The Trump Ad That Could Win Biden The Nomination-- A Set Up For Dumb Dems?

Writing for the Washington Post, Alexandra Petri insists Trump isn't the clown and imbecile many people see him as, but a brilliant and calculating mastermind who is methodically going about winning his reelection battle. It's "all part of a plan," the wrote. "[E]very move that Trump makes, has made or is making... is planned. It is a genius plan. It might look like the random, haphazard flailing of a cat that has gotten its head stuck in a bucket. But actually he is in total control." She asserts it's all about impeachment. "Getting himself impeached is actually a strategic triumph for President Trump, and anyone who thinks otherwise is just not playing chess in enough dimensions. Consider what is the greater mark of strategic genius: to mire yourself and your administration in an endless series of idiotic and pointless controversies, often rife with misspellings, damaging your standing at home and abroad, or to NOT do that? If you say the second, you are a fool. This is all part of the plan. Actually, this is good. Actually, this is great." Once the youngest person with her own Post column, Petri is a comedian. I'm not.

Trump's in trouble. His approval numbers are underwater everywhere. His net approval in key battleground states his campaign says it can win:

• North Carolina- minus 3
• Virginia- minus 6
• Arizona- minus 4
• New Hampshire- minus 23
• Minnesota- minus 11
• Pennsylvania- minus 8
• Wisconsin- minus 11
• Montana- minus 3
• Michigan- minus 10
• Iowa- minus 14
• Colorado- minus 15
• Florida- minus 2
• Ohio- minus 5

Remember that big trip to New Mexico he just did-- to sew top a win there? He's minus 16 in New Mexico, about the same as New Jersey. He's even minus 2 in Utah and Nebraska... but it's Ohio Team Trump is most worried about. There is no path to victory for Trump without Ohio. And in an Emerson poll yesterday a plurality of voters already want him impeached and all the top Democratic potential nominees are beating him statewide:

So that takes us back to a split in the road-- the crazy shit Trump is doing in one direction and the path to possible victory down the other road. There's no shortage of crazy stuff and by the time this post is published there'll be even more than there is while I"m writing it.

In the face of the Ukrainian scandal that's getting him impeached, Trump called for the government of (Communist, anti-christian) China to investigate the Biden's yesterday. Seems crazy, right?. He told reporters that "China should launch an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden. He said that if Congress was "honest about it, they would start a major investigation into the Bidens. It’s a very simple answer. They should investigate the Bidens. How does a company newly formed and all these companies-- by the way, likewise, China should start an investigation into the Bidens. Because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine. So I would say that President Zelensky, if it were me, I would recommend that they start an investigation into the Bidens. Because nobody has any doubt that they weren’t crooked. That was a crooked deal 100%."

The Trump campaign has that ad up top running nationally now. And Señor T is pushing it hard on social media. It's so patently dishonest that CNN won't take their money and run it. I detest Biden and will never vote for him but CNN is correct to not run that ad, "citing falsehoods." The premise of the ad is wrong. Biden went to Ukraine to get the prosecutor fired-- a prosector who was PROTECTING his son's crooked company (Burisma), not prosecuting it. Andrew Kirell (Daily Beast senior editor):

[T]he Ukrainian prosecutor in question, Viktor Shokin, was viewed by multiple international bodies and the Obama administration as deeply ineffective in fighting corruption. The U.S. embassy in 2016 suggested $1 billion in loan guarantees as a way to push the Ukrainian government to enforce stricter anti-corruption policies, including the removal of officials like Shokin.

Biden publicly took credit for the idea-- as seen in the clips the Trump campaign now weaponizes in the ad-- but international organizations like the G7, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) all reportedly wanted Shokin ousted.

PolitiFact handled it in great depth-- too much for the average voter, let alone the average Trump supporter-- back in May.

Shady self-dealing in the Ukraine? It’s not just the Republican side that does that, says a social media meme that makes the charge against Democrat Joe Biden.

The episode involved his son Hunter Biden’s work on behalf of a Ukrainian energy company at a time when the elder Biden was vice president and a key figure in U.S. policy on Ukraine. The story has been public for years, but it received new attention with Biden running strong among 2020 Democratic presidential contenders.

One viral image being shared on social media used a bit of reverse psychology, asking what Americans would think if the details of this story involved the Trump family rather than the Biden family. (Trump’s 2016 campaign chair Paul Manafort was convicted of tax and bank fraud for laundering millions in income he earned working for Ukrainian politicians.)

Here’s the text, which is accompanied by a photograph of Hunter Biden embracing his father.

"Did you know that Donald Trump Jr. was named a director to Ukraine’s largest private gas producer following a Ukrainian visit by President Trump? Trump later threatened to withhold $1 BILLION in U.S. aid to Ukraine if they didn’t fire a prosecutor looking into Don Jr.’s company. Just kidding! That was Joe Biden when he was VP, and his son Hunter Biden."

Is it true, as the image suggests, that Hunter Biden was serving as "a director to Ukraine’s largest private gas producer" when the elder Biden "threatened to withhold $1 BILLION in U.S. aid to Ukraine if they didn’t fire a prosecutor looking into" the gas company?

Key takeaways • Hunter Biden did hold a directorship for a Ukrainian gas company while his father was vice president. Experts agree that Hunter Biden's acceptance of the position created a conflict of interest for his father.
• Vice President Joe Biden did urge Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor, with the threat of withholding U.S. aid. But that was the position of the wider U.S. government, as well as other international institutions.
• We found no evidence to support the idea that Joe Biden advocated with his son's interests in mind, as the message suggests. It's not even clear that the company was actively under investigation or that a change in prosecutors benefited it.

What was Hunter Biden’s role?

Hunter Biden did hold a directorship with a natural gas company called Burisma Holdings, beginning in the spring of 2014.

Reuters reported at the time that a statement on the company’s website said the younger Biden "would help the company with "transparency, corporate governance and responsibility, international expansion," and other issues. The company also retained the law firm where Biden had been working, Boies Schiller Flexner.

The position with Burisma came at a time when the younger Biden had joined with Christopher Heinz (the stepson of then-Sen. John Kerry, D-MA) and Devon Archer (a Kerry family friend) in a string of investment and consulting firms. Firms run by Biden and Archer "pursued business with international entities that had a stake in American foreign policy decisions, sometimes in countries where connections implied political influence and protection," the New York Times reported.

Biden’s Burisma directorship attracted attention because Burisma was owned by Mykola Zlochevsky, a minister under Russia-friendly President Viktor F. Yanukovych who subsequently went into exile after a popular revolution. After Yanukovych was ousted, Zlochevsky faced a variety of corruption-related investigations involving his business.

In 2015, Ukraine’s newly appointed prosecutor general Viktor Shokin inherited some of the investigations into Zlochevsky and his company. (Zlochevsky and the company have denied the allegations.) Shokin was ousted as prosecutor in 2016. Shokin is the prosecutor the viral post is talking about (more on that later).

Did Joe Biden know about his son’s Ukrainian ties?

The Biden campaign told PolitiFact that the vice president learned about his son's role on the board through media reports and never discussed anything related to this company with his son.

In a White House press briefing on May 13, 2014, spokesman Jay Carney was asked about it, and whether it presented the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Carney said, "I would refer you to the Vice President’s office. I saw those reports. Hunter Biden and other members of the Biden family are obviously private citizens and where they work does not reflect an endorsement by the administration or by the Vice President or President. But I would refer you to the Vice President’s office."

A year and a half later, the New York Times published an article that suggested that "the credibility of the vice president’s anti-corruption message may have been undermined" by Hunter Biden’s dealings with the company.

In that 2015 article, Kate Bedingfield, a spokeswoman for the vice president, played down any impact on the elder Biden’s policies.

"Hunter Biden is a private citizen and a lawyer," she said. "The vice president does not endorse any particular company and has no involvement with this company. The vice president has pushed aggressively for years, both publicly with groups like the U.S.-Ukraine Business Forum and privately in meetings with Ukrainian leaders, for Ukraine to make every effort to investigate and prosecute corruption in accordance with the rule of law. It will once again be a key focus during his trip this week."

Hunter Biden told the New York Times this month in a statement that "at no time have I discussed with my father the company’s business, or my board service, including my initial decision to join the board."

Did Biden make a threat to Ukraine?

The post said Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion unless the prosecutor-- Shokin-- was fired. Biden didn’t just make a threat to withhold aid unless Shokin was sacked-- it succeeded.

Biden proudly recounted the moment during an event sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations on Jan. 23, 2018. Here’s the relevant portion of Biden’s remarks, which at points were accompanied by laughter from the audience:

"I remember going over (to Ukraine), convincing our team … that we should be providing for loan guarantees. … And I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from (then Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko) and from (then-Prime Minister Arseniy) Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor (Shokin). And they didn’t...

"They were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah... we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, ‘You have no authority. You’re not the president.’... I said, call him. I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion... I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch. He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time."

Shokin’s ouster came in March 2016, when he was stripped of his position by a wide margin in the legislature.

Why would Biden have pressured Ukraine over firing the prosecutor?

There’s a strong case that Hunter Biden’s position with the company had nothing to do with Biden’s position on Shokin’s ouster. That’s because Western leaders and institutions were largely united in seeking Shokin’s removal, arguing that he was not pursuing corruption cases aggressively.

For instance, in early 2016, International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde said that "it’s hard to see how the I.M.F.-supported program can continue" unless corruption prosecutions accelerate.

Steven Pifer is a career foreign service officer who was ambassador to Ukraine under President Bill Clinton and deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs under President George W. Bush. Pifer told PolitiFact that "virtually everyone" he knew in the U.S. government and virtually all non-governmental experts on Ukraine "felt that Shokin was not doing his job and should be fired. As far as I can recall, they all concurred with the vice president telling Poroshenko that the U.S. government would not extend the $1 billion loan guarantee to Ukraine until Shokin was removed from office."

Anders Åslund, a resident senior fellow at Atlantic Council, a think tank in Washington, agreed that criticism of Shokin was widespread.

Shokin "failed to prosecute anybody of significance, protecting both the Yanukovych circle and the Poroshenko group," Åslund said.

Daria Kaleniuk, the executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, a leading anti-corruption voice in Ukraine, tweeted earlier this month that Shokin’s firing was not about protecting the company Hunter Biden was working for. The firing "was obviously not because the prosecutor wanted to investigate Burisma & Zlochevsky," she wrote.

Meanwhile, accounts differ on whether Shokin was poised to prosecute Burisma at the time he was removed.

In an interview with the Ukrainian website Strana.ua this month, Shokin said the cases were indeed active.

However, Vitaliy Kasko, who had been Shokin’s deputy overseeing international cooperation before resigning in February 2016 citing corruption in the office, produced documents to Bloomberg that under Shokin, the investigation into Burisma had been dormant.

"There was no pressure from anyone from the U.S. to close cases against Zlochevsky," Kasko told Bloomberg. "It was shelved by Ukrainian prosecutors in 2014 and through 2015."

Even if Hunter Biden’s position with Burisma had no impact on his father’s policies, were his ties still problematic?

We found wide agreement among Ukraine policy experts that Hunter Biden’s decision to become a director for Burisma presented a serious conflict of interest.

"It’s not a crime, but it is a lapse. It’s troubling," said Lincoln A. Mitchell, an adjunct research scholar at Columbia University’s Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies who has written about governance in the former Soviet Union.

Pifer, who expressed reservations about the arrangement to the New York Times in 2015, said subsequent developments have only confirmed those concerns.

"It was a mistake for Hunter Biden to join the Burisma board, particularly given that the vice president was the senior U.S. official engaging Ukraine," Pifer said. "Hunter Biden should have been more mindful of his father's position."

And Yoshiko Herrera, a University of Wisconsin professor who previously headed the university’s Center for Russia, East Europe and Central Asia, said Hunter Biden’s hiring echoes the strategy common within Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union, in which powerful interests try to secure influence on foreign policy by leveraging family members and associates of key leaders.

"Calling Hunter Biden a private citizen ignores the obvious links to the vice president," Herrera said. "Conflict-of-interest rules should have applied. If Biden is working for the Obama administration on Ukraine, his son should not have been on the board of a company there that could be affected by U.S. policy spearheaded by his father."

Our ruling

The viral image said that when Hunter Biden was serving as "a director to Ukraine’s largest private gas producer," his father "threatened to withhold $1 BILLION in U.S. aid to Ukraine if they didn’t fire a prosecutor looking into" the gas company.

The image gets individual pieces of this assertion right-- Hunter Biden was a director of the company, and Joe Biden did leverage U.S. aid to fire a prosecutor. But it overreaches by assuming that Joe Biden acted to protect the company his son was affiliated with. In reality, there was widespread agreement in the West that the existing prosecutor had to go, and it’s not clear that the company would have benefited from his ouster anyway, given evidence that its cases had long been dormant.

That said, experts criticize the Bidens for their arrangement, saying it could have been a significant conflict of interest.

We rate the statement Half True.

As I've been saying, Trump can never go head to head on policy with anyone-- especially not Elizabeth Warren or Bernie. His only hope is a race centered on who is the lesser of two evils-- who is the bigger liar; who is more senile; whose family is more disgusting? Is this the kind of debate we want or can even bear?

Who Wants A Damn Compulsive Liar As President? Or A Presidential Campaign On Who's The Bigger Liar?

Trump is the biggest liar to ever occupy the White House-- by far. But if Biden ever gets there-- God forbid-- he'd be the second biggest liar to ever occupy the White House. The graphic above represents Trump's public, checked lies. I count True and Mostly True as True and everything else as lies. Half True means half false. And the one below represents Biden's record. Yes, Trump lies more than Biden... but that bar is way too low and Biden lies way too much. How many times will he say "I didn't mean to mislead" ... before going on to mislead some more?

Remember, (a little more than) half the country (at least right now) thinks Trump is worse and half the country thinks Biden is worse. But sane people know both are really vile, horrible men, the very worst of America of what America has to offer.

Two more graphics from PolitiFact. The first one represents Trump's lies in the last week. But there were so many that these few were all I could fit on this page:

The second is Biden's lies... except that PolitiFac-- while not having gotten to the dozen lies Trump told in the last two days-- also hasn't gotten to Biden's biggest-- and most pertinent-- lie of the week: his lie about the Iraq war. He claimed "details are irrelevant in terms of decision-making.

With that long record, Biden has faced criticism over the years for his judgment on key foreign policy decisions, such as voting to authorize the Iraq War, trying to partition the country along ethnic and sectarian lines, opposing a troop surge, and overseeing the withdrawal in 2011 that some say created a power vacuum that allowed ISIS to flourish in Iraq.

"He's been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades," former Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote in his 2014 memoir.

"I think my record has been good," Biden told NPR. He explained that his rationale in authorizing the use of military force in Iraq in 2002 was based on a commitment he had received from then-President George W. Bush that he would not go to war in Iraq.

"[Bush] looked me in the eye in the Oval Office. He said he needed the vote to be able to get inspectors into Iraq to determine whether or not Saddam Hussein was engaged in dealing with a nuclear program," said Biden. "He got them in and before you know it, we had 'shock and awe.'"

Bush's office denied Biden's version of events. "I'm sure it's just an innocent mistake of memory, but this recollection is flat wrong," said spokesman Freddy Ford in an email to NPR.

The Biden campaign pointed to numerous remarks from Bush at the time where he said he hoped to go through the U.N. Security Council to avoid a military conflict with Iraq.

"Immediately, that moment it started, I came out against the war at that moment," Biden told NPR.

But in multiple public remarks made after the invasion began in 2003, Biden openly supported the effort. Biden publicly said his vote was a mistake as early as 2005, but not immediately when the war began in 2003.

"Nine months ago, I voted with my colleagues to give the president of the United States of America the authority to use force, and I would vote that way again today," Biden said in a speech at the Brookings Institution on July 31, 2003. "It was a right vote then, and it'll be a correct vote today."

Biden, like Trump, is an uncontrollable, congenital liar. When those two think they can get away with it, they just lie, assuming no one will ever check. They are both absolutely hideous and shouldn't be allowed a role in government. Tuesday, writing forThe Nation, Joan Walsh, also pointed out Biden's inability to tell the truth. "The Washington Post's running tally of Donald Trump’s lies since Inauguration Day 2017 has passed 12,000," she wrote. "Biden seems to think, given that backdrop, his mistakes won’t hurt him-- or at least shouldn’t. Part of me admires the former vice president’s pluck... Maybe Biden thinks toughing this one out will keep the press focused on the bigger issue: Trump’s manifest incompetence and corruption. But I doubt it. For one thing, Biden’s Afghanistan story-telling didn’t occur in a vacuum but during a campaign in which he’s made numerous mistakes and misstatements. In just one day last month, he confused recently ousted British Prime Minister Theresa May with her long-ago predecessor Margaret Thatcher, said 'poor kids are just as talented and as bright as white kids' (inadvertently conflating 'white' with 'bright' and seeming to depict poor kids as nonwhite), and insisted Democrats should 'choose truth over facts.' Democratic primary voters rightly want to know if the 76-year-old vice president is up to the rigors of the presidency-- regardless of the fact that Trump is not. In a primary where at least 10 viable candidates are competing (if we just stick with those who made the cut for the next debate), the party’s voters don’t have to settle for someone whose own troubles with truth and facts threaten to take Trump’s off the table, as a campaign issue, come the fall of 2020."

You can't believe ANYTHING that either Biden or Trump ever says

Biden went down in flames yesterday. The smartest guy I know told me he is pretty sure Biden is already self-destructing and that he won't be able to go the distance. Shame on the self-interested staffers that are propping this poor old coot up.

One more disgusting thing about the disgusting Biden this morning. After his dishonest, lackluster appearance on CNN's Climate Forum yesterday, he prepared to head over to 2 big dollar fundraisers today, including one hosted by David Solomon of Hildred Capital Partners, whose chief investment officer, Andrew Goldman, was a finance director for Biden's 2008 campaign, was a Biden Senate advisor and a co-founder of Western LNG, a natural gas production company. Biden tried getting away-- before the howling got too loud-- with a "middle way" on the Climate Crisis, where his heart is and will always be. His current chief climate policy adviser, Heather Zichal, made a fortune from a fracking firm after leaving the Obama administration. Remind yourself what a scumbag Biden is and has always been by watch this half minute video:

Did The Damn Just Crack On The Biden Campaign? Will Democrats Nominate A Compulsive Liar AND An Anti-Choice Candidate?

Many in Congress are concerned about Trump's seriously deteriorating mental health. And, at the same time, according to polling released yesterday by Pew Research more Americans identify fake news as a bigger problem for America than terrorism, illegal immigration, racism and sexism. They reported that 68% of those polled said made-up news and information greatly impacts Americans’ confidence in government institutions, and over half (54%) said it is having a major impact on our confidence in each other. Yesterday, Paul Farhi reported for the Washington Post that "It’s (almost) official: The president of the United States is a liar." Mainstream news organizations are finally waking up and smelling the plastic roses. Until fairly recently the media has by and large shied away from branding Trump’s gaslighting and bullshit as outright lies. "Nowadays," wrote Farhi, "many in the news media are no longer bothering to grant Trump the benefit of the doubt. In routine news and feature stories, Trump’s dishonesty carries no fig leaf. It is described baldly."

At a time like this-- although in my mind, any time-- it would be a dangerous risk for the Democrats to nominate someone like Joe Biden to run against Trump. As we've mentioned before, although PolitiFact has found that Trump has lied in 84% of his public statements-- making him the world's biggest liar-- Biden's record of lying and deceiving people is completely unacceptable in any way other than not being as bad as Trump's. Overall, Biden has had a very long and repulsive political career and he's one of the worst liars in politics-- with a horrifying 61% of public statements being lied. Compared to Trump-- not so bad, compared to anyone else: unacceptable!

How much do politicians lie? According to PolitiFact:

• Rush Limbaugh- 94% (Half true- 12%)
• Trump- 84% (Half true- 14%)
• Kevin McCarthy- 80% (Half true- 36%)
• Ted Cruz- 77% (Half true- 14%)
• Pelosi- 76% (Half true- 29%)
• Pence- 68% (Half true- 30%)
• Mitt Romney- 68% (Half true- 28%)
• Lindsey Graham- 67% (Half True- 33%)
• Sean Hannity- 67% (Half true- 17%)
• Schumer- 63% (Half true- 21%)
• Biden- 61% (Half true- 29%)
• Dick Cheney- 61% (Half true- 12%)
• McTurtle- 60% (Half true- 18%)
• Beto- 53% (Half true- 32%)
• Obama- 51% (Half true-26%)
• Bernie- 51% (Half true- 24%)
• Rachel Maddow- 50% (Half True- 14%)
• Elizabeth Warren- 47% (Half true- 47%)
• Cory Booker- 42% (Half true- 14%)
• Kamala Harris- 37% (Half true- 14%)

And that brings us to the controversial Hyde Amendment-- a disgraceful piece of legislation targeted at poor women... but just another important piece of policy Biden is lying about. Yesterday. Jodi Jacobson, editor of Rewire News wrote that "Biden's campaign confirmed to NBC News that the candidate supports the Hyde Amendment, an anti-choice restriction banning federal funding for abortion care."

Less than a month ago, at a campaign event, an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) volunteer approached Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to ask whether he would commit to abolishing the Hyde Amendment, which denies public funding of abortions to women who can’t afford them.

“Will you commit to abolishing the Hyde Amendment, which hurts poor women and women of color?” she asked.

“Yes,” Biden said unequivocally. “Yes.”

To be honest, watching the clip at the time made me wonder if Biden really even knew what he was saying. He had what appeared to me to be a quizzical and unfocused expression on his face, suggesting he was not clear what the volunteer was asking. Biden’s first response was to tell the woman about his “near-perfect” voting record according to the ACLU.

But the volunteer did not let him get away with that, and she persisted, saying to him, “I heard you did [have a good record]. but I am so glad said you would commit to abolishing the Hyde Amendment.”

“No, no,” he replied. “It has to be … it can’t stay.”

Apparently, Biden either did not understand the question, did not remember what the Hyde Amendment is, or did not know his own campaign position.

Today, NBC’s Heidi Przybyla writes, Biden’s campaign “confirmed to NBC News that Biden still supports the Hyde Amendment, a four-decade-old ban on using federal funds for abortion services, except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the woman”

“Biden’s continued support for Hyde not only sets him apart from the rest of his 2020 Democratic competitors,” Przybyla writes, “but it may surprise progressive groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, which promoted a recent tweet by one of its activists appearing to get Biden to commit to ending Hyde during a rope-line exchange in South Carolina. Biden’s campaign told NBC he would be open to repealing Hyde if abortion avenues currently protected under Roe were threatened.”

Biden’s position on Hyde puts him out of step with the national party, which officially committed to abolishing the anti-choice restriction in its platform for the first time in 2016.

So before the first debate, and after months of waiting for him to get into the presidential race, we now know that Biden’s campaign is, to be kind, not ready for primetime.

Meanwhile, most of the other Democratic candidates have already come out for repealing the Hyde Amendment, leaving Biden isolated on an issue he and his campaign team were hoping would never be raised:

• Bernie
• Elizabeth Warren
• Jay Inslee
• Beto
• Gillibrand
• Steve Bullock
• Eric Swalwell
• Tim Ryan
• Julian Castro
• Cory Booker
• Amy Klobuchar
• Marianne Williamson

Yesterday, The Hill confirmed that Biden was lying to the ACLU volunteer when he told her he backs repealing the Hyde Amendment and that he has never changed his position backing the amendment.

Truth is, Biden has not been a friend of Choice and women should think long and hard about voting for him in a primary with so many candidates who are so much better. The Hyde Amendment is an anti-Choice smokescreen that progressive have not backed and do not back this abomination. NARAL President Ilyse Hogue: "That position is unjust and discriminatory and endangers women and families." Kelly Robinson, the executive director of Planned Parenthood Action Fund: "The unfair Hyde Amendment makes it so that those who have the least end up having to pay the most to access abortion, and those who are service members or live on reservations are often left with no coverage for abortion care. We encourage any candidate who doesn't recognize Hyde's impact to speak to the women it hurts most-- particularly on women of color and women with low incomes-- to learn more about the harmful impacts of this discriminatory policy."

Biden himself is "a devout Roman Catholic who opposes abortion" on a personal level. He has grudgingly backed most pro-Choice positions but Hydge is the biggie and he's definitely on the wrong side of that one-- and knows enough to lie right in women's faces about it when he's confronted. In 1981 he voted to remove rape and incest exceptionsts in pending legislation and he voted several times to prohibit federal workers from using health insurance on abortion services, with the only exception being to save the life of the mother.

Yesterday the Trumpist regime announced that the federal government would sharply curtail federal spending on medical research that uses tissue from aborted fetuses-- fulfilling a top goal of anti-abortion groups that have lobbied hard for it. Meanwhile, scientists say the tissue is crucial for studies that benefit millions of patients. I know where most of the Democratic candidates stand on this, but where would Biden come down? Who knows? Given his long, putrid record, it's too dangerous to take any chances with this guy. The Blue America backed progressive candidate, Mike Seagel, running in a red-leaning, gerrymandered Texas district, is clear and to the point and no one has to try to guess about where he stands on women's Choice: "The Hyde Amendment is killing women," he told us yesterday, "predominantly women of color and working class Americans. Repealing the Hyde Amendment is essential to combatting the maternal mortality crisis in Texas and across this country."

Blue America's most recent endorsed candidate, Kathy Ellis, isn't shying away from calling a spade a spade because of anti-Choice sentiment in south east Missouri. "The Hyde Amendment," she told us, "prevents people from accessing the medical care they need. In my state of Missouri, we have seen first-hand how restrictive, anti-abortion laws put peoples' lives and health at risk. I fully support the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, and I fully oppose the restrictive anti-abortion laws we see popping up across the country."

Eva Putzova is running for seat held by a Republican, Tom O'Halleran, who now calls himself a Blue Dog Democrat. Unlike O'Halleran, she is a form supporter of Choice. "I support reproductive choice for all women," she told us yesterday, "including the right to abortion. The Hyde amendment punishes mostly poor women and women of color who are the primary recipients of Medicaid and other government programs. The Democratic Party national platform calls for the repeal of the Hyde amendment, and when I am elected to Congress I will work tirelessly with my colleagues to repeal it. We can't say that we support a woman's right to choose in theory, yet effectively prohibit it for women who can't afford it."

All of the candidates we've been talking to-- men/women, white/black, rural/urban, senior/junior... they all feel very strongly about ending repealing the Hyde Amendment. Michael Owens, attorney and Democratic Party activist, is running in the suburbs south and west of Atlanta in a deep blue district occupied by a conservative Blue Dog, David Scott. Michael told us that he continues "to believe unequivocally, like the majority of Americans, that every woman should have access to quality reproductive health care services. The Hyde Amendment directly impedes on a woman's access to abortion. Furthermore, it marginalizes women of color, and those without substantial financial means by making it more difficult to access reproductive health services for over 15.6 million women in the United States, including 1 in 5 women of reproductive age. This is no more important than here in Georgia where we women face the highest maternal mortality rate in the country and our our Governor just signed a 'forced-birth' bill that will make a women seeking abortion a crime."

Dary Rezvani is the progressive Democrat taking on Devin Nunes this time around. He's in his late 20s and never remembers a time when women didn't have the right to Choice over their own bodies. Last time around, Central Valley Democrats lost with a centrist Democrat who was fundamentally uncomfortable with progressive issues and causes. Dary is the opposite. "The government," he told me last night, "shouldn't be telling women what they can and can't do with their health choices, their bodies. Trust women! Trust women! Trust women! That means... trust women. The Hyde Amendment was a mistake in 1976 when Congress decided, arbitrarily, that Medicaid can't be used by women for a perfectly legal health decision. It was a way for a body made up almost entirely of men to get around Roe v Wade. It should have been thrown out long ago and I'll work with women's groups towards doing just that if voters in Fresno and Tulare counties decide to replace Devin Nunes with me."

Elizabeth Warren, during an MSNBC town hall in Indiana last night, said Biden was wrong to support the abortion funding restriction. "Women of means will still have access to abortions," Warren said. "Who won’t will be poor women, will be working women, will be women who can’t afford to take off three days from work." Meanwhile, Beto was on CBS news suggesting Biden is senile: "I hope that Joe Biden rethinks his position. Perhaps he doesn’t have all the facts. Perhaps he doesn’t understand who the Hyde Amendment hurts the most." But in his 2007 book, Promises to Keep, Biden wrote: "‘I’ve stuck to my middle-of-the-road position on abortion for more than 30 years. I still vote against partial birth abortion and federal funding, and I’d like to make it easier for scared young mothers to choose not to have an abortion, but I will also vote against a constitutional amendment that strips a woman of her right to make her own choice."

Biden And Trump-- More Alike... Than One Would Hope

I used to work for someone who is just like Trump. They're like doppelgängers; it's uncanny. I spoke to his biographer the other day and he said he had noticed the same thing-- the lack of empathy, the malignant narcissism, the sexual deviance, the sensitivity to criticism, impulsive behavior, the compulsive lying, the secretiveness, the self-conscious attempts to act charming... wait a minute. More of this applies to Biden than I realized when I sat down to start writing! I just wanted to talk about Biden's penchant for the easy lie.

And I'm hardly the only one to have noticed. Biden lies nearly every time he opens huis mouth. Trump lies every time he opens his mouth. Trump's a much bigger liar. But Biden's still too much of a liar to be president. Look:

Of the public utterances Trump made that PolitiFact checked, 84% were lies. Of the public utterances Biden made that PolitiFact checked, "just" 50% were lies. That's half. That's too much, as we saw a few days ago. And I know Biden doesn't mean to lie a lot of the time and that he just can't help himself but... but, that's not good enough. He lies too much. He always has.

He's still better than Trump. Low bar, sure, but Biden at least has learned to control his racist, xenophobic Trump-like instincts (most of the time). Yesterday, CNN noted that it once slipped out that Biden wanted to do just what Democrats have chastised Trump for: build that wall. Trump was worse, of course, but Biden-- bad enough. "Biden," wrote Andrew Kaczynski, "once spoke about jailing employers who hire 'illegals,' said sanctuary cities shouldn't be allowed to violate federal law, and argued a fence was needed stop 'tons' of drugs coming into the country from 'corrupt Mexico.' Then-Sen. Biden's past comments, which he made in the run-up to and during the 2008 presidential race, show an approach to the issue of immigration that could run afoul of the party's more liberal wing as Biden seeks the Democratic nomination to take on President Donald Trump in 2020. It also shows how Biden's long record in government can at times provide a contrast to where the Democratic Party has evolved in recent years.

Speaking to a South Carolina rotary club in November 2006, Biden touted his support for the Secure Fence Act-- a bill that authorized 700 miles of double-layered fence on the border through more than a billion dollars in appropriations. The bill was also supported by then-Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. CNN's KFile reviewed the video, which had been posted on YouTube at the time.

"Folks, I voted for a fence, I voted, unlike most Democrats-- and some of you won't like it-- I voted for 700 miles of fence," Biden told the group. "But, let me tell you, we can build a fence 40 stories high-- unless you change the dynamic in Mexico and-- and you will not like this, and-- punish American employers who knowingly violate the law when, in fact, they hire illegals. Unless you do those two things, all the rest is window dressing."

"Now, I know I'm not supposed to say it that bluntly, but they're the facts, they're the facts. And so everything else we do is in between here. Everything else we do is at the margins. And the reason why I add that parenthetically, why I believe the fence is needed does not have anything to do with immigration as much as drugs," Biden continued. "And let me tell you something folks, people are driving across that border with tons, tons, hear me, tons of everything from byproducts for methamphetamine to cocaine to heroin and it's all coming up through corrupt Mexico."

Biden's decades-long record on several issues-- including criminal justice and financial regulation-- has come under scrutiny as he seeks the Democratic presidential nomination for the third time. Biden, along with other candidates like Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala Harris, has had to contend with harmonizing his record with a more liberal Democratic Party.

But his past comments on a border barrier and sanctuary cities are similar to positions Trump has taken as President-- stances that many Democratic candidates have attacked during the campaign.

...At another 2007 event, Biden called for sending employers of undocumented immigrants to prison.

"We've got to get tougher with employers. In fact the person we should send to jail is not the illegals, we send to jail the employers," Biden said. "If you knowingly hire an illegal alien, then you should be held accountable. Because let me tell you, the next person I hear tell me that my labor guys aren't willing to work hard, that's why you have illegals putting up sheetrock, then I want to tell you, you don't know my guys."

Send this guy back to the 1950s, where he belongs-- and fast, before Trump eats him alive.

Are They Trying To Figure Out Who Lies Most? No? Then Forget Biden

Trump's Twitter Assault by Nancy Ohanian

Today we have the biggest liar in the history of American politics sitting in the Oval Office lying his office off-- 10,000 official lies so far, according to the Washington Post fact checkers-- day in and day out... often in writing on Twitter! Americans hate the lies and the tweeting and the gaslighting. Even his own supporters don't like these things.

Even if they wanted to, the Democrats couldn't find as big a liar. But the Democrats always try to keep the lesser-of-two-evils box for voters as close as they can. So they found the biggest liar they could to run. Yes, that's fumbling, bumbling Status Quo Joe Biden.

Yesterday Lee Fang and Andrew Perez, reporting for The Intercept wrote a piece about how Biden is already lying about getting special interest PAC money. Biden pledged he wouldn't take money from lobbyists and corporate PACs but he's already gobbled up over $30,000 from... lobbyists and corporate PACs. The little trick is that he doesn't have his crooked fat-cat supporters into his pockets but puts the legalistic bribes through Biden's American Possibilities PAC. "Biden," they wrote, "has a history of relying on lobbyists to assist his campaigns. Lobbyists donated more than $200,000 to Biden’s 2008 presidential run. That year, William Oldaker-- a political consultant and lawyer with whom Biden’s son, Hunter, once worked as a lobbyist-- served as Biden’s legal adviser.

Biden's PAC has already taken big money from these four sleaze bags:

• John Breaux, a former Democratic senator from Louisiana and senior counsel at Squire Patton Boggs, is registered to represent the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He’s also lobbied for health insurance giant UnitedHealth Group, Shell Oil, and aerospace company SpaceX.
• Todd Webster, a senior vice president at Cornerstone Government Affairs, served as chief of staff to Biden’s successor, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del. He lobbies for a handful of Fortune 500 companies, including Boeing, Citigroup, Google, Microsoft, and Cheniere Energy.
• John Bentivoglio, a partner at Skadden Arps and former top Biden staffer on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is registered to lobby for Strongbridge Biopharma on drug-pricing issues.
• Tonio Burgos, a longtime aide to New York Gov. Mario Cuomo who runs the lobbying and public affairs firm Tonio Burgos & Associates and has lobbied for Neurological Surgery, P.C.; his firm has also represented Team Select Home Care, a home health care provider.

They also reported that "Biden, for his part, has long been aware of how big-money interests can affect politics. 'It costs a great deal of money to run,' Biden said way back in 1974. 'You have to go to those people who have money. And they always want something.'"

OK, he lied about that. Yes, he did... but he lies about everything-- mostly because he's an idiot rather than a conscious deceiver or gaslighter... I think. Monday, PolitiFact, which talks about Trump's flow of lies constantly, branded Biden a liar as well.

This particular Biden lie was his bullshit claim to having been a progressive in the Senate, which he never was. He was always a conservative Democrat. Since his best friends in the Senate-- neo-fascists and racist scum like Jesse Helms (R-NC) and Strom Thurmond (R-SC)-- were so far to the right, Biden feels that made him look like a "moderate" or even a progressive. PolitiFact proved he's just a liar.

Long seen as his Achilles’ heel in this Democratic primary, Biden’s 35-year Senate voting record reveals a history of breaking with liberal orthodoxy on a variety of issues, from his vote to authorize the Iraq War to his backing of measures that led to mass incarceration.

Biden, in a recent interview, sought to turn the narrative on its head by claiming progressive credentials.

"I was always labeled as one of the most liberal members of the United States Congress," the former Delaware senator told ABC News in an interview that aired May 1.

After a review of sources that grade lawmakers based on ideology, we found Biden’s claim to be inaccurate.

PolitiFact describes conservative Democrats, inaccurately, as "moderates," which is what they labeled Biden: "By a variety of measures, Biden’s record has been that of a moderate Democrat." The opposite of a progressive is a conservative not a moderate. Examining the work of several organizations that keep track of voting records, bill sponsorships, etc. PolitiFact stated that "it’s misleading for Biden to claim he was always labeled one of the most liberal members."

"Biden, who once participated in sit-ins to desegregate restaurants along U.S. Route 40, startled his colleagues in 1975 when he broke liberal ranks to win Senate approval of an anti-busing amendment," reads a profile of Biden from Congressional Quarterly. "Suddenly, he was allied with Southern conservatives on an emotional national issue." Biden’s position may have helped him get re-elected in 1978. As his campaign was underway, a controversial busing plan was taking effect in New Castle County, Del., "outraging voters in the white suburbs," according to CQ.

"With this anti-busing position offsetting his liberalism on some other social issues, Biden seemed unbeatable in 1978," his CQ profile states. It notes that his opponent was unsuccessful in painting Biden as "too far left for the state."

Nevertheless, Biden’s first taste of disunity with liberal Democrats seemed hard for the young senator to swallow.

"It is not a comfortable feeling for me," Biden said at the time, according to CQ. "I mean, I’ve never been there before."

But it would not the last time he broke with Democratic ranks. As we’ve noted, recent progressive attacks on Biden’s record have some merit.

Biden’s image as someone willing to buck his party’s liberal wing on social issues was cemented by the early 1980s.

"On cultural issues, he often does not support positions associated with liberal Democrats," read a profile of Biden in the 1984 issue of the National Journal’s Almanac of American Politics, considered by some to the the Bible of U.S. politics.

...PolitiFact located two decades’ worth of National Journal ratings and found Biden’s average liberalism score was 76%. His lowest National Journal score we found was 59% in 1997, the year Biden was one of a handful of Democrats who joined Republicans in a failed effort to amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget.

...One reason for Biden’s middling score on the ideological scale is his track record of bipartisanship.

"He seems drawn again and again to try to reconcile the economic and cultural liberalism of the national Democratic Party, of which he is one of the leaders, with the economic and cultural conservatism of so many of those he grew up with: to explain one to the other, to reconcile them, to enable them to live happily together," reads a 1996 profile of Biden in the Almanac of American Politics.

During Biden’s time in the Senate, just over 40% of the bills he co-sponsored were introduced by Republicans, according to an analysis by Benjamin Hammer of GovTrack.

In his last two years as a senator, Biden crossed the aisle more than even Amy Klobuchar, who GovTrack ranks as the most moderate of the Senate Democrats running for president in 2020, Hammer said.

Josh Tauberer, who founded GovTrack, summed up his group’s findings this way: "We rate Biden's claim as false."

Our Ruling

Biden said, "I was always labeled as one of the most liberal members of the United States Congress."

A review of several databases that grade lawmakers based on ideology shows Biden has not always earned high grades for liberalism, and occasionally earned low marks. Among Senate Democrats, he was in the middle of the pack in terms of liberalism. Over his 35 years in the Senate, he showed a willingness to buck the left wing of his party and cross the partisan aisle.

We rate this False.

The GOP Has Rigged North Carolina's Electoral System Against Democracy-- So A District Will Have No Representation In DC For Almost A Year

Hogg likely to face Blue Dog

On Friday, the Charlotte Observer reported that the vacant congressional seat for the 9th district, which starts in Charlotte's suburbs and works its way south and east, had just passed its filing deadline for the May 14th primary. As expected, just one Democrat is in the race, Blue Dog Dan McCready. The Republicans, on the other hand, has a huge field of candidates-- 10, all looking for the magic 30% that will preclude having to fight in a primary runoff. They list the occupants of the GOP clown car:

• Chris Anglin, a Raleigh attorney, who switched from D to R last year to run, unsuccessfully for the state Supreme Court. The GOP establishment hates his guts.
• Dan Bishop, the right-wing crackpot sate senator who's only issue is that he wrote the state's most hateful legislation of the cycle-- the bathroom bill.
• Leigh Brown, a realtor who bills herself as a "sassy southern woman."
• Kathy Day, an unknown person.
• Gary Dunn, a perennial candidate who runs unsuccessfully for whatever on whichever party he can.
• Stevie Rivenbark Hull, a 32 year old single mother of two from Fayetteville making her first run for office.
• Matthew Ridenhour, a former Mecklenburg County commissioner who lost his seat to a Democrat last year but who's still running against socialism.
• Stony Rushing (see: Boss Hogg)-- the hand=picked candidate of Mark Harris, the guy caught trying to steal the election which is why the district still has no representation in DC.
• Fern Shubert, a former state legislator, who ran for governor and has big name-ID.
• Albert Lee Wiley Jr., another perennial candidate.

That's some roster of candidates! Monday, Politico speculated that "North Carolina Republicans are suffering from a lack of credibility, a crowded field and a cash deficit as they head into the primary for the 9th Congressional District redo election." Why a lack of credibility? Well, let's ask our friends at PolitiFact. It all stems from Harris' attempt to steal the election. The state GOP insists that "the irregularities" didn’t affect enough votes to make a difference in the outcome of the race and that he should have been allowed to take the seat anyway. The bipartisan state Board of Elections ruled otherwise-- unanimously-- and the GOP now claims Democrats forced the special election. The state Republican Party "is misleading donors about the history of the race" and is now fundraising off their lies. PolitiFact:

The GOP says Democrats "forced" a special election-- which gives the impression that support for a new election was purely partisan.

It wasn’t.

HOW IT HAPPENED

The NC elections board has jurisdiction over races for federal office across the state.

In November, the board was made up of nine members-- four Republicans, four Democrats and a left-leaning unaffiliated member-- when it voted 7-2 against certifying the 9th district race results.

In January, a court decision reconstituted the board with five members: three Democrats and two Republicans.

In February, after a four-day hearing on the findings of the fraud investigation, the reconstituted board voted unanimously (5-0) to nullify November’s results and launch a new election. The board acted shortly after Harris, in a surprise move, expressed his support for a new election.

"It’s become clear to me that the public’s confidence in the Ninth District’s general election has been undermined to an extent that a new election is warranted," Harris said, and the New York Times reported.

A GOP-BACKED DECISION

Dallas Woodhouse, executive director of the NC GOP, pointed out that Democrats controlled the elections board.

"Republicans could not force a special election, and could not certify alone," Woodhouse said.

It’s true that the Democrats could’ve called for a new election without Republican votes-- but they didn’t. The two Republican members of the board voted for a new election shortly after Harris (the Republican candidate) said he also supported it.

Furthermore, on the day Harris called for a new election, Woodhouse said he supported Harris’ decision.

"Today I ask for everyone’s prayers for @MarkHarrisNC9 Today is a tremendously difficult day for his family, supporters and the entire @NCGOP We support our candidates decision in this matter. We will do everything we can to help the process and system improve in the future," Woodhouse tweeted on Feb. 21.

In a statement released the same day, the NC GOP said "we respect Dr. Harris’ decision" and thanked the elections board. And on Feb. 26, after Harris dropped out of contention for the seat, the GOP put out another statement saying, "This has been a grueling process for all involved, and we unequivocally support his call for a new election."

OUR RULING

An NC GOP fundraising email said "Democrats have forced a special election" in the 9th Congressional District. Democrats held a majority on the NC elections board, but the vote to order a new election was supported by the board’s two Republican members and the Republican candidate. We rate this claim False.