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.