Tag Archives: Joe Biden

Bernie’s Flame Burnt Out

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by Daveda Gruber:

The self-proclaimed Socialist Democratic presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, D-VT., has suspended his campaign.

It appears that former Vice President Joe Biden is the presumed nomination.

In his second straight presidential bid Sanders issued a brief statement to his campaign during an all-staff conference call on Wednesday morning.

The senator from Vermont was trailing Biden in delegates after major primary defeats but was hanging in the race to promote his progressive policy positions.

Sanders gave a virtual news briefing around the noon hour and praised Biden as the presumed nominee. He called President Trump the most dangerous president in history as he praised his supporters and encouraged them to keep up the fight for his policies and the movement that he represents.

Biden was already moving ahead and was planning to consider running mates. I would guess that Biden will go ahead and pick a running mate.

Voters in Wisconsin went to the polls Tuesday, but results are not expected until Monday, April 13.

Biden is expected to win that primary and that may have helped to encourage Sanders to drop out or suspend his campaign.

While Biden may be pleased that Sanders’ has suspended his campaign, I really don’t believe that Sanders progressive supporters are going to support Biden or any other candidate, for that matter.

No Audience for Biden-Sanders Debate

 
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by Daveda Gruber:

The debate between former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders I-Vt., will be debating without an audience on Sunday.

The Democratic National Committee had planned the Presidential debate to take place in Phoenix, Ariz., but that has changed due to the fears that have mounted with the coronavirus.

On Thursday DNC Communications Director Xochitl Hinojosa said in a statement, “Out of an abundance of caution and in order to reduce cross-country travel, all parties have decided that the best path forward is to hold Sunday’s debate at CNN’s studio in Washington, D.C., with no live audience.”

Also announced was that Jorge Ramos, who was going to be a moderator, will step back from this debate. Ramos had contact with someone who had been in contact with someone else who tested positive for the virus.

Hinojosa also said, “In addition, the DNC, CNN and Univision recently learned that Univision anchor and moderator Jorge Ramos was in proximity with someone who was in direct contact with a person that tested positive for coronavirus. Both Mr. Ramos and the person he was in contact with are in good health and symptom-free. Despite being cleared by medical professionals and out of an abundance of caution, Jorge has decided to step aside from participating in the upcoming March 15 democratic debate. Univision’s News Anchor Ilia Calderón will moderate the debate in his place.”

She continued, “Our number one priority has and will continue to be the safety of our staff, campaigns and all those involved in the debate.”

The World Health Organization designated the coronavirus, or COVID-19, an international pandemic and that appeared to be the reason to move the debate.

It has been reported that as of Thursday morning, there were more than 1,300 cases of coronavirus in the United States. Forty-four states, including Washington, D.C. have seen cases of the coronavirus. Thirty-six coronavirus deaths have been reported in the United States.

Most people who get the coronavirus have mild cases with symptoms being fever and cough and usually recover in about two weeks but older adults and people with pre-existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. The virus attacks mainly the lungs and heart.

President Trump has called for a more inclusive temporary travel ban to be enforced and to begin on Friday.

The President and Vice President Mike Pence have both been giving televised public announcements over the concerns of the coronavirus.

This is not a time to be planning travel. Keep safe and wash your hands often. Keep away from large gatherings and stay home if you feel sick and contact your healthcare provider.

Comey Gets a No Thanks for Endorsing Biden

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by Daveda Gruber:

Former Vice President Joe Biden has been getting endorsed by former running mates, as some drop out of the race for the top spot as the Democrat front-runner but he got an unexpected endorsement from the former FBI Director James Comey.

Comey left the Republican Party in 2018 because of a bad case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. He voted in his first Democratic primary and gave his endorsement through Twitter. He tweeted this:

Biden was eager to accept the former presidential candidates’ endorsements. Senator Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg both suspended their presidential campaigns and joined Biden on the campaign trail and endorsed him.

The former Vice President got a much needed boost entering Super Tuesday.

Biden’s campaign rapid response director Andrew Bates was quick to spot the endorsement from Comey and answered in his own tweet:

It appears that the Democrats are still holding a grudge for Comey over his announcement in 2016, just days before the 2016 presidential election, that the FBI was reopening its investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information and her use of a private email server while she worked for the government.

So as much as Comey would like to stay relevant, both parties seem to not want any part of him.

I wonder if Comey was surprised to get the no thanks on his endorsement? Too bad it didn’t get sent snail mail to the Biden campaign. They could have just written Return to Sender on the envelope.

I’d say Comey was shocked otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered to do it in the first place.

Biden Thinks He’s Running for the US Senate

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by Daveda Gruber:

Former Vice President Joe Biden forgot that he was running to be the Democratic nominee for the presidency and instead told people that he was a Democratic candidate for the “United States Senate.”

Biden, along with other 2020 candidates, attended the South Carolina Democrat Party’s First in the South Dinner. It has been reported that the former VP received a rather long ovation. As a matter of fact, the longest out of all the candidates.

Biden must have been in his glory because he feels that he’s got South Carolina locked up for his first win because he hasn’t won a primary in any state yet.

South Carolina has been Biden’s “firewall” after losing primaries in Iowa,  New Hampshire and Nevada.

But Biden can’t seem to remember things and it results in gaffes that continue to make people, who are voters, re-think their options.

When Biden was wrapping up at the dinner, he forgot which office that he was actually running for.

Biden was begging the voters for their support and said, “You’re the ones who sent Barack Obama the presidency. And I have a simple proposition here: I’m here to ask you for your help. Where I come from, you don’t go very far unless you ask. My name’s Joe Biden. I’m a Democratic candidate for the United States Senate. Look me over. If you like what you see, help out. If not, vote for the other Biden. Give me a look though, okay?”

Twitter gives a lot of information and here’s a tweet that shows Biden saying it:

Biden has been a senator in the past but he’s not running for a Senate position now. The man wants to be President of the United States and apparently forgot.

These past weeks have not been kind to the forgetful Biden. He had voters wondering about his claim to have been arrested in South Africa trying to free Nelson Mandela from prison. It was the first time for that story and there are no facts to substantiate it.

Biden also got confused about his late son Beau’s position and told CNN that the deceased son had served as U.S. attorney general. I fact, Beau Biden was attorney general for the state of Delaware from 2007-2015. He was never a U.S. Attorney General.

In a way, it would be kinder if Biden didn’t win the state of South Carolina. Maybe that would make him get out of this race and stop making a fool out of himself.

It is starting to look sad to see an old man struggling to remember key facts.

Biden Says Son Was US Attorney General

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by Daveda Gruber:

Presidential candidate for 2020, former Vice President Joe Biden apparently forgot what his late son, Beau Biden did for a living.

On Thursday during a CNN town hall with a live audience Biden claimed that his son, Beau was the “Attorney General of the United States.”

The elder Biden was sadly mistaken because his son Beau was Attorney General of Delaware but not the United States.

Anderson Cooper of CNN was the moderator and asked Biden, “How will you restore the barriers between the Department of Justice and the Oval Office?”

Biden answered, “Never direct the Justice Department as to who they should or should not indict and under what circumstances they should or should not. That is an independent judgment to be made.”

Biden went on to stumble through his words and said, “My son  ̶̶  the one who  ̶̶  my deceased son, was the Attorney General of the United States and before that, he was a federal prosecutor in one of the largest offices in the country in Philadelphia.”

Biden then added, “And I’ll tell you what, he wouldn’t even talk to me about anything he was doing  ̶̶    his father  ̶̶   and he shouldn’t have, and I didn’t have any control over either one of those things.”

Here’s a tweet that shows Biden speaking:

The caucus have begun in Nevada and hopefully we’ll have the results in a timely manner. We’ll find out if people in that state support the gaffe machine known as Joe Biden or one of the other 2020 Democratic candidates.

Personally, I cannot imagine standing behind any of them.

Will there be a Brokered Democratic Convention?

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by Daveda Gruber:

It appears that there is no clear frontrunner in the Democratic race for the leadership of the party.

The Iowa caucuses are less than six weeks away and there is no outright favorite. In more than a half of a century we have not seen a convention that goes beyond a first ballot but we may see it happen.

If this first ballot does not work out, and it certainly looks like that is a possibility,  we will see a brokered or contested convention.

The last time that either of the major party nominating conventions went past a first ballot was 1952. In that year Adlai Stevenson won the Democratic nomination on the third ballot.

Kathy Sullivan, the Democratic National Committee member from New Hampshire, recently said, “It could happen, it would be exciting to see it go past the first ballot because it would be so unusual.”

Sullivan added, “It’s been a long, long, long time since there’s been a second ballot at a Democratic convention.”

Even if the possibility of a brokered convention is not a strong possibility, conditions in this race could possibly lead to no candidate holding a clear majority of delegates when they head into the July Democratic convention in Milwaukee.

Here’s where the electoral college comes into play. We’ve all heard about superdelegates. These delegates are the party elders and insiders. But the superdelegates were stripped of their power in the 2016 primary battle. After all, Hillary Clinton was destined to win, if only in the minds of the Democrats.

This upcoming election does not have a presumed frontrunner so the superdelegates could become important and their powers would be activated.

They would be free to boost the candidates of their choosing. Their choice is not an easy task. Who could possibly beat the incumbent, President Trump? None, as far as I can see.

The top tier consists of four candidates. They are former Vice President Joe Biden, Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

The donors to the Democrats are a diverse group. Sanders, Warren and even a long shot candidate like tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang could see their campaigns funded by people-powered donations into the primary process.

Online contributions are interfering with the once powerful wealthy donors  who still back more establishment candidates and those candidates would be Biden or possibly Buttigieg.

Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg and environmental advocate Tom Steyer are pouring hundreds of millions of their own money into their own campaigns. That alone could keep them going if they can manage to hang in the race long enough.

If three or four contenders are still standing when heading into April, they would all fall short of the 1,919 delegates that are needed to clinch the nomination on the first ballot.

Sullivan explained, “You’d have to have a situation where multiple candidates come out of the first four states with wins. You’d go into Super Tuesday and have some candidates concentrating in certain states, others in other states, because it’s very expensive to run in all the states on Super Tuesday. Not all the candidates can afford to do that.”

She went on to say, “So if we come out of Super Tuesday with no clear leader and then it becomes a state-by-state contest and then we end up in New York towards the end of April. If after that point we still don’t have [a clear leader], then yes, it goes to the convention and conceivably a second ballot.”

Democratic governors, senators, representatives, former high-ranking lawmakers and leading party officials, who make up the superdelegates, all backed their favorite candidate, Clinton, in 2016.

But after the 2016 election, the DNC pulled back the influence of superdelegates because of the anger of Sanders and his army of progressive supporters.

Now, the superdelegates are only unbound if the convention reaches a second round.

Then there is another scenario.

If one of the candidate gets strong in the early states, the nomination race could be over pretty fast.

In 2004 when then Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts wrapped his nomination early.

If the battle between the candidates goes to a second ballot in Milwaukee, Sullivan maintains that we shouldn’t expect to see a repeat of the contested conventions from the history books.

Sullivan said, “People refer to brokered conventions, which leads you to think of people in smoke-filled rooms making deals, cutting deals. I don’t think you’re going to see deal-making going on because all these people [delegates] are free agents. It would be a very democratic process.”

A Democratic process? Is she suggesting that the 2016 process wasn’t? No, Clinton was the clear choice for everyone in the party even if they cheated Sanders out of it.

Unfortunately for them, they were all wrong. They backed their candidate without any thought that Trump would or could defeat their choice for president.

Personally, I believe Trump will be the winner no matter who the Democrats put up against him.

If I were a Democrat, which I am not, I’d be panicking about now.

New Poll Shows These Candidates Leading

 
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by Daveda Gruber:

A new national poll shows who is leading the still large group of Democrats in the race to become the presidential nominee for 2020.

In a NPR PBS News Hour Marist poll released on Monday which was conducted by Public Opinion Director Lee Miringoff, former Vice President Joe Biden is at 24 percent and Bernie Sanders D-VT, at 22 percent in the polling of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independent voters. The numbers are within the survey’s sampling error.

The poll was conducted between December 9th and 11th, with 1,508 registered voters nationwide, which included 704 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. They were questioned by live telephone operators. The margin of error for questions on the Democratic presidential primary is plus or minus 5.4 percentage points.

Other candidates are Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth is at 17 percent after slipping slightly in the poll. South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who was a long-shot climbed to 13 percent support.

Tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang is at 5 percent and Senator Cory Booker  D-NJ., Senator Amy Klobuchar D-MN., and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg all at 4 percent.

Senator Michael Bennet D-CO, Representative Tulsi Gabbard D-HI, and former Obama housing secretary and former San Antonio, Texas Mayor Julian Castro are all at 1 percent.

All other candidate else registered at less than 1 percent.

The next debate is scheduled for December 19, 2019 at 9:00 PM at Gersten Pavilion at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California.

The field is large and diverse but the question in most American’s minds is can anyone of these candidates beat President Trump.

What say you? Can a Democratic candidate beat Trump?

What Does Hunter Biden Want to be Kept Secret?

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by Daveda Gruber:

Hunter Biden, who is the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, filed a protective order to have his financial records sealed.

It appears that the younger Biden’s lawyers are afraid that information of Biden’s finances could cause problems if the details were used by the media.

The filing, according to the Daily Mail, says, “The likelihood that [Biden’s] private records will be used in an inappropriate or malicious manner for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with these proceedings is exceedingly high and should not be tolerated by the court.”

Attorneys for the former Vice President’s son claim that because of the high public profile, the media could use details maliciously and that could allegedly cause Biden public embarrassment.

The motion was filed on Wednesday in Arkansas as part of an ongoing child support suit in which an earlier court filing in the case alleged that DNA tests confirm with “scientific certainty” that Hunter is the biological father of a child born to Lunden Alexis Roberts in August 2018.

The 49 year old Biden had denied having sexual intercourse with the 28 year old Roberts and she filed paternity suit which proved that Hunter is the biological father of her child after DNA tests confirmed it with “scientific certainty.”

Roberts had allegedly claimed that Biden had privately admitted to her that he is the father of her child but continued to deny it publicly.

At the time of Roberts’ pregnancy, Hunter was in a relationship with his late brother Beau’s widow, Hallie.

Biden then married 32-year-old Melissa Cohen in May of this year, a month after splitting from Hallie. Beau died from brain cancer.

Biden left his first wife, Kathleen, who is the mother of his three daughters, in 2016 after a marriage of 22 years. It was then that he moved in with Hallie Biden,

In the divorce, his wife claimed he had spent extravagantly on his own interests (including drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, strip clubs and gifts for women with whom he has sexual relations), while leaving the family with no funds to pay legitimate bills.

Roberts is demanding $11,000  in legal fees as well as child support, and has agreed that a protective order is appropriate.

In a sworn statement, Biden says that he has incurred “significant debts” in part due to his 2017 divorce from Kathleen Biden and that he is unemployed at this time and has had no monthly income since May 2019.

Well, we know that Hunter allegedly made money when he was on the Board of the Ukraine energy company, Burisma. He also allegedly made money in other foreign companies.

Maybe Hunter’s first wife nailed it about Hunter’s extravagant lifestyle? Well, in my opinion, Hunter either blew an exorbitant amount of money or he has some stashed somewhere.

Schiff: Whistleblower to Speak before Congress

 
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by Daveda Gruber:

On Sunday House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., announced that an agreement had been reached with the House and the whistleblower who filed a complaint about President Trump in regard to the July phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Schiff was a guest on ABC’s “This Week” and explained that the agreement with the whistleblower and his or her lawyers has been settled.  He also made it clear that the identity of the whistleblower would be protected.

Schiff said, “As with [acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph] Mcguire, that whistleblower will be allowed to come in without White House or DOJ lawyers to tell him or her what they can or can’t say.”

Schiff also added, “We are taking all the precautions we can to protect the whistleblower’s identity. With President Trump’s threats, you can imagine the security concerns here.”

Schiff’s concern with the anonymity of the whistleblower comes after Trump allegedly threatened “the person” who he said gave information to the whistleblower when he spoke with staff from the U.S. mission to the United Nations at a private event in New York.

The whistleblower remains unnamed at this point but much is on the table regarding the testimony to be given before Congress.

Republications will have to pick a side because the impeachment of a president is no small matter.

Trump will also have pressure on himself to rebut the core contentions of the aforementioned phone call.

In an audio posted by The Los Angeles Times Trump said, “Who’s the person who gave the whistleblower the information? Because that’s close to a spy. You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now.”

On Sunday Schiff was on NBC’s “Meet The Press.” On that show Schiff said that the president’s behavior was so “egregious” that House lawmakers were forced to open an impeachment inquiry relating to his call with the Ukrainian leader.

Schiff said, “The gravamen of the offense here is the president using the power of his office to coerce a foreign nation into helping his presidential campaign to once again interfere in our election, and at the same time withholding foreign aid that country so desperately needs to fight off who? The Russians.”

He also added, “The situation demands that we move forward with the inquiry.”

The Democrats, if not all of them, then at least the progressive ones want to impeach President Trump and have given the rest of their party no alternative but to initiate an inquiry into impeachment. The fact that no vote to do so was implemented doesn’t seem to bother lawmakers.

Folks, I don’t know about you but, I read the readout of the phone call in question. From the information given, at this point, it appears that former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, have a lot more to worry about than Trump.

I’ve always said that the wheels of justice move very slowly but I’ve never waited this long to see justice being served. After all, there is a video which shows that the elder Biden used quid pro quo in getting the top Ukrainian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, fired.

Biden allegedly wanted the prosecutor ousted to protect his son, Hunter, from being investigated. That fact is adamantly denied by Biden.

The Ukraine’s largest private gas company, Burisma, hired the younger Biden and paid him up to $50,000 a month.

Stayed tuned folks, corruption is abundant in government but the end result of that finding doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story.

Is your popcorn ready? Mine is.

Want to Read the Transcript of the Call Trump Made to Ukraine?

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by Daveda Gruber:

What could President Donald Trump have said to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in July? You can actually see it here and decide for yourself.

The transcripts of the call have been released and nothing is redacted.

Of course, after reading, Democrats will interpret the wording one way and Republicans another way. Did you expect anything different?

Read the report here:

Ukraine Call Transcript by Fox News on Scribd

The person who is actually looking bad in the transcript is former Vice President Joe Biden.

Trump told the American people that the stock market rising after the transcript came up is a great indication that the phone call had nothing wrong in it and had more to say.

Here is Trump speaking:

Trump tweeted this:

Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi came out of closed door meetings on Tuesday and said that the Democrats are opening an investigation into the impeachment of Trump. But the Democrats jumped the gun and didn’t bother to wait until the transcript was released today to look at the transcript of the phone call that was at the helm of the Whistleblower letter that allegedly accused someone of wrong doing.

But Democrats have not seen the Whistleblower report. The name of the Whistleblower is not known as of yet.

Democrats now want to see the Whistleblower’s accusation; in fact, they’re demanding it.

The mention of promised money being held back for information on Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden is what the Democrats were banking on. There was no such message in the phone call according to the transcripts.

But then, Democrats have an unusual way of reading and seeing documents in a rather different light than Republicans.

The blame game is in full force. Democrats, in fact, one in particular, Representative Adam Schiff, D-CA.,  is stating that money was withheld and that the president of the Ukraine allegedly got a Mafia like threat that didn’t have to be actually stated for him to assume he was being threatened by monies being withheld.

Hear/see Schiff speak here:

The question of the alleged deeds of Joe Biden being investigated for alleged possible wrong doing involving his son Hunter is actually something that should be investigated.

Congressman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., is calling for Attorney General William Barr to recuse himself from a possible Ukrainian probe.

Haven’t we had enough with the Russia probe? Do we want to spend another few years on a new probe now that it is rather obvious that nothing came out of Mueller’s report on a very costly investigation? No!

The president has been talking to world leaders at the UN this week. The problems in the world are at the forefront but the Democrats have taken this week to over-shadow Trump with attacking him once more.

How many times can these lawmakers step away from the job that they are paid for and create investigations that are very expensive but produce no particular outcome?

It appears that the answer is as many as they can.

Get out the popcorn because this investigation cannot end well for the Democrats. They’ve been caught with their hands in the cookie jar. My humble opinion on this matter is that the former vice president is the one who will go down over this.