Former Defense Secretary William Cohen
Cohen represented Maine in both the US Senate and House of Representatives as a Republican before serving as secretary of defense during the final years of the Clinton administration.
Cohen announced his support for Biden in a statement in which he blamed the US coronavirus death toll on poor management and failed leadership.
Im voting for Joe Biden because our democracy is at stake, he said in the announcement. We are in serious need of a leader with optimism and competence who gives us hope. Joe Biden is that leader.
Environment And Climate Change
Biden has been credited with introducing the first climate change bill in Congress. Biden’s initial bill, the Global Climate Protection Act, was introduced in 1986 it died in the Senate, but a version was included in a bill signed into law by President Reagan as an amendment to the Foreign Relations Authorization Act in December 1987.
In 2008, Biden was the lead sponsor of a “Sense of the Senate” resolution calling on the U.S. to be a part of the United Nations climate change negotiations, and was a cosponsor of the Boxer–SandersGlobal Warming Pollution Reduction Act, at the time the most stringent climate bill in the Senate. The legislation would have created a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse-gas emissions and required a reduction in U.S. emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. He strongly opposed opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, although when he became president, he only called for a temporary moratorium instead. In 2007â2008, during his presidential campaign, Biden called for a gradual increase in automobile fuel-economy standards to 40 miles per gallon by 2017, called for increase production of renewable energy, and identified energy security and resolving the energy crisis as key priorities.
Tesla Fans Took Note Of Biden’s Lack Of Recognition For Tesla’s Achievements
Biden has taken several opportunities to praise GM and Ford for their foray into electric cars, but has had little to say about Tesla.
The president has also made appearances at GM and Ford factories, and taken test drives in their upcoming electric pickup trucks, but has been notably absent from Tesla’s massive Fremont Factory.
In February, nearly 40,000 Tesla fans signed a petition on Change.org calling for Biden to acknowledge Tesla and its role as the leading electric-car maker in the nation.
“The White House and the Biden Administration have intentionally been trying to ignore Tesla’s hard work while propping up GM and others as ‘EV Leaders,'” the petition said. “This is an insult to the Americans who work for Tesla.”
The petition came after the president again met with executives from Ford and GM and publicly lauded them for “building more electric vehicles here at home than ever before.”
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Death Of Wife And Daughter
On December 18, 1972, a few weeks after the election, Biden’s wife Neilia and one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in an automobile accident while Christmas shopping in Hockessin, Delaware. Neilia’s station wagon was hit by a semi-trailer truck as she pulled out from an intersection. Their sons Beau and Hunter survived the accident and were taken to the hospital in fair condition, Beau with a broken leg and other wounds and Hunter with a minor skull fracture and other head injuries. Biden considered resigning to care for them, but Senate Majority LeaderMike Mansfield persuaded him not to.
Years later, Biden said he had heard that the truck driver allegedly drank alcohol before the collision. The driver’s family denied that claim, and the police never substantiated it. Biden later apologized to the family. The accident had filled him with anger and religious doubt. He wrote that he “felt God had played a horrible trick” on him, and he had trouble focusing on work.
Joe Biden’s 2020 Presidential Run
On April 25, 2019, Biden announced his candidacy in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries. As a popular former vice president, he immediately entered the race with high name recognition.
Biden ran alongside 28 other Democratic candidates in a crowded primary that pitted Biden’s more moderate policies against those of progressive candidates such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Throughout his campaign, Biden emphasized his working-class background, drawing a contrast with the wealthy upbringing of his opponent, President Trump. Biden often quoted his father as telling him, The measure of a man is not how often he is knocked down, but how quickly he gets up.
Initially behind in the race for the Democratic nomination, Biden bounced back with a big win in the South Carolina primary at the end of February. A key part of Biden’s win in South Carolina was a strong showing of support from African American voters in the state. He then clinched the majority of delegates in Super Tuesday voting in early March.
In the run-up to the election, Biden and Trump took part in two presidential debates. The first, held on September 29, was a chaotic event overwhelmed with interruptions, cross-talk and name-calling. A second debate, held on October 22, was a calmer exchange as the moderator controlled a mute button to silence either of the candidates should they continue to speak beyond their time or interrupt the other.
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Last Summer The Feud Between Musk And Biden Truly Began To Take Shape After The President Failed To Invite The Ceo Of The Largest Electric
Musk said on Twitter that it “seems odd Tesla wasn’t invited.”
Tesla has been responsible for about 74% of electric-car sales in the US over the past three years. In contrast, automakers that were invited to the event like General Motors and Ford represent only a small portion of electric-car sales in the country.
At the time, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked during the press briefing whether Tesla was being excluded from the event because its employees were not part of an automotive union.
“I’ll let you draw your own conclusion,” she said.
Recovery And Second Marriage
By 1974, Biden had begun dating again, while avoiding marriage in the belief it would be unfair to his partnerhe described himself to a reporter as “still in love with his wife”. But in 1975, Biden met Jill Tracy Jacobs, who grew up in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, and would become a teacher in Delaware. They had met on a blind date arranged by Biden’s brother, although it turned out that Biden had already noticed a photograph of her in an advertisement for a local park in Wilmington, Delaware. Biden would credit her with renewing his interest in both politics and life. He proposed marriage to her several times before she accepted, as she was wary of entering the public spotlight, anxious to remain focused on her own career, and initially hesitant to take on the commitment of raising his two young sons who had survived the accident.
On June 17, 1977, Biden and Jacobs were married by a Catholic priest at the Chapel at the United Nations in New York City. They spent their honeymoon at Lake Balaton in the Hungarian People’s Republic, behind the Iron Curtain the destination was chosen upon the recommendation of Hungarian-born Biden staffer Tom Lantos. Joe and Jill Biden have one daughter together, Ashley Blazer , and regularly attend Mass at St. Joseph’s on the Brandywine in Greenville, Delaware.
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A Republican Senator Just Went *there* On Joe Biden
Well, I guess the kidding around is pretty much over.
In a blistering statement released Tuesday morning, Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott said this of President Joe Biden:
âLetâs be honest here. Joe Biden is unwell. Heâs unfit for office. Heâs incoherent, incapacitated and confused. He doesnât know where he is half the time. Heâs incapable of leading and heâs incapable of carrying out his duties. Period. Everyone knows it. No one is willing to say it. But we have to, for the sake of the country. Joe Biden canât do the job.â
This unproven notion â that Biden is somehow enfeebled â has been kicking around conservative media and Trump-allied circles for some time now. The evidence usually revolves around clips of Biden misspeaking or stumbling over his words â and the fact that, at age 79, he is the oldest person ever to serve as president.
Letâs take a step back here to understand why Scott went absolutely nuclear on Biden. He went on to say in the same statement that Biden needs to resign for the good of the country.
Back in February, Scott, who is the chairman of Senate Republicansâ campaign arm, released an 11-point plan designed âto rescue America.â
âIf Republicans return to Washingtonâs business as usual, if we have no bigger plan than to be a speed bump on the road to Americaâs collapse, we donât deserve to govern,â he wrote of the plan.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
Former Hewlett Packard Ceo Meg Whitman
Whitman unsuccessfully ran for governor as a Republican in California in 2010, but backed Hillary Clintons presidential bid in 2016.
Im a longtime Republican and a longtime CEO, Whitman, who is the current CEO of Quibi, said during the convention. And let me tell you, Donald Trump has no clue how to run a business, let alone an economy.
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Biden Jokes With Kimmel About Republican Rule
President Joe Biden told Jimmy Kimmel he wont bend the rules, as some Republicans do, because if he does, our democracy will literally be in jeopardy.
The Jimmy Kimmel Live host asked Biden during an in-studio interview Wednesday whether he would consider issuing an executive order in response to gun violence, considering how former President Donald Trump passed those out like Halloween candy during his tenure.
I have issued executive orders within the power of the presidency to be able to deal with these, everything having to do with guns and gun ownership … all the things that are within my power, Biden replied.
What I dont want to do and Im not being facetious I dont want to emulate Trumps abuse of the Constitution and the constitutional authority.
I often get asked: Look, the Republicans dont play it square. Why do you play it square? Yeah, well, guess what? If we do the same thing they do, our democracy will literally be in jeopardy, he said.
Kimmel pushed back, saying he understood the argument but said it was like playing Monopoly with someone who wont play by the rules. How do you ever make any progress if theyre not following the rules? he asked.
Both Sides Still Tried To Appeal To The Center For A While
Even after the parties began to move apart on the issue, activists on both sides tried to appeal to the center, as Mary Ziegler, a law professor at Florida State University who studies the history of the abortion debate, wrote recently at the Washington Post. In the 1990s and early 2000s, for instance, many abortion opponents devoted their energy to supporting incremental restrictions, like a ban on dilation and extraction, a technique for abortions later in pregnancy that opponents called partial-birth abortion. The restriction, which was eventually passed at the federal level in 2003, is far less sweeping than the heartbeat bills many Republican lawmakers favor today, which would ban abortions as early as six weeks.
Democrats, meanwhile, could be somewhat equivocal on abortion during this time period, with Bill Clinton during his 1992 campaign famously saying that abortions should be safe, legal, and rare. Hillary Clinton used the same language in her 2008 presidential campaign.
But more recently, both sides of the abortion debate have come to seek broader change. Among abortion-rights supporters, theres been an increasing awareness of reproductive justice.The term, coined in 1994, describes an approach focused not just on the legal right to an abortion, but on safe, affordable access to a range of reproductive health care, as well as the ability to parent children safely.
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Joe Biden Has A Long History Of Giving Republicans Exactly What They Want
For Republicans, Joe Biden has long been the ideal negotiating partner because hes so willing to cave in on most anything Republicans want.
Senate Majority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell and thenvice president Joe Biden in the Old Senate Chamber on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2015 in Washington, DC.
The new issue of Jacobin is out now. and get a yearlong print and digital subscription.
The following is an excerpt from Branko Marcetics forthcoming book Yesterdays Man: The Case Against Joe BidenJacobin for only $10, with free shipping.
Its like weve divided the country into pieces. How can we be one America if we continue down this road?
Joe Biden on reaching across the aisle, January 2019.
It was only three months after the Democratic Partys 2010 electoral shellacking when Vice President Joe Biden found himself in Kentucky keynoting a conference about the US Senate. There were few people better qualified to talk on the subject: Biden had spent virtually his entire adult life in the body and was one of the most outspoken proponents of its culture of chummy dealmaking. Topics ranged from its foundations and evolution to the influence of antebellum political giant Henry Clay, The Great Compromiser who had staved off civil war through a series of famed bargains that also had the effect of extending the life of slavery.
We basically all agree on the nature of the problems we face, he concluded.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Biden was a longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He became its ranking minority member in 1997 and chaired it from June 2001 to 2003 and 2007 to 2009. His positions were generally liberal internationalist. He collaborated effectively with Republicans and sometimes went against elements of his own party. During this time he met with at least 150 leaders from 60 countries and international organizations, becoming a well-known Democratic voice on foreign policy.
Biden voted against authorization for the Gulf War in 1991, siding with 45 of the 55 Democratic senators he said the U.S. was bearing almost all the burden in the anti-Iraq coalition.
Biden became interested in the Yugoslav Wars after hearing about Serbian abuses during the Croatian War of Independence in 1991. Once the Bosnian War broke out, Biden was among the first to call for the “lift and strike” policy of lifting the arms embargo, training Bosnian Muslims and supporting them with NATO air strikes, and investigating war crimes. The George H. W. Bush administration and Clinton administration were both reluctant to implement the policy, fearing Balkan entanglement. In April 1993, Biden spent a week in the Balkans and held a tense three-hour meeting with Serbian leader Slobodan Miloevi. Biden related that he had told Miloevi, “I think you’re a damn war criminal and you should be tried as one.”
Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
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Isanship Is Bidens Only Choice After The Supreme Court Leak
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Despite the lovely spring weather, this week offered more of the grim news to which Democrats in Biden-era Washington have become accustomed: The Supreme Courts impending evisceration of Roe v. Wade. The official start of an election season that is generally expected to be a looming political disaster, midterm doom, and the worst political environment for the Party in decades. The Federal Reserves potentially recession-sparking decision to fight inflation with the biggest interest-rate hike in more than twenty years. And, depending on whose count you follow, the millionth American death in the coronavirus pandemic, even as both the Vice-President and Secretary of State had to quarantine at home, after testing positive for the disease.
Republicans need a course correction, Hogan said, at the Reagan Library. But the truer metaphor belongs to Vance, who, back in 2016, called Trump cultural heroin for the Republican masses. The G.O.P. has decided not to kick its Trump habit. Vance is now just another junkie in a party full of them.
This is how it looks to me, at least, after stepping away from the news cycle for a few months, to finish a book about Trump and his four years in the White House. Or perhaps I should say: what may turn out to be his first four years in the White House.
Biden Jokes That He Republicans Who Break The Rules Should Go To ‘jail’ Says Overturning Roe V Wade Will Spark A ‘mini
- President Joe Biden appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Wednesday night, stopping to see the late-night show host during his trip to Los Angeles
- Kimmel expressed frustration about the intractable problems in Washington, and advised the president, ‘I think you need to start yelling at people.’
- Kimmel also pressed Biden on whether he could use executive orders to increase gun control
- The late-night host noted that former President Donald Trump ‘passed them out like Halloween candy’
- ‘I don’t want to emulate Trump’s abuse of the Constitution and constitutional authority,’ Biden said
- Kimmel said the Republicans were behaving like someone playing Monopoly but not following the rules asking, ‘how do you ever make progress?’
- ‘You’ve got to send them to jail,’ Biden joked
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