections. I don’t know what their objections were, but some economists argue that since corporations with market power wouldn’t need to wait until the current inflation to raise prices, corporate power can’t be contributing to inflation.
This argument ignores the ease by which powerful corporations can pass on their own cost increases to customers in higher prices or use inflation to disguise even higher price increases.
It seems likely that the Council of Economic Advisers is being influenced by two Democratic economists from a previous administration. According to the Post, the former Democratic treasury secretary Larry Summers and Jason Furman, a top economist in the Obama administration, have been critical of attempts to link corporate market power to inflation.
“Business-bashing is terrible economics and not very good politics in my view,” Summers said in an interview.
Wrong. Showing the connections between corporate power and inflation is not “business-bashing”. It’s holding powerful corporations accountable.
Whether through antitrust enforcement (or the threat of it), a windfall profits tax or price controls, or all three, it’s important for the administration and Congress to do what they can to prevent hugely profitable monopolistic corporations from raising their prices.
Otherwise, responsibility for controlling inflation falls entirely to the Federal Reserve, which has only one weapon at its disposal – higher interest rates. Higher interest rates will slow the economy and likely cause millions of lower-wage workers to lose their jobs and forfeit long-overdue wage increases.
While most of the price increases now affecting the US and global economies have been the result of global supply chain problems, this doesn’t explain why big and hugely profitable corporations are passing these cost increases on to their customers in the form of higher prices.
They don’t need to do so. With corporate profits at near record levels, they could easily absorb the cost increases. They’re raising prices because they can – and they can because they don’t face meaningful competition.
As the White House National Economic Council put it in a December report: “Businesses that face meaningful competition can’t do that, because they would lose business to a competitor that did not hike its margins.”
Starbucks is raising its prices to consumers, blaming the rising costs of supplies. But Starbucks is so profitable it could easily absorb these costs – it just reported a 31% increase in yearly profits. Why didn’t it just swallow the cost increases?
Ditto for McDonald’s and Chipotle, whose revenues have soared but who are nonetheless raising prices. And for Procter & Gamble, which continues to rake in record profits but is raising prices. Also for Amazon, Kroger, Costco and Target.
All are able to pass cost increases on to consumers in the form of higher prices because they face so little competition. As Chipotle’s chief financial officer said, “Our ultimate goal … is to fully protect our margins.”
Worse yet, inflation has given some big corporations cover to increase their prices well above their rising costs.
In a recent survey, almost 60% of large retailers say inflation has given them the ability to raise prices beyond what’s required to offset higher costs.
Meat prices are soaring because the four giant meat processing corporations that dominate the industry are “using their market power to extract bigger and bigger profit margins for themselves”, according to a recent report from the White House National Economic Council (emphasis added).
Not incidentally, that report was dated 10 December. Now, the White House is pulling its punches. Why has the White House stopped explaining this to the public?
The Washington Post reports that when the prepared congressional testimony of a senior administration official (Janet Yellen?) was recently circulated inside the White House, it included a passage tying inflation to corporate consolidation and monopoly power. But that language was deleted from the remarks before they were delivered.
Apparently, members of the White House Council of Economic Advisers raised objections. I don’t know what their objections were, but some economists argue that since corporations with market power wouldn’t need to wait until the current inflation to raise prices, corporate power can’t be contributing to inflation.
This argument ignores the ease by which powerful corporations can pass on their own cost increases to customers in higher prices or use inflation to disguise even higher price increases.
It seems likely that the Council of Economic Advisers is being influenced by two Democratic economists from a previous administration. According to the Post, the former Democratic treasury secretary Larry Summers and Jason Furman, a top economist in the Obama administration, have been critical of attempts to link corporate market power to inflation.
“Business-bashing is terrible economics and not very good politics in my view,” Summers said in an interview.
Wrong. Showing the connections between corporate power and inflation is not “business-bashing”. It’s holding powerful corporations accountable.
Whether through antitrust enforcement (or the threat of it), a windfall profits tax or price controls, or all three, it’s important for the administration and Congress to do what they can to prevent hugely profitable monopolistic corporations from raising their prices.
Otherwise, responsibility for controlling inflation falls entirely to the Federal Reserve, which has only one weapon at its disposal – higher interest rates. Higher interest rates will slow the economy and likely cause millions of lower-wage workers to lose their jobs and forfeit long-overdue wage increases.
MANCHIN AND SINEMA ARE NOT THE ONLY SELLOUTS!!!
OPINION: Biden Sticks with Trump Scheme to Privatize Medicare
Three-Year ‘Pilot Program’ Allows Wall Street Huge Profits While Health Care for Millions Weakens
JILLIAN S. AMBROZ - DC REPORT
February 16, 2022
Why is President Joe Biden stalling when he could immediately halt the controversial Medicare direct contracting program put in place by Donald Trump?
The Trump administration had the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, an offshoot of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, run a congressionally approved pilot program that essentially established a roadmap to privatize all of Medicare.
We ran a comprehensive story about this in January by Diane Archer, president of Just Carefully USA, an independent digital hub covering health and financial issues affecting Baby Boomers and their families.
Consider that nearly 50% of Medicare beneficiaries – 26 million seniors – are already enrolled in private Medicare Advantage plans. In those cases, the federal government provides a fixed monthly fee for each beneficiary under the plan’s care to a middleman, regardless of what medical services they actually receive. That gives them private companies an incentive to spend less on patient care to drive up their profits.
Under the new pilot program, key aspects of this model extend to seniors in 38 states; Washington, D.C.; and Puerto Rico. The plan could grow to cover 30 million of the 36 million currently in traditional Medicare fee-for-service programs. This move is not a choice for people enrolled in traditional Medicare. Beneficiaries are not even told they have been switched to a direct contracting plan. At least the seniors on Medicare Advantage chose that program.
Congress can no longer intervene on the issue; only three people have that power: Biden, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure. Still, a group of 50 lawmakers led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) sent a letter to Biden in the first week of January asking him to stop the measure. And several activist groups are issuing petitions.
Higher Costs
The letter states that Direct Contracting Entities already cost the government $10.6 billion per year because “Medicare Advantage plans currently use upcoding, or adding extra diagnosis codes to patient charts, to receive more money from the Medicare Trust fund to increase their profits.” The congressional members are asking the Biden administration to permanently end direct contracting and return the beneficiaries back to their traditional Medicare plans by July 1, 2022.
So why hasn’t Biden killed the plan? He stopped aspects of it in March 2021 when there was great outcry over a component of the program which would have auto-enrolled beneficiaries in certain geographic locations into direct contracting. Maybe the right question is why the president installed Elizabeth Fowler in the top spot at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, given her history as a top executive at Johnson & Johnson and her practices serving under the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.
Fowler has said Trump’s Direct Contracting Entities program will stay in place for three years and then it will be reevaluated.
Worked Over Obamacare
Fowler was one of the architects behind the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). She helped write one version of the act as an aide to former Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) that eliminated the public option, thereby boosting profits for the healthcare industry. Baucus banned single-payer advocates from the Obamacare deliberations leading to an insurance-dominated version.
Even more troubling, Fowler is said to have held closed-door meetings at the White House with Wall Street firms hoping to learn how the act would affect stock prices while serving as one of Obama’s advisers on healthcare policy.
She has a long history with Medicare policy, having served George W. Bush by helping to draft the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 (Medicare Part D) – that blocked the ability of Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices and instead outsourced cost-control responsibility to the insurance companies.
Given her profit-driven track record, there’s nothing in there that shows she has healthcare beneficiaries in mind.
You can imagine the salivating private investor-owned entities cozying up to Fowler and Medicare Advantage commercial insurers to share a piece of that pie. So far, 53 Direct Contracting Entities have signed contracts to work as fiscal intermediaries between patients and their providers.
There’s risk, but Wall Street knows how to manage that. In fact, many of these private investment firms thrive on “risk-score gaming,” which is already prevalent in Medicare Advantage.
Wall Street types know how to drive profits, and it doesn’t involve offering better care for patients. What they’ll do is cherry-pick the healthy beneficiaries and then “upcode” them – telling the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services that patients are sicker thanked they are, and that they received more expensive and more medical services than were actually provided. They will also drop the truly sick patients from the plan. That’s risk-score gaming, and it’s perfectly legal here.
Spend Less on Patients
These Direct Contracting Entities also make more profit by spending less on patient care and funneling more of the government payments back into their profits.
For example, traditional Medicare spends 98% of its budget on patient care. Them Affordable Care Act requires insurance companies to spend at least 80 to 85% of premium dollars on medical care. Now compare that to Direct Contracting Entities, which spend roughly 60% of taxpayer money on patient care while using the remaining 40% for overhead and pocketing the rest as profit.
Medicare spending is expected to rise from $800 billion in 2019 to $1.6 trillion in 2026, as Baby Boomers live longer. And Wall Street loves direct contracting. It considers direct contractors eight times more valuable per patient than Medicare Advantage firms.
But they’re both for-profit plays. In fact, from early April 2010 through the end of August 2021, the average stock price for five Medicare Advantage-focused insurers increased a staggering 825%, compared with 280% for the entire S&P 500. Those insurers were United Health, Humana, Cigna, Anthem and CVS/Aetna. Medicare and Medicaid grew Anthem’s and Humana’s growth by two-thirds since 2010. And these top five insurers made up 52% of the Medicare Advantage market in 2016.
As more private investors enter the scene, get ready for continuous turmoil as they sell off the programs once they have made their profit to invest in something else.
There’s no doubt something must be done to shore up funds as the Medicare trust fund is expected to become insolvent by 2024, according to a 2020 annual report to Congress by the Medicare Board of Trustees. But surely there’s a better idea than handing the healthcare coverage of our seniors over to the wolves of Wall Street.
Meanwhile, medical coding in general remains a mess with outdated systems and general confusion across the country. For example, in Rochester, N.Y., veterans were being charged high copays from their insurance providers for services that should have been covered for free through the Veterans Administration (VA) at the University of Rochester Medical Center, according to a story by Berkeley Brean with News 10NBC, who helped uncover the issue.
The medical center director said the problem stemmed from a coding glitch; if veterans scheduled the appointment before the VA was contacted, a bill was generated for their insurer, and they would be billed a copay. If the medical center got prior authorization before the medical visit, no payment was charged. There are 45,000 veterans in New York on community care and 2.3 million nationwide.
The Trump administration had the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, an offshoot of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, run a congressionally approved pilot program that essentially established a roadmap to privatize all of Medicare.
We ran a comprehensive story about this in January by Diane Archer, president of Just Carefully USA, an independent digital hub covering health and financial issues affecting Baby Boomers and their families.
Consider that nearly 50% of Medicare beneficiaries – 26 million seniors – are already enrolled in private Medicare Advantage plans. In those cases, the federal government provides a fixed monthly fee for each beneficiary under the plan’s care to a middleman, regardless of what medical services they actually receive. That gives them private companies an incentive to spend less on patient care to drive up their profits.
Under the new pilot program, key aspects of this model extend to seniors in 38 states; Washington, D.C.; and Puerto Rico. The plan could grow to cover 30 million of the 36 million currently in traditional Medicare fee-for-service programs. This move is not a choice for people enrolled in traditional Medicare. Beneficiaries are not even told they have been switched to a direct contracting plan. At least the seniors on Medicare Advantage chose that program.
Congress can no longer intervene on the issue; only three people have that power: Biden, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure. Still, a group of 50 lawmakers led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) sent a letter to Biden in the first week of January asking him to stop the measure. And several activist groups are issuing petitions.
Higher Costs
The letter states that Direct Contracting Entities already cost the government $10.6 billion per year because “Medicare Advantage plans currently use upcoding, or adding extra diagnosis codes to patient charts, to receive more money from the Medicare Trust fund to increase their profits.” The congressional members are asking the Biden administration to permanently end direct contracting and return the beneficiaries back to their traditional Medicare plans by July 1, 2022.
So why hasn’t Biden killed the plan? He stopped aspects of it in March 2021 when there was great outcry over a component of the program which would have auto-enrolled beneficiaries in certain geographic locations into direct contracting. Maybe the right question is why the president installed Elizabeth Fowler in the top spot at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, given her history as a top executive at Johnson & Johnson and her practices serving under the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.
Fowler has said Trump’s Direct Contracting Entities program will stay in place for three years and then it will be reevaluated.
Worked Over Obamacare
Fowler was one of the architects behind the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). She helped write one version of the act as an aide to former Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) that eliminated the public option, thereby boosting profits for the healthcare industry. Baucus banned single-payer advocates from the Obamacare deliberations leading to an insurance-dominated version.
Even more troubling, Fowler is said to have held closed-door meetings at the White House with Wall Street firms hoping to learn how the act would affect stock prices while serving as one of Obama’s advisers on healthcare policy.
She has a long history with Medicare policy, having served George W. Bush by helping to draft the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 (Medicare Part D) – that blocked the ability of Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices and instead outsourced cost-control responsibility to the insurance companies.
Given her profit-driven track record, there’s nothing in there that shows she has healthcare beneficiaries in mind.
You can imagine the salivating private investor-owned entities cozying up to Fowler and Medicare Advantage commercial insurers to share a piece of that pie. So far, 53 Direct Contracting Entities have signed contracts to work as fiscal intermediaries between patients and their providers.
There’s risk, but Wall Street knows how to manage that. In fact, many of these private investment firms thrive on “risk-score gaming,” which is already prevalent in Medicare Advantage.
Wall Street types know how to drive profits, and it doesn’t involve offering better care for patients. What they’ll do is cherry-pick the healthy beneficiaries and then “upcode” them – telling the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services that patients are sicker thanked they are, and that they received more expensive and more medical services than were actually provided. They will also drop the truly sick patients from the plan. That’s risk-score gaming, and it’s perfectly legal here.
Spend Less on Patients
These Direct Contracting Entities also make more profit by spending less on patient care and funneling more of the government payments back into their profits.
For example, traditional Medicare spends 98% of its budget on patient care. Them Affordable Care Act requires insurance companies to spend at least 80 to 85% of premium dollars on medical care. Now compare that to Direct Contracting Entities, which spend roughly 60% of taxpayer money on patient care while using the remaining 40% for overhead and pocketing the rest as profit.
Medicare spending is expected to rise from $800 billion in 2019 to $1.6 trillion in 2026, as Baby Boomers live longer. And Wall Street loves direct contracting. It considers direct contractors eight times more valuable per patient than Medicare Advantage firms.
But they’re both for-profit plays. In fact, from early April 2010 through the end of August 2021, the average stock price for five Medicare Advantage-focused insurers increased a staggering 825%, compared with 280% for the entire S&P 500. Those insurers were United Health, Humana, Cigna, Anthem and CVS/Aetna. Medicare and Medicaid grew Anthem’s and Humana’s growth by two-thirds since 2010. And these top five insurers made up 52% of the Medicare Advantage market in 2016.
As more private investors enter the scene, get ready for continuous turmoil as they sell off the programs once they have made their profit to invest in something else.
There’s no doubt something must be done to shore up funds as the Medicare trust fund is expected to become insolvent by 2024, according to a 2020 annual report to Congress by the Medicare Board of Trustees. But surely there’s a better idea than handing the healthcare coverage of our seniors over to the wolves of Wall Street.
Meanwhile, medical coding in general remains a mess with outdated systems and general confusion across the country. For example, in Rochester, N.Y., veterans were being charged high copays from their insurance providers for services that should have been covered for free through the Veterans Administration (VA) at the University of Rochester Medical Center, according to a story by Berkeley Brean with News 10NBC, who helped uncover the issue.
The medical center director said the problem stemmed from a coding glitch; if veterans scheduled the appointment before the VA was contacted, a bill was generated for their insurer, and they would be billed a copay. If the medical center got prior authorization before the medical visit, no payment was charged. There are 45,000 veterans in New York on community care and 2.3 million nationwide.
biden's corporate cabinet!!!
SPECULATIVE “BLANK CHECK” COMPANIES SURROUND TONY BLINKEN, BIDEN ADMINISTRATION
SPACs have attracted recent attention because of Pine Island Acquisition Corp., a SPAC with close ties to the Biden administration.
Matthew Cunningham-Cook - the intercept
January 10 2021, 4:00 a.m.
THERE IS A likely apocryphal company from the 1720 South Sea financial bubble, a long-forgotten stock market craze in England caused by the rapid appreciation and collapse in the stock of a proposed slave-trading company. Companies were created left and right, many with unclear purposes, including one venture: “For carrying-on an undertaking of great advantage but no-one to know what it is.”
That’s a good summary of what special purpose acquisition companies, or “blank check” companies, are: Investors are expected to trust a management team to find good business ventures to finance. SPACs gain their existence from loopholes in securities laws that make it easier to launch companies on the stock market through a SPAC than a traditional initial public offering, with much more leeway to make claims about future performance.
SPACs have attracted recent attention because of Pine Island Acquisition Corp., a SPAC with close ties to the Biden administration that is seeking to merge with a defense company. Secretary of State nominee Antony Blinken is an “adviser” to the firm. Defense Secretary nominee Lloyd Austin is also affiliated with the firm, as is Michèle Flournoy, who was also being considered for defense secretary. Director of National Intelligence designate Avril Haines is employed by Westexec Advisors, the Blinken-headed consulting firm that is closely associated with Pine Island. Pine Island went public six days before Blinken’s nomination was announced.
The SPAC market has grown rapidly, accounting for over 40 percent of the total initial public offering market in 2020. In 2019, there were just 59 SPAC IPOs, and they raised $13.6 billion in total. By 2020, there were 248 raising $83 billion in capital — a growth of over 600 percent in just one year. This rapid growth has resulted in problems. One of 2020’s most vaunted SPACs launched the electric truck maker Nikola Corp. But it turns out that the company had used a nonfunctional prototype in its promotional materials, and its stock cratered.
A review of financial disclosure documents shows that Blinken also has a business relationship with Chamath Palihapitiya, who has sponsored six SPACs with his company Social Capital over the past few years, making him one of the most active participants in the space. Blinken has an equity stake in the general partnership of Social Capital.
Jeff Hauser, the co-executive director of the Revolving Door Project at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, raised the possibility that Blinken could be paid more than the actual worth for his stake in the Social+Capital GP. “The illiquidity and opacity of the investment means that an overpay would be very difficult to prove by any third party,” Hauser said, and that as a result, Blinken could be “subject to additional capture by a wealthy and active investor.”
In a request for comment from The Intercept, a spokesperson for President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team said that Blinken “provided this California-based company with broad geopolitical advice on longer-term investments focused on solving hard problems like curing cancer and space exploration. He did not take part in the firm’s day-to-day operations, fundraising, or investment decisions.” The spokesperson additionally said that Blinken did not invest any of his money in the firm and that he will sell his full interest if confirmed.
Advocates say that Blinken’s stakes — and SPACs more broadly — merit scrutiny.
“SPACs essentially require investors to have blind faith in the acumen — and the connections — of the people who spawn them. They are deserving of more regulatory scrutiny, especially as they have generally proved to be losing propositions for investors,” said David Segal, the executive director of Demand Progress, which has been advocating accountability in the Biden transition.
“The various associations between top players in Biden’s orbit and SPACs raise concerns that they won’t be subject to serious scrutiny. The Pine Island SPAC is especially concerning because, by its own admission, connections to revolving-door figures are a driving facet of its value proposition, and it raised hundreds of millions of dollars as many of its principals were considered top contenders for Biden administration posts.”
Beyond the Nikola affair, other research shows that SPACs have been a bad deal for investors.
A report from Wall Street research firm Renaissance Capital in September found that while most SPACs do not make it to the final stage where they merge with a company and go public again, the 89 that have “delivered an average loss of 18.8% and a median return of minus 36.1%. That compares with the average after-market return from traditional IPOs of 37.2% since 2015.” Those returns are also well below the S&P 500 during that time frame, which returned 76.3 percent.
SPACs have a complex setup, but Andrew Park, a senior policy analyst with Americans for Financial Reform, argues that there are core problems with the model. “The first problem is incentives when you issue these SPACs,” said Park. “The SPAC sponsor gets 20 percent. No matter what, they get it for free,” which helps to explain the draw of celebrities, including Shaquille O’Neal, and government insiders to the space. That means that “everyone is incentivized to do as many deals as possible.” Hedge funds will buy the SPAC shares at a deep and undisclosed discount prior to going public, which means that they make money regardless of whether the business plan is sound. Because of the incentive misalignment, “there’s now a worry about how good SPAC sponsors are at due diligence. They automatically get 20 percent for raising the money. They’re going to chase after these private companies and good chance they’re going to overpay for them because they are acquiring a lofty valuation.” Finally, “the end investors are not sophisticated,” with many small retail investors drawn to the SPAC space because of the hype around them — in part due to the SPACs’s ability to make claims about future performance that companies going through a traditional IPO are not able to do.
The Biden transition team declined to comment as to whether or not they would support additional regulatory scrutiny for SPACs. Palahipitiya, the SPAC sponsor who works with Blinken, donated over $1 million to Democratic Party committees and super PACs in 2020.
That’s a good summary of what special purpose acquisition companies, or “blank check” companies, are: Investors are expected to trust a management team to find good business ventures to finance. SPACs gain their existence from loopholes in securities laws that make it easier to launch companies on the stock market through a SPAC than a traditional initial public offering, with much more leeway to make claims about future performance.
SPACs have attracted recent attention because of Pine Island Acquisition Corp., a SPAC with close ties to the Biden administration that is seeking to merge with a defense company. Secretary of State nominee Antony Blinken is an “adviser” to the firm. Defense Secretary nominee Lloyd Austin is also affiliated with the firm, as is Michèle Flournoy, who was also being considered for defense secretary. Director of National Intelligence designate Avril Haines is employed by Westexec Advisors, the Blinken-headed consulting firm that is closely associated with Pine Island. Pine Island went public six days before Blinken’s nomination was announced.
The SPAC market has grown rapidly, accounting for over 40 percent of the total initial public offering market in 2020. In 2019, there were just 59 SPAC IPOs, and they raised $13.6 billion in total. By 2020, there were 248 raising $83 billion in capital — a growth of over 600 percent in just one year. This rapid growth has resulted in problems. One of 2020’s most vaunted SPACs launched the electric truck maker Nikola Corp. But it turns out that the company had used a nonfunctional prototype in its promotional materials, and its stock cratered.
A review of financial disclosure documents shows that Blinken also has a business relationship with Chamath Palihapitiya, who has sponsored six SPACs with his company Social Capital over the past few years, making him one of the most active participants in the space. Blinken has an equity stake in the general partnership of Social Capital.
Jeff Hauser, the co-executive director of the Revolving Door Project at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, raised the possibility that Blinken could be paid more than the actual worth for his stake in the Social+Capital GP. “The illiquidity and opacity of the investment means that an overpay would be very difficult to prove by any third party,” Hauser said, and that as a result, Blinken could be “subject to additional capture by a wealthy and active investor.”
In a request for comment from The Intercept, a spokesperson for President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team said that Blinken “provided this California-based company with broad geopolitical advice on longer-term investments focused on solving hard problems like curing cancer and space exploration. He did not take part in the firm’s day-to-day operations, fundraising, or investment decisions.” The spokesperson additionally said that Blinken did not invest any of his money in the firm and that he will sell his full interest if confirmed.
Advocates say that Blinken’s stakes — and SPACs more broadly — merit scrutiny.
“SPACs essentially require investors to have blind faith in the acumen — and the connections — of the people who spawn them. They are deserving of more regulatory scrutiny, especially as they have generally proved to be losing propositions for investors,” said David Segal, the executive director of Demand Progress, which has been advocating accountability in the Biden transition.
“The various associations between top players in Biden’s orbit and SPACs raise concerns that they won’t be subject to serious scrutiny. The Pine Island SPAC is especially concerning because, by its own admission, connections to revolving-door figures are a driving facet of its value proposition, and it raised hundreds of millions of dollars as many of its principals were considered top contenders for Biden administration posts.”
Beyond the Nikola affair, other research shows that SPACs have been a bad deal for investors.
A report from Wall Street research firm Renaissance Capital in September found that while most SPACs do not make it to the final stage where they merge with a company and go public again, the 89 that have “delivered an average loss of 18.8% and a median return of minus 36.1%. That compares with the average after-market return from traditional IPOs of 37.2% since 2015.” Those returns are also well below the S&P 500 during that time frame, which returned 76.3 percent.
SPACs have a complex setup, but Andrew Park, a senior policy analyst with Americans for Financial Reform, argues that there are core problems with the model. “The first problem is incentives when you issue these SPACs,” said Park. “The SPAC sponsor gets 20 percent. No matter what, they get it for free,” which helps to explain the draw of celebrities, including Shaquille O’Neal, and government insiders to the space. That means that “everyone is incentivized to do as many deals as possible.” Hedge funds will buy the SPAC shares at a deep and undisclosed discount prior to going public, which means that they make money regardless of whether the business plan is sound. Because of the incentive misalignment, “there’s now a worry about how good SPAC sponsors are at due diligence. They automatically get 20 percent for raising the money. They’re going to chase after these private companies and good chance they’re going to overpay for them because they are acquiring a lofty valuation.” Finally, “the end investors are not sophisticated,” with many small retail investors drawn to the SPAC space because of the hype around them — in part due to the SPACs’s ability to make claims about future performance that companies going through a traditional IPO are not able to do.
The Biden transition team declined to comment as to whether or not they would support additional regulatory scrutiny for SPACs. Palahipitiya, the SPAC sponsor who works with Blinken, donated over $1 million to Democratic Party committees and super PACs in 2020.
another sellout nominated by biden!!!
LONGTIME BIDEN ADVISER LOBBIED ON BEHALF OF TRUMP’S CORPORATE TAX CUT
Cynthia Hogan worked as a top lobbyist for Apple and led the NFL’s lobbying division during a high-profile domestic violence scandal.
Aída Chávez - the intrcept
December 2 2020, 3:00 a.m.
A TOP ADVISER to President-elect Joe Biden, Cynthia Hogan, worked as a lead lobbyist for Apple as it helped push through President Donald Trump’s corporate tax cut, a giveaway that resulted in a massive windfall for the Cupertino, California-based tech giant.
Biden has resisted calls to bar registered lobbyists from his administration, a looser policy than employed by former President Barack Obama. The policy is a boon to his close adviser and sometimes lobbyist Steve Ricchetti, but also to Hogan, who converted her history of helping Biden write the Violence Against Women Act into a prime lobbying gig for the NFL as it came under fire for its handling of its own domestic violence scandal, when video of Ray Rice’s assault of his wife was published by TMZ.
The 2017 Republican tax law slashed the previous 35 percent corporate tax rate and passed a range of provisions that mostly benefited the wealthiest 1 percent. Apple stock quickly hit record highs and enriched shareholders, including 43 GOP lawmakers who championed the law while holding all sorts of individual stocks, a Center for Public Integrity analysis found. At the time, Apple had stashed at least $250 billion in profits overseas, more than any other American company. The tech giant also spent more than $7.4 million on government lobbying throughout 2017, a significant jump from previous years, disclosures showed.
Lobbying disclosures show that Hogan was one of a team of Apple lobbyists who lobbied the House, Senate, and Treasury Department on “corporate tax reform,” “international tax reform and issues related to foreign regulatory actions,” as well as “issues related to state sales tax, mobile workforce, and taxation of digital goods.” The lobbying came throughout 2017, including during the third and fourth quarter of that year, as Trump’s tax cut was being finalized and passed. For all of 2017, Apple registered spending nearly $7 million lobbying Congress and the administration directly. In 2018, still under Hogan’s guidance, the company continued lobbying on “corporate tax reform” as the law’s regulations were being implemented, increasing their spending in the first quarter of that year to $2.14 million, the documents show.
Hogan has been one of Biden’s most loyal aides, serving as an adviser to the president-elect throughout his career in the Senate and the Obama administration, first joining his Senate Judiciary Committee staff in 1991. She left the public sector at the end of Obama’s first term and went on to spend several years in the corporate world. She’s one of a handful of Silicon Valley insiders, including former Facebook executives, involved in the transition.
Hogan left Apple earlier this year to join Biden’s presidential campaign and helped select his running mate, as a member of the four-person vetting panel that ultimately picked Kamala Harris. Of the vice presidential vetting team — which included former Sen. Chris Dodd, Delaware Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti — Hogan was the only nonpolitician. Biden’s transition hired her to its day-to-day staff in September. According to the Biden transition team, Hogan’s current role deals with “personnel” and has nothing to do with policy.
DURING HER TIME at Apple, Hogan was also involved in defending Apple’s operations in China, claiming in a 2017 letter that the company promotes “fundamental rights” and ethical labor practices by enforcing a “strict supplier code of conduct with standards for safe working conditions, fair treatment of workers, and environmentally responsible practices.” The letter, sent in response to Sens. Ted Cruz and Patrick Leahy’s concerns about Apple removing virtual private network apps — which help protect users from government surveillance — from its app store, argued that the company had actually increased free expression. At the time, there were reports of Apple’s Chinese factories, which have long been criticized for poor working conditions, employing students to illegally work overtime. “We believe that our presence in China helps promote greater openness and facilitates the free flow of ideas and information,” she wrote.
Before Apple, Hogan led the NFL’s lobbying division, where she protected the league during domestic violence and concussion scandals, and helped grow it into a political machine. The NFL hired Hogan as its senior vice president of public policy and government affairs just a few days after TMZ released the Rice assault footage. Hogan’s history with the Violence Against Women Act, and the relationship she developed with the National Domestic Violence Hotline along the way, helped her defuse the situation and rehabilitate the NFL’s image. California Rep. Jackie Speier, who’s known for her work on women’s issues, noted the irony of Hogan’s trajectory in 2015, comparing her to “the mother who founded Mothers Against Drunk Driving going to work for the spirits industry.”
But Hogan wasn’t just instrumental in this public relations victory. She successfully shielded the NFL from congressional action on a number of issues, weakening Congress’s oversight abilities by ending the NFL’s tax-exempt status and fighting calls for a zero-tolerance policy on domestic assault. At a meeting with congressional staffers, Hogan reportedly explained that the league opposed the policy because “victims would be even more reluctant to come forward knowing the accusations would end their husband’s career.” When Congress started thinking about regulating fantasy football sites like FanDuel and DraftKings, Hogan led the aggressive lobbying campaign on Capitol Hill.
AS CHIEF COUNSEL to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Hogan helped Biden draft and pass the now-infamous 1994 crime bill, specifically the “three strikes” provision, which devastated low-income communities and communities of color for decades. Biden even thanked her from the Senate floor, praising her dedication to passing the legislation.
“I want to start off and again pay tribute to the chief counsel of the Judiciary Committee, Cynthia Hogan. She is smart. She is tough.” Biden said, according to congressional record. “And you have no idea, Mr. President, how easy my job is when all I have to do is ask Cynthia Hogan. Right now, I bet you there are 25 senators who can tell me Cynthia’s office phone number without having to look it up because they are so accustomed to calling her and asking her her opinion or asking her for information, Republican as well as Democrat.”
“[Mark Gitenstein] put together this original bill with me, and Ron Klain, who is now with the Justice Department,” the Delaware senator continued. “But it was brought home by Cynthia Hogan.” (Gitenstein has also been a primary player in Biden’s transition.)
Notably, Hogan was also involved in one of the most controversial episodes of Biden’s career: The Judiciary Committee’s interrogation of Anita Hill at Justice Clarence Thomas’s 1991 confirmation hearings. She kept Angela Wright, a credible witness who could have corroborated Hill’s account of Thomas’s sexual harassment, from publicly testifying, according to a 1994 Washington Post report. After some back and forth, Hogan eventually urged Biden to enter Wright’s deposition into the written record instead of having her testify publicly — a move Biden later said could have changed history. Last year, Hogan expressed regret over the decision. “I feel I gave Senator Biden bad advice,” she said. “I told him I thought it was better than having her testify live. I have felt bad about this for years.”
Biden has resisted calls to bar registered lobbyists from his administration, a looser policy than employed by former President Barack Obama. The policy is a boon to his close adviser and sometimes lobbyist Steve Ricchetti, but also to Hogan, who converted her history of helping Biden write the Violence Against Women Act into a prime lobbying gig for the NFL as it came under fire for its handling of its own domestic violence scandal, when video of Ray Rice’s assault of his wife was published by TMZ.
The 2017 Republican tax law slashed the previous 35 percent corporate tax rate and passed a range of provisions that mostly benefited the wealthiest 1 percent. Apple stock quickly hit record highs and enriched shareholders, including 43 GOP lawmakers who championed the law while holding all sorts of individual stocks, a Center for Public Integrity analysis found. At the time, Apple had stashed at least $250 billion in profits overseas, more than any other American company. The tech giant also spent more than $7.4 million on government lobbying throughout 2017, a significant jump from previous years, disclosures showed.
Lobbying disclosures show that Hogan was one of a team of Apple lobbyists who lobbied the House, Senate, and Treasury Department on “corporate tax reform,” “international tax reform and issues related to foreign regulatory actions,” as well as “issues related to state sales tax, mobile workforce, and taxation of digital goods.” The lobbying came throughout 2017, including during the third and fourth quarter of that year, as Trump’s tax cut was being finalized and passed. For all of 2017, Apple registered spending nearly $7 million lobbying Congress and the administration directly. In 2018, still under Hogan’s guidance, the company continued lobbying on “corporate tax reform” as the law’s regulations were being implemented, increasing their spending in the first quarter of that year to $2.14 million, the documents show.
Hogan has been one of Biden’s most loyal aides, serving as an adviser to the president-elect throughout his career in the Senate and the Obama administration, first joining his Senate Judiciary Committee staff in 1991. She left the public sector at the end of Obama’s first term and went on to spend several years in the corporate world. She’s one of a handful of Silicon Valley insiders, including former Facebook executives, involved in the transition.
Hogan left Apple earlier this year to join Biden’s presidential campaign and helped select his running mate, as a member of the four-person vetting panel that ultimately picked Kamala Harris. Of the vice presidential vetting team — which included former Sen. Chris Dodd, Delaware Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti — Hogan was the only nonpolitician. Biden’s transition hired her to its day-to-day staff in September. According to the Biden transition team, Hogan’s current role deals with “personnel” and has nothing to do with policy.
DURING HER TIME at Apple, Hogan was also involved in defending Apple’s operations in China, claiming in a 2017 letter that the company promotes “fundamental rights” and ethical labor practices by enforcing a “strict supplier code of conduct with standards for safe working conditions, fair treatment of workers, and environmentally responsible practices.” The letter, sent in response to Sens. Ted Cruz and Patrick Leahy’s concerns about Apple removing virtual private network apps — which help protect users from government surveillance — from its app store, argued that the company had actually increased free expression. At the time, there were reports of Apple’s Chinese factories, which have long been criticized for poor working conditions, employing students to illegally work overtime. “We believe that our presence in China helps promote greater openness and facilitates the free flow of ideas and information,” she wrote.
Before Apple, Hogan led the NFL’s lobbying division, where she protected the league during domestic violence and concussion scandals, and helped grow it into a political machine. The NFL hired Hogan as its senior vice president of public policy and government affairs just a few days after TMZ released the Rice assault footage. Hogan’s history with the Violence Against Women Act, and the relationship she developed with the National Domestic Violence Hotline along the way, helped her defuse the situation and rehabilitate the NFL’s image. California Rep. Jackie Speier, who’s known for her work on women’s issues, noted the irony of Hogan’s trajectory in 2015, comparing her to “the mother who founded Mothers Against Drunk Driving going to work for the spirits industry.”
But Hogan wasn’t just instrumental in this public relations victory. She successfully shielded the NFL from congressional action on a number of issues, weakening Congress’s oversight abilities by ending the NFL’s tax-exempt status and fighting calls for a zero-tolerance policy on domestic assault. At a meeting with congressional staffers, Hogan reportedly explained that the league opposed the policy because “victims would be even more reluctant to come forward knowing the accusations would end their husband’s career.” When Congress started thinking about regulating fantasy football sites like FanDuel and DraftKings, Hogan led the aggressive lobbying campaign on Capitol Hill.
AS CHIEF COUNSEL to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Hogan helped Biden draft and pass the now-infamous 1994 crime bill, specifically the “three strikes” provision, which devastated low-income communities and communities of color for decades. Biden even thanked her from the Senate floor, praising her dedication to passing the legislation.
“I want to start off and again pay tribute to the chief counsel of the Judiciary Committee, Cynthia Hogan. She is smart. She is tough.” Biden said, according to congressional record. “And you have no idea, Mr. President, how easy my job is when all I have to do is ask Cynthia Hogan. Right now, I bet you there are 25 senators who can tell me Cynthia’s office phone number without having to look it up because they are so accustomed to calling her and asking her her opinion or asking her for information, Republican as well as Democrat.”
“[Mark Gitenstein] put together this original bill with me, and Ron Klain, who is now with the Justice Department,” the Delaware senator continued. “But it was brought home by Cynthia Hogan.” (Gitenstein has also been a primary player in Biden’s transition.)
Notably, Hogan was also involved in one of the most controversial episodes of Biden’s career: The Judiciary Committee’s interrogation of Anita Hill at Justice Clarence Thomas’s 1991 confirmation hearings. She kept Angela Wright, a credible witness who could have corroborated Hill’s account of Thomas’s sexual harassment, from publicly testifying, according to a 1994 Washington Post report. After some back and forth, Hogan eventually urged Biden to enter Wright’s deposition into the written record instead of having her testify publicly — a move Biden later said could have changed history. Last year, Hogan expressed regret over the decision. “I feel I gave Senator Biden bad advice,” she said. “I told him I thought it was better than having her testify live. I have felt bad about this for years.”
nominating a sellout!!!
TRANSPORT UNIONS SAY RAHM EMANUEL LEADING DOT WOULD BE A “BETRAYAL”
The unions are angry over reports that Biden is considering Emanuel for a cabinet post, pointing to his clashes with workers in Chicago.
Akela Lacy - the intercept
December 1 2020, 9:52 a.m.
UNIONS REPRESENTING TRANSPORTATION workers who helped elect Joe Biden are outraged about reports that the president-elect is considering former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to lead the Department of Transportation, citing his record of clashing with workers while in city government.
“Rahm Emanuel would be a nightmare. And a betrayal,” said John Samuelsen, international president of the Transport Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO, which represents 150,000 workers in more than 100 local unions. The union endorsed Biden in May and was one of several major transport unions that backed his campaign. “The trade union movement in transportation worked extremely hard to get Joe Biden elected,” he said, particularly in Pennsylvania, where the union represents Philadelphia’s SEPTA transit, rail, and bus workers.
TWU recruited transit and rail volunteers in Pennsylvania who knocked doors, did phone and text banking, held caravans and virtual rallies with co-workers, and distributed fliers at work sites. “We didn’t work our asses off to have Rahm Emanuel as the secretary of transportation,” Samuelsen said. “He’s anti-trade union, he’s anti-worker.”
The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO, said Emanuel’s consideration was a “complete non-starter,” and pointed to President Sara Nelson’s tweets on the news over the weekend. “We do not need a union buster setting the rules for workers in aviation. That just doesn’t reflect @JoeBiden’s deep commitment to workers & our unions,” Nelson tweeted Sunday. The union endorsed Biden in October.
Other major transportation unions that endorsed Biden include the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; the Association of Professional Flight Attendants; the Amalgamated Transit Union; and SMART, the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers.
The Teamsters are not commenting publicly on any potential nominees but are sharing thoughts on picks privately with the transition team, said Bret Caldwell, director of communications for the union. The other unions did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Biden outperformed Hillary Clinton among union households but underperformed past Democratic nominees. He won a majority of support from union households in Michigan and Wisconsin, but Donald Trump expanded his support from union households in Pennsylvania and Ohio, winning majorities of union homes in those states. The president-elect’s transition team includes more than 20 union leaders.
As mayor of Chicago from 2011 to 2019, Emanuel faced off with unions representing teachers and city employees. Emanuel pursued legislation making it harder for teachers to strike, laid off hundreds of teachers and school staff, closed some 50 schools, and threatened to lay off hundreds more city employees to cut costs in favor of privatizing city services. Chicago teachers went on their first strike in a quarter of a decade during Emanuel’s first term, setting off a wave of teacher strikes in a handful of states. City workers fought Emanuel’s efforts to require them to pay more to receive their pension benefits. Despite this record, Emanuel had some labor support during his 2015 mayoral reelection campaign, with unions split between him and his opponent, now Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García.
Emanuel’s name has been floating as a potential pick for Biden’s cabinet for several weeks, and he was lobbying for the transportation secretary post, The Intercept reported last month. News that Emanuel was under consideration sparked backlash from progressives, largely in response to Emanuel’s handling of the 2014 Chicago police killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. Emanuel was instrumental in helping cover up the killing and went to court to prevent the release of the dashcam video ahead of his 2015 election. He maintains that he did not see the video until it was released to the public and has defended his handling of the case.
After pushback from the left, Emanuel may also now be under consideration for U.S. trade representative, Crain’s Chicago Business reported last week. But this weekend, Axios reported again that Emanuel was being considered for DOT. Biden’s transition team declined to comment on who may or may not be under consideration.
“I have no doubt in my mind that he would do what any good neoliberal would do, and side with the bosses,” Samuelsen said. “No matter where he lands, whether it’s in transportation or elsewhere, it’s gonna be viewed by the workers that supported Joe Biden as a total betrayal. And it’ll be yet another in a long line of Democratic Party betrayals,” he added. “The truth of the matter is that Rahm Emanuel is the type of Democrat that got Trump elected to begin with.”
“Rahm Emanuel would be a nightmare. And a betrayal,” said John Samuelsen, international president of the Transport Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO, which represents 150,000 workers in more than 100 local unions. The union endorsed Biden in May and was one of several major transport unions that backed his campaign. “The trade union movement in transportation worked extremely hard to get Joe Biden elected,” he said, particularly in Pennsylvania, where the union represents Philadelphia’s SEPTA transit, rail, and bus workers.
TWU recruited transit and rail volunteers in Pennsylvania who knocked doors, did phone and text banking, held caravans and virtual rallies with co-workers, and distributed fliers at work sites. “We didn’t work our asses off to have Rahm Emanuel as the secretary of transportation,” Samuelsen said. “He’s anti-trade union, he’s anti-worker.”
The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO, said Emanuel’s consideration was a “complete non-starter,” and pointed to President Sara Nelson’s tweets on the news over the weekend. “We do not need a union buster setting the rules for workers in aviation. That just doesn’t reflect @JoeBiden’s deep commitment to workers & our unions,” Nelson tweeted Sunday. The union endorsed Biden in October.
Other major transportation unions that endorsed Biden include the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; the Association of Professional Flight Attendants; the Amalgamated Transit Union; and SMART, the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers.
The Teamsters are not commenting publicly on any potential nominees but are sharing thoughts on picks privately with the transition team, said Bret Caldwell, director of communications for the union. The other unions did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Biden outperformed Hillary Clinton among union households but underperformed past Democratic nominees. He won a majority of support from union households in Michigan and Wisconsin, but Donald Trump expanded his support from union households in Pennsylvania and Ohio, winning majorities of union homes in those states. The president-elect’s transition team includes more than 20 union leaders.
As mayor of Chicago from 2011 to 2019, Emanuel faced off with unions representing teachers and city employees. Emanuel pursued legislation making it harder for teachers to strike, laid off hundreds of teachers and school staff, closed some 50 schools, and threatened to lay off hundreds more city employees to cut costs in favor of privatizing city services. Chicago teachers went on their first strike in a quarter of a decade during Emanuel’s first term, setting off a wave of teacher strikes in a handful of states. City workers fought Emanuel’s efforts to require them to pay more to receive their pension benefits. Despite this record, Emanuel had some labor support during his 2015 mayoral reelection campaign, with unions split between him and his opponent, now Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García.
Emanuel’s name has been floating as a potential pick for Biden’s cabinet for several weeks, and he was lobbying for the transportation secretary post, The Intercept reported last month. News that Emanuel was under consideration sparked backlash from progressives, largely in response to Emanuel’s handling of the 2014 Chicago police killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. Emanuel was instrumental in helping cover up the killing and went to court to prevent the release of the dashcam video ahead of his 2015 election. He maintains that he did not see the video until it was released to the public and has defended his handling of the case.
After pushback from the left, Emanuel may also now be under consideration for U.S. trade representative, Crain’s Chicago Business reported last week. But this weekend, Axios reported again that Emanuel was being considered for DOT. Biden’s transition team declined to comment on who may or may not be under consideration.
“I have no doubt in my mind that he would do what any good neoliberal would do, and side with the bosses,” Samuelsen said. “No matter where he lands, whether it’s in transportation or elsewhere, it’s gonna be viewed by the workers that supported Joe Biden as a total betrayal. And it’ll be yet another in a long line of Democratic Party betrayals,” he added. “The truth of the matter is that Rahm Emanuel is the type of Democrat that got Trump elected to begin with.”
aligning himself with the country's destroyers, genius!!!
Biden eyes GOP candidates for Cabinet slots
Progressives fret as Joe Biden's transition team vets a handful of Republicans for his potential administration.
By MEGAN CASSELLA and ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN
politico
10/20/2020 04:30 AM EDT
Joe Biden’s transition team is vetting a handful of Republicans for potential Cabinet positions — despite doubts it will win him new support from the right and the risk it will enrage the left.
Reaching across the aisle to pick senior members of his administration could shore up Biden's credentials as a unity candidate, a message he's made a cornerstone of his campaign. Past presidents including George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have all done the same. But that tradition died with President Donald Trump, and liberal Democrats are already warning that a Republican pick, even a moderate one, could sow distrust within the party before Biden even takes office.
“My primary concern is that he involves people in the Cabinet who push back against corporate power and support a massive economic stimulus and the broad provision of health care,” said David Segal, the executive director of Demand Progress, a liberal advocacy group. “Unfortunately, there are no prominent Republicans I know of who are on board with that agenda.”
Nevertheless, one person close to the Biden transition said it remains “a priority to have options” from different parts of the ideological spectrum for the former vice president to consider.
That person and another official familiar with the transition deliberations confirmed to POLITICO that Biden staffers are analyzing some Republicans’ backgrounds and resumes as they compile shortlists of candidates for high-profile Cabinet positions. The goal is to have some GOP options among the finalists that Biden would choose from after the election.
Among the names being floated for possible Biden Cabinet posts are Meg Whitman, the CEO of Quibi and former CEO of eBay, and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, both of whom spoke at August’s Democratic National Convention. Massachusetts GOP Gov. Charlie Baker and former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) have also been mentioned, as has former Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Penn.), who resigned from Congress in 2018 and became a lobbyist.
When asked for comment, a spokesperson for the Biden transition said only that the team is not making any personnel decisions before the Nov. 3 election, but stressed that “diversity of ideology and background is a core value of the transition.”
Nominating a Republican to the Cabinet would be the latest in a series of steps Biden has taken to extend an olive branch across the aisle. His campaign regularly holds calls with a group of officials who have endorsed him, including Republicans. After giving multiple GOP supporters prime speaking slots at his August convention, he tapped others for roles on his transition team, including Cindy McCain, the wife of the late Republican Sen. John McCain.
“This plays to Joe Biden’s comfort zone,” said one former Republican member of Congress who is close to the Biden transition. “If you’re Joe Biden, of course you’re going to want to expand your base a little bit, show some outreach to the other side.”
Tapping a GOP candidate to lead a federal agency could be an easy and early way to reward Republicans who endorsed him before the election and signal his intent to bridge the country’s partisan divide. But it could also alienate Democrats already worried whether a nominee who has long styled himself as a moderate will pursue progressive policies once in office.
“I don’t understand why someone who says, ‘I am the Democratic Party,’ would then hand benefits to someone who’s not a Democrat,” said Jeff Hauser, director of the the Revolving Door Project, a left-leaning advocacy group he founded in 2015 to scrutinize executive branch appointees.
Already, members of the Democratic left are making their opinions known. Left-wing lawmakers and progressive groups on Friday signed a letter saying no corporate executives or lobbyists should have Senate-confirmed positions in a Biden administration. And Segal and other progressive leaders say they and their supporters are ready to loudly oppose the nomination of anyone with a record they find objectionable — be they Republicans or Democrats.
“We need to have people in those positions who will rise to the occasion much like they did in the New Deal era,” said Larry Cohen, the president of the board of Bernie Sanders’ organizing group Our Revolution.
Despite their criticisms, progressives have collected a handful of wins on the Biden transition. Former officials note that it’s customary to vet potential candidates from across the aisle. And Biden allies say that for a nominee who will be looking to appoint the most diverse Cabinet in history, ideological diversity should be a part of those considerations.
Plus, for a Democratic presidential nominee who has won significant support from former elected Republican leaders, Biden has an even broader pool of GOP candidates to choose from than his predecessors, supporters say.
Some Cabinet positions have historically been considered less ideological than others, a “safe” slot to fill with a member of the opposite party. Both Obama and Bush appointed Transportation secretaries from the other party, for example. The Transportation Department, however, is expected to have a higher profile in a potential Biden administration that wants to focus on a major infrastructure package.
National security is another traditional spot for cross-party appointments. Clinton tapped Republican Bill Cohen to lead the Department of Defense, while Obama had two GOP officials in that role: Robert Gates and Chuck Hagel.
Gates was a holdover from the Bush administration, whom Obama kept on as a bipartisan gesture. But Gates didn’t always agree with the president’s decisions and offered harsh critiques of Obama and others in the Cabinet in a memoir he released after leaving the administration. Gates reserved some of his harshest criticism for Biden, saying the vice president had been “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
Gates’ comments and actions remain fresh on Biden aides’ minds as they consider the makeup of the Cabinet and whether tapping a Republican could later backfire.
Progressives, meanwhile, say it’s too big a risk to install a conservative in any agency in the current political environment.
“In addition to having more than a decade of corporatists running domestic policy to the detriment of everyday Americans, we also need to confront a generation of unhinged militarism and mass illegal unconstitutional surveillance,” Segal said. “There are relatively few people from either party who are likely to be great on those issues ... But to the extent that there are those people, they’re in the Democratic party.”
Even some Republicans stumping for his election say including a Republican in the new administration may have a higher cost than benefit for Biden.
Tim Miller, who leads the group Republican Voters Against Trump, said his organization isn’t pushing for any GOP Cabinet pics, and that crossing the aisle for some nominations won't matter much to the swing voters his group has been in contact with all year.
“I don’t think they care who the deputy secretary of Commerce is in a new administration,” he said, laughing. “They do care whether he will work with Republicans or whether he will allow the far left to control the administration.”
Progressives and public policy experts are also skeptical that appointing a Republican would win Biden any goodwill among rank-and-file GOP lawmakers, whose votes he may need to pass major pieces of his agenda.
As evidence, some point to congressional Republicans’ unwillingness to support Obama’s legislation and nominees. “To defeat Trump, we need the broadest possible coalition,” Cohen said. “But to govern the country, there’s no way we can go back to believing we’re going to get Republican votes — we spent eight years trying and failing on that front.”
Cohen added that there may be some Republicans more or less aligned with Biden on policy who could “do a great job” in some positions. “Including them is a nice gesture,” he said. “But it won’t help get anything passed on Capitol Hill.”
Still, people in Biden’s circle expect him to tap someone from the GOP for a Cabinet position.
"I have no doubt that someone is vetting options for him,” one transition adviser and longtime ally told POLITICO. “I would be surprised if that wasn’t something he was considering.”
The former vice president in late April said he would not have any limitations on tapping a Republican “if they’re the best-qualified person to do it.”
He also regularly invokes his ability to work with the GOP. At a town hall hosted by ABC News on Thursday, Biden said the first thing he will do if elected president will be to call Republican allies and say, “‘Let's get together. We've got to figure out how we're going to move forward here.’ Because there are so many things we really do agree on.”
Biden allies believe working across the aisle will make it possible to carry out a sweeping agenda on health care and the economy. But unlike his predecessors, Biden is now facing a Republican party that has “cleaved in two,” cautioned Matt Bennett, executive vice president of public affairs at the centrist think tank Third Way — those with and those against Trump.
That division, Bennett said, could make it harder than it once was to bring the parties together through something like a Cabinet position, raising the cost of the move while lowering the benefit.
“You get the downside of having someone in your Cabinet that’s not aligned with you ideologically and alienates the left, without getting the upside of bipartisanship,” Bennett said. “Does nominating a Never Trumper really bring people together?"
Reaching across the aisle to pick senior members of his administration could shore up Biden's credentials as a unity candidate, a message he's made a cornerstone of his campaign. Past presidents including George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have all done the same. But that tradition died with President Donald Trump, and liberal Democrats are already warning that a Republican pick, even a moderate one, could sow distrust within the party before Biden even takes office.
“My primary concern is that he involves people in the Cabinet who push back against corporate power and support a massive economic stimulus and the broad provision of health care,” said David Segal, the executive director of Demand Progress, a liberal advocacy group. “Unfortunately, there are no prominent Republicans I know of who are on board with that agenda.”
Nevertheless, one person close to the Biden transition said it remains “a priority to have options” from different parts of the ideological spectrum for the former vice president to consider.
That person and another official familiar with the transition deliberations confirmed to POLITICO that Biden staffers are analyzing some Republicans’ backgrounds and resumes as they compile shortlists of candidates for high-profile Cabinet positions. The goal is to have some GOP options among the finalists that Biden would choose from after the election.
Among the names being floated for possible Biden Cabinet posts are Meg Whitman, the CEO of Quibi and former CEO of eBay, and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, both of whom spoke at August’s Democratic National Convention. Massachusetts GOP Gov. Charlie Baker and former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) have also been mentioned, as has former Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Penn.), who resigned from Congress in 2018 and became a lobbyist.
When asked for comment, a spokesperson for the Biden transition said only that the team is not making any personnel decisions before the Nov. 3 election, but stressed that “diversity of ideology and background is a core value of the transition.”
Nominating a Republican to the Cabinet would be the latest in a series of steps Biden has taken to extend an olive branch across the aisle. His campaign regularly holds calls with a group of officials who have endorsed him, including Republicans. After giving multiple GOP supporters prime speaking slots at his August convention, he tapped others for roles on his transition team, including Cindy McCain, the wife of the late Republican Sen. John McCain.
“This plays to Joe Biden’s comfort zone,” said one former Republican member of Congress who is close to the Biden transition. “If you’re Joe Biden, of course you’re going to want to expand your base a little bit, show some outreach to the other side.”
Tapping a GOP candidate to lead a federal agency could be an easy and early way to reward Republicans who endorsed him before the election and signal his intent to bridge the country’s partisan divide. But it could also alienate Democrats already worried whether a nominee who has long styled himself as a moderate will pursue progressive policies once in office.
“I don’t understand why someone who says, ‘I am the Democratic Party,’ would then hand benefits to someone who’s not a Democrat,” said Jeff Hauser, director of the the Revolving Door Project, a left-leaning advocacy group he founded in 2015 to scrutinize executive branch appointees.
Already, members of the Democratic left are making their opinions known. Left-wing lawmakers and progressive groups on Friday signed a letter saying no corporate executives or lobbyists should have Senate-confirmed positions in a Biden administration. And Segal and other progressive leaders say they and their supporters are ready to loudly oppose the nomination of anyone with a record they find objectionable — be they Republicans or Democrats.
“We need to have people in those positions who will rise to the occasion much like they did in the New Deal era,” said Larry Cohen, the president of the board of Bernie Sanders’ organizing group Our Revolution.
Despite their criticisms, progressives have collected a handful of wins on the Biden transition. Former officials note that it’s customary to vet potential candidates from across the aisle. And Biden allies say that for a nominee who will be looking to appoint the most diverse Cabinet in history, ideological diversity should be a part of those considerations.
Plus, for a Democratic presidential nominee who has won significant support from former elected Republican leaders, Biden has an even broader pool of GOP candidates to choose from than his predecessors, supporters say.
Some Cabinet positions have historically been considered less ideological than others, a “safe” slot to fill with a member of the opposite party. Both Obama and Bush appointed Transportation secretaries from the other party, for example. The Transportation Department, however, is expected to have a higher profile in a potential Biden administration that wants to focus on a major infrastructure package.
National security is another traditional spot for cross-party appointments. Clinton tapped Republican Bill Cohen to lead the Department of Defense, while Obama had two GOP officials in that role: Robert Gates and Chuck Hagel.
Gates was a holdover from the Bush administration, whom Obama kept on as a bipartisan gesture. But Gates didn’t always agree with the president’s decisions and offered harsh critiques of Obama and others in the Cabinet in a memoir he released after leaving the administration. Gates reserved some of his harshest criticism for Biden, saying the vice president had been “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
Gates’ comments and actions remain fresh on Biden aides’ minds as they consider the makeup of the Cabinet and whether tapping a Republican could later backfire.
Progressives, meanwhile, say it’s too big a risk to install a conservative in any agency in the current political environment.
“In addition to having more than a decade of corporatists running domestic policy to the detriment of everyday Americans, we also need to confront a generation of unhinged militarism and mass illegal unconstitutional surveillance,” Segal said. “There are relatively few people from either party who are likely to be great on those issues ... But to the extent that there are those people, they’re in the Democratic party.”
Even some Republicans stumping for his election say including a Republican in the new administration may have a higher cost than benefit for Biden.
Tim Miller, who leads the group Republican Voters Against Trump, said his organization isn’t pushing for any GOP Cabinet pics, and that crossing the aisle for some nominations won't matter much to the swing voters his group has been in contact with all year.
“I don’t think they care who the deputy secretary of Commerce is in a new administration,” he said, laughing. “They do care whether he will work with Republicans or whether he will allow the far left to control the administration.”
Progressives and public policy experts are also skeptical that appointing a Republican would win Biden any goodwill among rank-and-file GOP lawmakers, whose votes he may need to pass major pieces of his agenda.
As evidence, some point to congressional Republicans’ unwillingness to support Obama’s legislation and nominees. “To defeat Trump, we need the broadest possible coalition,” Cohen said. “But to govern the country, there’s no way we can go back to believing we’re going to get Republican votes — we spent eight years trying and failing on that front.”
Cohen added that there may be some Republicans more or less aligned with Biden on policy who could “do a great job” in some positions. “Including them is a nice gesture,” he said. “But it won’t help get anything passed on Capitol Hill.”
Still, people in Biden’s circle expect him to tap someone from the GOP for a Cabinet position.
"I have no doubt that someone is vetting options for him,” one transition adviser and longtime ally told POLITICO. “I would be surprised if that wasn’t something he was considering.”
The former vice president in late April said he would not have any limitations on tapping a Republican “if they’re the best-qualified person to do it.”
He also regularly invokes his ability to work with the GOP. At a town hall hosted by ABC News on Thursday, Biden said the first thing he will do if elected president will be to call Republican allies and say, “‘Let's get together. We've got to figure out how we're going to move forward here.’ Because there are so many things we really do agree on.”
Biden allies believe working across the aisle will make it possible to carry out a sweeping agenda on health care and the economy. But unlike his predecessors, Biden is now facing a Republican party that has “cleaved in two,” cautioned Matt Bennett, executive vice president of public affairs at the centrist think tank Third Way — those with and those against Trump.
That division, Bennett said, could make it harder than it once was to bring the parties together through something like a Cabinet position, raising the cost of the move while lowering the benefit.
“You get the downside of having someone in your Cabinet that’s not aligned with you ideologically and alienates the left, without getting the upside of bipartisanship,” Bennett said. “Does nominating a Never Trumper really bring people together?"
Obama team fully vetted Biden in 2008 and found no hint of former aide's allegation
David Axelrod Super Tuesday election results reported
Opinion by David Axelrod, CNN Senior Political Commentator
Updated 11:56 PM ET, Fri May 1, 2020
(CNN)When it became clear that Barack Obama would be the nominee of the Democratic Party in the spring of 2008, he commissioned a team of lawyers to begin an in-depth vetting process of potential candidates for vice president.
Dozens of women and men under consideration were reviewed. Those who rose on the list of contenders were subject to a deep-dive investigation of their strengths, vulnerabilities and, of course, any disqualifying defects.
At the top of the list of those contenders was Senator Joseph R. Biden of Delaware.
The comprehensive vet certainly would have turned up any formal complaints filed against Biden during his 36-year career in the Senate. It did not. The team would have investigated any salacious rumors of the sort that travel far and wide in Washington. There were none.
While I was not on the vetting team, as senior strategist to the campaign, I was briefed on their work and potential problems.
Through that entire process, the name Tara Reade never came up. No formal complaint. No informal chatter. Certainly, no intimation of sexual harassment or assault from her or anyone else. The team of investigators, expert in their work, would not have missed it.
Reade did not surface her allegations of a criminal sexual assault when Biden was a candidate for president in 2008, nor did she offer them confidentially to the Obama vetting team when Biden emerged as a principal contender for vice president later that year.
Had any credible issue been raised, you can be sure Biden would not have been the nominee. Obama would not have tolerated it, even if he and Biden were close then, which they were not. Their friendship grew only after Biden joined the ticket and through their eight-year partnership in the White House. At that time, they were distant Senate colleagues and most recently rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Our society is just now confronting a long, sordid history of disregarding accusations and silencing women who were sexually abused or assaulted. Women who come forward deserve to be taken seriously and treated with respect, and Tara Reade's story should be heard and thoroughly investigated.
But it is striking that when an experienced vetting team put Biden under a microscope before he was chosen to be second-in-line for the presidency, neither her allegations, nor anything resembling them in Biden's history, showed up.
Dozens of women and men under consideration were reviewed. Those who rose on the list of contenders were subject to a deep-dive investigation of their strengths, vulnerabilities and, of course, any disqualifying defects.
At the top of the list of those contenders was Senator Joseph R. Biden of Delaware.
The comprehensive vet certainly would have turned up any formal complaints filed against Biden during his 36-year career in the Senate. It did not. The team would have investigated any salacious rumors of the sort that travel far and wide in Washington. There were none.
While I was not on the vetting team, as senior strategist to the campaign, I was briefed on their work and potential problems.
Through that entire process, the name Tara Reade never came up. No formal complaint. No informal chatter. Certainly, no intimation of sexual harassment or assault from her or anyone else. The team of investigators, expert in their work, would not have missed it.
Reade did not surface her allegations of a criminal sexual assault when Biden was a candidate for president in 2008, nor did she offer them confidentially to the Obama vetting team when Biden emerged as a principal contender for vice president later that year.
Had any credible issue been raised, you can be sure Biden would not have been the nominee. Obama would not have tolerated it, even if he and Biden were close then, which they were not. Their friendship grew only after Biden joined the ticket and through their eight-year partnership in the White House. At that time, they were distant Senate colleagues and most recently rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Our society is just now confronting a long, sordid history of disregarding accusations and silencing women who were sexually abused or assaulted. Women who come forward deserve to be taken seriously and treated with respect, and Tara Reade's story should be heard and thoroughly investigated.
But it is striking that when an experienced vetting team put Biden under a microscope before he was chosen to be second-in-line for the presidency, neither her allegations, nor anything resembling them in Biden's history, showed up.
Biden on sexual assault allegation: ‘never, never happened’
By ALEXANDRA JAFFE - ap
5/1/2020
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Friday categorically denied allegations from a former Senate staffer that he sexually assaulted her in the early 1990s, saying “this never happened.”
Biden’s first public remarks on the allegation by former staffer Tara Reade come at a critical moment for the presumptive Democratic nominee as he tries to relieve mounting pressure after weeks of leaving denials to his campaign.
“I’m saying unequivocally, it never, never happened,” Biden said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Biden said he will ask the National Archives to determine whether there is any record of such a complaint being filed, but he said repeatedly that he doesn’t believe such a record exists.
“The former staffer has said she filed a complaint back in 1993,” Biden said. “But she does not have a record of this alleged complaint. The papers from my Senate years that I donated to the University of Delaware do not contain personnel files.”
Biden said, “There is only one place a complaint of this kind could be – the National Archives. The National Archives is where the records are kept.”
Republicans worried about President Donald Trump’s increasingly precarious political standing are seizing on the allegation to portray Democrats as hypocrites who only defend women who allege wrongdoing against conservatives. They are digging in despite the fact that it could renew attention on the multiple sexual assault allegations lodged against Trump.
Democrats, meanwhile, are in an awkward position of vigorously validating women who come forward with their stories while defending the man who will be their standard-bearer in what many in the party consider the most important election of their lifetimes.
“The campaign has issued statements, but he hasn’t issued any statements in his own voice,” said former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile. “It’s not helping, it’s just damaging — not only to the person who has come forward, but it’s also damaging the candidate.”
The November contest between Biden and Trump will be the first presidential race of the #MeToo era, which has led numerous women to come forward with allegations of sexual assault. Trump has been accused of assault and unwanted touching by numerous women, allegations he denies.[...]
Biden’s first public remarks on the allegation by former staffer Tara Reade come at a critical moment for the presumptive Democratic nominee as he tries to relieve mounting pressure after weeks of leaving denials to his campaign.
“I’m saying unequivocally, it never, never happened,” Biden said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Biden said he will ask the National Archives to determine whether there is any record of such a complaint being filed, but he said repeatedly that he doesn’t believe such a record exists.
“The former staffer has said she filed a complaint back in 1993,” Biden said. “But she does not have a record of this alleged complaint. The papers from my Senate years that I donated to the University of Delaware do not contain personnel files.”
Biden said, “There is only one place a complaint of this kind could be – the National Archives. The National Archives is where the records are kept.”
Republicans worried about President Donald Trump’s increasingly precarious political standing are seizing on the allegation to portray Democrats as hypocrites who only defend women who allege wrongdoing against conservatives. They are digging in despite the fact that it could renew attention on the multiple sexual assault allegations lodged against Trump.
Democrats, meanwhile, are in an awkward position of vigorously validating women who come forward with their stories while defending the man who will be their standard-bearer in what many in the party consider the most important election of their lifetimes.
“The campaign has issued statements, but he hasn’t issued any statements in his own voice,” said former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile. “It’s not helping, it’s just damaging — not only to the person who has come forward, but it’s also damaging the candidate.”
The November contest between Biden and Trump will be the first presidential race of the #MeToo era, which has led numerous women to come forward with allegations of sexual assault. Trump has been accused of assault and unwanted touching by numerous women, allegations he denies.[...]
Making peace with Joe Biden — whatever the hell that means
Only a party that hates itself could have wound up with this guy, at a moment of historic crisis. That's a problem
ANDREW O'HEHIR - salon
APRIL 12, 2020 5:45PM (UTC)
How do we come to terms with Joe Biden? Let's not pretend it will be easy.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how excited my mother was about the possibility of voting for a socialist presidential candidate, and the possibility that he might actually win. I didn't say to her at the time that I wasn't sure what "socialist" meant in 2020, and that I definitely wasn't sure he would win. My mom has been through a lot more elections than I have, and now she is grimly resigned to reality — more so than me, maybe. She's locked down in her senior residence with three meals a day and MSNBC, and fully prepared to vote for a candidate she doesn't really like if that's the only way to get rid of the current president.
Her condition, needless to say, is general. From the long, long view of history, maybe all this is amusing. The Democrats had an entire year to come up with a candidate who could at least temporarily bridge the gap between the party's warring factions, offer a compelling vision of the future and stand forth as a forceful alternative to Donald Trump. (Who, as you may have heard, is kind of a disaster as president.)
They didn't do that. Indeed, they did pretty much the opposite of that, as if guided by the inflexible principle — carved on stone tablets kept in a safe in Democratic National Committee headquarters — that the only moral or responsible or perhaps possible way to win elections is from the most defensive, apologetic posture imaginable. Because only then, only when a craven desire to please meets chronic ideological vagueness cloaked in thickets of legalistic language meets buckets of campaign cash from Big Pharma and the Wall Street banks, only then will the "Reagan Democrats" or their children (or grandchildren) cast aside their red hats and their half-eaten Kentaco Hut concoctions and return to the ranch in a golden-hued John Ford wide shot, weeping with loss and joy and wonder. And everything will be just like the Good Old Days, except a lot worse.
Only a party that hates itself could have wound up in this predicament. I'm quite serious. Every other candidate who made a somewhat serious run at the Democratic nomination had what was at least supposed to be an affirmative narrative about themselves, about their conception of America and about their vision of the future. Whose narratives you or I may have thought were craptastic, and whose we may have swooned over, is not the point: Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Julián Castro all had stories to tell, which were more or less compelling to some number of highly engaged people. (Hell, so did Kirsten Gillibrand and Jay Inslee, two people who might well have been leading contenders in a different electoral cycle where normal political calculus applied.)
(There's also Amy Klobuchar, who is a special case: She offers no compelling or forward-looking narrative at all, but more than makes up for it with sheer force of personality and a peculiar but undeniable charisma. So she seems like she stands for some kind of vision, when her actual vision doesn't go much beyond "Amy Klobuchar: About to fuck you up." Biden should definitely pick her.)
Biden alone offered neither a compelling story nor a compelling personality. In the retail politics environment of Iowa and New Hampshire, he completely disappeared and almost seemed to surrender. Say what you will about the unrepresentative character of those states, but in both cases Biden went in leading in the polls, and after voters took a good, hard look at him they moved on to someone else. His appeal, such as it is, has nothing to do with the future. It rests on a cloudy, uneasy nostalgia for the recent past (and also the more distant past), which may have had its problems but — in the perception of the Likely Democratic Voter — was at least not an utter and complete shitshow.
Yet as we now know, despite those liabilities — or, whatever, because of them — Biden was the runaway winner on Super Tuesday and thereafter, in one of the biggest political impulse purchases since the Bolshevik Revolution. And so a 77-year-old lifetime politician with a long history of dubious tales and questionable conduct — a human archive of every triangular policy decision and every strategic cutback made by the Democratic Party for the last 50 years — will be tarted up and rolled out on stage in the role of Guy Who Will Take America Back From the Guy Who Made America Great Again.
Only a party that hates itself would have made that choice, and only a party that hates itself would be so morbidly obsessed with the unanswerable question of who other people might vote for, and so unwilling to declare what it wants. Democrats who fetishize white Obama-to-Trump voters in western Pennsylvania and Democrats who piously announce that they await the verdict of "black women" (in practice, this means a subset of older black women in Southern states, understood as an oracular monolith) might appear to hold different theories of politics. But they're both making the same admission: We don't know what we want and we don't know what we stand for, and we desperately don't want the responsibility of figuring that out.
Furthermore, the "totem voter" phenomenon is an attempt to reconnect a party that is increasingly dominated by the urban and suburban professional classes with some version of American "authenticity." White men with lunch buckets and African-American church ladies actually exist, of course, and their votes can and should count. But within the discourse of the Democratic Party, they function as sentimental props, semiotic anchors of meaning for an organization whose true power centers are in the Hamptons and Beverly Hills and Silicon Valley.
That same quest for authenticity or, in the garbled syntax of politics, that quest for what other people might perceive as authenticity, also landed upon Joe Biden. Consultants, pundits and strategists concluded that he was the best bet to lure back working-class whites in the Midwest, and then black voters in the South embraced Biden for exactly the same reason, because they believed that at least a few of the racist fools who elected Trump could be persuaded to vote for him.
There must be people who love Joe Biden and are massively psyched about his campaign, who believed in him from the get-go and think he'll make a great president. I have not met any such people, and it really, really does not appear that belief or enthusiasm was the basis of his primary victory. He will be the Democratic nominee because he's not a woman and he's not black and he's not a socialist, and while being none of those things is also not Donald Trump. We saw a massive turnout among Democratic voters over 45 on Super Tuesday and afterward — and, South Carolina aside, that wave was overwhelmingly among white suburban voters — who embraced the inspiring message of, yeah, I guess this guy will do.
Biden's supporters and defenders will respond, of course, that my premise is false and that his inspiring comeback victory proves that the Democratic Party loves itself, since Biden is without question the most Democrat-y Democrat ever, and wound up wiping the floor with that other guy, who — did you know this? — isn't actually a Democrat. There may be some grains of truth to this: It certainly appears that Bernie Sanders' attacks on the "Democratic establishment" played differently in 2020 than they did in 2016, and provoked a forceful reaction from many of the same voters who turned out in the 2018 "blue wave" to elect a bunch of more or less normie Democrats.
But if so, this is a pinched and shrunken version of self-love, focused on the most transactional vision of the Democratic coalition and yielding a candidate who was no one's first choice and hardly anyone's second choice, but perceived as the most palatable option for vaguely-defined other voters in other places. And then: What kind of Democrat is Joe Biden, exactly? Terms like "liberal" and "conservative" don't mean the same thing over a span of many decades in a rapidly changing society, but I think it's inarguable that Biden will be the most conservative Democratic nominee since at least Hubert Humphrey in 1968 — and even then, Humphrey was significantly to Biden's left on most domestic social issues, and would have supported the general outline of Sanders' platform.
More to the point, you can't find a Democratic nominee in recent history who appears so dramatically out of step with the temperature of his own party and the changing character of the nation. It's a futile academic exercise, but we might have to go back to the West Virginia segregationist John W. Davis, nominated by the Democrats on the 103rd ballot in 1924 — as, yes, a compromise candidate nobody really liked — who went on to lose in a landslide to … Calvin Coolidge.
I don't know how badly the rumors of cognitive decline surrounding Biden will hurt him, although he sometimes appears to need considerable prompting to get out coherent sentences. I don't know how the allegation that he sexually assaulted a Senate aide in 1993 will play out, although it clearly can neither be proven nor disproven. I don't know how much video footage we will see of Biden's numerous false or embellished statements over the years, though I'm going to guess it's a lot. You can certainly argue that running against the current president in an upside-down political environment nobody quite understands, none of that should matter.
But now that Biden is clearly established as the Democratic standard-bearer, polls show him and Trump effectively even, with an agonizing seven months of uncertainty ahead, made doubly or trebly uncertain by a public health crisis and the biggest economic meltdown since the Great Depression. By all normal political logic, those factors should spell doom for the incumbent president, and indeed Biden may well become our next president by default, as the literal enactment of the "Any Functioning Adult" bumper sticker. But none of us should feel any degree of confidence that normal political logic still applies.
Would Biden be preferable to Trump? Oh, please: That's not even a question. Could a Biden administration be coaxed or pushed or coerced a few degrees to the left on some issues? No doubt, and it will be the thankless task of various liberal or progressive activist groups to grind out a few minor policy victories, as it was under Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Biden's proposals for dealing with the climate crisis, although not nearly adequate, suggest that he understands the magnitude of the challenge. His foreign policy, in relative Democratic war-hawk terms, probably won't be terrible.
What the repercussions of Biden's primary victory will be — in which older, more middle-class voters decisively crushed an ideological and generational insurrection led by a radicalized, multiracial coalition of younger voters — is impossible to say. Let's go with not great. That certainly didn't do anything to bridge the existing split within the Democratic electorate, which is now a bitter, gaping wound that will not be healed by whatever happens this fall and will be back with a vengeance in the next campaign and the one after that.
And then there's the even bigger and more troubling question of whether a Biden victory in November — likely in some version of a 4 a.m. Electoral College nail-biter — will do anything to address the deeper structural conditions that made Donald Trump possible in the first place, or to reverse the immense damage of the Trump presidency. There's no point trying to project into the future amid multiple levels of national crisis, but I do not look forward to a possible 2024 campaign between an 81-year-old President Biden and some vigorous junior-Trumper like Josh Hawley or Tom Cotton. (For that matter, can we imagine Trump running again, if he loses this time and manages to avoid a prison sentence? Of course not! Impossible!)
At any rate, here we are: Those of us who suspect that the Democratic Party and its primary electorate placed a panicky, last-second bet on a default candidate who is laughably ill-suited to this historic moment will have to make the best of it, whatever that means. On principle, I never tell anyone how to vote, and as a practical matter most Americans' presidential votes (mine included) are meaningless anyway.
This election will not turn on the performative despair of online radicals who claim that Biden is no better than Trump (we've all seen that movie before) or on the performative scolding of online moderates who claim that all criticism of Biden or the Democratic Party is the work of Russian trolls or crypto-Trumpers. Both of those camps really need to give their shtick a rest. Rather, this election will be a choice between the party that hates itself and the party that hates reality. That doesn't strike me as an especially difficult decision, but in the context of 2020 America, it's pretty much a coin toss.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how excited my mother was about the possibility of voting for a socialist presidential candidate, and the possibility that he might actually win. I didn't say to her at the time that I wasn't sure what "socialist" meant in 2020, and that I definitely wasn't sure he would win. My mom has been through a lot more elections than I have, and now she is grimly resigned to reality — more so than me, maybe. She's locked down in her senior residence with three meals a day and MSNBC, and fully prepared to vote for a candidate she doesn't really like if that's the only way to get rid of the current president.
Her condition, needless to say, is general. From the long, long view of history, maybe all this is amusing. The Democrats had an entire year to come up with a candidate who could at least temporarily bridge the gap between the party's warring factions, offer a compelling vision of the future and stand forth as a forceful alternative to Donald Trump. (Who, as you may have heard, is kind of a disaster as president.)
They didn't do that. Indeed, they did pretty much the opposite of that, as if guided by the inflexible principle — carved on stone tablets kept in a safe in Democratic National Committee headquarters — that the only moral or responsible or perhaps possible way to win elections is from the most defensive, apologetic posture imaginable. Because only then, only when a craven desire to please meets chronic ideological vagueness cloaked in thickets of legalistic language meets buckets of campaign cash from Big Pharma and the Wall Street banks, only then will the "Reagan Democrats" or their children (or grandchildren) cast aside their red hats and their half-eaten Kentaco Hut concoctions and return to the ranch in a golden-hued John Ford wide shot, weeping with loss and joy and wonder. And everything will be just like the Good Old Days, except a lot worse.
Only a party that hates itself could have wound up in this predicament. I'm quite serious. Every other candidate who made a somewhat serious run at the Democratic nomination had what was at least supposed to be an affirmative narrative about themselves, about their conception of America and about their vision of the future. Whose narratives you or I may have thought were craptastic, and whose we may have swooned over, is not the point: Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Julián Castro all had stories to tell, which were more or less compelling to some number of highly engaged people. (Hell, so did Kirsten Gillibrand and Jay Inslee, two people who might well have been leading contenders in a different electoral cycle where normal political calculus applied.)
(There's also Amy Klobuchar, who is a special case: She offers no compelling or forward-looking narrative at all, but more than makes up for it with sheer force of personality and a peculiar but undeniable charisma. So she seems like she stands for some kind of vision, when her actual vision doesn't go much beyond "Amy Klobuchar: About to fuck you up." Biden should definitely pick her.)
Biden alone offered neither a compelling story nor a compelling personality. In the retail politics environment of Iowa and New Hampshire, he completely disappeared and almost seemed to surrender. Say what you will about the unrepresentative character of those states, but in both cases Biden went in leading in the polls, and after voters took a good, hard look at him they moved on to someone else. His appeal, such as it is, has nothing to do with the future. It rests on a cloudy, uneasy nostalgia for the recent past (and also the more distant past), which may have had its problems but — in the perception of the Likely Democratic Voter — was at least not an utter and complete shitshow.
Yet as we now know, despite those liabilities — or, whatever, because of them — Biden was the runaway winner on Super Tuesday and thereafter, in one of the biggest political impulse purchases since the Bolshevik Revolution. And so a 77-year-old lifetime politician with a long history of dubious tales and questionable conduct — a human archive of every triangular policy decision and every strategic cutback made by the Democratic Party for the last 50 years — will be tarted up and rolled out on stage in the role of Guy Who Will Take America Back From the Guy Who Made America Great Again.
Only a party that hates itself would have made that choice, and only a party that hates itself would be so morbidly obsessed with the unanswerable question of who other people might vote for, and so unwilling to declare what it wants. Democrats who fetishize white Obama-to-Trump voters in western Pennsylvania and Democrats who piously announce that they await the verdict of "black women" (in practice, this means a subset of older black women in Southern states, understood as an oracular monolith) might appear to hold different theories of politics. But they're both making the same admission: We don't know what we want and we don't know what we stand for, and we desperately don't want the responsibility of figuring that out.
Furthermore, the "totem voter" phenomenon is an attempt to reconnect a party that is increasingly dominated by the urban and suburban professional classes with some version of American "authenticity." White men with lunch buckets and African-American church ladies actually exist, of course, and their votes can and should count. But within the discourse of the Democratic Party, they function as sentimental props, semiotic anchors of meaning for an organization whose true power centers are in the Hamptons and Beverly Hills and Silicon Valley.
That same quest for authenticity or, in the garbled syntax of politics, that quest for what other people might perceive as authenticity, also landed upon Joe Biden. Consultants, pundits and strategists concluded that he was the best bet to lure back working-class whites in the Midwest, and then black voters in the South embraced Biden for exactly the same reason, because they believed that at least a few of the racist fools who elected Trump could be persuaded to vote for him.
There must be people who love Joe Biden and are massively psyched about his campaign, who believed in him from the get-go and think he'll make a great president. I have not met any such people, and it really, really does not appear that belief or enthusiasm was the basis of his primary victory. He will be the Democratic nominee because he's not a woman and he's not black and he's not a socialist, and while being none of those things is also not Donald Trump. We saw a massive turnout among Democratic voters over 45 on Super Tuesday and afterward — and, South Carolina aside, that wave was overwhelmingly among white suburban voters — who embraced the inspiring message of, yeah, I guess this guy will do.
Biden's supporters and defenders will respond, of course, that my premise is false and that his inspiring comeback victory proves that the Democratic Party loves itself, since Biden is without question the most Democrat-y Democrat ever, and wound up wiping the floor with that other guy, who — did you know this? — isn't actually a Democrat. There may be some grains of truth to this: It certainly appears that Bernie Sanders' attacks on the "Democratic establishment" played differently in 2020 than they did in 2016, and provoked a forceful reaction from many of the same voters who turned out in the 2018 "blue wave" to elect a bunch of more or less normie Democrats.
But if so, this is a pinched and shrunken version of self-love, focused on the most transactional vision of the Democratic coalition and yielding a candidate who was no one's first choice and hardly anyone's second choice, but perceived as the most palatable option for vaguely-defined other voters in other places. And then: What kind of Democrat is Joe Biden, exactly? Terms like "liberal" and "conservative" don't mean the same thing over a span of many decades in a rapidly changing society, but I think it's inarguable that Biden will be the most conservative Democratic nominee since at least Hubert Humphrey in 1968 — and even then, Humphrey was significantly to Biden's left on most domestic social issues, and would have supported the general outline of Sanders' platform.
More to the point, you can't find a Democratic nominee in recent history who appears so dramatically out of step with the temperature of his own party and the changing character of the nation. It's a futile academic exercise, but we might have to go back to the West Virginia segregationist John W. Davis, nominated by the Democrats on the 103rd ballot in 1924 — as, yes, a compromise candidate nobody really liked — who went on to lose in a landslide to … Calvin Coolidge.
I don't know how badly the rumors of cognitive decline surrounding Biden will hurt him, although he sometimes appears to need considerable prompting to get out coherent sentences. I don't know how the allegation that he sexually assaulted a Senate aide in 1993 will play out, although it clearly can neither be proven nor disproven. I don't know how much video footage we will see of Biden's numerous false or embellished statements over the years, though I'm going to guess it's a lot. You can certainly argue that running against the current president in an upside-down political environment nobody quite understands, none of that should matter.
But now that Biden is clearly established as the Democratic standard-bearer, polls show him and Trump effectively even, with an agonizing seven months of uncertainty ahead, made doubly or trebly uncertain by a public health crisis and the biggest economic meltdown since the Great Depression. By all normal political logic, those factors should spell doom for the incumbent president, and indeed Biden may well become our next president by default, as the literal enactment of the "Any Functioning Adult" bumper sticker. But none of us should feel any degree of confidence that normal political logic still applies.
Would Biden be preferable to Trump? Oh, please: That's not even a question. Could a Biden administration be coaxed or pushed or coerced a few degrees to the left on some issues? No doubt, and it will be the thankless task of various liberal or progressive activist groups to grind out a few minor policy victories, as it was under Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Biden's proposals for dealing with the climate crisis, although not nearly adequate, suggest that he understands the magnitude of the challenge. His foreign policy, in relative Democratic war-hawk terms, probably won't be terrible.
What the repercussions of Biden's primary victory will be — in which older, more middle-class voters decisively crushed an ideological and generational insurrection led by a radicalized, multiracial coalition of younger voters — is impossible to say. Let's go with not great. That certainly didn't do anything to bridge the existing split within the Democratic electorate, which is now a bitter, gaping wound that will not be healed by whatever happens this fall and will be back with a vengeance in the next campaign and the one after that.
And then there's the even bigger and more troubling question of whether a Biden victory in November — likely in some version of a 4 a.m. Electoral College nail-biter — will do anything to address the deeper structural conditions that made Donald Trump possible in the first place, or to reverse the immense damage of the Trump presidency. There's no point trying to project into the future amid multiple levels of national crisis, but I do not look forward to a possible 2024 campaign between an 81-year-old President Biden and some vigorous junior-Trumper like Josh Hawley or Tom Cotton. (For that matter, can we imagine Trump running again, if he loses this time and manages to avoid a prison sentence? Of course not! Impossible!)
At any rate, here we are: Those of us who suspect that the Democratic Party and its primary electorate placed a panicky, last-second bet on a default candidate who is laughably ill-suited to this historic moment will have to make the best of it, whatever that means. On principle, I never tell anyone how to vote, and as a practical matter most Americans' presidential votes (mine included) are meaningless anyway.
This election will not turn on the performative despair of online radicals who claim that Biden is no better than Trump (we've all seen that movie before) or on the performative scolding of online moderates who claim that all criticism of Biden or the Democratic Party is the work of Russian trolls or crypto-Trumpers. Both of those camps really need to give their shtick a rest. Rather, this election will be a choice between the party that hates itself and the party that hates reality. That doesn't strike me as an especially difficult decision, but in the context of 2020 America, it's pretty much a coin toss.
BIDEN IS STILL LYING ABOUT HIS POSITIONS ON SOCIAL SECURITY CUTS, THE BANKRUPTCY BILL, AND MORE
Akela Lacy - the intercept
March 17 2020, 8:27 a.m.
FORMER VICE PRESIDENT Joe Biden told at least five lies during Sunday night’s one-one-one Democratic presidential debate with his last remaining opponent, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Networks and outlets from CNN to Politico covered the debate as a win for Biden.
Both candidates took fire on their past positions. Sanders hit Biden on Social Security, the 2005 bankruptcy bill, and abortion rights, while the Vermont socialist had to answer for comments on gun rights, foreign policy, and immigration.
Some commentators were left with the feeling that, while Sanders has spent time on the trail discussing his old positions and explaining his evolution, the former vice president has been able to get away with nonanswers that skirt the truth. Here are a few examples.
Cutting Social Security
Sanders repeatedly pressed Biden on his remarks over the past 40 years advocating for cuts to federal programs, including Social Security. In one instance, Sanders directly asked Biden if he had stood on the floor of Congress and advocated cuts to Social Security and other social-welfare programs. Biden replied, “No, I did not talk about the need to cut any of those programs.”
In 1984, though, Biden co-sponsored an amendment to freeze military and domestic spending for a year, which included some built-in-adjustments for Social Security benefits — tantamount to cutting the program.
In the 1995 speech, Biden was more explicit: He bragged about advocating for cuts to Social Security. “I’m up for reelection this year and I’m gonna remind everybody what I did at home, which is gonna cost me politically,” Biden said, removing his glasses. “When I argued if we should freeze federal spending, I meant Social Security as well. I meant Medicare and Medicaid. I meant veterans’ bene— I meant every single solitary thing in the government. And I not only tried it once, I tried it twice, I tried it a third time, and I tried it a fourth time.”
At the Sunday debate, Biden also said, “I was not a fan of Bowles—,” before being cut off. He was referring to the bipartisan Bowles-Simpson commission, which called for Social Security cuts. As vice president, Biden worked to help negotiate the commission’s balanced budget efforts. After it disbanded, Biden brought on its director, Bruce Reed, as his chief of staff and the next Obama-era push for a balanced budget — including Social Security cuts — was even known as the Biden Committee. Reed is now a senior policy adviser with Biden’s presidential campaign.
Bankruptcy Reform
Debate moderators asked Biden about his announcement on Saturday that he was endorsing a bankruptcy plan written by his former Democratic primary opponent, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, noting that the plan would undo key parts of the bankruptcy law Biden helped pass in 2005. “What changed?” the moderator asked.
Biden denied that he had been an enthusiastic supporter of the bill. “The bankruptcy bill was passing overwhelmingly, and I improved it,” he said, claiming to insert measures that helped average families. “That’s what I did.”
“I did not like the bill. I did not support the bill,” Biden said. “And I made it clear to the industry I didn’t like the bill.”
In fact, Biden pushed for years to ram the bill through, voting for some version of it at least four times between 1998 and 2005 — often against a majority of Democrats — and even inserting its language into a 2000 foreign relations bill.
And Biden did the opposite of what he claimed on the amendments. “The record makes clear that as a senator, Biden used his clout to push for the law’s passage and to defeat amendments to shield servicemembers, women, and children from its harsh treatment,” Adam Levitin, a bankruptcy law professor at Georgetown Law School, wrote in January. “When votes were taken, ‘Middle-Class Joe’ was no friend to the middle class.”
When Sanders got a chance, he mentioned something the moderators had not: that Biden did more than help pass a bankruptcy bill. “Joe, if my memory is correct, you helped write that bankruptcy bill,” Sanders said. But Biden retorted: “I did not.” Biden had in fact helped draft a 2000 version of the bill that was pocket vetoed by President Bill Clinton.
Super PACs
At one point in the debate, Biden and Sanders had it out about Super PACs, groups that often attract large-dollar donors and act to support particular candidates. Biden alleged that Sanders was backed by nine Super PACs. Sanders is not.
Sanders called Biden out for walking back in October his original campaign pledge to reject money from Super PACs. Biden has gotten millions of dollars in support from Unite the Country PAC, a group organized by longtime Democratic strategists and former Obama advisers, with help from lobbyists in the industries of health care, weapons manufacturing, and finance.
“I think, in the past, Joe, if I’m not mistaken, you condemned Super PACs. Is that correct?” Sanders said.
Biden didn’t answer the question. Instead, he claimed that Sanders was being backed by nine Super PACs. “You get rid of the nine Super PACs you have?” Biden said. Sanders replied, “I don’t have any Super PACs.”
“You have nine,” Biden said. “Do you want me to list them?” Sanders encouraged Biden to name the groups. “OK. Come on. Give me a break. Come on,” Biden said, without listing any PACs.
Foreign Dictators
Biden slammed Sanders for praising countries with histories of dictators and egregious human rights violations, namely Cuba and its former ruler, Fidel Castro.
After moderators asked Sanders about his comments praising Cuba’s revolutionary government, they asked Biden about comments former President Barack Obama made in 2016 lauding some of the country’s achievements under Castro. Sanders pointed out that he started condemning dictatorships in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates before it became popular.
Biden himself has praised and made excuses for dictatorial rulers, including Hosni Mubarak, the former president of Egypt, as well as both Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, and Dubai’s former ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Biden has since condemned Saudi Arabia for human rights abuses and the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But in 2011, Biden led a U.S. delegation to Saudi Arabia, including former Republican Sen. John McCain and former CIA Director David Petraeus, after the death of former Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud.
The Obama administration also considered having Biden mentor Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, who ordered Khashoggi’s killing, Business Insider reported this month.
Paris Climate Change Accord
Asked if Biden’s climate plan was ambitious enough to tackle the burgeoning environmental crisis, the former vice president said he would rejoin the Paris Climate Accord and took credit for organizing it.
“I would immediately rejoin the Paris Climate Accord, which I helped put together,” Biden said.
It’s not the first time Biden has claimed an outsized role in the Obama administration’s efforts to support the climate agreement. At least six administration officials contradicted that claim in interviews, E&E News reported: “All of them said Biden did not appear to play an instrumental role in finalizing the Paris Agreement.”
Both candidates took fire on their past positions. Sanders hit Biden on Social Security, the 2005 bankruptcy bill, and abortion rights, while the Vermont socialist had to answer for comments on gun rights, foreign policy, and immigration.
Some commentators were left with the feeling that, while Sanders has spent time on the trail discussing his old positions and explaining his evolution, the former vice president has been able to get away with nonanswers that skirt the truth. Here are a few examples.
Cutting Social Security
Sanders repeatedly pressed Biden on his remarks over the past 40 years advocating for cuts to federal programs, including Social Security. In one instance, Sanders directly asked Biden if he had stood on the floor of Congress and advocated cuts to Social Security and other social-welfare programs. Biden replied, “No, I did not talk about the need to cut any of those programs.”
In 1984, though, Biden co-sponsored an amendment to freeze military and domestic spending for a year, which included some built-in-adjustments for Social Security benefits — tantamount to cutting the program.
In the 1995 speech, Biden was more explicit: He bragged about advocating for cuts to Social Security. “I’m up for reelection this year and I’m gonna remind everybody what I did at home, which is gonna cost me politically,” Biden said, removing his glasses. “When I argued if we should freeze federal spending, I meant Social Security as well. I meant Medicare and Medicaid. I meant veterans’ bene— I meant every single solitary thing in the government. And I not only tried it once, I tried it twice, I tried it a third time, and I tried it a fourth time.”
At the Sunday debate, Biden also said, “I was not a fan of Bowles—,” before being cut off. He was referring to the bipartisan Bowles-Simpson commission, which called for Social Security cuts. As vice president, Biden worked to help negotiate the commission’s balanced budget efforts. After it disbanded, Biden brought on its director, Bruce Reed, as his chief of staff and the next Obama-era push for a balanced budget — including Social Security cuts — was even known as the Biden Committee. Reed is now a senior policy adviser with Biden’s presidential campaign.
Bankruptcy Reform
Debate moderators asked Biden about his announcement on Saturday that he was endorsing a bankruptcy plan written by his former Democratic primary opponent, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, noting that the plan would undo key parts of the bankruptcy law Biden helped pass in 2005. “What changed?” the moderator asked.
Biden denied that he had been an enthusiastic supporter of the bill. “The bankruptcy bill was passing overwhelmingly, and I improved it,” he said, claiming to insert measures that helped average families. “That’s what I did.”
“I did not like the bill. I did not support the bill,” Biden said. “And I made it clear to the industry I didn’t like the bill.”
In fact, Biden pushed for years to ram the bill through, voting for some version of it at least four times between 1998 and 2005 — often against a majority of Democrats — and even inserting its language into a 2000 foreign relations bill.
And Biden did the opposite of what he claimed on the amendments. “The record makes clear that as a senator, Biden used his clout to push for the law’s passage and to defeat amendments to shield servicemembers, women, and children from its harsh treatment,” Adam Levitin, a bankruptcy law professor at Georgetown Law School, wrote in January. “When votes were taken, ‘Middle-Class Joe’ was no friend to the middle class.”
When Sanders got a chance, he mentioned something the moderators had not: that Biden did more than help pass a bankruptcy bill. “Joe, if my memory is correct, you helped write that bankruptcy bill,” Sanders said. But Biden retorted: “I did not.” Biden had in fact helped draft a 2000 version of the bill that was pocket vetoed by President Bill Clinton.
Super PACs
At one point in the debate, Biden and Sanders had it out about Super PACs, groups that often attract large-dollar donors and act to support particular candidates. Biden alleged that Sanders was backed by nine Super PACs. Sanders is not.
Sanders called Biden out for walking back in October his original campaign pledge to reject money from Super PACs. Biden has gotten millions of dollars in support from Unite the Country PAC, a group organized by longtime Democratic strategists and former Obama advisers, with help from lobbyists in the industries of health care, weapons manufacturing, and finance.
“I think, in the past, Joe, if I’m not mistaken, you condemned Super PACs. Is that correct?” Sanders said.
Biden didn’t answer the question. Instead, he claimed that Sanders was being backed by nine Super PACs. “You get rid of the nine Super PACs you have?” Biden said. Sanders replied, “I don’t have any Super PACs.”
“You have nine,” Biden said. “Do you want me to list them?” Sanders encouraged Biden to name the groups. “OK. Come on. Give me a break. Come on,” Biden said, without listing any PACs.
Foreign Dictators
Biden slammed Sanders for praising countries with histories of dictators and egregious human rights violations, namely Cuba and its former ruler, Fidel Castro.
After moderators asked Sanders about his comments praising Cuba’s revolutionary government, they asked Biden about comments former President Barack Obama made in 2016 lauding some of the country’s achievements under Castro. Sanders pointed out that he started condemning dictatorships in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates before it became popular.
Biden himself has praised and made excuses for dictatorial rulers, including Hosni Mubarak, the former president of Egypt, as well as both Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, and Dubai’s former ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Biden has since condemned Saudi Arabia for human rights abuses and the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But in 2011, Biden led a U.S. delegation to Saudi Arabia, including former Republican Sen. John McCain and former CIA Director David Petraeus, after the death of former Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud.
The Obama administration also considered having Biden mentor Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, who ordered Khashoggi’s killing, Business Insider reported this month.
Paris Climate Change Accord
Asked if Biden’s climate plan was ambitious enough to tackle the burgeoning environmental crisis, the former vice president said he would rejoin the Paris Climate Accord and took credit for organizing it.
“I would immediately rejoin the Paris Climate Accord, which I helped put together,” Biden said.
It’s not the first time Biden has claimed an outsized role in the Obama administration’s efforts to support the climate agreement. At least six administration officials contradicted that claim in interviews, E&E News reported: “All of them said Biden did not appear to play an instrumental role in finalizing the Paris Agreement.”
Biden’s Racism Is More Veiled Than Trump’s — But No Less Real
BY Kamau Franklin, Truthout
PUBLISHED March 15, 2020
When it comes to race, Joe Biden’s record and rhetoric reflect the broader hypocrisy of U.S. politics. While Biden rightly criticizes Donald Trump’s racism, he then praises himself for his own ability to work with overt white supremacist Dixiecrat Democrats in the 1970s. It’s important to recognize the problematic nature of Biden’s history of working with Southern Democratic racist senators. We must acknowledge the more subtle forms of racism at work in the Democratic Party even as an overt racist sits in the Oval Office.
Black Voters Shift to the Democratic Party
There was a time when it was considered “normal” to be openly racist — in fact, that encompasses the vast majority of American history. It was just the expected behavior; no one batted an eye because white men were firmly in control of the body politic, and Black people in particular were expected to know our place. This overt racism lasted well past the civil rights era, when political parties mostly realigned due to race.
In 1960, John F. Kennedy called Coretta Scott King to express his sympathies that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested at an Atlanta sit-in and was being held on a “previous warrant.” Shortly after, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination based on race, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibited racial discrimination in voting. These moves helped shift support from the Black voting population to the Democrats for generations.
The realignment took full swing when Southern whites felt Democratic administrations were supporting voting rights for Black people. Southern white voters began supporting Barry Goldwater’s call for “states’ rights” in 1964 and began voting for Republicans to represent their interest in maintaining white supremacy.
The civil rights movement and this shift of the majority of Black voters to the Democratic Party, demanding a voice in public affairs, meant that overt racism was no longer fashionable in the following decades, particularly amongst national elected officials, at least in public discourse. Republicans changed their language to slightly disguised symbols of racism, and “dog whistle” politics were the order of the day to convince white people that Black people were dangerous and there was a need to keep the “negros” in their place.
By the 1970s, most of the overt white racist Dixiecrat politicians had abandoned the Democratic Party for the Republican Party, but no matter what side of the aisle, these good old boys seem to have often had a good working relationship with Joe Biden. Should Biden become president, racial justice activists will need to exert pressure to hold him accountable for his actions — and alliances — while in office.
Joe Biden’s History of Working With Notorious Racists
Since the 1970s, the Senate has remained a mostly white club where overtly racist attitudes have continued to be tolerated and not a cause for major concern. This is the Senate that Biden came of age in and has always been comfortable. He has described his ability to get things done for the betterment of the country across ideological lines by referencing his work with several notoriously racist Southern senators. Biden praised former Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond from South Carolina at his eulogy in 2003, remembering him as simply a product of his own time, who eventually came over to the “right” side.
While at a fundraiser on June 18, 2019, Biden invoked the name of former Mississippi Democrat Sen. James O. Eastland, who spent 36 years as a senator and who, even among racists, was notorious for his white supremacist commentary. Eastland, who never sought to retract his views, stated plainly, “I have no prejudice in my heart, but the white race is the superior race and the Negro race an inferior race and the races must be kept separate by law.” Eastland, who made similar white supremacist remarks on the Senate floor, was never censored, rebuked nor publicly reprimanded by his Democratic colleagues at that time — Biden included — for his racist statements. Known as the “Voice of the White South,” Eastland was instead perfectly acceptable to the Democratic Party. It’s no wonder that this more overt strain of white supremacist thinking allows for the more passive strain to be advanced.
This explains Biden’s and his fellow Democrats’ easy support for such measures as the 1994 crime bill, from supporting mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug convictions to the disparity in sentencing between powder cocaine and crack, a derivative of cocaine. Biden, like past fellow moderate Hillary Clinton, similarly invoked the language of “predators” to describe crime in Black communities during the drug crisis of the 1980s and ‘90s.
In 2007, when Biden attempted to compliment Barack Obama as contender for the presidency, he stated, “I mean, you got the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy, I mean, that’s a storybook, man.” There is a lot to pick apart in this statement, but what is even more notable is that after this comment, presidential nominee Barack Obama and his team felt Joe Biden was just what the country needed in a vice president to draw more moderate whites to his candidacy.
This is what has directly led us to this point, where voters see a moderately racist centrist candidate as more acceptable than a democratic socialist, in order to remove the overt old-school white supremacist from office. The trust given to Joe Biden by the Black constituency is a direct result of spill-over “affection” from the Obama presidency (even though the former president has not endorsed Biden). This has allowed Biden to keep the fidelity of the Black vote, as he praises his ability to work with white supremacists of the past. The fate of this primary is not sealed, but Biden is currently the front-runner.
The mainstream Democratic Party has perfected the art of subtle — or at least subtler-than-Trump — racism. We must ask ourselves: How will we challenge the president’s racist actions, even if a Democrat is elected?
Black Voters Shift to the Democratic Party
There was a time when it was considered “normal” to be openly racist — in fact, that encompasses the vast majority of American history. It was just the expected behavior; no one batted an eye because white men were firmly in control of the body politic, and Black people in particular were expected to know our place. This overt racism lasted well past the civil rights era, when political parties mostly realigned due to race.
In 1960, John F. Kennedy called Coretta Scott King to express his sympathies that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested at an Atlanta sit-in and was being held on a “previous warrant.” Shortly after, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination based on race, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibited racial discrimination in voting. These moves helped shift support from the Black voting population to the Democrats for generations.
The realignment took full swing when Southern whites felt Democratic administrations were supporting voting rights for Black people. Southern white voters began supporting Barry Goldwater’s call for “states’ rights” in 1964 and began voting for Republicans to represent their interest in maintaining white supremacy.
The civil rights movement and this shift of the majority of Black voters to the Democratic Party, demanding a voice in public affairs, meant that overt racism was no longer fashionable in the following decades, particularly amongst national elected officials, at least in public discourse. Republicans changed their language to slightly disguised symbols of racism, and “dog whistle” politics were the order of the day to convince white people that Black people were dangerous and there was a need to keep the “negros” in their place.
By the 1970s, most of the overt white racist Dixiecrat politicians had abandoned the Democratic Party for the Republican Party, but no matter what side of the aisle, these good old boys seem to have often had a good working relationship with Joe Biden. Should Biden become president, racial justice activists will need to exert pressure to hold him accountable for his actions — and alliances — while in office.
Joe Biden’s History of Working With Notorious Racists
Since the 1970s, the Senate has remained a mostly white club where overtly racist attitudes have continued to be tolerated and not a cause for major concern. This is the Senate that Biden came of age in and has always been comfortable. He has described his ability to get things done for the betterment of the country across ideological lines by referencing his work with several notoriously racist Southern senators. Biden praised former Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond from South Carolina at his eulogy in 2003, remembering him as simply a product of his own time, who eventually came over to the “right” side.
While at a fundraiser on June 18, 2019, Biden invoked the name of former Mississippi Democrat Sen. James O. Eastland, who spent 36 years as a senator and who, even among racists, was notorious for his white supremacist commentary. Eastland, who never sought to retract his views, stated plainly, “I have no prejudice in my heart, but the white race is the superior race and the Negro race an inferior race and the races must be kept separate by law.” Eastland, who made similar white supremacist remarks on the Senate floor, was never censored, rebuked nor publicly reprimanded by his Democratic colleagues at that time — Biden included — for his racist statements. Known as the “Voice of the White South,” Eastland was instead perfectly acceptable to the Democratic Party. It’s no wonder that this more overt strain of white supremacist thinking allows for the more passive strain to be advanced.
This explains Biden’s and his fellow Democrats’ easy support for such measures as the 1994 crime bill, from supporting mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug convictions to the disparity in sentencing between powder cocaine and crack, a derivative of cocaine. Biden, like past fellow moderate Hillary Clinton, similarly invoked the language of “predators” to describe crime in Black communities during the drug crisis of the 1980s and ‘90s.
In 2007, when Biden attempted to compliment Barack Obama as contender for the presidency, he stated, “I mean, you got the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy, I mean, that’s a storybook, man.” There is a lot to pick apart in this statement, but what is even more notable is that after this comment, presidential nominee Barack Obama and his team felt Joe Biden was just what the country needed in a vice president to draw more moderate whites to his candidacy.
This is what has directly led us to this point, where voters see a moderately racist centrist candidate as more acceptable than a democratic socialist, in order to remove the overt old-school white supremacist from office. The trust given to Joe Biden by the Black constituency is a direct result of spill-over “affection” from the Obama presidency (even though the former president has not endorsed Biden). This has allowed Biden to keep the fidelity of the Black vote, as he praises his ability to work with white supremacists of the past. The fate of this primary is not sealed, but Biden is currently the front-runner.
The mainstream Democratic Party has perfected the art of subtle — or at least subtler-than-Trump — racism. We must ask ourselves: How will we challenge the president’s racist actions, even if a Democrat is elected?
interview excerpt: Think Biden's a sure thing? He's not
Political savant Rachel Bitecofer: Democrats face "major disadvantage" going with Biden
Rachel Bitecofer forecast the "blue wave." She says turnout favors the Democrats — but their messaging is awful
CHAUNCEY DEVEGA - salon
3/12/2020
...The worst examples of horse race journalism — which unfortunately describes most of it — does the public a great disservice in any number of ways.
It fails to provide the American people with the deeper context: The 2020 presidential election threatens to be a moment of tectonic social and political shift, in which the Age of Trump could become the new normal.
Too many voices in the mainstream news media continue to recycle narratives about American politics which are based on fundamentally incorrect assumptions about voting and other political behavior. The worst examples of horse-race journalism leave the American unprepared to properly understand and respond to the challenges being presented to them both by the Age of Trump and the myriad of social and political problems that made Trump's presidency, and his broader authoritarian movement, possible in the first place.
---
In this conversation, Bitecofer explains that, contrary to idealistic theories of folk democracy, the American voter is largely unsophisticated, knows few specifics about public policy and makes decisions based on emotions and partisanship. She also explains her theory that there are not many true "swing voters." Moreover, she argues that the Democratic Party is wasting time and energy trying to recruit "right-leaning" independents to support their candidates. Bitecofer also explains how the Democratic Party has failed at marketing and branding itself in a positive way — with the result being an extremist and dangerous Republican Party that has been able to misrepresent itself to the American people as being somehow "moderate" and "reasonable."
Bitcofer also warns that in this moment of populist discontent, Bernie Sanders may actually have a better chance than Joe Biden of defeating Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. If she's right, this warning may have arrived too late. We spoke a few days before Super Tuesday.
Watching this horse-race coverage of the 2020 presidential season, what are some of the biggest errors you see from the news media and pundit class?
The biggest mistake is not understanding how inelastic vote choice has become given the levels of political polarization in this country. For example, even if Joe Biden has a 10-point lead in a general election poll right now, by Election Day it will be three points. Why? Because Trump is not campaigning against him yet. Campaign activity reinforces latent partisan attitudes among some independents.
In many ways that dynamic is predictable. No matter how bad Donald Trump is, 90% of Republicans are going to vote for him on Election Day. The other thing that frustrates me is the misperception of how the Democrats won the House of Representatives. People like Joe Scarborough and Tom Nichols and Jennifer Rubin and other reasonable Republicans — including Never Trumpers — have prominent media roles. The public sees them and then thinks, "There are these intelligent, college-educated professional Republicans who are disgusted by Trump and they've left the party. Therefore there must be many other people like them." However, the polling and other data shows that not to be true.
The data actually shows that by and large Republicans are still Republicans. And if anything, Republicans seem pretty happy about Donald Trump because their turnout in 2018 was through the roof. Republicans did not turn out for Democrats. The turnout for Democrats was also through the roof. The same was true of independents. Independents broke for the Democrats during the midterms. The data does not show that the Republicans also voted for Democrats. If that were the case the vote margins in favor of the Democratic candidates would have been much higher. Moreover, if it were a fact, then we'd be able to measure it.
We should remember that Republicans don't think about politics as a game where they must woo the opposition party's voters. What is so bizarre is that the Republicans have fewer supporters among the American people, yet it is the Democrats, who are more popular, that base their entire campaign apparatus, their strategy, their posturing, their messaging, on this idea that the way to win is to convince Republicans to vote for them.
---
The Republicans are far more extreme than the Democrats. This has been true for several decades. How is this asymmetrical polarization playing out in the Age of Trump?
It is a well-documented fact that Republicans are more ideological and have moved further to the right. The data shows the power of asymmetric polarization. This asymmetry is present across political behavior, most notably voter turnout.
The American public is much more aligned with the Democratic Party's policy proposals. The American people want action on climate change. They want action on guns, they want health care reform, they want taxes to go up on the wealthy. The American people are far to the left of where the policymaking apparatus of the country is. We see this across many issues.
But there is another dimension to political values which has to be looked at where the Democrats are losing to the Republicans. When asked, voters tell us that they are "conservative." The research also tells us that America is a "center-right" country. Why is this? For at least 30 years, the Democrats have allowed the Republican Party to kill their brand.
Democrats have never responded with a positive version of their own brand. Instead, the Democrats present themselves as being "moderate." The Democrats should be saying, "Hey, this is why economic liberalism is better for you, white working class." Instead of presenting their values in a positive way and standing by them, in these swing states the Democratic candidates come out and say, "Well, I'm not like those other Democrats. I'm a fiscal conservative." In fact, the record of fiscal conservatism in America is not a good one.
One would think that it would be easy to run an aggressive attack-oriented offense against fiscal conservatism, but the Democrats do not do it. The Democrats are always in a defensive position. We are seeing this with Bernie Sanders. It isn't Sanders that is the risk against Trump in 2020 — it is the Democratic Party's reaction to him. Being on the defensive and not backing Bernie Sanders could put the Democrats at a disadvantage against Trump. The data doesn't lie.
The Republican Party has moved very far to the right. But in public opinion polls, there is a pattern where the average American says it is the Democrats and not the Republicans which are the extremist party. That is mind-boggling to me, especially when there is a Republican president in the person of Donald Trump who is attacking longstanding American norms and values.[...]
CLICK ABOVE TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE
It fails to provide the American people with the deeper context: The 2020 presidential election threatens to be a moment of tectonic social and political shift, in which the Age of Trump could become the new normal.
Too many voices in the mainstream news media continue to recycle narratives about American politics which are based on fundamentally incorrect assumptions about voting and other political behavior. The worst examples of horse-race journalism leave the American unprepared to properly understand and respond to the challenges being presented to them both by the Age of Trump and the myriad of social and political problems that made Trump's presidency, and his broader authoritarian movement, possible in the first place.
---
In this conversation, Bitecofer explains that, contrary to idealistic theories of folk democracy, the American voter is largely unsophisticated, knows few specifics about public policy and makes decisions based on emotions and partisanship. She also explains her theory that there are not many true "swing voters." Moreover, she argues that the Democratic Party is wasting time and energy trying to recruit "right-leaning" independents to support their candidates. Bitecofer also explains how the Democratic Party has failed at marketing and branding itself in a positive way — with the result being an extremist and dangerous Republican Party that has been able to misrepresent itself to the American people as being somehow "moderate" and "reasonable."
Bitcofer also warns that in this moment of populist discontent, Bernie Sanders may actually have a better chance than Joe Biden of defeating Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. If she's right, this warning may have arrived too late. We spoke a few days before Super Tuesday.
Watching this horse-race coverage of the 2020 presidential season, what are some of the biggest errors you see from the news media and pundit class?
The biggest mistake is not understanding how inelastic vote choice has become given the levels of political polarization in this country. For example, even if Joe Biden has a 10-point lead in a general election poll right now, by Election Day it will be three points. Why? Because Trump is not campaigning against him yet. Campaign activity reinforces latent partisan attitudes among some independents.
In many ways that dynamic is predictable. No matter how bad Donald Trump is, 90% of Republicans are going to vote for him on Election Day. The other thing that frustrates me is the misperception of how the Democrats won the House of Representatives. People like Joe Scarborough and Tom Nichols and Jennifer Rubin and other reasonable Republicans — including Never Trumpers — have prominent media roles. The public sees them and then thinks, "There are these intelligent, college-educated professional Republicans who are disgusted by Trump and they've left the party. Therefore there must be many other people like them." However, the polling and other data shows that not to be true.
The data actually shows that by and large Republicans are still Republicans. And if anything, Republicans seem pretty happy about Donald Trump because their turnout in 2018 was through the roof. Republicans did not turn out for Democrats. The turnout for Democrats was also through the roof. The same was true of independents. Independents broke for the Democrats during the midterms. The data does not show that the Republicans also voted for Democrats. If that were the case the vote margins in favor of the Democratic candidates would have been much higher. Moreover, if it were a fact, then we'd be able to measure it.
We should remember that Republicans don't think about politics as a game where they must woo the opposition party's voters. What is so bizarre is that the Republicans have fewer supporters among the American people, yet it is the Democrats, who are more popular, that base their entire campaign apparatus, their strategy, their posturing, their messaging, on this idea that the way to win is to convince Republicans to vote for them.
---
The Republicans are far more extreme than the Democrats. This has been true for several decades. How is this asymmetrical polarization playing out in the Age of Trump?
It is a well-documented fact that Republicans are more ideological and have moved further to the right. The data shows the power of asymmetric polarization. This asymmetry is present across political behavior, most notably voter turnout.
The American public is much more aligned with the Democratic Party's policy proposals. The American people want action on climate change. They want action on guns, they want health care reform, they want taxes to go up on the wealthy. The American people are far to the left of where the policymaking apparatus of the country is. We see this across many issues.
But there is another dimension to political values which has to be looked at where the Democrats are losing to the Republicans. When asked, voters tell us that they are "conservative." The research also tells us that America is a "center-right" country. Why is this? For at least 30 years, the Democrats have allowed the Republican Party to kill their brand.
Democrats have never responded with a positive version of their own brand. Instead, the Democrats present themselves as being "moderate." The Democrats should be saying, "Hey, this is why economic liberalism is better for you, white working class." Instead of presenting their values in a positive way and standing by them, in these swing states the Democratic candidates come out and say, "Well, I'm not like those other Democrats. I'm a fiscal conservative." In fact, the record of fiscal conservatism in America is not a good one.
One would think that it would be easy to run an aggressive attack-oriented offense against fiscal conservatism, but the Democrats do not do it. The Democrats are always in a defensive position. We are seeing this with Bernie Sanders. It isn't Sanders that is the risk against Trump in 2020 — it is the Democratic Party's reaction to him. Being on the defensive and not backing Bernie Sanders could put the Democrats at a disadvantage against Trump. The data doesn't lie.
The Republican Party has moved very far to the right. But in public opinion polls, there is a pattern where the average American says it is the Democrats and not the Republicans which are the extremist party. That is mind-boggling to me, especially when there is a Republican president in the person of Donald Trump who is attacking longstanding American norms and values.[...]
CLICK ABOVE TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE
misguided!!!
Bernie or Bust: the Sanders fans who will never vote for Biden
Supporters distrust the Democratic party and are frustrated with an election system they say works against their candidate
Ankita Rao - the guardian
Fri 13 Mar 2020 06.00 EDT
Ekene Okonkwo studies political science, advocates for gun control and reproductive rights, and is voting in a presidential election for the first time this year. But only if she can vote for Bernie Sanders.
The 19-year-old, who studies political science and lives in the Bronx, said the Vermont senator is the only candidate she trusts to deal with the issues she cares most about – on climate change, for instance, she called former vice-president Joe Biden’s plan “unfeasible”. A vote for Biden, who is likely to be the Democratic nominee in November, would only give the party more reason to take her vote for granted, she said.
“If we lose to Trump then hopefully within the next four years maybe an AOC or Rashida Tlaib would be able to run,” Okonkwo said, referring to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and another progressive politician who has gained popularity in the last two years. “Maybe there would be a better chance to save the planet.”
Okonkwo is not alone in her unequivocal and uncompromising support for Sanders. She is part of a loosely connected but vocal group, sometimes uniting under hashtags like #BernieorBust or #NeverBiden who say they will not vote for Biden if he wins the nomination. While it’s nearly impossible to know how large the group is, hundreds of people have shared this sentiment, including progressive political candidates.
It may be impossible to quantify their number, but not their influence. Those Democrats who will not yield to a moderate and vote for Biden if he wins the nomination are the same group who are sometimes blamed for Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 when disappointed Sanders fans sat out the general election.
And the past few weeks have been hard to swallow for Sanders fans. After a strong early showing in Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire his star faded on Super Tuesday. Supporters were left disappointed again this week when he lost to Biden in Michigan, where he edged out Hillary Clinton in 2016. This poor performance is partly due to an unexpectedly weak youth vote – despite Sanders’ vaunted ability to mobilise younger Americans.
As the Sanders campaign reckons with the fallout, and former Democratic candidates rush to endorse Biden, the #BernieorBust fans are grappling with a repeat of 2016. It’s hard to tell how their decision could affect the election, but in 2016, a similar group of people who boycotted Hillary Clinton on election day contributed to her loss in swing states like Florida, where more than 200,000 people voted for independent candidates such as Gary Johnson or Jill Stein.
“If you distrust something, you are more likely to opt out of it,” said Rashawn Ray, a governance fellow at the Brookings Institution. And Sanders supporters don’t trust the Democratic party. “They think its political sabotage, and not allowing Bernie to have a fair shot. So what do people do? They opt out.”
Martha Baez, a 54-year-old who works in finance, is one of those voters. She is registered as an independent and voted for Jill Stein in 2016. “There was failure in getting me out to the polls with the ‘lesser of two evils’ theory”, she said of the argument that whatever Clinton’s perceived flaws, she was better than Trump.
This year, Baez is planning to vote for Sanders in the New York primary, and will not vote for Biden if he is the nominee in November. But she said her real issue was not with the specific candidate, but losing trust in the Democratic party. “I don’t think that I should put aside my values and vote out of fear,” she said. “The DNC needs an overhaul, it lacks values, real leaders that represent the people not its donors.”
The impact on the supreme court or other policies, she said, was not her responsibility.
“Why is that my problem?” she said. “Shouldn’t it have been considered before selecting the ‘chosen one’? Will they try and flip the script and make it my issue or fault?”
Jessica Wright, an avid Sanders supporter in east Texas, tweeted that she was #BernieorBust after his Super Tuesday defeat in her state. She said she was angry that other Democratic candidates had dropped out just before the big primary day to endorse Joe Biden, and wanted the “so-called Democratic establishment” to know they were letting down people like her.
Wright, 37, works at a hospital and said she and her husband live paycheck to paycheck. She said Sanders’ policies would be the best for her family, including family members married to immigrants struggling to gain citizenship status in the US. But given that a Trump election could be worse, and herald new conservative court appointees and other harmful policies, she is still considering voting for Biden, or at the very least, voting down ballot in other, non-presidential races on election day.
---
Habiba Choudhary, a Sanders supporter who was canvassing in Michigan, saw the long polling station lines firsthand on Tuesday in Sanders-friendly communities like Dearborn and perceived this as a way to rig the election in favor of Biden. The New York-based 28-year-old, who identifies with the #BernieorBust movement, said the senator’s message resonated with her family, Bangladeshi immigrants who share a one-bedroom apartment in Queens.
Sanders seemed to be the only candidate whose policies could ease the plight of her father, a taxi driver dealing with healthcare issues, and her sister, who is straining to pay back student loans. “Enough is enough – we tried the neoliberalism and we’re sick and tired of it,” she said. “[Sanders] gave me and other people that voice.”
Nevertheless, Choudhary said, she would follow Sanders’ lead when it came to voting in November. In 2016, the senator accepted defeat after the primary, and went on to endorse Hillary Clinton in the presidential election.
“I know Bernie is super consistent,” she said. “His supporters are gonna come out for Biden.”
The 19-year-old, who studies political science and lives in the Bronx, said the Vermont senator is the only candidate she trusts to deal with the issues she cares most about – on climate change, for instance, she called former vice-president Joe Biden’s plan “unfeasible”. A vote for Biden, who is likely to be the Democratic nominee in November, would only give the party more reason to take her vote for granted, she said.
“If we lose to Trump then hopefully within the next four years maybe an AOC or Rashida Tlaib would be able to run,” Okonkwo said, referring to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and another progressive politician who has gained popularity in the last two years. “Maybe there would be a better chance to save the planet.”
Okonkwo is not alone in her unequivocal and uncompromising support for Sanders. She is part of a loosely connected but vocal group, sometimes uniting under hashtags like #BernieorBust or #NeverBiden who say they will not vote for Biden if he wins the nomination. While it’s nearly impossible to know how large the group is, hundreds of people have shared this sentiment, including progressive political candidates.
It may be impossible to quantify their number, but not their influence. Those Democrats who will not yield to a moderate and vote for Biden if he wins the nomination are the same group who are sometimes blamed for Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 when disappointed Sanders fans sat out the general election.
And the past few weeks have been hard to swallow for Sanders fans. After a strong early showing in Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire his star faded on Super Tuesday. Supporters were left disappointed again this week when he lost to Biden in Michigan, where he edged out Hillary Clinton in 2016. This poor performance is partly due to an unexpectedly weak youth vote – despite Sanders’ vaunted ability to mobilise younger Americans.
As the Sanders campaign reckons with the fallout, and former Democratic candidates rush to endorse Biden, the #BernieorBust fans are grappling with a repeat of 2016. It’s hard to tell how their decision could affect the election, but in 2016, a similar group of people who boycotted Hillary Clinton on election day contributed to her loss in swing states like Florida, where more than 200,000 people voted for independent candidates such as Gary Johnson or Jill Stein.
“If you distrust something, you are more likely to opt out of it,” said Rashawn Ray, a governance fellow at the Brookings Institution. And Sanders supporters don’t trust the Democratic party. “They think its political sabotage, and not allowing Bernie to have a fair shot. So what do people do? They opt out.”
Martha Baez, a 54-year-old who works in finance, is one of those voters. She is registered as an independent and voted for Jill Stein in 2016. “There was failure in getting me out to the polls with the ‘lesser of two evils’ theory”, she said of the argument that whatever Clinton’s perceived flaws, she was better than Trump.
This year, Baez is planning to vote for Sanders in the New York primary, and will not vote for Biden if he is the nominee in November. But she said her real issue was not with the specific candidate, but losing trust in the Democratic party. “I don’t think that I should put aside my values and vote out of fear,” she said. “The DNC needs an overhaul, it lacks values, real leaders that represent the people not its donors.”
The impact on the supreme court or other policies, she said, was not her responsibility.
“Why is that my problem?” she said. “Shouldn’t it have been considered before selecting the ‘chosen one’? Will they try and flip the script and make it my issue or fault?”
Jessica Wright, an avid Sanders supporter in east Texas, tweeted that she was #BernieorBust after his Super Tuesday defeat in her state. She said she was angry that other Democratic candidates had dropped out just before the big primary day to endorse Joe Biden, and wanted the “so-called Democratic establishment” to know they were letting down people like her.
Wright, 37, works at a hospital and said she and her husband live paycheck to paycheck. She said Sanders’ policies would be the best for her family, including family members married to immigrants struggling to gain citizenship status in the US. But given that a Trump election could be worse, and herald new conservative court appointees and other harmful policies, she is still considering voting for Biden, or at the very least, voting down ballot in other, non-presidential races on election day.
---
Habiba Choudhary, a Sanders supporter who was canvassing in Michigan, saw the long polling station lines firsthand on Tuesday in Sanders-friendly communities like Dearborn and perceived this as a way to rig the election in favor of Biden. The New York-based 28-year-old, who identifies with the #BernieorBust movement, said the senator’s message resonated with her family, Bangladeshi immigrants who share a one-bedroom apartment in Queens.
Sanders seemed to be the only candidate whose policies could ease the plight of her father, a taxi driver dealing with healthcare issues, and her sister, who is straining to pay back student loans. “Enough is enough – we tried the neoliberalism and we’re sick and tired of it,” she said. “[Sanders] gave me and other people that voice.”
Nevertheless, Choudhary said, she would follow Sanders’ lead when it came to voting in November. In 2016, the senator accepted defeat after the primary, and went on to endorse Hillary Clinton in the presidential election.
“I know Bernie is super consistent,” she said. “His supporters are gonna come out for Biden.”
Joe Biden Has Cured Democrats of Their Belief in a Savior President
Joe does NOT have this without everyone else’s help.
By BEN MATHIS-LILLEY - slate
MARCH 11, 2020
There is a long-standing critique of the Democratic Party—of both its leaders and its voters—that says it has been self-destructively obsessed with the goal of installing a savior figure in the presidency. This obsession, the theory goes, comes at the expense not just of winning congressional and statewide legislative races but of keeping voters usefully engaged during the time between elections. (Think of the power that highly motivated NRA members exert over members of Congress, despite usually holding what public opinion polls say are minority positions on gun legislation.) In 2008, Barack Obama—a messianic figure if there ever was one!—won 69 million votes nationally; in the 2010 midterms, Democratic House candidates received fewer than 40 million. The party lost nearly 1,000 state legislative seats during Obama’s term, the campaign mailing list that could have been deployed to create grassroots pressure on moderates during Affordable Care Act negotiations was ignored, etc. As one of the individuals running for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee in 2017 put it, Dems have a habit of “treating the presidency like it’s the only office that matters.” (That individual—Pete Buttigieg—announced his campaign for president less than two years later.)
Donald Trump’s election did a great deal to change this perspective. The Women’s March and the travel ban protests spawned activist groups and inspired many Dems to run for office for the first time—often successfully. (There were 60 million votes for Democratic House candidates in the 2018 midterms.) But the savior complex around the presidency persisted in the shooting-star candidacies of young, Obama-lite figures such as Beto O’Rourke and Buttigieg; in the speculation about landslide-triggering runs by liberal superstars like Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey; and even, as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Tuesday night, the idea that Bernie Sanders could beat Trump with a popular wave of first-time voters.
Well, Joe Biden has effectively sealed his status as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, and no one is expecting or has expected him to save anything, including his own campaign.
Choosing Biden was based entirely on a theory of necessity. His flaws are evident, which is why he finished fourth and fifth in Iowa and New Hampshire. He’s still capable of delivering inspiring rhetoric but talks over himself, makes errors, and even becomes agitated when required to get into details. He’s enthusiastic when talking about Obama’s accomplishments, but presents almost no vision of what his own administration’s achievements might look like. (During a recent rally in Detroit, the section of his speech about the tangible things he’d use the presidency to do, once you subtract the parts about restoring Obama initiatives like participation in the Paris climate accords, was about as long as the one about childhood bullying under Trump.) But voters and party leaders were unable to settle on any of the many available non-Biden, non–Bernie Sanders candidates—too young, too female, too not an actual Democrat—and have decided Sanders himself is too risky despite widespread sympathy for his goals. So it’s Uncle Joe by a nose, thanks in part to the goodwill he built up under Obama and in part to all the other horses having died.
The understanding that Biden can’t get this done by himself was implicit in his surge. He got a crucial, late endorsement from South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn, who continued providing assistance Tuesday night by suggesting that the Democratic Party cancel any potential Sanders-Biden debates. He won Texas and a number of other Super Tuesday states after another wave of endorsements—most prominently from Buttigieg, O’Rourke, and Amy Klobuchar, who all appeared with him at a lively election-eve rally in Dallas. At that rally, neither Buttigieg nor Klobuchar mentioned any part of Biden’s platform. Instead they described his character, using words like decent, decency, empathy, and dignity—portraying him as, in essence, an American Queen Elizabeth who will project our values gracefully as head of state.
After that triumph, Biden didn’t appear in public until Saturday. Tuesday’s biggest primary was in Michigan, where Sanders held four rallies in the past week, giving speeches that lasted up to 45 minutes; the Vermont senator also spoke at large outdoor events in Chicago and St. Louis, appeared on three Sunday talk shows, and held a town hall event on Fox News. Biden, in total, held events in Detroit, Missouri, and Mississippi at which he spoke for 15 to 20 minutes. But he also added endorsements from Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and ended the day having widened his delegate lead over Sanders.
The Biden 2020 campaign isn’t about following its nominal leader, or even listening to him; it’s about the party pushing him over the line collectively—and about making plans to give him the necessary support once he’s in office, as Booker’s endorsing statement alluded to in references to “winning races up and down the ballot” and thinking of a presidential victory as the “floor” rather than the “ceiling” of Democratic Party potential. Biden’s sudden viability coincided with popular Democratic Montana Gov. Steve Bullock’s announcement that, after fending off months of entreaties to enter his state’s Senate race, he will go ahead and attempt to flip the seat, while Arizona and Maine flip-aspirants Mark Kelly and Sara Gideon have also expressed a preference for running down ballot of Biden rather than Sanders. Progressives eulogizing Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign have emphasized the prominent role that she can still play, going forward, in the Senate.
On Monday, Axios published a list of figures, compiled via Biden “confidants,” that he’s said to be considering for Cabinet positions. The list made no sense ideologically—Warren and JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon are both under consideration to run Treasury, apparently, while both Warren and the avowedly moderate Amy Klobuchar are in the mix for vice president—but made a lot of sense as a signal that the prospective nominee’s camp knows he’ll be judged by the helping hands he surrounds himself with, and that he’ll need to maintain a connection to all the party’s factions, if he reaches the Oval Office. It’s not him, in other words—it’s us.
Donald Trump’s election did a great deal to change this perspective. The Women’s March and the travel ban protests spawned activist groups and inspired many Dems to run for office for the first time—often successfully. (There were 60 million votes for Democratic House candidates in the 2018 midterms.) But the savior complex around the presidency persisted in the shooting-star candidacies of young, Obama-lite figures such as Beto O’Rourke and Buttigieg; in the speculation about landslide-triggering runs by liberal superstars like Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey; and even, as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Tuesday night, the idea that Bernie Sanders could beat Trump with a popular wave of first-time voters.
Well, Joe Biden has effectively sealed his status as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, and no one is expecting or has expected him to save anything, including his own campaign.
Choosing Biden was based entirely on a theory of necessity. His flaws are evident, which is why he finished fourth and fifth in Iowa and New Hampshire. He’s still capable of delivering inspiring rhetoric but talks over himself, makes errors, and even becomes agitated when required to get into details. He’s enthusiastic when talking about Obama’s accomplishments, but presents almost no vision of what his own administration’s achievements might look like. (During a recent rally in Detroit, the section of his speech about the tangible things he’d use the presidency to do, once you subtract the parts about restoring Obama initiatives like participation in the Paris climate accords, was about as long as the one about childhood bullying under Trump.) But voters and party leaders were unable to settle on any of the many available non-Biden, non–Bernie Sanders candidates—too young, too female, too not an actual Democrat—and have decided Sanders himself is too risky despite widespread sympathy for his goals. So it’s Uncle Joe by a nose, thanks in part to the goodwill he built up under Obama and in part to all the other horses having died.
The understanding that Biden can’t get this done by himself was implicit in his surge. He got a crucial, late endorsement from South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn, who continued providing assistance Tuesday night by suggesting that the Democratic Party cancel any potential Sanders-Biden debates. He won Texas and a number of other Super Tuesday states after another wave of endorsements—most prominently from Buttigieg, O’Rourke, and Amy Klobuchar, who all appeared with him at a lively election-eve rally in Dallas. At that rally, neither Buttigieg nor Klobuchar mentioned any part of Biden’s platform. Instead they described his character, using words like decent, decency, empathy, and dignity—portraying him as, in essence, an American Queen Elizabeth who will project our values gracefully as head of state.
After that triumph, Biden didn’t appear in public until Saturday. Tuesday’s biggest primary was in Michigan, where Sanders held four rallies in the past week, giving speeches that lasted up to 45 minutes; the Vermont senator also spoke at large outdoor events in Chicago and St. Louis, appeared on three Sunday talk shows, and held a town hall event on Fox News. Biden, in total, held events in Detroit, Missouri, and Mississippi at which he spoke for 15 to 20 minutes. But he also added endorsements from Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and ended the day having widened his delegate lead over Sanders.
The Biden 2020 campaign isn’t about following its nominal leader, or even listening to him; it’s about the party pushing him over the line collectively—and about making plans to give him the necessary support once he’s in office, as Booker’s endorsing statement alluded to in references to “winning races up and down the ballot” and thinking of a presidential victory as the “floor” rather than the “ceiling” of Democratic Party potential. Biden’s sudden viability coincided with popular Democratic Montana Gov. Steve Bullock’s announcement that, after fending off months of entreaties to enter his state’s Senate race, he will go ahead and attempt to flip the seat, while Arizona and Maine flip-aspirants Mark Kelly and Sara Gideon have also expressed a preference for running down ballot of Biden rather than Sanders. Progressives eulogizing Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign have emphasized the prominent role that she can still play, going forward, in the Senate.
On Monday, Axios published a list of figures, compiled via Biden “confidants,” that he’s said to be considering for Cabinet positions. The list made no sense ideologically—Warren and JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon are both under consideration to run Treasury, apparently, while both Warren and the avowedly moderate Amy Klobuchar are in the mix for vice president—but made a lot of sense as a signal that the prospective nominee’s camp knows he’ll be judged by the helping hands he surrounds himself with, and that he’ll need to maintain a connection to all the party’s factions, if he reaches the Oval Office. It’s not him, in other words—it’s us.
the corporate-owned, status quo candidate!!!
Biden Refuses to Commit to Signing Medicare for All Bill as President
BY Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
PUBLISHED March 10, 2020
One of corporate Democrats’ most common talking points against Medicare for All is that such a proposal would never make it through Congress. But Joe Biden, in an interview that aired Monday night, admitted that even if one did — with the approval of his own party — he would not necessarily jump at the historic chance to sign it into law.
Validating Sen. Bernie Sanders’ call for a debate with Biden on the details and merits of Medicare for All, the former vice president described Sanders’ plan as a budget-busting proposal — without mentioning studies showing it would save the U.S. trillions of dollars — and refused to commit to signing Medicare for All legislation if Congress sent it to his desk, claiming it could delay coverage expansion.
“I would veto anything that delays providing the security and the certainty of healthcare being available now,” Biden told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, who asked Biden how he, if elected president, would handle a situation in which Medicare for All legislation passed a Democrat-controlled Congress.
Biden’s remarks were widely interpreted as a suggestion that he would consider vetoing Medicare for All, which — under Sanders’ version — would be phased in over a four-year period, lowering the Medicare eligibility age to 55 in the first year and covering everyone in the U.S. by year four. A public option would also be established during the transition period.
“If Democrats passed a Medicare for All bill through the House and Senate, it would be one of the greatest legislative accomplishments in American history. It would realign American politics for a generation or more… and Joe Biden suggested that he might veto it,” tweeted journalist Walker Bragman.
jordan✔
@JordanUhl
Joe Biden just said he would veto Medicare-for-All because it would "delay" healthcare coverage.
His own healthcare plan leaves 10 million people uninsured.
8:19 PM - Mar 9, 2020
While criticizing supposed “delays” in coverage expansion under Medicare for All, Biden failed to mention that his plan — according to the former vice president’s own campaign website — would leave millions of Americans uninsured by only covering 97% of the U.S. population.
wideofthepost
@wideofthepost
Biden also lied again about his own healthcare plan, falsely claiming that "everyone would be covered," when his own damn website says it would leave about 10 million uninsured.
8:31 PM - Mar 9, 2020
Biden insisted that he supports the “principle” behind Medicare for All — providing healthcare as a right — but opposes the policy because he believes it is impractical and would raise taxes on the middle class, a right-wing talking point that ignores the savings most U.S. families would see via Medicare for All’s elimination of premiums, co-pays, and deductibles.
“My opposition isn’t to the principle that you should have Medicare,” Biden said. “My opposition relates to whether or not, a, it’s doable, and, two, what the cost is and what the consequences to the rest of the budget are. How are going to find $35 trillion over the next 10 years without having profound impacts on everything from taxes for middle class, working class people, as well as the impact on the rest of the budget?”
A Yale study released last month showed that Medicare for All, contrary to Biden’s depiction of the policy as prohibitively expensive, would save the U.S. $450 billion annually in overall healthcare spending. The study also found that Medicare for All would save 68,000 lives each year.
“Joe Biden is pretending he’s worried about how much Medicare for All would cost,” tweeted writer and researcher Andrew Perez. “Odds are his plan would cost much more, just like this analysis of [Pete Buttigieg’s] plan found, because it adds new costs while preserving an extraordinarily brutal, inefficient system.”
Adam Gaffney, president of Physicians for a National Health Program, argued in a blog post for Health Affairs on Monday that Medicare for All is both economically and politically viable.
“At the end of the day, the vast majority of the nation could benefit from single-payer reform — and that fact makes it winnable,” Gaffney wrote. “Above all, however, we can be sure of one thing: not bothering to push for Medicare for All today will guarantee that it doesn’t happen tomorrow.”
Validating Sen. Bernie Sanders’ call for a debate with Biden on the details and merits of Medicare for All, the former vice president described Sanders’ plan as a budget-busting proposal — without mentioning studies showing it would save the U.S. trillions of dollars — and refused to commit to signing Medicare for All legislation if Congress sent it to his desk, claiming it could delay coverage expansion.
“I would veto anything that delays providing the security and the certainty of healthcare being available now,” Biden told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, who asked Biden how he, if elected president, would handle a situation in which Medicare for All legislation passed a Democrat-controlled Congress.
Biden’s remarks were widely interpreted as a suggestion that he would consider vetoing Medicare for All, which — under Sanders’ version — would be phased in over a four-year period, lowering the Medicare eligibility age to 55 in the first year and covering everyone in the U.S. by year four. A public option would also be established during the transition period.
“If Democrats passed a Medicare for All bill through the House and Senate, it would be one of the greatest legislative accomplishments in American history. It would realign American politics for a generation or more… and Joe Biden suggested that he might veto it,” tweeted journalist Walker Bragman.
jordan✔
@JordanUhl
Joe Biden just said he would veto Medicare-for-All because it would "delay" healthcare coverage.
His own healthcare plan leaves 10 million people uninsured.
8:19 PM - Mar 9, 2020
While criticizing supposed “delays” in coverage expansion under Medicare for All, Biden failed to mention that his plan — according to the former vice president’s own campaign website — would leave millions of Americans uninsured by only covering 97% of the U.S. population.
wideofthepost
@wideofthepost
Biden also lied again about his own healthcare plan, falsely claiming that "everyone would be covered," when his own damn website says it would leave about 10 million uninsured.
8:31 PM - Mar 9, 2020
Biden insisted that he supports the “principle” behind Medicare for All — providing healthcare as a right — but opposes the policy because he believes it is impractical and would raise taxes on the middle class, a right-wing talking point that ignores the savings most U.S. families would see via Medicare for All’s elimination of premiums, co-pays, and deductibles.
“My opposition isn’t to the principle that you should have Medicare,” Biden said. “My opposition relates to whether or not, a, it’s doable, and, two, what the cost is and what the consequences to the rest of the budget are. How are going to find $35 trillion over the next 10 years without having profound impacts on everything from taxes for middle class, working class people, as well as the impact on the rest of the budget?”
A Yale study released last month showed that Medicare for All, contrary to Biden’s depiction of the policy as prohibitively expensive, would save the U.S. $450 billion annually in overall healthcare spending. The study also found that Medicare for All would save 68,000 lives each year.
“Joe Biden is pretending he’s worried about how much Medicare for All would cost,” tweeted writer and researcher Andrew Perez. “Odds are his plan would cost much more, just like this analysis of [Pete Buttigieg’s] plan found, because it adds new costs while preserving an extraordinarily brutal, inefficient system.”
Adam Gaffney, president of Physicians for a National Health Program, argued in a blog post for Health Affairs on Monday that Medicare for All is both economically and politically viable.
“At the end of the day, the vast majority of the nation could benefit from single-payer reform — and that fact makes it winnable,” Gaffney wrote. “Above all, however, we can be sure of one thing: not bothering to push for Medicare for All today will guarantee that it doesn’t happen tomorrow.”
the do-nothing candidate, just what a moderate owned by corporate america would do!!!
Biden’s Policies Propose Minor Changes in a Time of Crisis
BY Alexis Goldstein, Truthout
PUBLISHED March 9, 2020
Former Vice President Joe Biden now has a plurality of delegates, following his strong performance on Super Tuesday, and polls suggest he is likely to dominate in the six states that have their primaries on March 10, and may even beat Bernie Sanders in Michigan and Washington, where polling shows recent spikes for Biden. And according to projections from FiveThirtyEight, Biden is now favored as the most likely candidate to win the nomination.
This is a dramatic turnaround from the projections just a week ago, which suggested that Sanders had a more than 10-point lead in national polling.
Given the sudden rise in Biden’s prospects, it’s an important moment in which to review his policy platform, which sometimes tends to attract less discussion, perhaps because his policy proposals overall seem to match a claim Biden himself made at a fundraiser in Manhattan last June, when he reassured wealthy donors that unlike more progressive candidates, he wouldn’t call for dramatic transfers of wealth from the 1 percent to the rest of society, and under his leadership “nothing would fundamentally change.”
Health Care Access
Biden has long opposed Medicare for All, arguing last year that it’s better to simply build on the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and more recently saying there isn’t majority support for Medicare for All among Democrats (even though polling shows there is). His plan includes improvements at the margins, such as increasing the tax credits created through the ACA, in order to ensure that the maximum a family pays on the individual market is 8.5 percent of household income. The most progressive element of Biden’s plan is his inclusion of a public option. As a part of his health care plan, Biden proposes rolling back the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy, and increasing the rate investors pay on long-term capital gains (currently at 20 percent) — though he doesn’t specify what the new rate should be.
Abortion Rights and Access
Meanwhile, Biden has not indicated that he has the clarity or decisiveness necessary to beat back current attacks on abortion rights and access to abortion care within the frame of health care. Biden’s record on abortion rights includes past support for the Hyde amendment, which bars the use of federal funds to pay for abortion, but Biden reversed his position on Hyde last June. Biden gave confusing answers about reproductive care during his New York Times candidate interview, claiming that there are organizations that allow people to get abortions for free. But as New York Times reporter Lauren Kelley noted, it’s unclear what programs Biden meant, apart from small, grassroots abortion funds. (Planned Parenthood is a medical provider which accepts insurance, but they do not provide abortions for free without insurance). Biden also did not answer when asked by The Times if he would make misoprostol and mifepristone — medication abortion — available over the counter.
Disability Rights
On disability rights, Biden also has yet to articulate a strong way forward. Biden does not have a dedicated disability plan — while the Democratic field was still plentiful, this stood out in particular as he was the only leading candidate without one. In the absence of a dedicated plan, a page on his campaign website includes snippets from his other plans, such as the “Biden Plan for Older Americans,” the “Biden Plan for Strengthening America’s Commitment to Justice” and his plans on health care and education. Biden would do well to borrow the strong elements of the Sanders plan on disability, such as the elimination of the explicit marriage penalty currently endured by U.S. residents receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI), a program for people who are blind, disabled and/or over 65 years old. If two SSI recipients get married, their benefits are cut by 25 percent; if an SSI recipient lives with another person and shares household expenses, it’s considered an “in-kind” source of income, and SSI benefits are reduced.
Criminal Legal Policy
Biden has attempted to re-write his legacy as one of the main champions of the 1994 crime bill, and you can see this in his platform on criminal legal issues. He supports ending cash bail and the federal government’s use of private prisons, and would pressure states to do the same. He supports eliminating the very mandatory minimums he was in part responsible for creating (with his Anti-Drug Abuse Act that created sentencing disparities between cocaine and crack). But he remains to the right of the progressives on several key issues. He thinks marijuana should be decriminalized, not legalized. Biden opposes extending the right to vote to people who are incarcerated; Sanders would enfranchise everyone. Sanders wants to end solitary confinement; Biden would preserve it in certain cases like “protecting the life of an imprisoned person,” though his website does not explain why that would be necessary.
Immigration
Biden doesn’t support decriminalizing border-crossing and other immigration violations. When asked by The Washington Post where he stood on abolishing or restructuring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Biden did not answer. Biden has faced pressure from immigrant rights groups like the undocumented youth-led United We Dream Action, whose Free to Move, Free to Stay platform calls for a moratorium on deportations in the first 100 days. In February, he finally committed to a moratorium on deportations, but has said he would make an exception for those who commit felonies. Sanders was the first to commit to a moratorium, but the campaign has partially walked it back, saying that Sanders would still deport “violent criminals.”
Democratic Process Reforms
Biden declined to participate in the grassroots, constituent-engagement group Indivisible’s scorecard, so the group used his public record to rank him on their “Day 1 Democracy Agenda,” a marker of a candidate’s willingness to tackle the challenges of the Senate filibuster. Biden earned less than 50 percent, as he is actively opposed to eliminating the filibuster or expanding the Supreme Court.
Judicial Seats
Should the Democrats win in November, they will face a challenge in a judicial system stacked with 187 new Trump appointments. Biden infamously said that Republicans would have an “epiphany” once Trump is out of office, and work with Democrats again. But at a Federalist Society dinner, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the most consequential decision he’s ever made was his decision not to let President Barack Obama fill Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat.
Housing and Homelessness
Indivisible’s questionnaire wasn’t the only one that Biden did not answer. He also did not respond to a housing and homelessness questionnaire from The New York Times (the only other candidate not to respond was Rep. Tulsi Gabbard). The housing plan on Biden’s website is paltry compared to that of the remaining candidates. Biden proposes a $100 billion affordable housing fund, including $65 billion in “incentives” to construct or rehabilitate affordable housing. But the phrase “public housing” doesn’t appear once in the plan, and it’s unclear how much in the incentives are meant to deal with the estimated $70 billion backlog in repairs needed to public housing, following decades of underinvestment. Just as with his health care plan, the focus in Biden’s housing plan is more on incentives to the private market than on large-scale investment by the government in public goods. By contrast, Sanders’s housing plan proposes $2.5 trillion in funding to build nearly 10 million permanently affordable housing units.
Climate Policy
Biden’s climate plan is a moderate vision that is mostly a continuation of Obama-era policies — which climate activists feel are not urgent enough to address the climate crisis. Biden is not in favor of banning fracking, though he does call for a ban on oil and gas development on public lands — something Elizabeth Warren was the first to call for. Biden is bullish on carbon capture and sequestration, which the climate organization Oil Change International has criticized, as it’s a long way from being commercially viable.
In a reversal of his past policy, Biden is now calling for increasing corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards, which requires car and light-truck manufacturers to improve efficiency. During his time in the Senate, however, Biden voted against CAFE standards five times. Biden signed the No Fossil Fuel Money pledge, but Friends of the Earth noted he took money from fossil fuel companies days prior to signing the pledge, and attended a fundraiser with a co-founder of a fossil fuel company.
Resistance to Pressure From Grassroots Movements
If Biden ends up becoming the Democratic nominee, progressive activists will be faced with the task of trying to push many of these more centrist policies to the left, but thus far Biden has not responded well to such pressure when challenged. When confronted by activists from the Sunrise Movement — a grassroots movement of young people fighting to stop the climate crisis that also has a political action organization to support progressive candidates — Biden held and shook the wrists of activist Michaelyn Mankel and told activist Lily Levin “look at my record, child.” And when immigration activist Carlos Rojas asked Biden about the 3 million people deported during the Obama administration, Biden said, “You should vote for Trump.”
Biden’s responses when bird-dogged by activists do not inspire much confidence that he has any interest in listening to pressure from movements. Taken together with his moderate policy positions — many of which are focused on the same “incentivize the private market” approach that’s failed to create lasting, transformational change — it’s no wonder that this unwillingness to hear criticism is a source of concern for many progressives.
This is a dramatic turnaround from the projections just a week ago, which suggested that Sanders had a more than 10-point lead in national polling.
Given the sudden rise in Biden’s prospects, it’s an important moment in which to review his policy platform, which sometimes tends to attract less discussion, perhaps because his policy proposals overall seem to match a claim Biden himself made at a fundraiser in Manhattan last June, when he reassured wealthy donors that unlike more progressive candidates, he wouldn’t call for dramatic transfers of wealth from the 1 percent to the rest of society, and under his leadership “nothing would fundamentally change.”
Health Care Access
Biden has long opposed Medicare for All, arguing last year that it’s better to simply build on the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and more recently saying there isn’t majority support for Medicare for All among Democrats (even though polling shows there is). His plan includes improvements at the margins, such as increasing the tax credits created through the ACA, in order to ensure that the maximum a family pays on the individual market is 8.5 percent of household income. The most progressive element of Biden’s plan is his inclusion of a public option. As a part of his health care plan, Biden proposes rolling back the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy, and increasing the rate investors pay on long-term capital gains (currently at 20 percent) — though he doesn’t specify what the new rate should be.
Abortion Rights and Access
Meanwhile, Biden has not indicated that he has the clarity or decisiveness necessary to beat back current attacks on abortion rights and access to abortion care within the frame of health care. Biden’s record on abortion rights includes past support for the Hyde amendment, which bars the use of federal funds to pay for abortion, but Biden reversed his position on Hyde last June. Biden gave confusing answers about reproductive care during his New York Times candidate interview, claiming that there are organizations that allow people to get abortions for free. But as New York Times reporter Lauren Kelley noted, it’s unclear what programs Biden meant, apart from small, grassroots abortion funds. (Planned Parenthood is a medical provider which accepts insurance, but they do not provide abortions for free without insurance). Biden also did not answer when asked by The Times if he would make misoprostol and mifepristone — medication abortion — available over the counter.
Disability Rights
On disability rights, Biden also has yet to articulate a strong way forward. Biden does not have a dedicated disability plan — while the Democratic field was still plentiful, this stood out in particular as he was the only leading candidate without one. In the absence of a dedicated plan, a page on his campaign website includes snippets from his other plans, such as the “Biden Plan for Older Americans,” the “Biden Plan for Strengthening America’s Commitment to Justice” and his plans on health care and education. Biden would do well to borrow the strong elements of the Sanders plan on disability, such as the elimination of the explicit marriage penalty currently endured by U.S. residents receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI), a program for people who are blind, disabled and/or over 65 years old. If two SSI recipients get married, their benefits are cut by 25 percent; if an SSI recipient lives with another person and shares household expenses, it’s considered an “in-kind” source of income, and SSI benefits are reduced.
Criminal Legal Policy
Biden has attempted to re-write his legacy as one of the main champions of the 1994 crime bill, and you can see this in his platform on criminal legal issues. He supports ending cash bail and the federal government’s use of private prisons, and would pressure states to do the same. He supports eliminating the very mandatory minimums he was in part responsible for creating (with his Anti-Drug Abuse Act that created sentencing disparities between cocaine and crack). But he remains to the right of the progressives on several key issues. He thinks marijuana should be decriminalized, not legalized. Biden opposes extending the right to vote to people who are incarcerated; Sanders would enfranchise everyone. Sanders wants to end solitary confinement; Biden would preserve it in certain cases like “protecting the life of an imprisoned person,” though his website does not explain why that would be necessary.
Immigration
Biden doesn’t support decriminalizing border-crossing and other immigration violations. When asked by The Washington Post where he stood on abolishing or restructuring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Biden did not answer. Biden has faced pressure from immigrant rights groups like the undocumented youth-led United We Dream Action, whose Free to Move, Free to Stay platform calls for a moratorium on deportations in the first 100 days. In February, he finally committed to a moratorium on deportations, but has said he would make an exception for those who commit felonies. Sanders was the first to commit to a moratorium, but the campaign has partially walked it back, saying that Sanders would still deport “violent criminals.”
Democratic Process Reforms
Biden declined to participate in the grassroots, constituent-engagement group Indivisible’s scorecard, so the group used his public record to rank him on their “Day 1 Democracy Agenda,” a marker of a candidate’s willingness to tackle the challenges of the Senate filibuster. Biden earned less than 50 percent, as he is actively opposed to eliminating the filibuster or expanding the Supreme Court.
Judicial Seats
Should the Democrats win in November, they will face a challenge in a judicial system stacked with 187 new Trump appointments. Biden infamously said that Republicans would have an “epiphany” once Trump is out of office, and work with Democrats again. But at a Federalist Society dinner, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the most consequential decision he’s ever made was his decision not to let President Barack Obama fill Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat.
Housing and Homelessness
Indivisible’s questionnaire wasn’t the only one that Biden did not answer. He also did not respond to a housing and homelessness questionnaire from The New York Times (the only other candidate not to respond was Rep. Tulsi Gabbard). The housing plan on Biden’s website is paltry compared to that of the remaining candidates. Biden proposes a $100 billion affordable housing fund, including $65 billion in “incentives” to construct or rehabilitate affordable housing. But the phrase “public housing” doesn’t appear once in the plan, and it’s unclear how much in the incentives are meant to deal with the estimated $70 billion backlog in repairs needed to public housing, following decades of underinvestment. Just as with his health care plan, the focus in Biden’s housing plan is more on incentives to the private market than on large-scale investment by the government in public goods. By contrast, Sanders’s housing plan proposes $2.5 trillion in funding to build nearly 10 million permanently affordable housing units.
Climate Policy
Biden’s climate plan is a moderate vision that is mostly a continuation of Obama-era policies — which climate activists feel are not urgent enough to address the climate crisis. Biden is not in favor of banning fracking, though he does call for a ban on oil and gas development on public lands — something Elizabeth Warren was the first to call for. Biden is bullish on carbon capture and sequestration, which the climate organization Oil Change International has criticized, as it’s a long way from being commercially viable.
In a reversal of his past policy, Biden is now calling for increasing corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards, which requires car and light-truck manufacturers to improve efficiency. During his time in the Senate, however, Biden voted against CAFE standards five times. Biden signed the No Fossil Fuel Money pledge, but Friends of the Earth noted he took money from fossil fuel companies days prior to signing the pledge, and attended a fundraiser with a co-founder of a fossil fuel company.
Resistance to Pressure From Grassroots Movements
If Biden ends up becoming the Democratic nominee, progressive activists will be faced with the task of trying to push many of these more centrist policies to the left, but thus far Biden has not responded well to such pressure when challenged. When confronted by activists from the Sunrise Movement — a grassroots movement of young people fighting to stop the climate crisis that also has a political action organization to support progressive candidates — Biden held and shook the wrists of activist Michaelyn Mankel and told activist Lily Levin “look at my record, child.” And when immigration activist Carlos Rojas asked Biden about the 3 million people deported during the Obama administration, Biden said, “You should vote for Trump.”
Biden’s responses when bird-dogged by activists do not inspire much confidence that he has any interest in listening to pressure from movements. Taken together with his moderate policy positions — many of which are focused on the same “incentivize the private market” approach that’s failed to create lasting, transformational change — it’s no wonder that this unwillingness to hear criticism is a source of concern for many progressives.
Trump Is a Disaster for Abortion Rights — but Joe Biden Can’t Be Trusted to Fight for Choice
Natasha Lennard - the intercept
March 7 2020, 4:00 a.m.
THE SUPREME COURT is currently deliberating a case that threatens to further retrench already imperiled abortion rights in the U.S. Louisiana is fighting to uphold a law requiring doctors at abortion clinics to also have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. Under the bogus guise of patient safety concerns — abortion is one of the safest common medical procedures — the law would make ever scarcer access to legal abortions in the state and, if sanctioned by the Supreme Court, the country.
Despite the fact that the court struck down a nearly identical Texas law in 2016, the presence of misogynist Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch — both President Donald Trump appointments — on today’s conservative bench could see the established legal precedent rejected in favor of anti-abortion ideology. In restrictive states like Mississippi, medical abortions are already de facto inaccessible; now the reactionary dream of legally entrenching that inaccessibility — overturning Roe v. Wade — is closer to becoming a reality.
Abortion rights will likely not survive another term under Trump. Even under a Democratic president, the current makeup of the Supreme Court will continue to pose a grave threat. That is the bleak terrain in which voters who care about reproductive rights need to consider the Democratic presidential nominees. They must look for someone who offers an unwavering commitment to not only protect the right to abortion, but to make the choice to terminate a pregnancy a readily available option for all.
And that is what’s so concerning about the frontrunner, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his record on abortion rights. He is worse than inconsistent — and his rise should concern anyone who believes that reproductive rights and choice are essential to social justice.
DURING A FEBRUARY Democratic primary debate, Biden aligned himself with the other candidates on stage by calling for the protection of abortion rights. Alongside Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the former vice president said that if the Supreme Court were to overturn Roe, he would put forward legislation to uphold the law’s protections.
“If they ruled it to be unconstitutional, I will send to the United States Congress, and it will pass I believe, a bill that legislates Roe v. Wade adjusted by Casey,” Biden said, referring to a later Supreme Court case that prohibited undue burdens on abortion rights. “It’s a woman’s right to do that. Period.”
That “period,” however, has for much of Biden’s career been a comma — a qualified and compromised support of abortion’s legality at best, and a commitment to limit funding for abortions at worse. Up until last summer, Biden supported the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for abortion under programs like Medicaid, enforcing a hideous denial of affordable care to poor people.
One might generously frame Biden’s changing stance on abortion as a righteous journey, navigating his Catholic faith with a willingness to learn and change in the interest of women’s rights. As vice president, Biden actively worked to undermine reproductive rights by trying to cut mandated coverage for contraception from the Affordable Care Act.
His reversal on the Hyde Amendment last year, meanwhile, smacked of electoral expediency: On June 5, Biden’s campaign said that he continued to support the law. He received immediate censure from activists, other lawmakers, and his opponents for the Democratic nomination. The very next night, at a Democratic National Committee gala in Atlanta, Biden said he no longer supported the ban on federal funding for abortions.
Biden claimed that recent Republican anti-abortion efforts around the country prompted his change of position. But widespread abortion restriction laws have hacked away at abortion access for years — including throughout President Barack Obama’s tenure — and Biden’s support of the Hyde Amendment did not shift.
“I can no longer support an amendment that makes that right dependent on someone’s ZIP code,” Biden later said, explaining his about-face. He had, however, managed to support such legislation for nearly a decade after the Center for Constitutional Rights reported in 2010 that, since the Hyde Amendment passed in 1976, more than a million women have been unable to afford abortions and had to carry unwanted pregnancies to term. Of his many years supporting the dangerous and discriminatory law, Biden said he made “no apologies for the last position.”
ABORTION IS, OF course, only one among a number of crucial issues on which Biden has a poor record, riddled with discriminatory positions; he worked with segregationists and helped bolster racist mass incarceration. Contrary to claims in his current campaign ads, he has argued for cuts to Social Security throughout much of his career. And, as I wrote last year, Biden’s pathetic excuse for an apology to Anita Hill was decades too late, insufficient, and transparently timed around the launch of his presidential campaign; it was further evidence that he will not address the power structures that enable patriarchal sexual abuse to prevail.
Biden’s supporters, meanwhile, highlight his record against sexual violence to parry allegations of misogynist behavior. He championed the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, which introduced crucial provisions for domestic violence victims, like rape crisis centers, the National Domestic Violence Hotline, and battered women’s shelters.
Biden should be commended for this. It should not be forgotten, however, that the Violence Against Women Act was tucked inside the pernicious 1994 crime bill, which he helped draft; support for the provisions on violence against women went a long way toward gaining liberal backing for the broader bill. In other words, even Biden’s proudest legacy when it comes to addressing sexual violence must be considered in the context of his efforts to bolster the violent, racist criminal justice system.
The former vice president’s very recent shift to support abortion access should be measured against his long history of compromise, and indeed complicity, with Republican agendas. A politician who treats such compromise as moral value in and of itself should not be trusted to fight hard for an issue on which he’s shown unacceptably wavering commitments. The risk to too many people’s lives, health, and well-being — particularly the risk to poor women of color — is too high to allow the decimation of abortion access to proceed. He would make an insufficient bulwark against the conservative anti-abortion tides.
What delineates robust from weak support for abortion rights is an understanding that the issue of abortion intersects with structural questions of economic and racial equality, health care access, and how society treats gestational labor. A promise to protect Roe is insufficient to defend abortion rights, which require abortion access to be meaningful. That sort of commitment seems unlikely to come from the man who, in 1973, said that the Supreme Court had gone “too far” in its Roe v. Wade ruling.
Despite the fact that the court struck down a nearly identical Texas law in 2016, the presence of misogynist Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch — both President Donald Trump appointments — on today’s conservative bench could see the established legal precedent rejected in favor of anti-abortion ideology. In restrictive states like Mississippi, medical abortions are already de facto inaccessible; now the reactionary dream of legally entrenching that inaccessibility — overturning Roe v. Wade — is closer to becoming a reality.
Abortion rights will likely not survive another term under Trump. Even under a Democratic president, the current makeup of the Supreme Court will continue to pose a grave threat. That is the bleak terrain in which voters who care about reproductive rights need to consider the Democratic presidential nominees. They must look for someone who offers an unwavering commitment to not only protect the right to abortion, but to make the choice to terminate a pregnancy a readily available option for all.
And that is what’s so concerning about the frontrunner, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his record on abortion rights. He is worse than inconsistent — and his rise should concern anyone who believes that reproductive rights and choice are essential to social justice.
DURING A FEBRUARY Democratic primary debate, Biden aligned himself with the other candidates on stage by calling for the protection of abortion rights. Alongside Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the former vice president said that if the Supreme Court were to overturn Roe, he would put forward legislation to uphold the law’s protections.
“If they ruled it to be unconstitutional, I will send to the United States Congress, and it will pass I believe, a bill that legislates Roe v. Wade adjusted by Casey,” Biden said, referring to a later Supreme Court case that prohibited undue burdens on abortion rights. “It’s a woman’s right to do that. Period.”
That “period,” however, has for much of Biden’s career been a comma — a qualified and compromised support of abortion’s legality at best, and a commitment to limit funding for abortions at worse. Up until last summer, Biden supported the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for abortion under programs like Medicaid, enforcing a hideous denial of affordable care to poor people.
One might generously frame Biden’s changing stance on abortion as a righteous journey, navigating his Catholic faith with a willingness to learn and change in the interest of women’s rights. As vice president, Biden actively worked to undermine reproductive rights by trying to cut mandated coverage for contraception from the Affordable Care Act.
His reversal on the Hyde Amendment last year, meanwhile, smacked of electoral expediency: On June 5, Biden’s campaign said that he continued to support the law. He received immediate censure from activists, other lawmakers, and his opponents for the Democratic nomination. The very next night, at a Democratic National Committee gala in Atlanta, Biden said he no longer supported the ban on federal funding for abortions.
Biden claimed that recent Republican anti-abortion efforts around the country prompted his change of position. But widespread abortion restriction laws have hacked away at abortion access for years — including throughout President Barack Obama’s tenure — and Biden’s support of the Hyde Amendment did not shift.
“I can no longer support an amendment that makes that right dependent on someone’s ZIP code,” Biden later said, explaining his about-face. He had, however, managed to support such legislation for nearly a decade after the Center for Constitutional Rights reported in 2010 that, since the Hyde Amendment passed in 1976, more than a million women have been unable to afford abortions and had to carry unwanted pregnancies to term. Of his many years supporting the dangerous and discriminatory law, Biden said he made “no apologies for the last position.”
ABORTION IS, OF course, only one among a number of crucial issues on which Biden has a poor record, riddled with discriminatory positions; he worked with segregationists and helped bolster racist mass incarceration. Contrary to claims in his current campaign ads, he has argued for cuts to Social Security throughout much of his career. And, as I wrote last year, Biden’s pathetic excuse for an apology to Anita Hill was decades too late, insufficient, and transparently timed around the launch of his presidential campaign; it was further evidence that he will not address the power structures that enable patriarchal sexual abuse to prevail.
Biden’s supporters, meanwhile, highlight his record against sexual violence to parry allegations of misogynist behavior. He championed the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, which introduced crucial provisions for domestic violence victims, like rape crisis centers, the National Domestic Violence Hotline, and battered women’s shelters.
Biden should be commended for this. It should not be forgotten, however, that the Violence Against Women Act was tucked inside the pernicious 1994 crime bill, which he helped draft; support for the provisions on violence against women went a long way toward gaining liberal backing for the broader bill. In other words, even Biden’s proudest legacy when it comes to addressing sexual violence must be considered in the context of his efforts to bolster the violent, racist criminal justice system.
The former vice president’s very recent shift to support abortion access should be measured against his long history of compromise, and indeed complicity, with Republican agendas. A politician who treats such compromise as moral value in and of itself should not be trusted to fight hard for an issue on which he’s shown unacceptably wavering commitments. The risk to too many people’s lives, health, and well-being — particularly the risk to poor women of color — is too high to allow the decimation of abortion access to proceed. He would make an insufficient bulwark against the conservative anti-abortion tides.
What delineates robust from weak support for abortion rights is an understanding that the issue of abortion intersects with structural questions of economic and racial equality, health care access, and how society treats gestational labor. A promise to protect Roe is insufficient to defend abortion rights, which require abortion access to be meaningful. That sort of commitment seems unlikely to come from the man who, in 1973, said that the Supreme Court had gone “too far” in its Roe v. Wade ruling.
A REAL CHOICE BETWEEN TWO EVILS!!!
a racist collaborator, biden, vs a racist traitor, trump, wow!!!
Black voters know Joe Biden’s checkered past on racial justice — here’s why they back him anyway
March 4, 2020
By Brad Reed - raw story
Former Vice President Joe Biden scored several important victories on Super Tuesday, and exit polls show they were powered by strong support among black voters.
This comes despite the fact that Biden in the past was an opponent of busing initiatives designed to make schools more racially integrated, and was also an author of the 1994 crime bill that criminal justice advocates say played a role in exacerbating the mass incarceration of black Americans.
Boston Globe columnist Renée Graham argues that black Biden supporters know full well about his less-than-stellar past on racial justice issues, but he says they still have good reasons to support him in the 2020 Democratic primary.
Among other things, Graham says that black voters believe that Biden is their best bet to defeat President Donald Trump, and they don’t trust white voters to actually back a more progressive candidate such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) or Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
“I like [Warren and Sanders], but I don’t see them winning, because I think they’re too progressive for a lot of white people in his country,” one South Carolina voter tells Graham. “I don’t think white people generally vote in a way that will benefit them if it also benefits Black people.”
Graham said that this sentiment was very common among the voters he recently spoke with in South Carolina, and he didn’t blame anyone who believed Sanders or Warren was too risky.
“I don’t believe Biden is the strongest candidate,” he writes toward the end of his column. “He was not the person I voted for to rectify the unchecked injustices that paved the way for Trump. His record on racial issues is profoundly flawed. Yet I certainly understand, especially among older Black people (76 percent over 60 voted for Biden), those who see the former vice president as the best hope to reclaim the White House.”
Read the whole column here.
RELATED: 'DEEP PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS': IOE BIDEN'S SIX SEGREGATIONIST FRIENDS
RELATED: Biden worked with segregationists on racial issues
RELATED: Joe Biden’s Segregationist Controversy: What You Need to Know
This comes despite the fact that Biden in the past was an opponent of busing initiatives designed to make schools more racially integrated, and was also an author of the 1994 crime bill that criminal justice advocates say played a role in exacerbating the mass incarceration of black Americans.
Boston Globe columnist Renée Graham argues that black Biden supporters know full well about his less-than-stellar past on racial justice issues, but he says they still have good reasons to support him in the 2020 Democratic primary.
Among other things, Graham says that black voters believe that Biden is their best bet to defeat President Donald Trump, and they don’t trust white voters to actually back a more progressive candidate such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) or Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
“I like [Warren and Sanders], but I don’t see them winning, because I think they’re too progressive for a lot of white people in his country,” one South Carolina voter tells Graham. “I don’t think white people generally vote in a way that will benefit them if it also benefits Black people.”
Graham said that this sentiment was very common among the voters he recently spoke with in South Carolina, and he didn’t blame anyone who believed Sanders or Warren was too risky.
“I don’t believe Biden is the strongest candidate,” he writes toward the end of his column. “He was not the person I voted for to rectify the unchecked injustices that paved the way for Trump. His record on racial issues is profoundly flawed. Yet I certainly understand, especially among older Black people (76 percent over 60 voted for Biden), those who see the former vice president as the best hope to reclaim the White House.”
Read the whole column here.
RELATED: 'DEEP PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS': IOE BIDEN'S SIX SEGREGATIONIST FRIENDS
RELATED: Biden worked with segregationists on racial issues
RELATED: Joe Biden’s Segregationist Controversy: What You Need to Know
op - ed: Biden’s Flip-Flop on Free Higher Education Exposes His Hypocrisy
BY John K. Wilson, Truthout
PUBLISHED January 30, 2020
One key debate in the Democratic primary is the question of free public higher education. While Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have proposed free public college for all, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg has supported the idea for families making less than $150,000, and former Vice President Joe Biden has positioned himself as a centrist who rejects these plans and instead adopts the Obama approach of free community college.
What makes this stand particularly strange is that Biden used to support free higher education before he opposed it. Back in 2015, Biden declared: “We need to commit to 16 years of free public education for all our children.” Now, Biden opposes his own plan.
There is no good reason for Biden’s flip-flop. Recent research has exposed some of the flaws of Biden’s new approach. A study by the Brookings Institution found that free community college increases the number of two-year degrees but actually reduces the completion of bachelor’s degrees, while free public college is the most likely way to increase four-year college graduates overall.
Biden’s Attack on Professors
Biden has a problem with professors. That may seem strange for a man married to a college professor, who is himself a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and before that, spent 17 years as an adjunct law professor. There are few presidential candidates in recent history with a stronger personal link to higher education than Biden.
Yet, Biden has blamed professors for the high price of higher education, which may help explain why he grew to oppose free higher education. In 2012, Biden spoke at a Pennsylvania high school and responded to a question about rising college tuition rates. He said the cause in part was that “salaries for college professors have escalated significantly.” Biden even repeated the claim later that year, saying, “They should be good, but they have escalated significantly.”
No, they have not escalated significantly. The opposite is true. Public college professors have experienced some of the worst salary declines of any educated profession in recent decades. Accounting for inflation, from 1970 to 2017, the average salary of full-time professors at public colleges grew only 1.6 percent over 47 years.
If you factor in the massive growth of part-time faculty, the typical professor makes less than they did a half-century ago — and substantially less at public colleges. Among college instructors, part-time faculty were 24 percent of the academic labor force in 1975, but grew to 40 percent by 2015. So even if salaries for full-time professors had skyrocketed — and they haven’t — the typical college teacher would still be suffering in their wages.
Biden’s error was particularly shocking because his wife, Jill, is the only Second Lady to work in a salaried position while her husband was in office, making an average of $83,000 a year as an English professor at Northern Virginia Community College, after many years of being a low-paid adjunct.
Biden Blames Financial Aid for College Tuition Hikes
As vice president, Biden showed a shocking lack of understanding about the forces affecting college tuition. Biden indicated in 2012 that he might agree with those who claim federal financial aid was partly responsible for increasing tuition, and even hinted at some radical action in response: “There’s even discussion saying that if you continue to escalate tuition beyond inflation, then we are not going to allow students to attend your universities based upon Pell Grants and/or on college assistance that they get. We’re not there yet, that’s pretty draconian, but that’s the extremes people are talking about.” The fact that Biden would even entertain such an extreme and misguided approach to college tuition indicates how flawed his approach to college affordability is.
Biden also asserted in 2012 that the structure of higher education tuition benefits both the very wealthy and “the very poor, because they don’t have to pay anything if they get there.” In reality, wealthy students are more likely than the very poor to get private scholarships, and most poor students attend poorer public colleges where it’s rare to receive a full scholarship, while the declining value of Pell Grants and inadequate state funding make college harder to afford. Biden’s deeply mistaken belief that the very poor don’t “pay anything” for college seems to guide his limited support for more federal higher education funding.
Biden Becomes a Celebrity Professor
There was a small piece of truth in Biden’s big lie in 2012 about what professors are paid, when he explained that there is “a lot of competition for the finest professors. They all want the Nobel laureates.” Celebrity professors (such as Nobel winners and former vice presidents) are highly sought after by colleges for their status, and are indeed highly paid even if they don’t do any work. But that points to an element of hypocrisy for Biden: He’s become one of those celebrity professors who don’t teach any classes that he blames for higher tuition.
For 17 years, Biden regularly taught a Saturday class as an adjunct law professor at Widener University, making about $10,000 per course. In 2003, Biden wanted to quit because he was too busy with his Senate duties, but Widener convinced him to co-teach the Saturday class with Professor Robert Hayman, while continuing to pay the same salary to Biden. From 2003 to 2008, Biden was team-teaching the class with Hayman, showing up for at least half of the class sessions, while Hayman ran the class and proposed the grades for the students with Biden’s approval.
In 2008, Biden was announced as Barack Obama’s choice for vice president when his class was just starting, so he was reportedly unable to attend more than one class session before the election. Hayden told Truthout in an email that he and Biden “co-taught two classes after the election.” Yet Biden’s tax returns for 2008 indicate that he was paid his full salary for a class he mostly skipped. No wonder Biden thinks professors are overpaid.
Being paid over $10,000 for showing up to three class sessions was a bargain compared to how Biden has recently used his celebrity status to make big bucks in higher education. In 2017, Biden was named as the Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, which also created the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, D.C. Biden taught no classes, and according to his spokesperson, only spent one day a week at the D.C. Center.
Biden was so rarely seen at the university in Philadelphia that “Joe Biden visited campus on Tuesday” was an actual headline in the student newspaper last year. So far, Biden and the University of Pennsylvania have refused to reveal how much he and his close advisors working at the center are paid.
Biden also has entered the high-priced world of celebrity speakers at college campuses. He was paid $190,000 for an October 2018 speech at the University of Buffalo, plus $10,000 in travel expenses, a teleprompter and a “VIP hotel suite.” There are some adjuncts who teach an entire course for just 1 percent of what Biden makes talking for half an hour with a 45-minute Q&A.
But Biden is sensitive about the appearance of speaking for large fees. At the University of Utah in December 2018, Biden refused his $100,000 speaking fee after finding out the money would come from state funds, although the university still had to charter a private plane for Biden and buy 1,000 copies of his book. As Biden enjoys the privileges of being part of the wealthy elite, his concern for opening up higher education for all seems to have faded.
The Problem of Inequality in Higher Education
It turns out that academia looks a lot like the U.S. For nearly half a century, the very rich in higher education have gotten much richer, while the middle class has stagnated and the working poor have suffered. And inequality has dramatically increased. Professors at elite private colleges are doing better than ever. And faculty in fields that appeal to the rich, such as business and economics, have seen their salaries escalate dramatically. Biden likes to brand himself as “Middle-Class Joe,” but he has become the embodiment of privilege as a celebrity professor at an elite university teaching no classes.
Biden has never retracted his 2012 attack on professors. He needs to explain why he thought professors were overpaid, and if he still believes this. He needs to reveal his own salary, as well as how much money the University of Pennsylvania spent on a center devoted to promoting Biden’s political ambitions while he prepared to run for president.
Biden also needs to explain why he is rejecting his 2015 proposal to support four years of free public college education. He needs to show that he understands the deep inequality within higher education that he is a part of, and provide better plans to fix it.
College affordability is a crucial issue to many voters, and an important factor in the U.S.’s growing inequality. In 2015, Biden declared, “[W]e have to level the playing field for the American people” and “ make the same commitment to a college education today that we made to a high school education a hundred years ago.” If Biden won’t listen to what he used to believe, and follow the other leading Democratic candidates in advocating free public higher education, he may lose support from voters who want a candidate who can live up to Biden’s past vision for the U.S.
RELATED: Scientists Refute Biden’s Claim That No Scientists Think Green New Deal Can Work
What makes this stand particularly strange is that Biden used to support free higher education before he opposed it. Back in 2015, Biden declared: “We need to commit to 16 years of free public education for all our children.” Now, Biden opposes his own plan.
There is no good reason for Biden’s flip-flop. Recent research has exposed some of the flaws of Biden’s new approach. A study by the Brookings Institution found that free community college increases the number of two-year degrees but actually reduces the completion of bachelor’s degrees, while free public college is the most likely way to increase four-year college graduates overall.
Biden’s Attack on Professors
Biden has a problem with professors. That may seem strange for a man married to a college professor, who is himself a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and before that, spent 17 years as an adjunct law professor. There are few presidential candidates in recent history with a stronger personal link to higher education than Biden.
Yet, Biden has blamed professors for the high price of higher education, which may help explain why he grew to oppose free higher education. In 2012, Biden spoke at a Pennsylvania high school and responded to a question about rising college tuition rates. He said the cause in part was that “salaries for college professors have escalated significantly.” Biden even repeated the claim later that year, saying, “They should be good, but they have escalated significantly.”
No, they have not escalated significantly. The opposite is true. Public college professors have experienced some of the worst salary declines of any educated profession in recent decades. Accounting for inflation, from 1970 to 2017, the average salary of full-time professors at public colleges grew only 1.6 percent over 47 years.
If you factor in the massive growth of part-time faculty, the typical professor makes less than they did a half-century ago — and substantially less at public colleges. Among college instructors, part-time faculty were 24 percent of the academic labor force in 1975, but grew to 40 percent by 2015. So even if salaries for full-time professors had skyrocketed — and they haven’t — the typical college teacher would still be suffering in their wages.
Biden’s error was particularly shocking because his wife, Jill, is the only Second Lady to work in a salaried position while her husband was in office, making an average of $83,000 a year as an English professor at Northern Virginia Community College, after many years of being a low-paid adjunct.
Biden Blames Financial Aid for College Tuition Hikes
As vice president, Biden showed a shocking lack of understanding about the forces affecting college tuition. Biden indicated in 2012 that he might agree with those who claim federal financial aid was partly responsible for increasing tuition, and even hinted at some radical action in response: “There’s even discussion saying that if you continue to escalate tuition beyond inflation, then we are not going to allow students to attend your universities based upon Pell Grants and/or on college assistance that they get. We’re not there yet, that’s pretty draconian, but that’s the extremes people are talking about.” The fact that Biden would even entertain such an extreme and misguided approach to college tuition indicates how flawed his approach to college affordability is.
Biden also asserted in 2012 that the structure of higher education tuition benefits both the very wealthy and “the very poor, because they don’t have to pay anything if they get there.” In reality, wealthy students are more likely than the very poor to get private scholarships, and most poor students attend poorer public colleges where it’s rare to receive a full scholarship, while the declining value of Pell Grants and inadequate state funding make college harder to afford. Biden’s deeply mistaken belief that the very poor don’t “pay anything” for college seems to guide his limited support for more federal higher education funding.
Biden Becomes a Celebrity Professor
There was a small piece of truth in Biden’s big lie in 2012 about what professors are paid, when he explained that there is “a lot of competition for the finest professors. They all want the Nobel laureates.” Celebrity professors (such as Nobel winners and former vice presidents) are highly sought after by colleges for their status, and are indeed highly paid even if they don’t do any work. But that points to an element of hypocrisy for Biden: He’s become one of those celebrity professors who don’t teach any classes that he blames for higher tuition.
For 17 years, Biden regularly taught a Saturday class as an adjunct law professor at Widener University, making about $10,000 per course. In 2003, Biden wanted to quit because he was too busy with his Senate duties, but Widener convinced him to co-teach the Saturday class with Professor Robert Hayman, while continuing to pay the same salary to Biden. From 2003 to 2008, Biden was team-teaching the class with Hayman, showing up for at least half of the class sessions, while Hayman ran the class and proposed the grades for the students with Biden’s approval.
In 2008, Biden was announced as Barack Obama’s choice for vice president when his class was just starting, so he was reportedly unable to attend more than one class session before the election. Hayden told Truthout in an email that he and Biden “co-taught two classes after the election.” Yet Biden’s tax returns for 2008 indicate that he was paid his full salary for a class he mostly skipped. No wonder Biden thinks professors are overpaid.
Being paid over $10,000 for showing up to three class sessions was a bargain compared to how Biden has recently used his celebrity status to make big bucks in higher education. In 2017, Biden was named as the Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, which also created the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, D.C. Biden taught no classes, and according to his spokesperson, only spent one day a week at the D.C. Center.
Biden was so rarely seen at the university in Philadelphia that “Joe Biden visited campus on Tuesday” was an actual headline in the student newspaper last year. So far, Biden and the University of Pennsylvania have refused to reveal how much he and his close advisors working at the center are paid.
Biden also has entered the high-priced world of celebrity speakers at college campuses. He was paid $190,000 for an October 2018 speech at the University of Buffalo, plus $10,000 in travel expenses, a teleprompter and a “VIP hotel suite.” There are some adjuncts who teach an entire course for just 1 percent of what Biden makes talking for half an hour with a 45-minute Q&A.
But Biden is sensitive about the appearance of speaking for large fees. At the University of Utah in December 2018, Biden refused his $100,000 speaking fee after finding out the money would come from state funds, although the university still had to charter a private plane for Biden and buy 1,000 copies of his book. As Biden enjoys the privileges of being part of the wealthy elite, his concern for opening up higher education for all seems to have faded.
The Problem of Inequality in Higher Education
It turns out that academia looks a lot like the U.S. For nearly half a century, the very rich in higher education have gotten much richer, while the middle class has stagnated and the working poor have suffered. And inequality has dramatically increased. Professors at elite private colleges are doing better than ever. And faculty in fields that appeal to the rich, such as business and economics, have seen their salaries escalate dramatically. Biden likes to brand himself as “Middle-Class Joe,” but he has become the embodiment of privilege as a celebrity professor at an elite university teaching no classes.
Biden has never retracted his 2012 attack on professors. He needs to explain why he thought professors were overpaid, and if he still believes this. He needs to reveal his own salary, as well as how much money the University of Pennsylvania spent on a center devoted to promoting Biden’s political ambitions while he prepared to run for president.
Biden also needs to explain why he is rejecting his 2015 proposal to support four years of free public college education. He needs to show that he understands the deep inequality within higher education that he is a part of, and provide better plans to fix it.
College affordability is a crucial issue to many voters, and an important factor in the U.S.’s growing inequality. In 2015, Biden declared, “[W]e have to level the playing field for the American people” and “ make the same commitment to a college education today that we made to a high school education a hundred years ago.” If Biden won’t listen to what he used to believe, and follow the other leading Democratic candidates in advocating free public higher education, he may lose support from voters who want a candidate who can live up to Biden’s past vision for the U.S.
RELATED: Scientists Refute Biden’s Claim That No Scientists Think Green New Deal Can Work
JOE BIDEN WANTS TO END PRISON PROFITEERING. ONE OF HIS TOP FUNDRAISERS IS A MAJOR PLAYER IN PRISON HEALTH CARE.
Aída Chávez - the intercept
December 31 2019, 4:53 a.m.
AFTER DECADES of championing legislation that escalated mass incarceration, former Vice President Joe Biden released a criminal justice plan seeking to reverse key provisions of the 1994 crime bill he helped write. The wide-ranging proposal, which he rolled out roughly a week before the second Democratic presidential primary debate in July, would ban private prisons and reduce incarceration. It also takes a clear stance on those who are cashing in on the prison system: “Stop corporations from profiteering off of incarceration,” his website reads.
But one of Biden’s top fundraisers, Michael F. Neidorff, is the CEO and chair of Centene — a health insurance company that’s a major player in the prison health care market. Prisons and facilities in 16 states have contracted out their health care services to Centurion, which is owned by the $60 billion health insurance company, according to its website. This year, Neidorff has also donated to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the reelection campaigns of Republican Sens. David Perdue, Lindsey Graham, and Susan Collins, as well as Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, FEC filings show.
Biden’s platform vows to “end the federal government’s use of private prisons” by building off an Obama-era policy that was rescinded by the Trump administration, along with ending the use of private facilities for any detention, including detention of undocumented immigrants. Neither the Biden campaign nor Centene responded to a request for comment.
“Biden will also make eliminating private prisons and all other methods of profiteering off of incarceration — including diversion programs, commercial bail, and electronic monitoring — a requirement for his new state and local prevention grant program,” his policy plan says. “Finally, Biden will support the passage of legislation to crack down on the practice of private companies charging incarcerated individuals and their families outrageously high fees to make calls.”
Since 2012, more than 20 states have shifted over to private, for-profit firms that provide health services in an effort to cut costs — with tragic consequences. Centene, along with its subsidiaries, has faced numerous lawsuits alleging wrongful deaths in prisons, leaving a pregnant inmate to give birth in a cell, and not providing adequate mental health care to suicidal patients, the Arizona Republic noted. While landing lucrative deals in states like Arizona and Florida, for example, Centene also contributes to the campaigns of politicians in the states it operates in.
Neidorff was identified as a bundler for Biden’s presidential bid late Friday night when the Biden campaign released a list of more than 200 individuals and couples who have brought in at least $25,000 in campaign contributions.
Biden’s other bundlers include notable names from Wall Street and Silicon Valley, in addition to a number of current lawmakers like Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey and Delaware Sen. Chris Coons. South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg released his own list of bundlers earlier this month, and Sen. Kamala Harris did too before dropping out of the race. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who’s on track to raise more money than any other candidate in the crowded Democratic primary field, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren don’t hold big-dollar, closed-door fundraisers, so they aren’t releasing similar lists.
But one of Biden’s top fundraisers, Michael F. Neidorff, is the CEO and chair of Centene — a health insurance company that’s a major player in the prison health care market. Prisons and facilities in 16 states have contracted out their health care services to Centurion, which is owned by the $60 billion health insurance company, according to its website. This year, Neidorff has also donated to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the reelection campaigns of Republican Sens. David Perdue, Lindsey Graham, and Susan Collins, as well as Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, FEC filings show.
Biden’s platform vows to “end the federal government’s use of private prisons” by building off an Obama-era policy that was rescinded by the Trump administration, along with ending the use of private facilities for any detention, including detention of undocumented immigrants. Neither the Biden campaign nor Centene responded to a request for comment.
“Biden will also make eliminating private prisons and all other methods of profiteering off of incarceration — including diversion programs, commercial bail, and electronic monitoring — a requirement for his new state and local prevention grant program,” his policy plan says. “Finally, Biden will support the passage of legislation to crack down on the practice of private companies charging incarcerated individuals and their families outrageously high fees to make calls.”
Since 2012, more than 20 states have shifted over to private, for-profit firms that provide health services in an effort to cut costs — with tragic consequences. Centene, along with its subsidiaries, has faced numerous lawsuits alleging wrongful deaths in prisons, leaving a pregnant inmate to give birth in a cell, and not providing adequate mental health care to suicidal patients, the Arizona Republic noted. While landing lucrative deals in states like Arizona and Florida, for example, Centene also contributes to the campaigns of politicians in the states it operates in.
Neidorff was identified as a bundler for Biden’s presidential bid late Friday night when the Biden campaign released a list of more than 200 individuals and couples who have brought in at least $25,000 in campaign contributions.
Biden’s other bundlers include notable names from Wall Street and Silicon Valley, in addition to a number of current lawmakers like Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey and Delaware Sen. Chris Coons. South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg released his own list of bundlers earlier this month, and Sen. Kamala Harris did too before dropping out of the race. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who’s on track to raise more money than any other candidate in the crowded Democratic primary field, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren don’t hold big-dollar, closed-door fundraisers, so they aren’t releasing similar lists.
The Rude Pundit
Proudly lowering the level of political discourse
12/04/2019
No, Biden: An Argument Against Joe Because of Impeachment
(Usual caveat: I'll vote for a leprous toad if it wins the Democratic nomination, so, yeah, if it's Biden, I'm going for him.)
There's a reason to vote for someone other than Joe Biden in the primaries that has nothing to do with his age, although a rational country should be able to talk openly about the very real degenerative effects of aging, especially as five candidates (Biden, Sanders, Warren, Bloomberg, and Trump) are 70 and up. There's a reason to vote for someone other than Biden that has nothing to do with his gaffes and misspeaks and "malarkey." There's a reason to vote for someone other than Biden that has nothing to do with his moderate-to-conservative views on issues like health care, college tuition, and taxation.
It's simple, really: Joe Biden wants to make nice with Republicans. In fact, he totally believes that, if he wins, he can bring out the shiny-toothed charm offensive, work in partnership with Republicans, and get things done once that awful Donald Trump is gone. Here he is at his CNN Town Hall last month: "With Trump out of the way, I predict to you now, my 89 opponents are running for the nomination are going to say something different. But let me just say, I honest to God believe, with Trump out of the way, you're going to find people screwing up a lot more courage than they had before to say, 'OK, OK, I can -- I can move now, I -- I -- I have more leeway.'" Earlier in November, at a fundraiser, he had said, "With Donald Trump out of the way, you’re going to see a number of my Republican colleagues have an epiphany. Mark my words. Mark my words...It’s going to take two things: One is somebody who in fact, knows how to reach across the aisle and get things done."
Now, it is entirely possible that Biden has some inside skinny on Republicans who tell him that they'll be happy once Uncle Joe has safely taken back the Oval Office from the orange menace, but it's pretty unlikely. These are the same Republicans, especially in the Senate, who refused to pass legislation, negotiate over bills, and blocked a Supreme Court pick for the last Democrat, Barack Obama. Maybe he thinks they'll work with a white Democrat?
Biden believes that his capacity to forgive and forget with Republicans is an asset. But it's a fundamental misreading of Democrats right now, just as Obama misread his victory in 2008. If I've said it once, I've said it a million times: Obama screwed up by not punishing Republicans, especially Bush administration officials, for what they did to the nation with the Iraq War and torture, as well as the financial crisis. He thought that looking forward would get him some credit with the GOP, but, instead, it emboldened them to block Obama's plans, demonize him, and destroy Democratic gains in 2006 and 2008 with the 2010 midterms and the miserable Tea Party. And I happen to think that one reason Obama took this path is because Biden advised him to (I don't have evidence of that, but, man, Biden's talking like someone who's believe this, well, malarkey for a while).
What does this have to do with impeachment? Right now, Republicans are stubbornly refusing to believe what the entire intelligence community of the United States and the Justice Department and congressional committees (even ones led by Republicans) have concluded when it comes to the facts about who was involved in hacking our election, who benefited, and who wants to mess with the election in 2020. Republicans ignore the criminality surrounding Donald Trump and his inner circle. They are enabling those crimes, from the emoluments violations to the bribery to the witness intimidation and more. And they won't lift a finger, as a group or even as individuals, to stop Trump.
I've been writing about politics since the heady days of the Reagan era, and these sons of bitches are going down a dangerous road, one that pulls the rug out from not just the legislative branch, but from the actual laws of the nation. And this is just on impeachment. It doesn't even get into the dangerously unqualified but appropriately nutzoid conservative judges that Mitch McConnell and the GOP-led Senate are rubber-stamping faster than they can keep the ink pad wet. That will pervert the legal system even further than allowing Trump to do whatever crimes he wants.
Republicans have decided to shit where everyone eats. And should Democrats win back the presidency and the Senate, as well as keep the House, Republicans will need to be punished for what they have done and what they are currently doing. That doesn't mean rounding them up and spanking them and telling them that you hope they learned their lesson. It means investigating and prosecuting those who need to be prosecuted (looking at you, Barr and Nunes), censuring and expelling those who deserve it, stripping them of power within the Congress, and undoing as much as can possibly be undone. They are traitors and they need to be treated like traitors.
It'll mean not pretending like Republicans are going to all of a sudden discover their consciences or souls or patriotism or what-the-fuck-ever. It's gonna take a president who wants to fuck their shit up, who wants to consign the party of Trump to history's garbage heap, who wants to burn down their side of the aisle, not reach across it.
By his own words, Joe Biden is obviously incapable of being that president. A president who is incapable of seeing who the enemy is will be unable to stop that enemy and will allow that enemy to regroup and flourish again. And that is reason enough to not vote for Biden.
(Note: I don't know that Democrats as a whole have the stones to clean house the way it needs to be cleaned, but, at the very least, let's have a president who will give it a shot.)
There's a reason to vote for someone other than Joe Biden in the primaries that has nothing to do with his age, although a rational country should be able to talk openly about the very real degenerative effects of aging, especially as five candidates (Biden, Sanders, Warren, Bloomberg, and Trump) are 70 and up. There's a reason to vote for someone other than Biden that has nothing to do with his gaffes and misspeaks and "malarkey." There's a reason to vote for someone other than Biden that has nothing to do with his moderate-to-conservative views on issues like health care, college tuition, and taxation.
It's simple, really: Joe Biden wants to make nice with Republicans. In fact, he totally believes that, if he wins, he can bring out the shiny-toothed charm offensive, work in partnership with Republicans, and get things done once that awful Donald Trump is gone. Here he is at his CNN Town Hall last month: "With Trump out of the way, I predict to you now, my 89 opponents are running for the nomination are going to say something different. But let me just say, I honest to God believe, with Trump out of the way, you're going to find people screwing up a lot more courage than they had before to say, 'OK, OK, I can -- I can move now, I -- I -- I have more leeway.'" Earlier in November, at a fundraiser, he had said, "With Donald Trump out of the way, you’re going to see a number of my Republican colleagues have an epiphany. Mark my words. Mark my words...It’s going to take two things: One is somebody who in fact, knows how to reach across the aisle and get things done."
Now, it is entirely possible that Biden has some inside skinny on Republicans who tell him that they'll be happy once Uncle Joe has safely taken back the Oval Office from the orange menace, but it's pretty unlikely. These are the same Republicans, especially in the Senate, who refused to pass legislation, negotiate over bills, and blocked a Supreme Court pick for the last Democrat, Barack Obama. Maybe he thinks they'll work with a white Democrat?
Biden believes that his capacity to forgive and forget with Republicans is an asset. But it's a fundamental misreading of Democrats right now, just as Obama misread his victory in 2008. If I've said it once, I've said it a million times: Obama screwed up by not punishing Republicans, especially Bush administration officials, for what they did to the nation with the Iraq War and torture, as well as the financial crisis. He thought that looking forward would get him some credit with the GOP, but, instead, it emboldened them to block Obama's plans, demonize him, and destroy Democratic gains in 2006 and 2008 with the 2010 midterms and the miserable Tea Party. And I happen to think that one reason Obama took this path is because Biden advised him to (I don't have evidence of that, but, man, Biden's talking like someone who's believe this, well, malarkey for a while).
What does this have to do with impeachment? Right now, Republicans are stubbornly refusing to believe what the entire intelligence community of the United States and the Justice Department and congressional committees (even ones led by Republicans) have concluded when it comes to the facts about who was involved in hacking our election, who benefited, and who wants to mess with the election in 2020. Republicans ignore the criminality surrounding Donald Trump and his inner circle. They are enabling those crimes, from the emoluments violations to the bribery to the witness intimidation and more. And they won't lift a finger, as a group or even as individuals, to stop Trump.
I've been writing about politics since the heady days of the Reagan era, and these sons of bitches are going down a dangerous road, one that pulls the rug out from not just the legislative branch, but from the actual laws of the nation. And this is just on impeachment. It doesn't even get into the dangerously unqualified but appropriately nutzoid conservative judges that Mitch McConnell and the GOP-led Senate are rubber-stamping faster than they can keep the ink pad wet. That will pervert the legal system even further than allowing Trump to do whatever crimes he wants.
Republicans have decided to shit where everyone eats. And should Democrats win back the presidency and the Senate, as well as keep the House, Republicans will need to be punished for what they have done and what they are currently doing. That doesn't mean rounding them up and spanking them and telling them that you hope they learned their lesson. It means investigating and prosecuting those who need to be prosecuted (looking at you, Barr and Nunes), censuring and expelling those who deserve it, stripping them of power within the Congress, and undoing as much as can possibly be undone. They are traitors and they need to be treated like traitors.
It'll mean not pretending like Republicans are going to all of a sudden discover their consciences or souls or patriotism or what-the-fuck-ever. It's gonna take a president who wants to fuck their shit up, who wants to consign the party of Trump to history's garbage heap, who wants to burn down their side of the aisle, not reach across it.
By his own words, Joe Biden is obviously incapable of being that president. A president who is incapable of seeing who the enemy is will be unable to stop that enemy and will allow that enemy to regroup and flourish again. And that is reason enough to not vote for Biden.
(Note: I don't know that Democrats as a whole have the stones to clean house the way it needs to be cleaned, but, at the very least, let's have a president who will give it a shot.)
Reagan Lives On in Biden
For 40 years, Biden has pushed to cut federal spending. In a recession, don’t expect him to prime the pump.
BY BRANKO MARCETIC - in these times
12/3/19
Amid warnings of a coming global recession, it’s worth asking what the 2020 presidential aspirants would do during an economic downturn. When it comes to Joe Biden, we may already know.
Biden’s formative political years were spent in the shadow of economic crisis. After more than a decade of economic expansion and blissful, carefree consumerism, recession hit in 1973, the same year Biden entered the Senate. Two years later, 2.3 million jobs had disappeared. Americans also had to contend with runaway inflation that reached double digits by 1974. The United States had barely exited that recession when it plunged into another one in the early 1980s, with unemployment climbing past 10% by 1982.
During this economically turbulent decade, Biden fended off Republican challenges to his seat by embracing right-wing doctrine—specifically, that restraining federal spending is more important during economic downturns than priming the pump.
This fiscal austerity would become a core conviction of Biden’s and help animate a lifelong belief that compromise and reaching across the aisle are the perennial solution to what ails America.
Biden had always been a somewhat ambivalent New Deal liberal—fretting about government spending as early as 1975, even as he garnered positive scores from liberal groups for his voting record—but the recession and his time in the halls of power nudged him in a more conservative direction.
“I must acknowledge that when I first came to the U.S. Senate at age 29, not too long out of college, many economists had been telling me why deficit spending was not all that bad,” he told the Senate in 1981.
“So I was not very convinced of the arguments made by my friends here, who I must acknowledge, were mostly on the Republican side of the aisle.” But, he went on, “as I listened over the years in this body, I became more and more a believer in balanced budgets.”
By the close of the 1970s, Biden began calling himself a fiscal conservative and introduced what he called his “spending control legislation”: a bill requiring all federal programs to be reauthorized every four years or automatically expire. He also voted for a large but unsuccessful tax cut introduced by Sen. William Roth, his Republican counterpart.
Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, pioneering the economic program of generosity to the rich and stinginess to the poor that became known as Reaganomics. Biden was right there with him.
Biden, Reagan and other conservatives pushed the flawed idea that the government is like a household and must take drastic measures to pay off debt to stay solvent. Six months into Reagan’s first term, Biden called the reduction of deficit spending “the single most important” path toward “an economically sound future.”
To curtail government spending, Reagan severely scaled back or eliminated federal programs—even as he slashed tax rates for the rich. Biden voted for both (including an updated version of Roth’s failed tax cut). When the president proposed a budget freeze in 1983—to cut the enormous deficits that, ironically, his tax cut helped produce—Biden one-upped him, working with two Republican senators to propose an even more aggressive budget freeze doing away with scheduled cost-of-living increases for Medicare and Social Security.
This idea is contrary to what economists and experience tell us is the proper course of action in times of economic downturn. Economist Joseph Stiglitz credits Obama’s 2009 big-spending stimulus for ameliorating the recession (criticizing it only for being too small) and criticized austerity politics for undermining it. Meanwhile, countries like the United Kingdom and Greece stand as living monuments to the economic ravages of budget cutting during a recession, something even the International Monetary Fund belatedly acknowledged.
The economy under Reagan did recover—even as he slashed programs for the poor and vulnerable, he ramped up defense spending, in effect creating an economic stimulus much larger than what would come in the wake of the Great Recession.
Meanwhile, Biden voted three years in a row for a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget. When the 2008 financial crisis plunged the world into recession, Republicans again called for cuts to entitlement programs. As ever, Biden stretched out a bipartisan hand. As Obama’s lead negotiator during the “grand bargain” negotiations, Biden—to his Democratic colleagues’ horror--capitulated to every one of Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell’s demands, including cuts to Medicare, Social Security and food stamps, and warned in 2013 that, left untouched, deficits “may become a national security issue.”
While that effort collapsed due to Tea Party obstinacy, a President Biden could get one last shot. Following the Reagan playbook, the Trump tax cuts have sent the national debt soaring, and Republicans and conservative groups are now pushing for stringent budget cuts. Biden stands alone among the leading Democratic presidential candidates in his insistence that Democrats can work with McConnell’s GOP. Add a recession into the mix and the temptation to resume what he and Reagan began may be too great. Who says the era of bipartisanship is dead?
Biden’s formative political years were spent in the shadow of economic crisis. After more than a decade of economic expansion and blissful, carefree consumerism, recession hit in 1973, the same year Biden entered the Senate. Two years later, 2.3 million jobs had disappeared. Americans also had to contend with runaway inflation that reached double digits by 1974. The United States had barely exited that recession when it plunged into another one in the early 1980s, with unemployment climbing past 10% by 1982.
During this economically turbulent decade, Biden fended off Republican challenges to his seat by embracing right-wing doctrine—specifically, that restraining federal spending is more important during economic downturns than priming the pump.
This fiscal austerity would become a core conviction of Biden’s and help animate a lifelong belief that compromise and reaching across the aisle are the perennial solution to what ails America.
Biden had always been a somewhat ambivalent New Deal liberal—fretting about government spending as early as 1975, even as he garnered positive scores from liberal groups for his voting record—but the recession and his time in the halls of power nudged him in a more conservative direction.
“I must acknowledge that when I first came to the U.S. Senate at age 29, not too long out of college, many economists had been telling me why deficit spending was not all that bad,” he told the Senate in 1981.
“So I was not very convinced of the arguments made by my friends here, who I must acknowledge, were mostly on the Republican side of the aisle.” But, he went on, “as I listened over the years in this body, I became more and more a believer in balanced budgets.”
By the close of the 1970s, Biden began calling himself a fiscal conservative and introduced what he called his “spending control legislation”: a bill requiring all federal programs to be reauthorized every four years or automatically expire. He also voted for a large but unsuccessful tax cut introduced by Sen. William Roth, his Republican counterpart.
Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, pioneering the economic program of generosity to the rich and stinginess to the poor that became known as Reaganomics. Biden was right there with him.
Biden, Reagan and other conservatives pushed the flawed idea that the government is like a household and must take drastic measures to pay off debt to stay solvent. Six months into Reagan’s first term, Biden called the reduction of deficit spending “the single most important” path toward “an economically sound future.”
To curtail government spending, Reagan severely scaled back or eliminated federal programs—even as he slashed tax rates for the rich. Biden voted for both (including an updated version of Roth’s failed tax cut). When the president proposed a budget freeze in 1983—to cut the enormous deficits that, ironically, his tax cut helped produce—Biden one-upped him, working with two Republican senators to propose an even more aggressive budget freeze doing away with scheduled cost-of-living increases for Medicare and Social Security.
This idea is contrary to what economists and experience tell us is the proper course of action in times of economic downturn. Economist Joseph Stiglitz credits Obama’s 2009 big-spending stimulus for ameliorating the recession (criticizing it only for being too small) and criticized austerity politics for undermining it. Meanwhile, countries like the United Kingdom and Greece stand as living monuments to the economic ravages of budget cutting during a recession, something even the International Monetary Fund belatedly acknowledged.
The economy under Reagan did recover—even as he slashed programs for the poor and vulnerable, he ramped up defense spending, in effect creating an economic stimulus much larger than what would come in the wake of the Great Recession.
Meanwhile, Biden voted three years in a row for a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget. When the 2008 financial crisis plunged the world into recession, Republicans again called for cuts to entitlement programs. As ever, Biden stretched out a bipartisan hand. As Obama’s lead negotiator during the “grand bargain” negotiations, Biden—to his Democratic colleagues’ horror--capitulated to every one of Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell’s demands, including cuts to Medicare, Social Security and food stamps, and warned in 2013 that, left untouched, deficits “may become a national security issue.”
While that effort collapsed due to Tea Party obstinacy, a President Biden could get one last shot. Following the Reagan playbook, the Trump tax cuts have sent the national debt soaring, and Republicans and conservative groups are now pushing for stringent budget cuts. Biden stands alone among the leading Democratic presidential candidates in his insistence that Democrats can work with McConnell’s GOP. Add a recession into the mix and the temptation to resume what he and Reagan began may be too great. Who says the era of bipartisanship is dead?
michael moore calls biden the hillary clinton of 2020, moore is correct!!!
BIDEN TO HOST HIGH-DOLLAR FUNDRAISER WITH PITTSBURGH-AREA REAL ESTATE MOGULS
Akela Lacy - the intercept
October 28 2019, 2:06 p.m.
FORMER VICE PRESIDENT Joe Biden is holding a high-dollar fundraiser next month in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, co-chaired by two of the area’s biggest real estate moguls. Also co-hosting the fundraiser is a health insurance industry executive, three prominent attorneys, and a former Democratic House candidate-turned-writer.
The fundraiser, which the campaign has not publicized, takes place on November 5 at a location the campaign has not disclosed. Individuals can sponsor the event for $2,800 or give at levels of $1,000, $500, or $250. The event’s co-chairs will each help raise $25,000 for the campaign. Co-hosts will help raise $15,000. The Biden campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
While Biden is often still peddled as the party’s front-runner, he has made a series of blunders in debates and public appearances, and his campaign has far less cash on hand than his other Democratic opponents — only about $9 million. And he’s failed to capture the grassroots energy and small donors that have propelled the campaigns of his challengers.
Biden entered the race pledging not to take money from lobbyists, but has held numerous fundraisers with them. He pledged not to take fossil fuel money, but recently held a fundraiser in New York hosted by a fossil fuel executive. And last week, Biden’s campaign reversed its pledge to reject money from super PACs, appearing to endorse a move by several of his prominent supporters to mobilize to establish a political action committee, Bloomberg reported.
One of the co-chairs, Pat Nardelli, told The Intercept it was a good thing Biden “finally agreed” to take money from super PACs. “He has to raise the money. He’s low on the totem pole in raising money to begin with,” Nardelli said. “He decided he wasn’t going to take any lobbying money. So that eliminated a lot of people that can write big checks. So he has to, you know, you gotta raise some funds.”
Jack B. Piatt and Nardelli, both co-chairs, are well-known Pittsburgh-area commercial real estate executives. Nardelli is a founder, manager, and partner at Castlebrook Development. Castlebrook is the developer for Shell’s ethane “cracker” plant in the Beaver Valley, which President Donald Trump visited in August.
Nardelli hasn’t given to Biden’s campaign this cycle, but he plans to. “I will max out at my fundraiser — at the fundraiser,” he told The Intercept. “I think Joe Biden is a great candidate. He’s been a friend of mine since he was in the Senate. … I’ve supported him every time he’s run for anything he’s ever run for.”
Since 2001 he’s contributed $5,000 to Biden’s various campaigns for Senate and gave $4,600 to Biden’s 2007 presidential campaign. Back in 1989, Nardelli gave $1,250 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and he gave $350 to the Republican National Committee in 1997. In 2015, Nardelli gave $2,000 to Kasich For America, Inc., a committee supporting John Kasich’s presidential campaign. In April, Nardelli also gave $2,800 to Tim Ryan, who suspended his campaign last week.
Asked what he thought about Biden campaigning as a voice for the working people while fundraising with corporate executives like himself, Nardelli said he understood the critique but didn’t think it was valid.
Several of the hosts have a history of giving to Republican candidates for president and Congress, and to the Republican campaign arms of both the Senate and House, and to the Republican National Committee. Many of them also gave to Democratic candidates and campaign committees.
Piatt, who has not yet given to Biden this cycle, is the founder and chair of Millcraft Investments, a real estate company based in Pittsburgh. He’s the former director of the Pittsburgh’s Federal Home Loan Bank, and the Pittsburgh branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. He also sits on the board of the St. Clair Hospital Foundation. Piatt also has a history of donating to Republicans in presidential races. He gave $2,700 to Kasich’s 2015 campaign, $1,000 to the committee supporting George W. Bush and Dick Cheney’s 2004 ticket, and $2,300 to Rudy Giuliani’s presidential committee in 2007. Piatt and the other co-hosts did not respond to requests for comment.
Tom VanKirk, one of six co-hosts, including his wife Bonnie, is the executive vice president of Highmark Health, a Pittsburgh-based health care company affiliated with BlueCross BlueShield. It’s one of the largest insurers in the country. Highmark runs as an integrated delivery and finance system, meaning it’s a holding company for health care providers and health care insurers, including nonprofit and for-profit entities. VanKirk oversees the company’s legal affairs. VanKirk is also the former chair and CEO of the firm Buchanan Ingersoll and Rooney PC, where he was a practicing litigator and “corporate adviser to many Fortune 1,000 companies.”
VanKirk is a frequent Democratic donor and has also contributed to numerous Republicans in recent years, including Rep. Kevin McCarthy and Sen. Pat Toomey in 2015.
Doug Campbell is a financial litigation attorney and founding member of Campbell and Levine, LLC, a firm that handles asset protection, bankruptcy and insolvency cases, debt and creditors’ rights, and settlements. Cliff Levine is an attorney and director at Cohen & Grigsby, where he’s represented city and state agencies, political groups, developers, mine operators, environmental nonprofits, colleges and universities, and licensed medical marijuana growers. Both contributed the maximum contribution to Biden’s campaign in April. Reached for comment, Levine directed questions to the Biden campaign. Dusty Kirk is an attorney and partner at Reed Smith, where she leads the firm’s real estate group.
Ray Linsenmayer dropped out of the 2018 primary in Pennsylvania’s 17th District where he was running to the left of now-Rep. Conor Lamb. According to FEC filings, he has not yet given to Biden’s campaign.
The fundraiser, which the campaign has not publicized, takes place on November 5 at a location the campaign has not disclosed. Individuals can sponsor the event for $2,800 or give at levels of $1,000, $500, or $250. The event’s co-chairs will each help raise $25,000 for the campaign. Co-hosts will help raise $15,000. The Biden campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
While Biden is often still peddled as the party’s front-runner, he has made a series of blunders in debates and public appearances, and his campaign has far less cash on hand than his other Democratic opponents — only about $9 million. And he’s failed to capture the grassroots energy and small donors that have propelled the campaigns of his challengers.
Biden entered the race pledging not to take money from lobbyists, but has held numerous fundraisers with them. He pledged not to take fossil fuel money, but recently held a fundraiser in New York hosted by a fossil fuel executive. And last week, Biden’s campaign reversed its pledge to reject money from super PACs, appearing to endorse a move by several of his prominent supporters to mobilize to establish a political action committee, Bloomberg reported.
One of the co-chairs, Pat Nardelli, told The Intercept it was a good thing Biden “finally agreed” to take money from super PACs. “He has to raise the money. He’s low on the totem pole in raising money to begin with,” Nardelli said. “He decided he wasn’t going to take any lobbying money. So that eliminated a lot of people that can write big checks. So he has to, you know, you gotta raise some funds.”
Jack B. Piatt and Nardelli, both co-chairs, are well-known Pittsburgh-area commercial real estate executives. Nardelli is a founder, manager, and partner at Castlebrook Development. Castlebrook is the developer for Shell’s ethane “cracker” plant in the Beaver Valley, which President Donald Trump visited in August.
Nardelli hasn’t given to Biden’s campaign this cycle, but he plans to. “I will max out at my fundraiser — at the fundraiser,” he told The Intercept. “I think Joe Biden is a great candidate. He’s been a friend of mine since he was in the Senate. … I’ve supported him every time he’s run for anything he’s ever run for.”
Since 2001 he’s contributed $5,000 to Biden’s various campaigns for Senate and gave $4,600 to Biden’s 2007 presidential campaign. Back in 1989, Nardelli gave $1,250 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and he gave $350 to the Republican National Committee in 1997. In 2015, Nardelli gave $2,000 to Kasich For America, Inc., a committee supporting John Kasich’s presidential campaign. In April, Nardelli also gave $2,800 to Tim Ryan, who suspended his campaign last week.
Asked what he thought about Biden campaigning as a voice for the working people while fundraising with corporate executives like himself, Nardelli said he understood the critique but didn’t think it was valid.
Several of the hosts have a history of giving to Republican candidates for president and Congress, and to the Republican campaign arms of both the Senate and House, and to the Republican National Committee. Many of them also gave to Democratic candidates and campaign committees.
Piatt, who has not yet given to Biden this cycle, is the founder and chair of Millcraft Investments, a real estate company based in Pittsburgh. He’s the former director of the Pittsburgh’s Federal Home Loan Bank, and the Pittsburgh branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. He also sits on the board of the St. Clair Hospital Foundation. Piatt also has a history of donating to Republicans in presidential races. He gave $2,700 to Kasich’s 2015 campaign, $1,000 to the committee supporting George W. Bush and Dick Cheney’s 2004 ticket, and $2,300 to Rudy Giuliani’s presidential committee in 2007. Piatt and the other co-hosts did not respond to requests for comment.
Tom VanKirk, one of six co-hosts, including his wife Bonnie, is the executive vice president of Highmark Health, a Pittsburgh-based health care company affiliated with BlueCross BlueShield. It’s one of the largest insurers in the country. Highmark runs as an integrated delivery and finance system, meaning it’s a holding company for health care providers and health care insurers, including nonprofit and for-profit entities. VanKirk oversees the company’s legal affairs. VanKirk is also the former chair and CEO of the firm Buchanan Ingersoll and Rooney PC, where he was a practicing litigator and “corporate adviser to many Fortune 1,000 companies.”
VanKirk is a frequent Democratic donor and has also contributed to numerous Republicans in recent years, including Rep. Kevin McCarthy and Sen. Pat Toomey in 2015.
Doug Campbell is a financial litigation attorney and founding member of Campbell and Levine, LLC, a firm that handles asset protection, bankruptcy and insolvency cases, debt and creditors’ rights, and settlements. Cliff Levine is an attorney and director at Cohen & Grigsby, where he’s represented city and state agencies, political groups, developers, mine operators, environmental nonprofits, colleges and universities, and licensed medical marijuana growers. Both contributed the maximum contribution to Biden’s campaign in April. Reached for comment, Levine directed questions to the Biden campaign. Dusty Kirk is an attorney and partner at Reed Smith, where she leads the firm’s real estate group.
Ray Linsenmayer dropped out of the 2018 primary in Pennsylvania’s 17th District where he was running to the left of now-Rep. Conor Lamb. According to FEC filings, he has not yet given to Biden’s campaign.
he is what you thought, nothing!!!
DOCUMENTS SHED NEW LIGHT ON CRITICAL MOMENT IN PETE BUTTIGIEG’S SOUTH BEND POLITICAL CAREER
Ryan Grim - the intercept
September 20 2019, 9:11 a.m.
AFTER TAKING OVER as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, in 2012, Pete Buttigieg made a decision that has dogged his political career ever since: He demanded the resignation of the city’s first black police chief, Darryl Boykins.
Amid outrage from the black community, Boykins quickly rescinded his resignation; Buttigieg instead demoted Boykins to work with the city’s young people and later called his handling of the situation his “first serious mistake as mayor.” At the time, Buttigieg said he fired Boykins for his role in the secret recording of some police phone lines, which federal investigators were looking into.
The recording system had long predated Boykins, who sued the city for racial discrimination, winning a $50,000 settlement. Buttigieg has said he has never been legally able to listen to what is on those secret tape recordings. Karen DePaepe, a city official who listened in on the lines and transferred the conversations to tapes to preserve the ones she thought were most important, said in 2012 that what she overheard suggested seriously unethical behavior by police officers, including the use of racist language in relation to Boykins. DePaepe, the only person known to have listened to significant portions of the controversial recordings, was also fired by Buttigieg for her role in the affair and subsequently sued the city and won a $235,000 settlement; she has not commented on the contents of the tapes since. What was said on them has remained a closely held secret.
On Monday, the Young Turks published the results of an investigation into the Boykins saga, revealing, for the first time, significant details as to what DePaepe said in legal documents and a police report that she heard on the tapes. DePaepe’s allegations can’t be confirmed without listening to the tapes themselves, but sources familiar with the documents confirmed their authenticity to TYT.
In a settlement between the city and Boykins and several police officers in 2013, the parties stipulated “that neither is aware of any evidence of illegal activity by the plaintiffs or any evidence that reveals that the plaintiffs used any racist word against former Police Chief Darryl Boykins.”
DePaepe alleged in legal documents that, over the span of several months, white officers discussed at length a plan to persuade Buttigieg to fire Boykins, using two Buttigieg donors as go-betweens. “It is going to be a fun time when all white people are in charge,” one officer is quoted saying. Both donors denied the charge to TYT, and the officers, said DePaepe, believed that Buttigieg was unaware of their scheme.
DePaepe alleged that some of the officers involved were recorded discussing Boykins in racist terms:
I believed that speaking in ebonics and eluding [sic] that the Chief of Police, because he is black, was covering for black gang members to be a racial slur. I believe this because they were talking in ebonics, and it made me believe they wanted to get rid of Boykins because he was black. No comments were made as to him not performing his duties, just that he protects gang members.
Some of the documents were produced as part of litigation related to the controversy, in response to written questions from city attorneys sent to DePaepe. The other document reviewed by TYT is an internal police report filed by DePaepe.
DePaepe said in the documents that the earliest insight she got into the plan was in February 2011, during the Democratic primary for Buttigieg’s first run for mayor. Despite their lobbying of Buttigieg, the officers didn’t betray much sympathy for him, dubbing him, according to DePaepe, “that little fucking squirt.”
After Buttigieg won the May primary, the lobbying appears to kick into high gear, DePaepe recounted.
In June, according to DePaepe, after an officer talked with Buttigieg, the conclusion was that “Boykins is done.”
He was not done yet, however. Buttigieg met with Boykins after being elected and decided to reappoint him. It wasn’t until the end of March that Buttigieg fired him, citing the federal investigation. The South Bend Tribune noted, however, that federal wiretapping law allows for an exception for law enforcement in the normal course of business. At the time, Buttigieg’s spokesperson responded: “The mayor’s role is to ensure that city departments are well-run and fully compliant. Federal authorities made it clear to the mayor that they found problems and expected corrections, and he acted accordingly.”
Buttigieg has since said that the episode — which unfolded as the city’s residents were marching to protest the killing of Trayvon Martin — strained his relationship to the black community in an enduring way. The small-town mayor has done no better with black voters in his presidential bid, consistently polling close to zero among African Americans.
Amid outrage from the black community, Boykins quickly rescinded his resignation; Buttigieg instead demoted Boykins to work with the city’s young people and later called his handling of the situation his “first serious mistake as mayor.” At the time, Buttigieg said he fired Boykins for his role in the secret recording of some police phone lines, which federal investigators were looking into.
The recording system had long predated Boykins, who sued the city for racial discrimination, winning a $50,000 settlement. Buttigieg has said he has never been legally able to listen to what is on those secret tape recordings. Karen DePaepe, a city official who listened in on the lines and transferred the conversations to tapes to preserve the ones she thought were most important, said in 2012 that what she overheard suggested seriously unethical behavior by police officers, including the use of racist language in relation to Boykins. DePaepe, the only person known to have listened to significant portions of the controversial recordings, was also fired by Buttigieg for her role in the affair and subsequently sued the city and won a $235,000 settlement; she has not commented on the contents of the tapes since. What was said on them has remained a closely held secret.
On Monday, the Young Turks published the results of an investigation into the Boykins saga, revealing, for the first time, significant details as to what DePaepe said in legal documents and a police report that she heard on the tapes. DePaepe’s allegations can’t be confirmed without listening to the tapes themselves, but sources familiar with the documents confirmed their authenticity to TYT.
In a settlement between the city and Boykins and several police officers in 2013, the parties stipulated “that neither is aware of any evidence of illegal activity by the plaintiffs or any evidence that reveals that the plaintiffs used any racist word against former Police Chief Darryl Boykins.”
DePaepe alleged in legal documents that, over the span of several months, white officers discussed at length a plan to persuade Buttigieg to fire Boykins, using two Buttigieg donors as go-betweens. “It is going to be a fun time when all white people are in charge,” one officer is quoted saying. Both donors denied the charge to TYT, and the officers, said DePaepe, believed that Buttigieg was unaware of their scheme.
DePaepe alleged that some of the officers involved were recorded discussing Boykins in racist terms:
I believed that speaking in ebonics and eluding [sic] that the Chief of Police, because he is black, was covering for black gang members to be a racial slur. I believe this because they were talking in ebonics, and it made me believe they wanted to get rid of Boykins because he was black. No comments were made as to him not performing his duties, just that he protects gang members.
Some of the documents were produced as part of litigation related to the controversy, in response to written questions from city attorneys sent to DePaepe. The other document reviewed by TYT is an internal police report filed by DePaepe.
DePaepe said in the documents that the earliest insight she got into the plan was in February 2011, during the Democratic primary for Buttigieg’s first run for mayor. Despite their lobbying of Buttigieg, the officers didn’t betray much sympathy for him, dubbing him, according to DePaepe, “that little fucking squirt.”
After Buttigieg won the May primary, the lobbying appears to kick into high gear, DePaepe recounted.
In June, according to DePaepe, after an officer talked with Buttigieg, the conclusion was that “Boykins is done.”
He was not done yet, however. Buttigieg met with Boykins after being elected and decided to reappoint him. It wasn’t until the end of March that Buttigieg fired him, citing the federal investigation. The South Bend Tribune noted, however, that federal wiretapping law allows for an exception for law enforcement in the normal course of business. At the time, Buttigieg’s spokesperson responded: “The mayor’s role is to ensure that city departments are well-run and fully compliant. Federal authorities made it clear to the mayor that they found problems and expected corrections, and he acted accordingly.”
Buttigieg has since said that the episode — which unfolded as the city’s residents were marching to protest the killing of Trayvon Martin — strained his relationship to the black community in an enduring way. The small-town mayor has done no better with black voters in his presidential bid, consistently polling close to zero among African Americans.
AFTER CLIMATE FORUM, BIDEN HEADS TO A FUNDRAISER CO-HOSTED BY A FOSSIL FUEL EXECUTIVE
Akela Lacy - the intercept
September 4 2019, 2:01 p.m.
THE DAY AFTER Joe Biden participates in CNN’s climate forum in New York, the former vice president will head to a high-dollar fundraiser co-hosted by a founder of a fossil fuel company.
Andrew Goldman, a co-founder of Western LNG, a natural gas production company based in Houston, Texas, is co-hosting one of two high-dollar fundraisers Biden will attend in New York on Thursday. Western’s major project is a floating production facility off the northern coast of British Columbia designed to provide Canadian gas to markets in northeast Asia.
Goldman and Biden have deep ties: Goldman served as an adviser to Biden while he was in the Senate and was the northeast director of finance for Biden’s 2008 campaign. He’s also an executive at the investment banking firm Hildred Capital Partners. He and his partner at the firm, David Solomon, along with their wives Renee and Sarah, will host a private fundraiser for Biden at the Solomon house, CNBC reported. Goldman also co-founded De Cordova Goldman Capital Management, which invested in “natural resources and energy.”
According to the company’s website, Western deploys “innovative floating liquefaction technology at inland locations, specifically those that have existing pipeline access to natural gas basins.” The group says it’s “opening up markets for these resources, which are stranded behind burgeoning shale production.”
Biden’s climate plan sets a goal of getting the United States to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050. The plan cites human activity, including the burning of fossil fuels — like natural gas — as contributing to the greenhouse gas effect, exacerbating climate events, and playing a part in an overall increase in global temperature. Biden initially had proposed a “middle ground” on climate policy. His climate policy adviser, Heather Zichal, meanwhile, made more than a million dollars from a natural gas firm after leaving the Obama administration.
Neither Biden nor Western immediately responded to a request for comment.
Scientists say that a recent increase in the amount of methane — a greenhouse gas more than 30 times stronger than carbon dioxide as far as trapping heat — in Earth’s atmosphere has taken place at the same time that the fracking industry has taken off in the U.S. While an increase in natural gas has coincided with a decrease in reliance on coal-powered plants, scientists still say that an electricity grid based on natural gas will continue to make the planet hotter, and ultimately won’t do anything to head off the ongoing climate emergency.
Most new oil and natural gas wells in the U.S. are hydraulically fractured: a process that blasts chemical fluid into deep-rock formations to create fractures that make it easier to access gas and crude oil. Unless otherwise halted, natural gas is projected to provide the majority of electricity in the U.S. by 2050, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit science advocacy organization. Natural gas currently provides about 35 percent of electricity generated in the U.S.
The rapid expansion of fracking over the past two decades has caused a drastic drop in prices in some parts of the country — but a shortage in others due to a lack of pipelines to transport it — making it more cost-competitive as compared to other energy resources. But some regions of the country have so much excess gas, some of which is produced as a byproduct of oil drilling, that they’re burning it. That itself releases carbon dioxide, but the process of fracking leaks methane gas. Fracking also requires enormous amounts of water; the U.S. Geological Survey estimates between 1.5 million to 16 million gallons per well.
Renewable energy standards will be among the topics the 10 Democratic presidential candidates will discuss during the seven-hour climate-focused forum on Wednesday evening. Only candidates who qualified for the third round of Democratic primary debates will participate: Biden; former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro; Andrew Yang; South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg; former Rep. Beto O’Rourke; and Sens. Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren. Each individual candidate will have around 40 minutes to engage in a town hall-style discussion with CNN moderators and a live audience.
Sanders called for a complete ban on fracking Wednesday afternoon, imploring all other candidates to join him in the proposal he outlined earlier as part of his version of a Green New Deal plan, which builds on the resolution introduced by Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in April.
The Democratic National Committee determined last month not to host a debate focused solely on climate change, despite a series of protests around the country led in part by youth activists with the Sunrise Movement.
Update: September 4, 2019
Biden was asked about the fundraiser during the CNN climate town hall, and initially denied that Goldman is a fossil fuel executive. Anderson Cooper followed up to let him know that Goldman was a co-founder of Western LNG, and Biden said he would look into it. Later in the forum, Cooper clarified to Biden that he had been told Goldman doesn’t have “day-to-day” responsibilities at the firm. Biden said that he was told by staff that Goldman “did not have any responsibility related to the company, but if that turns out to be true, then I will not in any way accept his help.”
After the forum, Symone Sanders, a Biden spokesperson, dug in, insisting that Goldman is not really involved with the firm he co-founded. But Splinter News dug up a Canadian filing from last year that asks, “Please briefly identify the other senior management personnel involved with Western.”
The answer: “Western is managed by a seasoned team of executives experienced in the LNG and related energy infrastructure industries. Western’s co-founder is Andrew Goldman, Chief Investment Officer of Hildred Capital Partners. He is a long-term investor in the liquefied natural gas sector.” An industry press release from 2018 also speaks about Goldman as having a present-tense role in the company and describes him as “a long-term investor in the liquified natural gas sector.” He’s also the second person listed under “leadership” on Western’s site.
Andrew Goldman, a co-founder of Western LNG, a natural gas production company based in Houston, Texas, is co-hosting one of two high-dollar fundraisers Biden will attend in New York on Thursday. Western’s major project is a floating production facility off the northern coast of British Columbia designed to provide Canadian gas to markets in northeast Asia.
Goldman and Biden have deep ties: Goldman served as an adviser to Biden while he was in the Senate and was the northeast director of finance for Biden’s 2008 campaign. He’s also an executive at the investment banking firm Hildred Capital Partners. He and his partner at the firm, David Solomon, along with their wives Renee and Sarah, will host a private fundraiser for Biden at the Solomon house, CNBC reported. Goldman also co-founded De Cordova Goldman Capital Management, which invested in “natural resources and energy.”
According to the company’s website, Western deploys “innovative floating liquefaction technology at inland locations, specifically those that have existing pipeline access to natural gas basins.” The group says it’s “opening up markets for these resources, which are stranded behind burgeoning shale production.”
Biden’s climate plan sets a goal of getting the United States to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050. The plan cites human activity, including the burning of fossil fuels — like natural gas — as contributing to the greenhouse gas effect, exacerbating climate events, and playing a part in an overall increase in global temperature. Biden initially had proposed a “middle ground” on climate policy. His climate policy adviser, Heather Zichal, meanwhile, made more than a million dollars from a natural gas firm after leaving the Obama administration.
Neither Biden nor Western immediately responded to a request for comment.
Scientists say that a recent increase in the amount of methane — a greenhouse gas more than 30 times stronger than carbon dioxide as far as trapping heat — in Earth’s atmosphere has taken place at the same time that the fracking industry has taken off in the U.S. While an increase in natural gas has coincided with a decrease in reliance on coal-powered plants, scientists still say that an electricity grid based on natural gas will continue to make the planet hotter, and ultimately won’t do anything to head off the ongoing climate emergency.
Most new oil and natural gas wells in the U.S. are hydraulically fractured: a process that blasts chemical fluid into deep-rock formations to create fractures that make it easier to access gas and crude oil. Unless otherwise halted, natural gas is projected to provide the majority of electricity in the U.S. by 2050, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit science advocacy organization. Natural gas currently provides about 35 percent of electricity generated in the U.S.
The rapid expansion of fracking over the past two decades has caused a drastic drop in prices in some parts of the country — but a shortage in others due to a lack of pipelines to transport it — making it more cost-competitive as compared to other energy resources. But some regions of the country have so much excess gas, some of which is produced as a byproduct of oil drilling, that they’re burning it. That itself releases carbon dioxide, but the process of fracking leaks methane gas. Fracking also requires enormous amounts of water; the U.S. Geological Survey estimates between 1.5 million to 16 million gallons per well.
Renewable energy standards will be among the topics the 10 Democratic presidential candidates will discuss during the seven-hour climate-focused forum on Wednesday evening. Only candidates who qualified for the third round of Democratic primary debates will participate: Biden; former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro; Andrew Yang; South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg; former Rep. Beto O’Rourke; and Sens. Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren. Each individual candidate will have around 40 minutes to engage in a town hall-style discussion with CNN moderators and a live audience.
Sanders called for a complete ban on fracking Wednesday afternoon, imploring all other candidates to join him in the proposal he outlined earlier as part of his version of a Green New Deal plan, which builds on the resolution introduced by Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in April.
The Democratic National Committee determined last month not to host a debate focused solely on climate change, despite a series of protests around the country led in part by youth activists with the Sunrise Movement.
Update: September 4, 2019
Biden was asked about the fundraiser during the CNN climate town hall, and initially denied that Goldman is a fossil fuel executive. Anderson Cooper followed up to let him know that Goldman was a co-founder of Western LNG, and Biden said he would look into it. Later in the forum, Cooper clarified to Biden that he had been told Goldman doesn’t have “day-to-day” responsibilities at the firm. Biden said that he was told by staff that Goldman “did not have any responsibility related to the company, but if that turns out to be true, then I will not in any way accept his help.”
After the forum, Symone Sanders, a Biden spokesperson, dug in, insisting that Goldman is not really involved with the firm he co-founded. But Splinter News dug up a Canadian filing from last year that asks, “Please briefly identify the other senior management personnel involved with Western.”
The answer: “Western is managed by a seasoned team of executives experienced in the LNG and related energy infrastructure industries. Western’s co-founder is Andrew Goldman, Chief Investment Officer of Hildred Capital Partners. He is a long-term investor in the liquefied natural gas sector.” An industry press release from 2018 also speaks about Goldman as having a present-tense role in the company and describes him as “a long-term investor in the liquified natural gas sector.” He’s also the second person listed under “leadership” on Western’s site.
Biden suffer from foot-in-mouth disease??
Joe Biden Catches Heat After Saying ‘Poor Kids Are Just as Bright’ as White Children
By Tanasia Kenney - Atlanta Black Star
August 9, 2019
Presidential candidate Joe Biden suffered yet another verbal gaffe on the campaign trail Thursday while addressing a crowd of mostly Asian and Latino voters.
The Democratic frontrunner was speaking at a town hall in Des Moines, Iowa, for the Asian & Latino Coalition when he declared that “poor kids are just as bright, just as talented as white kids.”
After a brief pause, he quickly added: “Wealthy kids, black kids, Asian kids, no I really mean it, but think how we think about it.”
The blunder came as Biden, 76, was discussing race and education as part of a four-day campaign swing in the Hawkeye State. He also spoke at the Iowa State Fair earlier in the day.
“We have this notion that somehow if you’re poor, you cannot do it,” he said. “We think how we’re going to dumb it down. They can do anything anybody else can do, given a shot.”
Though the former VP tried his best correct the Freudian slip, the damage was already done — and backlash was swift.
“Joe Biden literally just implied white kids are brighter and more talented than non white kids, omg,” writer Pardes Seleh tweeted.
“Yes, Black kids are Joe. Yes they are,” Bishop Talbert Swan wrote in response to Biden’s comments. “They’re not all poor by the way. Just thoughts you should know that.”
“Guys, please stop supporting Joe Biden,” another chimed in. “Holy f–k.”
“Yikes … have fun mitigating that one,” one man said of the blunder.
Biden’s campaign has been peppered with embarrassing slip-ups. Just hours before the Asian & Latino Coalition event, the presidential hopeful stuck his foot in his mouth at the state fair, telling the crowd “we choose science over fiction, we choose truth over facts.” He also recently confused the locations of the El Paso and Dayton mass shootings with Houston and Michigan.
The harshest criticism came last month when Biden, 76, was accused of boasting about his work with “proud” segregationists, remarks he refused to apologize for despite outcry from several African-American leaders, including Sens. Cory Booker and Kamala Harris.
“Apologize for what?” Biden said at the time. “There’s not a racist bone in my body. I’ve been involved in civil rights my whole career. Period.”
The Democratic frontrunner was speaking at a town hall in Des Moines, Iowa, for the Asian & Latino Coalition when he declared that “poor kids are just as bright, just as talented as white kids.”
After a brief pause, he quickly added: “Wealthy kids, black kids, Asian kids, no I really mean it, but think how we think about it.”
The blunder came as Biden, 76, was discussing race and education as part of a four-day campaign swing in the Hawkeye State. He also spoke at the Iowa State Fair earlier in the day.
“We have this notion that somehow if you’re poor, you cannot do it,” he said. “We think how we’re going to dumb it down. They can do anything anybody else can do, given a shot.”
Though the former VP tried his best correct the Freudian slip, the damage was already done — and backlash was swift.
“Joe Biden literally just implied white kids are brighter and more talented than non white kids, omg,” writer Pardes Seleh tweeted.
“Yes, Black kids are Joe. Yes they are,” Bishop Talbert Swan wrote in response to Biden’s comments. “They’re not all poor by the way. Just thoughts you should know that.”
“Guys, please stop supporting Joe Biden,” another chimed in. “Holy f–k.”
“Yikes … have fun mitigating that one,” one man said of the blunder.
Biden’s campaign has been peppered with embarrassing slip-ups. Just hours before the Asian & Latino Coalition event, the presidential hopeful stuck his foot in his mouth at the state fair, telling the crowd “we choose science over fiction, we choose truth over facts.” He also recently confused the locations of the El Paso and Dayton mass shootings with Houston and Michigan.
The harshest criticism came last month when Biden, 76, was accused of boasting about his work with “proud” segregationists, remarks he refused to apologize for despite outcry from several African-American leaders, including Sens. Cory Booker and Kamala Harris.
“Apologize for what?” Biden said at the time. “There’s not a racist bone in my body. I’ve been involved in civil rights my whole career. Period.”
op - ed: How Biden’s Secret 2002 Meetings Led to War in Iraq
BY Jim Bronke, Truthout
PUBLISHED July 28, 2019
Even though former Vice President Joe Biden’s favorability has declined following the first Democratic debate, he remains largely considered the frontrunner by many mainstream media outlets and pundits for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Early in the first debate, Sen. Bernie Sanders mentioned how Biden had supported the Iraq War and that he had voted against it. Biden responded that he now wanted to see the U.S. out of Afghanistan. Yet Biden’s role was more sinister than that.
In 2002, Biden was the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Following 9/11, he conducted the “Hearings to Examine Threats, Responses and Regional Considerations Surrounding Iraq” on July 31 and August 1, 2002.
At the time, Biden classified the meeting as secret and did not allow public review or attendance. The media largely did not cover this meeting. With the exception of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (a committee member), the people invited to attend and give a submission were not on record as being against the war. Notably absent from the hearing was Scott Ritter, the former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq.
In September 2002, Biden spoke before the Senate and made a case for war against Iraq. He followed that with a nearly one-hour Senate discourse supporting the war on October 9, 2002. It was Biden’s inference in this Senate presentation that suggested Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) threat in mainstream discourse.
When the transcript of the September 2002 Senate meeting first became available, I downloaded it. As someone who had worked on weapons systems and had as high as a top-secret clearance, I had experience with infrared missiles, inertial reference navigation systems, global positioning systems and radar for use in both military vehicles and ground-firing howitzers, as well as conventional and nuclear missiles and bombs. I also had unrestricted access to the classified library of the U.S. Navy and knew of other proposals in the military by U.S. defense industries. I figured that if there were to be anyone qualified to assess a threat, I was certainly in the running.
So I downloaded the file in October 2002 and set about to read the 275-page document word by word. I easily spent a couple of weeks doing it. Review of the entire transcript revealed there was no real evidence whatsoever that Iraq was a threat to the U.S. or was in possession of WMDs. Shouldn’t we expect a reference to satellite data, perhaps? Or discussions about facilities that inspectors were being kept from? Or maybe special nuclear sensors that had tripped?
Nothing in the transcript provided any evidence that Iraq was a threat. It was all historical and conjecture about the meaning of Saddam Hussein’s speeches. Nothing technical was even mentioned that required my familiarity with weapon systems. Instead, words and meeting dialogs that Hussein had with his engineers were interpreted as evidence that he had WMD and that his engineers were motivated to the extreme.
For example, Khidir Hamza, once Iraq’s leading nuclear physicist, discussed posturing by Hussein regarding weapons inspectors as validation of WMD. He also referred to Hussein’s past experience with chemical weapons and alleged purchase of radioactive materials. Hamza had retired from the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission in 1989 and left Iraq in 1994.
Biden conducted a secret meeting in which his star witness hadn’t been in Iraq for eight years. He concluded Iraq was a threat in spite of evidence to the contrary. The mainstream media cooperated by not even reviewing the transcript of this meeting at the time.
Can we trust someone in the White House who so irresponsibly pushed the U.S. down the path for war and irreversibly tarred our image on the world stage as a nation that did not follow the rule of law?
Early in the first debate, Sen. Bernie Sanders mentioned how Biden had supported the Iraq War and that he had voted against it. Biden responded that he now wanted to see the U.S. out of Afghanistan. Yet Biden’s role was more sinister than that.
In 2002, Biden was the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Following 9/11, he conducted the “Hearings to Examine Threats, Responses and Regional Considerations Surrounding Iraq” on July 31 and August 1, 2002.
At the time, Biden classified the meeting as secret and did not allow public review or attendance. The media largely did not cover this meeting. With the exception of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (a committee member), the people invited to attend and give a submission were not on record as being against the war. Notably absent from the hearing was Scott Ritter, the former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq.
In September 2002, Biden spoke before the Senate and made a case for war against Iraq. He followed that with a nearly one-hour Senate discourse supporting the war on October 9, 2002. It was Biden’s inference in this Senate presentation that suggested Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) threat in mainstream discourse.
When the transcript of the September 2002 Senate meeting first became available, I downloaded it. As someone who had worked on weapons systems and had as high as a top-secret clearance, I had experience with infrared missiles, inertial reference navigation systems, global positioning systems and radar for use in both military vehicles and ground-firing howitzers, as well as conventional and nuclear missiles and bombs. I also had unrestricted access to the classified library of the U.S. Navy and knew of other proposals in the military by U.S. defense industries. I figured that if there were to be anyone qualified to assess a threat, I was certainly in the running.
So I downloaded the file in October 2002 and set about to read the 275-page document word by word. I easily spent a couple of weeks doing it. Review of the entire transcript revealed there was no real evidence whatsoever that Iraq was a threat to the U.S. or was in possession of WMDs. Shouldn’t we expect a reference to satellite data, perhaps? Or discussions about facilities that inspectors were being kept from? Or maybe special nuclear sensors that had tripped?
Nothing in the transcript provided any evidence that Iraq was a threat. It was all historical and conjecture about the meaning of Saddam Hussein’s speeches. Nothing technical was even mentioned that required my familiarity with weapon systems. Instead, words and meeting dialogs that Hussein had with his engineers were interpreted as evidence that he had WMD and that his engineers were motivated to the extreme.
For example, Khidir Hamza, once Iraq’s leading nuclear physicist, discussed posturing by Hussein regarding weapons inspectors as validation of WMD. He also referred to Hussein’s past experience with chemical weapons and alleged purchase of radioactive materials. Hamza had retired from the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission in 1989 and left Iraq in 1994.
Biden conducted a secret meeting in which his star witness hadn’t been in Iraq for eight years. He concluded Iraq was a threat in spite of evidence to the contrary. The mainstream media cooperated by not even reviewing the transcript of this meeting at the time.
Can we trust someone in the White House who so irresponsibly pushed the U.S. down the path for war and irreversibly tarred our image on the world stage as a nation that did not follow the rule of law?
Which 2020 Democrats Are Taking Money From the Health Care Industry?
BY Karl Evers-Hillstrom & Jessica Piper, Center for Responsive Politics - Truthout
PUBLISHED July 21, 2019
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) called on fellow Democratic presidential candidates to reject contributions from the healthcare industry last week, a renewed effort to distinguish himself from a progressive field that has often adopted his policy positions.
The Vermont senator’s announcement came days after campaigns filed their second quarter finance reports, which showed that a number of the 2020 presidential candidates, including Sanders, had accepted contributions from healthcare and pharmaceutical executives.
The pledge states that Sanders will not take “contributions over $200 from the PACs, lobbyists, or executives of health insurance or pharmaceutical companies.” During the second quarter, his campaign received thousands from these donors, including a $2,800 contribution from a lobbyist at Beacon Health Options, $2,000 from the CEO of Ironwood Pharmaceuticals and $1,000 each from two Pfizer executives, according to an OpenSecrets review of FEC filings.
Sanders, whose campaign has said it will refund past contributions that do not comply with the pledge, was not the only candidate to receive contributions from the healthcare industry during the second quarter.
FEC filings suggest that most of the 2020 Democratic hopefuls received at least one contribution from a healthcare or pharmaceutical executive. One executive at Missouri health insurer Centene gave at least $1,250 each to Sanders, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and former Vice President Joe Biden.
Contributions from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries nonetheless make up a miniscule fraction of the money raised by Democratic presidential hopefuls. Combined, the 2020 Democrats have raised less than $600,000 from those in the two industries — less than 1 percent of the total haul so far.
None of the candidates have received a dollar in PAC contributions from the health-related industries — and likely won’t because they are all rejecting corporate PAC contributions entirely. Those who have pledged to reject lobbyist contributions have mostly kept their word as well.
No Democratic candidate has pulled in more from the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries than Biden, who raised more than $97,000. The former vice president took in more than $11,000 from affiliates of industry giant Blue Cross/Blue Shield, including the maximum $2,800 from Daniel Hilferty, CEO of Independence Blue Cross who sits on the board of a major health insurance trade group that is fighting to defeatSanders’ Medicare for All healthcare plan.
Buttigieg is runner-up, taking home nearly $94,000. His list of donors includes executives from Aetna, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer and Indiana’s Eli Lilly & Co. The Midwestern mayor has questioned the merits of Medicare for All, but has also put forth his own plan, Medicare for Those Who Want It, which the healthcare industry also opposes.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) rounds out the top three, taking more than $65,000. She’s received $39,000 from employees at Medtronic, the world’s largest medical device company that has its U.S. headquarters in Minnesota, as well as the maximum $2,800 from executives at private insurers UnitedHealthcare and Medica.
Biden and Klobuchar have panned Sanders’ healthcare plan as being unrealistic at this time, introducing their own proposals to instead incrementally expand healthcare coverage and reduce drug prices.
Harris, along with Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), is among the cosponsors of Sanders’ Medicare for All bill in the Senate, though all three have said they don’t support the Vermont senator’s proposal to eliminate private health insurance.
Harris has accepted $55,000 from pharmaceutical companies this cycle. Her donors include employees of Roche Holdings, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer.
Gillibrand, who was criticized by progressive groups earlier this year for attending a fundraiser hosted by Pfizer executive Sally Susman, has received $39,500 in contributions from the healthcare industry this election cycle.
Booker announced in 2017 that he would put a “pause” on taking contributions from pharmaceutical companies after accepting $161,000 from their PACs during the 2014 election cycle. The New Jersey senator has stuck to his promise not to accept corporate PAC money during his presidential run. But he has taken $35,000 from healthcare industry employees, including a $2,800 contribution from a GlaxoSmithKlineexecutive during the second quarter.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has received plenty of contributions from the healthcare industry over the years despite her endorsement of Medicare for All and her call to send executives to jail for their role in the opioid crisis. Between 2013 and 2018, she took $428,395 from healthcare-related industries. Although the Massachusetts senator has eschewed traditional fundraisers during her presidential run, she has received $44,000 in contributions from the same industries this cycle.
Sanders has said Democrats “can’t change a corrupt system by taking its money,” arguing that healthcare industry lobbying and campaign contributions have corrupted Washington to the point where it can maintain the status quo.
Notably, Sanders’s pledge omits contributions from hospitals, an industry that also opposes his healthcare plan. Private hospitals have organized to defeat Medicare for All, which would steeply cut down on the industry’s revenue by paying out less money than private insurers.
Although they don’t often agree on much, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and insurers are working together to stop Sanders’ proposed healthcare plan from gaining even more traction within the Democratic party.
The Vermont senator’s announcement came days after campaigns filed their second quarter finance reports, which showed that a number of the 2020 presidential candidates, including Sanders, had accepted contributions from healthcare and pharmaceutical executives.
The pledge states that Sanders will not take “contributions over $200 from the PACs, lobbyists, or executives of health insurance or pharmaceutical companies.” During the second quarter, his campaign received thousands from these donors, including a $2,800 contribution from a lobbyist at Beacon Health Options, $2,000 from the CEO of Ironwood Pharmaceuticals and $1,000 each from two Pfizer executives, according to an OpenSecrets review of FEC filings.
Sanders, whose campaign has said it will refund past contributions that do not comply with the pledge, was not the only candidate to receive contributions from the healthcare industry during the second quarter.
FEC filings suggest that most of the 2020 Democratic hopefuls received at least one contribution from a healthcare or pharmaceutical executive. One executive at Missouri health insurer Centene gave at least $1,250 each to Sanders, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and former Vice President Joe Biden.
Contributions from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries nonetheless make up a miniscule fraction of the money raised by Democratic presidential hopefuls. Combined, the 2020 Democrats have raised less than $600,000 from those in the two industries — less than 1 percent of the total haul so far.
None of the candidates have received a dollar in PAC contributions from the health-related industries — and likely won’t because they are all rejecting corporate PAC contributions entirely. Those who have pledged to reject lobbyist contributions have mostly kept their word as well.
No Democratic candidate has pulled in more from the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries than Biden, who raised more than $97,000. The former vice president took in more than $11,000 from affiliates of industry giant Blue Cross/Blue Shield, including the maximum $2,800 from Daniel Hilferty, CEO of Independence Blue Cross who sits on the board of a major health insurance trade group that is fighting to defeatSanders’ Medicare for All healthcare plan.
Buttigieg is runner-up, taking home nearly $94,000. His list of donors includes executives from Aetna, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer and Indiana’s Eli Lilly & Co. The Midwestern mayor has questioned the merits of Medicare for All, but has also put forth his own plan, Medicare for Those Who Want It, which the healthcare industry also opposes.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) rounds out the top three, taking more than $65,000. She’s received $39,000 from employees at Medtronic, the world’s largest medical device company that has its U.S. headquarters in Minnesota, as well as the maximum $2,800 from executives at private insurers UnitedHealthcare and Medica.
Biden and Klobuchar have panned Sanders’ healthcare plan as being unrealistic at this time, introducing their own proposals to instead incrementally expand healthcare coverage and reduce drug prices.
Harris, along with Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), is among the cosponsors of Sanders’ Medicare for All bill in the Senate, though all three have said they don’t support the Vermont senator’s proposal to eliminate private health insurance.
Harris has accepted $55,000 from pharmaceutical companies this cycle. Her donors include employees of Roche Holdings, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer.
Gillibrand, who was criticized by progressive groups earlier this year for attending a fundraiser hosted by Pfizer executive Sally Susman, has received $39,500 in contributions from the healthcare industry this election cycle.
Booker announced in 2017 that he would put a “pause” on taking contributions from pharmaceutical companies after accepting $161,000 from their PACs during the 2014 election cycle. The New Jersey senator has stuck to his promise not to accept corporate PAC money during his presidential run. But he has taken $35,000 from healthcare industry employees, including a $2,800 contribution from a GlaxoSmithKlineexecutive during the second quarter.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has received plenty of contributions from the healthcare industry over the years despite her endorsement of Medicare for All and her call to send executives to jail for their role in the opioid crisis. Between 2013 and 2018, she took $428,395 from healthcare-related industries. Although the Massachusetts senator has eschewed traditional fundraisers during her presidential run, she has received $44,000 in contributions from the same industries this cycle.
Sanders has said Democrats “can’t change a corrupt system by taking its money,” arguing that healthcare industry lobbying and campaign contributions have corrupted Washington to the point where it can maintain the status quo.
Notably, Sanders’s pledge omits contributions from hospitals, an industry that also opposes his healthcare plan. Private hospitals have organized to defeat Medicare for All, which would steeply cut down on the industry’s revenue by paying out less money than private insurers.
Although they don’t often agree on much, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and insurers are working together to stop Sanders’ proposed healthcare plan from gaining even more traction within the Democratic party.
JOE BIDEN SAYS HE CAN WORK WITH THE SENATE. THE LAST TIME HE TRIED, MITCH MCCONNELL PICKED HIS POCKETS BADLY.
Ryan Grim - The Intercept
June 24 2019, 3:00 a.m.
AS THE YEAR 2012 wound down, Democrats hopefully eyed what looked to be one of the last opportunities for genuine legislative progress in a divided government. The party had just stomped Republican Mitt Romney at the polls in a post-Occupy campaign that centered on economic inequality. Democrats picked up two seats in the Senate, expanding their majority to 53 and adding Elizabeth Warren to their ranks. Though Democrats won more House votes nationwide and picked up a net of eight seats, Republicans held onto the newly gerrymandered lower chamber.
The hope was tied to the expiration of the tax cuts passed under George W. Bush. Republicans, despite losing the popular vote and only taking the White House in 2000 by a 5-4 Supreme Court decision, moved swiftly to pass an enormous tax cut tilted heavily toward the rich. To do so, they used a parliamentary procedure that could get around the filibuster in the Senate, known as budget reconciliation. The cost of doing so, however, is that policy enacted through reconciliation must expire in 10 years’ time.
By the time the legislation was set to expire in 2010, the tea party wave had shaken up Congress. The Obama White House urged Senate Democrats to extend the tax cuts, arguing both that they had a difficult political hand, and also that extending them in an unstable economic environment was good policy. White House economic adviser Larry Summers told a private meeting of Finance Committee Democrats that allowing the tax cuts to expire would “tank the economy,” according to a Senate aide at the time.
The ensuing negotiations would involve a whole cast of characters from throughout the White House and across the aisle in the Senate. Its resolution, though, ultimately hinged on the intervention of then-Vice President and now-leading contender for the presidency Joe Biden. He has cited his ability to work with Republicans and conservative Democrats — up to and including segregationists — as one of his top qualifications for president. This makes his role in the tax-cut fight, perhaps his most significant involvement in policymaking as vice president, critical to examine closely. And up close, it doesn’t look good.
The Senate agreed to a two-year expansion at the end of 2010, but only after Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., delivered his viral, eight-hour old-fashioned filibuster on the Senate floor to draw attention to the fiscal giveaway.
The extension meant that the tax cuts were now expiring in 2012, and in order to repeal all of them — to go over what the media began calling the “fiscal cliff” — all Congress had to do was nothing. That, Harry Reid told me in an interview for my new book, was precisely his plan. “I wanted to go over the cliff,” said Reid, the Senate majority leader at the time. “I thought that would have been the best thing to do because the conversation would not have been about raising taxes, which it became, it would have been about lowering taxes.”
In other words, let all the rates go up, and then bargain with Republicans to reduce taxes just for the middle class and the poor. Then-Minority Leader Mitch McConnell similarly knew the difficult position going over the cliff would put him in, and in preliminary talks with Reid, he agreed to let rates on people making more than $250,000 per year go back up, if to slightly lower levels to pre-Bush. (McConnell aides would later say that McConnell had not firmly conceded anything, and that negotiations weren’t finalized.)
McConnell had a strong sense that Reid intended to go over the cliff and put Republicans up against a wall. Told that Reid had since confirmed that he indeed wanted to go over, a Republican operative said he found the admission unsurprising. “That’s consistent with his body language at the time,” said the operative, who wasn’t authorized to talk on the record about the negotiations. “He knew he could blame it successfully on the hard right in the Republican Party. Negotiations had reached an impasse. It wasn’t just spin, Reid was ready to go over.”
Reid felt like he had successfully pushed McConnell to the brink, buoyed by House Speaker John Boehner’s inability to get his unruly conference to agree to anything. It was now Sunday, December 30, and Democrats only had to hold out until Tuesday to find themselves in a dramatically improved political position, as the dawning of the new year would mean the tax cuts expired and automatically reverted to pre-Bush levels. At that point, it would be Republicans left pleading for rate cuts.
In desperation, McConnell reached out directly to Biden, calling him on the phone and explaining that Reid was refusing to be reasonable. Over the course of the day, McConnell and Biden struck a deal. “Biden gave Republicans everything they wanted in exchange for fixing the fiscal cliff problem,” the GOP operative recalled.
Biden, who served in the Senate from 1973 to 2009, and as vice president from 2009 until 2017, is now locked in his third Democratic primary contest for the presidential nomination. “The reason he has such good relationships with Republicans in the Senate is he never hesitates to put aside the highest priorities of his base in the interests of compromise,” the Republican operative said. “That’s also how you make life difficult in a primary.”
ON THE MORNING of New Year’s Eve, Reid was still feeling good about his position. That was until he saw McConnell take to the Senate floor and announce that he’d been in talks with the vice president, they were progressing well, and he was hopeful that they’d have legislation to move by the end of the day.
As details of the deal began leaking out, progressive Democratic senators were floored. A large group of them — including Sanders, Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Al Franken of Minnesota, and Tom Harkin of Iowa — stormed over to Reid’s office.
The deal was awful, they told Reid, and it had to be stopped. Reid told them what had happened, that it was out of his hands and that McConnell had gone around him to Biden. He said he was working on improving it and would be in touch throughout the day.
None of the senators had any business scheduled — it was New Year’s Eve, after all — so Sanders invited them back to his office in the Dirksen building. The Hart building has a popcorn machine, so Harkin asked his staff to bring some by. The crew ended up spending several hours together in Sanders’s office, thinking through potential strategies of opposition and waiting to hear from Reid.
Instead, one senator’s phone rang, and it was Joe Biden, calling to sell the deal he had cut. In classic Biden fashion, he offered a 10- to 15-minute soliloquy, a meandering argument that largely boiled down to: You can trust me; I’m your friend; this is a good deal. The senator could barely get a word in before the conversation ended.
Moments after he hung up, another cellphone rang, and it was Biden again. Unaware that the group was all together, Biden proceeded to call each of them, one after the other, delivering the same spiel. Biden’s flimsy argument, and his filibustering style of delivering it, became a running joke among the senators. “No one found it remotely persuasive,” said one person in the room.
Biden’s own characterization of his lobbying effort didn’t differ substantially from the recollection of those in the room. Asked that day by reporters what he had said to wavering senators, he replied: “I said, ‘This is Joe Biden and I’m your buddy.’”
Ultimately, it fell to Reid to drag the progressive senators into line. Once it was clear that the White House was on board with Biden’s deal, and McConnell was all in, that meant that there would be at least 70 or 80 votes for it. The progressive bloc could vote no, but it would only send a message of discord and have no effect on the outcome, Reid told them, coaxing them to support the deal he himself loathed. In the end, all the progressive senators except Harkin voted for the deal. It passed 89-8.
Years later, Reid still regrets how it went down. “If we’d have gone over the cliff, we’d have had resources to do a lot of good things in the country — infrastructure development — but it didn’t work out that way,” Reid said. Letting all the tax rates go back to pre-Bush levels would have yielded the Treasury around $3 trillion over 10 years. Instead, the deal ultimately brought in around $600 billion (or would have, if taxes hadn’t been slashed again by Republicans in 2018). Without the deal, taxes on dividend payments to the rich would have been set at 39.6 percent. Under the terms of the deal, they would be set at 20 percent, meaning that the super-wealthy would be paying lower tax rates on their passive dividend income than some working people would pay on their salaries.
I asked Reid how Biden defended the strategy that day.
“It wasn’t one that I agreed with,” he replied politely, “so you’d have to ask some of his people.”
His people declined to comment.
The hope was tied to the expiration of the tax cuts passed under George W. Bush. Republicans, despite losing the popular vote and only taking the White House in 2000 by a 5-4 Supreme Court decision, moved swiftly to pass an enormous tax cut tilted heavily toward the rich. To do so, they used a parliamentary procedure that could get around the filibuster in the Senate, known as budget reconciliation. The cost of doing so, however, is that policy enacted through reconciliation must expire in 10 years’ time.
By the time the legislation was set to expire in 2010, the tea party wave had shaken up Congress. The Obama White House urged Senate Democrats to extend the tax cuts, arguing both that they had a difficult political hand, and also that extending them in an unstable economic environment was good policy. White House economic adviser Larry Summers told a private meeting of Finance Committee Democrats that allowing the tax cuts to expire would “tank the economy,” according to a Senate aide at the time.
The ensuing negotiations would involve a whole cast of characters from throughout the White House and across the aisle in the Senate. Its resolution, though, ultimately hinged on the intervention of then-Vice President and now-leading contender for the presidency Joe Biden. He has cited his ability to work with Republicans and conservative Democrats — up to and including segregationists — as one of his top qualifications for president. This makes his role in the tax-cut fight, perhaps his most significant involvement in policymaking as vice president, critical to examine closely. And up close, it doesn’t look good.
The Senate agreed to a two-year expansion at the end of 2010, but only after Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., delivered his viral, eight-hour old-fashioned filibuster on the Senate floor to draw attention to the fiscal giveaway.
The extension meant that the tax cuts were now expiring in 2012, and in order to repeal all of them — to go over what the media began calling the “fiscal cliff” — all Congress had to do was nothing. That, Harry Reid told me in an interview for my new book, was precisely his plan. “I wanted to go over the cliff,” said Reid, the Senate majority leader at the time. “I thought that would have been the best thing to do because the conversation would not have been about raising taxes, which it became, it would have been about lowering taxes.”
In other words, let all the rates go up, and then bargain with Republicans to reduce taxes just for the middle class and the poor. Then-Minority Leader Mitch McConnell similarly knew the difficult position going over the cliff would put him in, and in preliminary talks with Reid, he agreed to let rates on people making more than $250,000 per year go back up, if to slightly lower levels to pre-Bush. (McConnell aides would later say that McConnell had not firmly conceded anything, and that negotiations weren’t finalized.)
McConnell had a strong sense that Reid intended to go over the cliff and put Republicans up against a wall. Told that Reid had since confirmed that he indeed wanted to go over, a Republican operative said he found the admission unsurprising. “That’s consistent with his body language at the time,” said the operative, who wasn’t authorized to talk on the record about the negotiations. “He knew he could blame it successfully on the hard right in the Republican Party. Negotiations had reached an impasse. It wasn’t just spin, Reid was ready to go over.”
Reid felt like he had successfully pushed McConnell to the brink, buoyed by House Speaker John Boehner’s inability to get his unruly conference to agree to anything. It was now Sunday, December 30, and Democrats only had to hold out until Tuesday to find themselves in a dramatically improved political position, as the dawning of the new year would mean the tax cuts expired and automatically reverted to pre-Bush levels. At that point, it would be Republicans left pleading for rate cuts.
In desperation, McConnell reached out directly to Biden, calling him on the phone and explaining that Reid was refusing to be reasonable. Over the course of the day, McConnell and Biden struck a deal. “Biden gave Republicans everything they wanted in exchange for fixing the fiscal cliff problem,” the GOP operative recalled.
Biden, who served in the Senate from 1973 to 2009, and as vice president from 2009 until 2017, is now locked in his third Democratic primary contest for the presidential nomination. “The reason he has such good relationships with Republicans in the Senate is he never hesitates to put aside the highest priorities of his base in the interests of compromise,” the Republican operative said. “That’s also how you make life difficult in a primary.”
ON THE MORNING of New Year’s Eve, Reid was still feeling good about his position. That was until he saw McConnell take to the Senate floor and announce that he’d been in talks with the vice president, they were progressing well, and he was hopeful that they’d have legislation to move by the end of the day.
As details of the deal began leaking out, progressive Democratic senators were floored. A large group of them — including Sanders, Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Al Franken of Minnesota, and Tom Harkin of Iowa — stormed over to Reid’s office.
The deal was awful, they told Reid, and it had to be stopped. Reid told them what had happened, that it was out of his hands and that McConnell had gone around him to Biden. He said he was working on improving it and would be in touch throughout the day.
None of the senators had any business scheduled — it was New Year’s Eve, after all — so Sanders invited them back to his office in the Dirksen building. The Hart building has a popcorn machine, so Harkin asked his staff to bring some by. The crew ended up spending several hours together in Sanders’s office, thinking through potential strategies of opposition and waiting to hear from Reid.
Instead, one senator’s phone rang, and it was Joe Biden, calling to sell the deal he had cut. In classic Biden fashion, he offered a 10- to 15-minute soliloquy, a meandering argument that largely boiled down to: You can trust me; I’m your friend; this is a good deal. The senator could barely get a word in before the conversation ended.
Moments after he hung up, another cellphone rang, and it was Biden again. Unaware that the group was all together, Biden proceeded to call each of them, one after the other, delivering the same spiel. Biden’s flimsy argument, and his filibustering style of delivering it, became a running joke among the senators. “No one found it remotely persuasive,” said one person in the room.
Biden’s own characterization of his lobbying effort didn’t differ substantially from the recollection of those in the room. Asked that day by reporters what he had said to wavering senators, he replied: “I said, ‘This is Joe Biden and I’m your buddy.’”
Ultimately, it fell to Reid to drag the progressive senators into line. Once it was clear that the White House was on board with Biden’s deal, and McConnell was all in, that meant that there would be at least 70 or 80 votes for it. The progressive bloc could vote no, but it would only send a message of discord and have no effect on the outcome, Reid told them, coaxing them to support the deal he himself loathed. In the end, all the progressive senators except Harkin voted for the deal. It passed 89-8.
Years later, Reid still regrets how it went down. “If we’d have gone over the cliff, we’d have had resources to do a lot of good things in the country — infrastructure development — but it didn’t work out that way,” Reid said. Letting all the tax rates go back to pre-Bush levels would have yielded the Treasury around $3 trillion over 10 years. Instead, the deal ultimately brought in around $600 billion (or would have, if taxes hadn’t been slashed again by Republicans in 2018). Without the deal, taxes on dividend payments to the rich would have been set at 39.6 percent. Under the terms of the deal, they would be set at 20 percent, meaning that the super-wealthy would be paying lower tax rates on their passive dividend income than some working people would pay on their salaries.
I asked Reid how Biden defended the strategy that day.
“It wasn’t one that I agreed with,” he replied politely, “so you’d have to ask some of his people.”
His people declined to comment.
Joe Biden Is One of the Most Tone-Deaf Politicians in the History of Representative Government
He paints the bullseye on his own self more artistically than anyone I've ever seen.
BY CHARLES P. PIERCE - Esquire
JUN 19, 2019
Wednesday is Juneteenth, the annual celebration held every 17th of June to commemorate the end of slavery in the state of Texas and, more generally, the decision by the nation, sealed in blood, that owning other human beings was no basis for a moral society. And what better way for a Democratic candidate for president in 20-freaking-19 to celebrate Juneteenth than to go before an audience of bankers and plutocrats and wax nostalgic for the days when you could "get things done" with segregationist monsters? From The New York Times:
At the event, Mr. Biden noted that he served with the late Senators James O. Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia, both Democrats who were staunch opponents of desegregation. Mr. Eastland was the powerful chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee when Mr. Biden entered the chamber in 1973. “I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland,” Mr. Biden said, slipping briefly into a Southern accent, according to a pool report from the fund-raiser. “He never called me ‘boy,’ he always called me ‘son.’”
“Well guess what?” Mr. Biden continued. “At least there was some civility. We got things done. We didn’t agree on much of anything. We got things done. We got it finished. But today you look at the other side and you’re the enemy. Not the opposition, the enemy. We don’t talk to each other anymore.” Mr. Biden made the comments about Mr. Eastland and Mr. Talmadge as he spoke about the need for unity, including a call for bipartisanship that has drawn derision from some liberals who don’t see room for compromise in today’s polarized Washington. “I know the new New Left tells me that I’m — this is old-fashioned,” he said. “Well guess what? If we can’t reach a consensus in our system, what happens? It encourages and demands the abuse of power by a president.”
Here, in rebuttal, is good ol' civil James Eastland in 1957:
The Southern institution of racial segregation or racial separation was the correct, self-evident truth which arose from the chaos and confusion of the Reconstruction period. Separation promotes racial harmony. It permits each race to follow its own pursuits, and its own civilization. Segregation is not discrimination… Mr. President, it is the law of nature, it is the law of God, that every race has both the right and the duty to perpetuate itself. All free men have the right to associate exclusively with members of their own race, free from governmental interference, if they so desire.
Here's some more, from the Honolulu Record in 1956, when Eastland was preparing to chair a congressional committee's Red-baiting investigation into the newspaper and several Hawaiian labor organizations:
"...the pure blood of the South is mongrelized by Northern politicians to obtain political favors from Red mongrels."
"The white people of the South do not have race prejudice. They have race consciousness, and they are proud to possess this awareness of the significance of race. Had they not possessed it the South would have been mongrelized and southern civilization destroyed long ago."
"Mr. President, let me make this very clear. The South will retain segregation. The governor of a sovereign State can use the force at his command, civil and other, to maintain public order, and prevent crime and riots. He can use these forces to prevent racial integration of schools if this is necessary, under the police power of the State, to prevent disorder and riots. In fact, it is his duty to preserve order and prevent turmoil and strife within the state."
I'm beginning to wonder if Joe Biden is the proper candidate for this particular political moment.
Already in the past month, Biden also has yearned for the days in which he could do civility with Strom Thurmond, at whose funeral Biden spoke, and he's treated Joy Reid with total disrespect at the Reverend William Barber's Poor People's forum. From the Washington Post:
Joy-Ann Reid, an MSNBC host who moderated the session, asked Biden how he would pass his plans through a stubborn Congress — in particular, how he would work with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who makes little secret of his satisfaction at blocking Democratic initiatives.
Biden bristled at the suggestion that his approach was misguided. As he wound through his response, Biden moved nearer to Reid, who was seated, and leaned over her. “Joy-Ann, I know you’re one of the ones who thinks it’s naive to think we have to work together,” Biden said. “The fact of the matter is, if we can’t get a consensus, nothing happens except the abuse of power by the executive branch. Zero.” He added that “you can shame people into doing the right thing.”Here with a rebuttal is an actual concept: President Donald J. Trump. Here with another rebuttal is a sadly imaginary concept: Supreme Court Justice Merrick Garland. Damn, Joe. You were there, my dude. You were doing more than just putting on the Ray-Bans in viral videos.
Meanwhile, at the same feast of fat things in New York on Tuesday night, Biden reassured the assembled plutocrats that he considers them the real victims of scurrilous attacks.
Mr. Biden’s appearance at the Carlyle was his third fund-raiser of the day. There and at previous stops, he implicitly suggested that bold actions on a range of issues could be achieved without anyone being “punished,” including the wealthy. “I got in trouble with some of the people on my team, on the Democratic side, because I said, ‘You know what I’ve found is rich people are just as patriotic as poor people,’” he said. “Not a joke. I mean, we may not want to demonize anybody who has made money.”
Well, that's true. It is unfair to demonize the minimum wage worker who just cleared your table, Joe. He "makes money." But the guys who wrecked the entire economy and then got rich selling off the ruins, and who are preparing to do it again? They should roast in hell on the next spit over from James Freaking Eastland.
Joe Biden would be a better president than the one we have now. But I'm not sure everyone has a grasp on how very low that bar is. However, and especially on the campaign trail, Joe Biden also is consistently one of the most tone-deaf politicians in the history of representative government. He paints the bullseye on his own self more artistically than anyone I've ever seen. Maybe that's part of his charm.
At the event, Mr. Biden noted that he served with the late Senators James O. Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia, both Democrats who were staunch opponents of desegregation. Mr. Eastland was the powerful chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee when Mr. Biden entered the chamber in 1973. “I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland,” Mr. Biden said, slipping briefly into a Southern accent, according to a pool report from the fund-raiser. “He never called me ‘boy,’ he always called me ‘son.’”
“Well guess what?” Mr. Biden continued. “At least there was some civility. We got things done. We didn’t agree on much of anything. We got things done. We got it finished. But today you look at the other side and you’re the enemy. Not the opposition, the enemy. We don’t talk to each other anymore.” Mr. Biden made the comments about Mr. Eastland and Mr. Talmadge as he spoke about the need for unity, including a call for bipartisanship that has drawn derision from some liberals who don’t see room for compromise in today’s polarized Washington. “I know the new New Left tells me that I’m — this is old-fashioned,” he said. “Well guess what? If we can’t reach a consensus in our system, what happens? It encourages and demands the abuse of power by a president.”
Here, in rebuttal, is good ol' civil James Eastland in 1957:
The Southern institution of racial segregation or racial separation was the correct, self-evident truth which arose from the chaos and confusion of the Reconstruction period. Separation promotes racial harmony. It permits each race to follow its own pursuits, and its own civilization. Segregation is not discrimination… Mr. President, it is the law of nature, it is the law of God, that every race has both the right and the duty to perpetuate itself. All free men have the right to associate exclusively with members of their own race, free from governmental interference, if they so desire.
Here's some more, from the Honolulu Record in 1956, when Eastland was preparing to chair a congressional committee's Red-baiting investigation into the newspaper and several Hawaiian labor organizations:
"...the pure blood of the South is mongrelized by Northern politicians to obtain political favors from Red mongrels."
"The white people of the South do not have race prejudice. They have race consciousness, and they are proud to possess this awareness of the significance of race. Had they not possessed it the South would have been mongrelized and southern civilization destroyed long ago."
"Mr. President, let me make this very clear. The South will retain segregation. The governor of a sovereign State can use the force at his command, civil and other, to maintain public order, and prevent crime and riots. He can use these forces to prevent racial integration of schools if this is necessary, under the police power of the State, to prevent disorder and riots. In fact, it is his duty to preserve order and prevent turmoil and strife within the state."
I'm beginning to wonder if Joe Biden is the proper candidate for this particular political moment.
Already in the past month, Biden also has yearned for the days in which he could do civility with Strom Thurmond, at whose funeral Biden spoke, and he's treated Joy Reid with total disrespect at the Reverend William Barber's Poor People's forum. From the Washington Post:
Joy-Ann Reid, an MSNBC host who moderated the session, asked Biden how he would pass his plans through a stubborn Congress — in particular, how he would work with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who makes little secret of his satisfaction at blocking Democratic initiatives.
Biden bristled at the suggestion that his approach was misguided. As he wound through his response, Biden moved nearer to Reid, who was seated, and leaned over her. “Joy-Ann, I know you’re one of the ones who thinks it’s naive to think we have to work together,” Biden said. “The fact of the matter is, if we can’t get a consensus, nothing happens except the abuse of power by the executive branch. Zero.” He added that “you can shame people into doing the right thing.”Here with a rebuttal is an actual concept: President Donald J. Trump. Here with another rebuttal is a sadly imaginary concept: Supreme Court Justice Merrick Garland. Damn, Joe. You were there, my dude. You were doing more than just putting on the Ray-Bans in viral videos.
Meanwhile, at the same feast of fat things in New York on Tuesday night, Biden reassured the assembled plutocrats that he considers them the real victims of scurrilous attacks.
Mr. Biden’s appearance at the Carlyle was his third fund-raiser of the day. There and at previous stops, he implicitly suggested that bold actions on a range of issues could be achieved without anyone being “punished,” including the wealthy. “I got in trouble with some of the people on my team, on the Democratic side, because I said, ‘You know what I’ve found is rich people are just as patriotic as poor people,’” he said. “Not a joke. I mean, we may not want to demonize anybody who has made money.”
Well, that's true. It is unfair to demonize the minimum wage worker who just cleared your table, Joe. He "makes money." But the guys who wrecked the entire economy and then got rich selling off the ruins, and who are preparing to do it again? They should roast in hell on the next spit over from James Freaking Eastland.
Joe Biden would be a better president than the one we have now. But I'm not sure everyone has a grasp on how very low that bar is. However, and especially on the campaign trail, Joe Biden also is consistently one of the most tone-deaf politicians in the history of representative government. He paints the bullseye on his own self more artistically than anyone I've ever seen. Maybe that's part of his charm.
JOE BIDEN WORKED TO UNDERMINE THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT’S COVERAGE OF CONTRACEPTION
Ryan Grim - The Intercept
June 5 2019, 2:43 p.m.
AS VICE PRESIDENT, Joe Biden repeatedly sought to undermine the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate, working in alliance with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to push for a broad exemption that would have left millions of women without coverage.
Biden’s battle over contraception is a window into his approach to the politics of reproductive freedom, a function of an electoral worldview that centers working-class Catholic men over the interests of women. The issue has been causing his presidential campaign some discomfort — on Wednesday, Biden’s campaign clarified that he remains a supporter of the so-called Hyde Amendment, a provision that bars federal money from being used to fund reproductive health services. Biden had recently told an activist with the ACLU that he opposed the amendment, and wanted to see it repealed.
On contraception, according to contemporaneous reporting and to sources involved with the internal debate, Biden had argued that if the regulations implementing the Affordable Care Act were going to mandate coverage, it would anger white, male Catholic voters, and threaten President Obama’s reelection in 2012. Biden’s main ally in the internal fight over contraception was Chief of Staff William Daly; both men are Catholic.
Opposing Biden was a faction of mostly women advisers, joined by some men, who argued that Biden had both the policy and the politics wrong. On policy, they noted that if his broad exemption went into effect, upwards of six million women who happened to be employed by religious-affiliated organizations would lose contraception coverage. The politics were just as bad, they argued, given that women were increasingly becoming central to the party’s success. To turn on them on the issue of access to birth control — embracing a fringe position not even adopted by most Catholics who aren’t bishops — would put that support at risk.
Biden has long said that he is personally opposed to abortion, but supports the legal right. His support of Roe v. Wade has not always been full throated.
“When it comes to issues like abortion, amnesty, and acid, I’m about as liberal as your grandmother,” Biden said in a June 1974 article. “I don’t like the Supreme Court decision on abortion. I think it went too far. I don’t think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body.”
Because Biden’s anti-Roe comments came so long ago — more than four decades — some have argued they are of little value in gauging his current politics. But his battle against contraception, and his unwillingness to join the bulk of the Democratic field and call for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, puts him dramatically out of step with today’s party.
Biden is so out of step, in fact, that when he was shown polling data during the contraception fight, he dismissed it as inaccurate. He has a view of the American electorate’s politics on abortion that can’t be influenced by new facts. Jake Tapper, then reporting for ABC News, reported in February 2012:
The two sides couldn’t even agree about what they were debating. In the fall, [Planned Parenthood head Cecile] Richards brought in polling indicating that the American people overwhelmingly supported the birth control benefit in health insurance. She also highlighted statistics showing the overwhelming use of birth control.
The Vice President and others argued that this wouldn’t be seen as an issue of contraception — it would be seen as an issue of religious liberty. They questioned the polling of the rule advocates, arguing that it didn’t explain the issue in full, it ignored the question of what religious groups should have to pay for. And they argued that women voters for whom this was an important issue weren’t likely to vote for Mitt Romney, who has drawn a strong anti-abortion line as a presidential candidate, saying he would end federal funding to Planned Parenthood and supporting a “personhood” amendmentthat defines life as beginning at the moment of fertilization.
Similarly, Mike Dorning and Margaret Talev reported:” Vice President Joe Biden and then-White House chief of staff Bill Daley, also Catholics, warned that the mandate would be seen as a government intrusion on religious institutions. Even moderate Catholic voters in battleground states might be alienated, they warned, according to the people familiar with the discussions.”
It was, ultimately, public anger that led to Biden and Daley’s defeat on the issue. On January 31, 2012 as the administration was finalizing its policy, it was reported that Susan G. Komen for the Cure had cut its funding of Planned Parenthood, in a push led by abortion foe Karen Handel. The fury over the decision stunned the organization, which backtracked and apologized within a week, as Planned Parenthood raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from angered supporters of abortion rights. “We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives,” Komen said in a statement on February 3, 2012.
The White House watched the affair unfold closely, and the blowback punctured the mythology that there is no real public support for abortion rights. It also sent a signal that if the White House backtracked on access to contraception, it could expect a livid response. The exemption that was ultimately granted, on February 10, was a very narrow one, frustrating the bishops.
In his vice presidential debate with Mitt Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan, Biden attempted to portray it as a broad exemption. “No religious institution — Catholic or otherwise, including Catholic social services, Georgetown hospital, Mercy hospital, any hospital — none has to either refer contraception, none has to pay for contraception, none has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide. That is a fact,” Biden said in the debate.
In a rare public disagreement with Biden, the Conference of U.S. Bishops shot back with a statement, accurately saying that Biden’s claim was “not a fact.” Indeed, many religious-affiliated entities that had hoped to win an exemption, and which had Biden’s support inside the White House, had failed. But with Biden now a front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president, they may get another shot at denying access to contraception to their employees.
RELATED: 'Discriminatory' Joe Biden stirs anger by backing 40-year-old abortion law
Biden’s battle over contraception is a window into his approach to the politics of reproductive freedom, a function of an electoral worldview that centers working-class Catholic men over the interests of women. The issue has been causing his presidential campaign some discomfort — on Wednesday, Biden’s campaign clarified that he remains a supporter of the so-called Hyde Amendment, a provision that bars federal money from being used to fund reproductive health services. Biden had recently told an activist with the ACLU that he opposed the amendment, and wanted to see it repealed.
On contraception, according to contemporaneous reporting and to sources involved with the internal debate, Biden had argued that if the regulations implementing the Affordable Care Act were going to mandate coverage, it would anger white, male Catholic voters, and threaten President Obama’s reelection in 2012. Biden’s main ally in the internal fight over contraception was Chief of Staff William Daly; both men are Catholic.
Opposing Biden was a faction of mostly women advisers, joined by some men, who argued that Biden had both the policy and the politics wrong. On policy, they noted that if his broad exemption went into effect, upwards of six million women who happened to be employed by religious-affiliated organizations would lose contraception coverage. The politics were just as bad, they argued, given that women were increasingly becoming central to the party’s success. To turn on them on the issue of access to birth control — embracing a fringe position not even adopted by most Catholics who aren’t bishops — would put that support at risk.
Biden has long said that he is personally opposed to abortion, but supports the legal right. His support of Roe v. Wade has not always been full throated.
“When it comes to issues like abortion, amnesty, and acid, I’m about as liberal as your grandmother,” Biden said in a June 1974 article. “I don’t like the Supreme Court decision on abortion. I think it went too far. I don’t think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body.”
Because Biden’s anti-Roe comments came so long ago — more than four decades — some have argued they are of little value in gauging his current politics. But his battle against contraception, and his unwillingness to join the bulk of the Democratic field and call for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, puts him dramatically out of step with today’s party.
Biden is so out of step, in fact, that when he was shown polling data during the contraception fight, he dismissed it as inaccurate. He has a view of the American electorate’s politics on abortion that can’t be influenced by new facts. Jake Tapper, then reporting for ABC News, reported in February 2012:
The two sides couldn’t even agree about what they were debating. In the fall, [Planned Parenthood head Cecile] Richards brought in polling indicating that the American people overwhelmingly supported the birth control benefit in health insurance. She also highlighted statistics showing the overwhelming use of birth control.
The Vice President and others argued that this wouldn’t be seen as an issue of contraception — it would be seen as an issue of religious liberty. They questioned the polling of the rule advocates, arguing that it didn’t explain the issue in full, it ignored the question of what religious groups should have to pay for. And they argued that women voters for whom this was an important issue weren’t likely to vote for Mitt Romney, who has drawn a strong anti-abortion line as a presidential candidate, saying he would end federal funding to Planned Parenthood and supporting a “personhood” amendmentthat defines life as beginning at the moment of fertilization.
Similarly, Mike Dorning and Margaret Talev reported:” Vice President Joe Biden and then-White House chief of staff Bill Daley, also Catholics, warned that the mandate would be seen as a government intrusion on religious institutions. Even moderate Catholic voters in battleground states might be alienated, they warned, according to the people familiar with the discussions.”
It was, ultimately, public anger that led to Biden and Daley’s defeat on the issue. On January 31, 2012 as the administration was finalizing its policy, it was reported that Susan G. Komen for the Cure had cut its funding of Planned Parenthood, in a push led by abortion foe Karen Handel. The fury over the decision stunned the organization, which backtracked and apologized within a week, as Planned Parenthood raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from angered supporters of abortion rights. “We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives,” Komen said in a statement on February 3, 2012.
The White House watched the affair unfold closely, and the blowback punctured the mythology that there is no real public support for abortion rights. It also sent a signal that if the White House backtracked on access to contraception, it could expect a livid response. The exemption that was ultimately granted, on February 10, was a very narrow one, frustrating the bishops.
In his vice presidential debate with Mitt Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan, Biden attempted to portray it as a broad exemption. “No religious institution — Catholic or otherwise, including Catholic social services, Georgetown hospital, Mercy hospital, any hospital — none has to either refer contraception, none has to pay for contraception, none has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide. That is a fact,” Biden said in the debate.
In a rare public disagreement with Biden, the Conference of U.S. Bishops shot back with a statement, accurately saying that Biden’s claim was “not a fact.” Indeed, many religious-affiliated entities that had hoped to win an exemption, and which had Biden’s support inside the White House, had failed. But with Biden now a front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president, they may get another shot at denying access to contraception to their employees.
RELATED: 'Discriminatory' Joe Biden stirs anger by backing 40-year-old abortion law