emmaverybo
emmaverybo's JournalBiden's record as VP and standing on world stage give the lie to "gaffe-machine" myth. Though
concern trolls depict Biden’s occasional gaffes as a sign that he is skating on the express slope to dementia, Biden—prone to slips-of-the-tongue throughout his successful political career—managed to become one of “the most influential VP’s in history,” and still, commands a respect on the world stage unparalleled by his rivals.
Biden, the Most Influential Vice-President in History?
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/12/joe-biden-the-most-influential-vice-president-in-history/266729/
Note: Since this article’s publication, Biden’s second term served to remove much question.
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World Leaders Tell Biden the World Needs You
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/20/biden-2020-foreign-policy-national-security-1228345
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Biden remains the only candidate to lay out, with requisite substance and authority, a foreign policy vision, was widely praised for his Iowa address after El Paso, his interview with Anderson, and from day one, has framed the fight for the presidency in the most profound terms—no less than a “struggle for the soul of America.”
Surely, his recent Op-Ed tracing the failed policies in Central America which have contributed to the humanitarian crisis at our borders should leave no doubt that Biden is more than sharp; in fact, he has unmatched experience, knowledge, and passion, amounting to wisdom, to bring to bear on the most crucial issues of our present and our future.
Meanwhile he campaigns with stamina, vigor, and authenticity, making an emotional connection to audiences which means more to them, I’d bet, than a flubbed date or mix up in remembered details. With Joe, the essence of his style is in being both a seasoned, masterful politician and a real human being.
Stop Taking Asian-American Voters for Granted! This article deserves your attention. I never see
DUers pay the time of day to any of the many ethic groups that comprise Asian-Americans, or to Pacific Islander-Americans either.
Not only do these voters DESERVE representation, but Democratic candidates need them.
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Democrats can't afford to ignore Asian American voters in 2020
The vocal enthusiasm for Trump within some immigrant communities, though not representative of the demographic, should serve as a warning to Democrats.
Given that Asian American voters could provide the margin of victory in battleground states such as Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin and Michigan, Democrats must make a concerted effort in 2020 to encourage them to vote and to convert the Trump supporters among them.
May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, as good a time as any to reflect on the political power of a community that doesn't always get the same attention as other minority groups. Asian Americans are incredibly diverse, making generalizing on topics, like voter patterns, difficult. The fastest growing in the country, this population includes Vietnamese, Filipino, Korean, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and other ethnicities. And each of these groups demonstrates a different level of support for President Donald Trump. For example, according to an October 2018 APIAVote poll, 64 percent of Vietnamese Americans approved of Trump, while only 14 percent of Japanese American voters did.
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Trump has also widened the chasm between the young and the old — those AAPIs who do support him tend to be older and male. Princeton Prof. Jeff Nunokawa told me that "many Asian American students suggested that their parents' support for Trump incited their first explicit opposition to them. Young Asian Americans were departing from their parents' views." His premonition is supported by the APIAVote poll, which shows that in 2018, 76 percent of 18- to 34-year-old Asian Americans disapproved of Trump, whereas only 46 percent of 50- to 64-year-olds did, mirroring the gap between young and old white voters.
The vocal enthusiasm for Trump within some immigrant communities, though not representative of the entire demographic, should serve as a warning to Democrats that these voters cannot be taken for granted. In an electoral landscape in which fewer than 80,000 voters can determine the presidency, every single vote matters.
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Full essay at
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/5/13/18308137/asian-american-voters-immigration-democrats-donald-trump
Golden Gate Bridge Suicide Prevention Net Finally Going Up! Makes one guy, a jump survivor,
very happy. At the link, a brief interview with him. His story is amazing and he’s been using it to
educate for years. I have always felt the sea lion was consciously trying to help him.
https://apple.news/Ab4fLxHTRRXS7kX69b4EiIA
Biden has "tapped into the most powerful message for Democrats."
As this article goes on to point out, anything can happen—although Biden is no Mondale.
To me, Biden’s message is far more compelling than the centerpiece of other campaigns, plans and policies, which may never be implemented, and though key to the progressive agenda, are not yet favored by a wider swath of our party or the electorate at large. Biden’s message transcends the policy wars to speak to the heart of Americanss across politics positions.
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CNN) — Joe Biden is back in a double-digit lead in the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, up 7 points since late June.
That's the finding in the latest CNN poll, released Tuesday, showing Biden's lead about where it was when he entered the race, and before the two rounds of Democratic debates. Time has passed, but for all the noise, it seems, the fundamentals of the race remain the same. Biden's standing in this poll confirms that he remains very popular among core Democratic party constituencies, particularly African Americans and older Americans. Biden has also tapped into the most powerful message for Democrats: This race is about a battle for the soul of our country -- America can't survive another four years of Donald Trump, and Biden has successfully convinced Democrats that he is their best chance to win. For most Democrats, that's what this whole race is about.
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https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/20/opinions/biden-cnn-poll-what-it-means-lockhart/index.html
Biden is needed for the "moment we are in," a perilous and complex time when experts see us as
closer to a first nuclear war then ever before.
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World leaders tell Biden: We need you
The former vice president would bring deep relationships and heavyweight credentials to a 2020 Democratic field lacking in national security experience.
By DANIEL LIPPMAN 03/20/2019 05:04 AM EDT
When Joe Biden attended the annual Munich Security Conference last month, the wonky foreign policy confab promised an escape from the nonstop speculation back home about the former vice president’s political plans.
Instead, Biden’s 2020 intentions were the talk of the conference.
When Armenian President Armen Sarkissian ran into him in a hallway, a TV camera captured him asking Biden: “Are you going to run?” (Biden whispered an inaudible answer.)
And in several conversations with European leaders in Munich, Biden heard a repeated refrain, according to a conference attendee familiar with the conversations: The world needs you.
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They got their wish. You go, Joe!
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/20/biden-2020-foreign-policy-national-security-1228345
Biden Knows How to Make the Moral Case Against Trump By Andrew Sullivan
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A really unexpected thing happened to me this week. I felt a slight but measurable twinge of hope. For the first time, I heard a speech that, while measured and well-balanced, homed in relentlessly — and with passion and authority — on the core moral unfitness of Donald Trump to be president of the United States. Joe Biden’s Iowa address last Wednesday finally did what needs to be done: Leaving questions of policy aside for a moment, it framed next year’s presidential and congressional campaigns as a battle for the soul of America.
Trump’s inability to grasp this country as an idea ultimately beyond race and territory and religion, his despicable moral character and incendiary rhetoric, and his constant threats to Constitutional order and civil peace render him unfit for the office he holds. That’s Biden’s central message and the core, urgent issue of our time — because it relates to all the others: the costs and insecurity of health care, the intensifying climate crisis, the crumbling of liberal democracy in the West, the corruption of the American right, the rise of white supremacist terror, and the pressures of absorbing the biggest wave of immigration in a century, and, in absolute numbers, the biggest wave in American history. With Trump reelected, all of this gets fathomlessly worse. With him gone, there’s a chance to recover. But while he’s there, the danger never ends.
The speech should reassure people — as it reassured me — that the Democratic primary base is not wrong or cowardly or sexist for consistently putting Biden at the top of their preferences. These rank-and-file voters want to defeat Trump and think they’ve found the best candidate for the job available. And if Biden can sustain both his focus and the powerful argument he laid out this week, he may well prove them right.
This is not to say that Biden isn’t showing some signs of aging. He was composed, but he does appear a little frail; there were times his speech seemed a little slurred, and he had several minor slipups. This is not to fault him: At 76, he has enviable sharpness and physical fitness. But at 76, there are limits. And somehow, at 73, Trump’s psychological sickness gives him an edge: a gob-smacking drive to keep going and going and going, with no signs of flagging at all, and many signs of mania. Who in their 70s is crazy enough to keep up? Even as he claimed he was seeking healing and unity this week, Trump was still tweeting insults, filming a shameless campaign video, and comparing crowd sizes with Beto O’Rourke’s. The sheer sociopathic narcissism in the face of such grief and trauma beggars belief. But it sure makes Trump seem younger than he is.
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I don’t endorse some conservative twists surfacing in this otherwise strong essay, but it nails what was essential in Biden’s stand against Trump.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/08/andrew-sullivan-biden-can-make-the-moral-case-against-trump.html
Australia got it right after the Port Arthur Massacre. If they could do it, we can too.
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The Port Arthur massacre of 28–29 April 1996 was a mass shooting in which 35 people were killed and 23 wounded in Port Arthur, Tasmania. The murderer, Martin Bryant, pleaded guilty and was given 35 life sentences without possibility of parole. Fundamental changes of gun control laws within Australia followed the incident. The case is regarded to be among the most notable massacres in Australia's history.[3]
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Following the spree, the Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, led the development of strict gun control laws within Australia and formulated the National Firearms Agreement, restricting the private ownership of semi-automatic rifles, semi-automatic shotguns and pump-action shotguns as well as introducing uniform firearms licensing. It was implemented with bipartisan support by the Commonwealth, states and territories.[36] The massacre happened just six weeks after the Dunblane massacre, in Scotland, which claimed 18 lives, with U.K. Prime Minister John Major reaching out to his counterpart over the shared tragedies; the United Kingdom passed its own changes to gun laws in 1997.[37][38]
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Event history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australia)
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