There's a reason that I've been willing to defend Joe Biden almost immediately against the various mopery and dopery he's been accused of over the years. It's because he's been in the public eye for half a century and we all have a pretty good idea of who he is.
When Tara Reade accused him of harassment, I was skeptical from the start. People who do that stuff get a reputation and Biden doesn't have one.
Bribes and corruption? Biden has never been wealthy or flaunted his belongings. I've never been even slightly concerned that anyone would someday dig something up on him.
Deliberately stealing classified documents when he left office in 2017? The guy's a Boy Scout and always has been.
Regardless of what you think of Biden policywise—and feel free to hate him for raising taxes on the rich or canceling student debt if you want—everyone in Washington DC knows what he's like as a person. He's gregarious, decent, honest, a little goofy, and a family man. His worst fault is regaling audiences with stories of his life that are maybe a little less than 100% accurate.
That's it. That's the guy. Trying to pretend he's something else is just never going to work.
I'm shocked. You mean he is not a secret billionaire hiding his wealth because that is what all billionaires do?
Goes along with the GOP complaints of the radical policies Biden has enacted or forced through the GOP House.
So, you think there's NO evidence that he's a cognitively impaired vegetable who is also a criminal mastermind?
There's just no reasoning with you liberals.
+1
In its latest display of gutless fence-straddling, the Washington Post declared the "impeachment inquiry" had failed to find "clear" evidence of wrongdoing.
"Any" is the word they where groping for. It's failed to find ANY evidence of wrongdoing.
No kidding, there's not even things which might be iffy.
⁽⁽ଘ( ˊᵕˋ )ଓ⁾⁾
I dunno, Hillary Clinton was simultaneously a sick old lady and a homicidal criminal mastermind. Republicans I know told me so!
So it figures the same is true of Biden, and will no doubt be true of the next Democratic candidate for President. I'm sure the Kamala kill list and the Buttigieg crime family are already filed and waiting to be released. No doubt, Kimberly Guilfoyle will testify that she personally witnessed Gavin Newsom murdering babies and passing classified documents to Chinese agents.
Kinda how like, for the xenophobic right, immigrants are both lazy moochers and stealing our jobs. Schrödinger would be impressed by the modern GOP.
Wait
You mean those stories about Joe pimping out Jill to wealthy nursing home residents were false? I mean, she is a working girl.
Jeepers those MAGA nuts better stat paying better bribes to the folks who provide them with "proof" of their outlandish stories
Have to disagree with you about this, Kevin. Decent human beings who pride themselves on their family values don't shun grandchildren who are born out of wedlock, as if it's the little girl's fault that her father was on a coke bender when she was conceived.
The decent thing for Joe Biden to do is to show America that you love all your children and grandchildren equally rather than have your advisors force you to offer a minimal statement of acknowledgment.
Please note, Biden is a billion times better than anything the GOP has to offer right now, and I'll surely vote for him. But not all of his conduct is so exemplary, IMO.
Ooops, he already has.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/biden-acknowledged-7th-grandchild-son-hunter-biden-navy-jones-rcna97505
You're like a year behind on the news.
No, I'm not. I said clearly he acknowledged his grandchild, but he did so minimally and neither he nor his son have developed any personal relationship with the child, as far as we know from any news reports. I'm not shitting all over Biden, I voted for him once and I'll do it again. I'm just disagreeing with Kevin that Biden is an exemplary family man.
I think Biden has been a pretty good president, which does not require one to be an exemplar of personal virtue. If you want more insight into his character (Biden's, not Kevin's), I suggest you read George Packer's book The Unwinding, which has some pretty juicy anecdotes about how Biden treated his employees as a senator.
...neither he nor his son have developed any personal relationship with the child, as far as we know from any news reports.
So, in other words, you're accusing him of something you admit to knowing nothing about.
So, you like want supervised visits with Biden and his grandchildren to assure to your satisfaction that he's treating them "decently" by whatever personal standard you seem to be referring to? Could he send a video to you? Fill out a questionnaire?
Or maybe whatever personal standard you have for "decency" says more about you than anyone else...? Just a guess, but you've probably made up your mind and nothing Biden does will change it!
And who are you that you think your opinion should count for something with this particular audience? I think you served us coffee once or twice and that's all I can remember about you.
Fuck off troll with your concern about Biden’s grandchildren. You should be ashamed of yourself for shitting all over the only candidate who remotely resembles a decent family man. Never forget the other guy has all but said he wants to fuck his own daughter.
Too nice - but YES.
Trump being a despicable human being has nothing to do with the question of whether Biden should be held up as a role model of decency. "Trump is much, much worse" is obvious, but irrelevant to Kevin's blog post.
The focus here is that you have made something up with no eveidence to support the accusation.
We are not talking about Biden or Trump here, the focus is your desperate trolling.
Kevins post above is directed directly at you and the legions of others just like you.
'While I have no evidence of this and what we do know contradicts my made-up story, you have to trust me that Biden is truly terrible in private for reasons that I cant really explain' is a well worn path that hasnt worked very well.
Please let me do a quick defense of njoseph here: It is true that none of us know the state of the relationship with his granddaughter...she is still very much a child, and there is good reason for Joe and the established family to be wary of the mother.
This is not, in my opinion, a question of good or bad, decent or indecent. I've done a couple of these pole dancer child custody/child support cases...the are weird.
But only in the sense that every custody/support matter engenders passions and hatreds and parental love...and distancing sometimes.
I'll go further, if Joe and Hunter were client's I'd advise them, considering their vulnerability in the public eye, to be very, very cautious to the granddaughter.
America refused to deal with essential issues...people are, from time to time, simply nuts. There is nothing wrong in acknowledging this truth...you have to be careful when people are off the rails. Happens to the best of us...
Children are murdered everyday in the United States...Filicide is common. Terrible but true. Which I suppose is what the Supreme Court got so wrong in Heller and gun control in general...human beings are more than failable...they can be...the greatest people on earth and still deranged.
nothing brings out passions like children...and so you have to be very careful with this...which is all I think njoseph is saying.
Or, at least, this is how I read him. Best Wishes, Traveller
I appreciate your points, Traveller, they are well made. I'd like to emphasize how personal and complicated these things are. From so far outside the situation as we all are, it is impossible to understand it, and therefore ridiculous to judge any people involved in it.
For that reason I do disagree with your more charitable view of njoseph's post. He pretty clearly judges Joe Biden to be a bad person based on this. "Decent human beings who pride themselves on their family values don't shun grandchildren who are born out of wedlock".
No, No, Coby Beck, you make a good point, Looking back, I did probably read njoseph wrong or too charitably.
But who knows what baggage he is bringing to his comment? Maybe he wants to atone for something....
But I seriously suggest we all have had family problems....I know a father with a son with a drinking/drug problem assault a family member....for many years, though I was not involved, there was no contact with him and I have only relented recently because the person assailed asked me to. So Easter will be pleasant, nice polite conversation.
But at the time, what was I going to do, jump on a plane and fly up to Oregon? Heck, the kid would have beaten the dickens out weak/old me...lol
Sigh...these things are hard!
Anyhow...I do think Kevin is correct...Biden is a decent man....which also is a hard road. Best Wishes, Traveller
Stupid trolling trick number 4: Make an accusation with no supporting evidence well-hedged with qualifiers like 'minimimal', 'to the best of my knowledge', etc., then when reasons are presented to be skeptical, take those expressions as claims in and of themeselves and claim you're 'knot satisfied with the evidence.'
This guy is a tosser, pure and simple.
Interesting that you don't mention the "mom", who was represented by Trump lawyers in her demand for thousands of dollars/month in child support. I don't know any more than what has been published about her but it isn't hard to imagine her making it extra ordinarily difficult for the Bidens with or without the encouragement of her lawyers, for no other reason than to make the Bidens look bad. I don't know the inner workings of the relationship, and neither do you. Family dynamics are difficult in most families without politics rearing it's ugly head.
Interpersonal dynamics are much more complicated than that. Given that Hunter has no apparent relationship with the woman or his child, it would at best be difficult for the senior Bidens to have such a relationship. Also, for Joe Biden to claim that he loves all his grandchildren equally would be, or would have been, a lie. He is simply not going to love a grandchild he does not know.
Grandparents where the custodial parent want nothing to do with them respect that decision. Only scum like you would believe it proper to ignore that.
Trying to pretend he's something else is just never going to work.
But SAYING that he’s a doddering senile corrupt all-powerful mastermind, quite apart from its self-contradictory idiocy, is an affirmation by a True Believer in AMERICA! And also FREEDOM! And something something trans woke Prius-driving welfare nanny-state Nancy Pelosi university ee-leetist also TOO!
You’re getting too good at this shtick …
It ain't too difficult. A 77-year-old with rapidly advancing dementia can do it. Your average MAGAt can do it. An AI could probably do it without even heating up a processor.
Trump is an INDECENT person----but NOT a rapist, and not provably one.
Sometimes, the persecution is real.
*Maybe* not provably one. That hasn't been litigated yet, for all the accusations. Nonetheless, that's a pretty low bar, don'tcha think?
FWIW, litigating those claims would not be "persecution," nor would repeating the claims.
He’s a fucking rapist, in the colloquial use of the term. And fuck you for trying to count the number of angels fucking on the head of a pin on this issue.
That's not what the judge said.
Grab 'em by the pussy, he said. Grab her by the pussy, he did.
Such a good pint. Vote Trump - there is no video of him raping anyone so nobody can prove he's a rapist.
And that is Trump's GOOD side.
Such a good pint. Vote Trump - there is no video of him raping anyone so nobody can prove he's a rapist. And that is Trump's GOOD side.
LOL!
The distinction between "rape" and "sexual assault" (digital penetration in this case) is inconsequential. At his recent trial the latter was deemed a finding of fact. So, yes, Trump is a rapist, full stop.
I'm not sure that's the dividing line in New York? It varies by state, but penetration of any type can be called rape.
The marines instructed my brother that penetration, however slight, was rape.
I don't have any interest in looking it up (the subject is not a comfortable one for me and why expend effort for this guy anyway), but my understanding is that some state legislatures have created a bunch of gradations of sexual assaults while others have just let rape be rape. Some Trump supporters have focused on this particular distinction in their usual diversionary word games, however.
This troll is all about rape, all the time. Everyday.
What a weirdo.
This schtick is getting boringly repetitive.
The judge in the successful sexual assault lawsuit explicitly stated that Trump's proven conduct met the layman's definition of rape. So it is correct to say Trump is a proven rapist. And you are completely wrong. Also, two of Epstein's proven victims have sworn they were raped by Trump.
Decent he is. But remember, if he wins there will be a bloodbath. And if he loses, there will be a bigger bloodbath.
But in both cases, HE will not be the one causing the bloodbath. And if he wins, Joe will do everything possible to halt and contain the bloodbath. Unlike that other guy, the convicted rapist , fraudster, and tax cheat.
👍👍👍👍👍
>> regaling audiences with stories of his life that are maybe a little less than 100% accurate.<<
Reminds me of the time everyone was mocking Biden for his “Corn Pop” story and then just couldn’t bring themselves to fully admit they were wrong when it turned out to be true.
This is exactly what you said over and over about HRC. So now I’m worried.
Except this time Dems are well and truly scared. Complacency was our enemy in '16, but not this time.
The best Joe is the one that gets mad.
"Decent" Biden was too compassionate towards Merrick Garland and subsequently appointed him Attorney General to compensate for SCOTUS seat loss. We are now seeing the incredibly damaging aspects of that choice. The nation is imperiled.
Major error. Think twice before you fully embrace decency as a paramount virtue.
Pretty sure that's not what Kevin said. Maybe read the post. No where does he state decency is the paramount virtue. It's a really important part of the package, but not the most important part.
Right.
Decency is hardly Biden's only virtue, or even the most important one. But decency is as asset for any politician because most voters would rather vote for the decent candidate over the asshole. November will be another test of that thesis. The GOP goes after Biden's decency because they understand it's a strength for him, and that's what they do: take an opponent's strength and try to trash it (a/k/a "swiftboating").
I tend to think Garland is not the right person for the job. But I'm not sure Biden picked him strictly out of compassion. I think Biden may have expected Garland would be more motivated than others in going after GOP crimes. That doesn't seem to be the case.
Why not? My guess is that Garland's experience is lacking. He's been a judge all his life and never ran a large bureaucracy like the DOJ, with more than a hundred thousand employees. Bureaucracies are political in nature and it takes great effort to overcome the resistance and opposition to what the leadership wants to accomplish. It's a far different thing than managing a team of law clerks who are loyal by nature.
Look at what the US Attorney's office just did to Alvin Bragg's case against Trump, dumping a ton of documents at the last minute, which will delay the Trump trial from moving forward. It's outright sabotage. No other word for it. It's the same Southern District of NY office (Giuliani's old home) that screwed Hillary Clinton 11 days before the 2016 election when it reopened the emails case.
What will Garland do? Will he sweep house? He needs to. What Biden ought to do after the election is appoint a reformer as AG to clean out the GOP partisans, starting with the office in NY.
Garland was a very good prosecutor before he became a judge. It shouldn't have been too much to expect that he would return to being a very good prosecutor on a larger scale as AG. It's regrettable that apparently it WAS too much to expect.
I guess serial mendacity is only a problem if you are George Santos, not if you are Joe Biden?
In the long litany of stupid posts of yours, this might take the cake.
Yep, MotherFocker wins the intertubes on this article.
Kevin, where is that effyouseekaying "Block" button?
Yes. PLEASE bring back the "block" button! There are many interesting commenters on Kevin's posts.
+1
Please don't feed the troll. It only leaves its droppings to get attention. Starve the troll.
I guess serial mendacity is only a problem if you are George Santos,
It's also a problem if you are MF.
You must have been beaten up a lot as a kid, no matter how many times your parents changed schools.
+ 1
Remember when the standard used to be "who would you rather have a beer with?" I think that I could talk to Joe Biden for a good long time. Trump, I'd hang myself within 5 minutes as he blathered on about himself or things he knows nothing about. Trump's a moron on all things not involving manipulating morons, or avoiding to pay people.
He'd probably also regale you with tales of how his older brother Fred drank himself to death and that beer you had been enjoying up until that point would ultimately get you, too, and that's why HE ... yada yada yada ME ME ME...
I would point out that obesity also kills. Just to fully ruin the event.
Philip Bump recently had polling indicating that voters from the two parties each think of the other party's candidate as about equally corrupt. So you know, sure, it's "never going to work," except it does totally work with a broken media environment and a brain-dead Trump electorate. It works just fine.
I'm with you Kevin. Joe may have wrinkles but he doesn't carry the baggage, and trunks that tog, t-Rump, drags around. I ll stick with Joe thanks.
It is indecent to treat another human being like they are only relevant when they are an opportunity to be exploited and/or a threat to be neutralized,
Political practice is descent, and political malpractice is indecent.
Competent political practice is better than incompetent political practice.
Competent political malpractice is worse then incompetent political malpractice.
President Biden is descent and competent. It just doesn't get any better.
President Biden's predecessor is indecent and incompetent. It can get worse.
Yes, decent is a fair word to use about Biden. But what has that got to do with winning an election? I would trade "decent" for having the wisdom to not run for re-election. And the wisdom to know that giving Netanyahu a bear hug was not going to turn out well.
Consider this article from NBC news:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/biden-anger-rcna143729
"History suggests it will be tough for him to recover. Biden’s 38% approval rating at this stage in the calendar is lower than that of the last three presidents who went on to lose re-election: Trump (48%), George H.W. Bush (39%) and Jimmy Carter (43%), according to Gallup survey data."
Biden has put himself in a position where it will take a major collapse by Trump to win.
Trump never had a 48% approval rating.
My definition of "decent human being" includes not supporting and/or enabling slaughter of civilians, women and children. If you're co-opted in acting this way due to power or other obligations, please don't redefine "decent", and to his credit I don't believe Joe has done that, just Kevin on his behalf. A decent and upright person embraces what they do, they don't duck from it. If it's not right, you take immediate action to at the very least dissociate yourself, if not take remedial action. Joe is obviously compromised by being American president and apparently obliged to support just about anything Israel does.
Also, you need a new comment provider Kevin, your current vendor is completely incompetent and often places comments tucked under other comments without warrant, so I often have to copy and paste it back out and re-add the comment so is at own parent level. This is web design incompetence of the worst order, you can do better.
Plus obviously the election corruption aspect that McCain was focused on, corporations are not persons! AI are not persons! AI are not corporations! This could quickly get out of control, when a competent leader could put a cap on it.
My overall point is not to litigate the past, but to put constitutional protections in place to deter indecent behavior going forward. Very simple.