Are Joe Biden's presidential hopes dead?

[Fuzzy1975]

As a result, the investigation of Burisma was suspended, at least until Trump tried to get it restarted, a move for which the Dems want to impeach him.

Not true the investigations into Burisma were over before VP Biden was involved.
Not to mention the period investigated was prior to H Biden being on the board.

"But it said the period under investigation was 2010-2012, and noted that this was before the company hired Hunter Biden."
"The NABU’s investigation related to the 2010-2012 period is not particularly active, Kholodnytsky added."

The investigation stopped in 2015.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...over-period-before-biden-joined-idUSKBN1WC1LV

Despite the eerie similarity of Biden’s actions to those that are supposed to constitute “high crimes and misdemeanors” warranting the impeachment of President Trump, Biden and his supporters dare anyone to find anything illegal in his use of his official position to threaten to withhold aid to Ukraine unless it stifled a criminal investigation of his son’s company.


Admittedly, there are distinctions between what Biden did and what Trump did. Trump was trying to restart an investigation by a foreign government into plausible violations of its laws, but what Trump asked for never actually happened

So It's late at night, I break into a bank, the alarm goes off I hear the police sirens.
Quickly I run away. But i left my wallet and burglary plans in my own hand writing at the bank.
Think the police are not going to charge me with a crime? Can you say "attempted robbery", I think you can.

Fairness demands that we apply the same standards to both Biden and Trump.

What’s sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander.

I agree with this last part.

 

[Dumpington]

Fuzzy1975 writes: "I have no issue about investigating Biden, I doubt the Dem's would either..."

The more people learn about what happened in the Ukraine, the less likely it becomes that Joe Biden will ever win the presidency.

"Think the police are not going to charge me with a crime? Can you say "attempted robbery", I think you can."

Asking a foreign government to look into corruption in its midst is HARDLY the equivalent of attempting to rob a bank, Fuzzy!

The bottom line is, Adam Schiff doesn't want the Bidens' answering any questions about their involvement in the Ukraine because it will almost certainly damage his impeachment effort. He knows that he's already got enough votes to impeach.

The problem for the Democrats is that NONE of this is playing well with their audience in the U.S. Senate, which will have the final say. If President Trump wins vindication in the Senate, the House Democrats LOSE - and the entire country will be a witness to their failure!

 

[Ltimmy82]

They're dead... but not because of the Lucy Flores thing.

I used to think Biden was the one Dem currently running that could topple Trump. Now I think he's like... 3rd or 4th in line for the nomination. The entire primary has been a shitshow but Biden has not come off good at every opportunity.

He just looks old to me. Like a feeble old dude. I know he and Trump are about the same age but he looks like an old man next to Trump who has significantly more energy and stamina.

The one thing Biden is clinging to is being Obama's VP. And that'll only take him so far. In between "Obama and I are friends" comments he fumbles his words, forgets dates and places, and can't stop touching kids.

I don't think he'll be the nominee and I think his chances are effectively nil at this point. Just my two cents.

 

[Fuzzy1975]

Fuzzy1975 writes: "I have no issue about investigating Biden, I doubt the Dem's would either..."

The more people learn about what happened in the Ukraine, the less likely it becomes that Joe Biden will ever win the presidency.

And I care? When you refute with me, keep in mind, no bias, save that space for others.

"Think the police are not going to charge me with a crime? Can you say "attempted robbery", I think you can."

Asking a foreign government to look into corruption in its midst is HARDLY the equivalent of attempting to rob a bank, Fuzzy!

He asked a foreign government to investigate corruption? Well that is not how I read the compendium of the phone conversation.

You mean this part below is asking to investigate for corruption?

"I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you're surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible."

Note: the Muller report list 10 area's of Trumps Obstruction ( which he could not lay charges due to the AG'S official policy), and also laid out Russia was behind the 2016 hacking.

Or this is the part where Trump is asking for an investigation into corruption?

"Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that. The other thing, There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it... It sounds horrible to me."

The bottom line is, Adam Schiff doesn't want the Bidens' answering any questions about their involvement in the Ukraine because it will almost certainly damage his impeachment effort. He knows that he's already got enough votes to impeach.

The problem for the Democrats is that NONE of this is playing well with their audience in the U.S. Senate, which will have the final say. If President Trump wins vindication in the Senate, the House Democrats LOSE - and the entire country will be a witness to their failure!

Oh I am sure the Senate will not vote to convict Trump. Trump has them all hiding in fear. I wonder what they will do if Trump is around in 2024, and he wants another term....

 

[Dumpington]

Fuzzy1975 writes: "He asked a foreign government to investigate corruption?"

Yes, Fuzzy - Joe Biden openly bragged about withholding a billion-dollars in aid money to the Ukraine, and President Trump wanted that looked into. The U.S. media was shielding & protecting Biden like they'd shielded & protected Obama from negative news coverage. Trump's phone call FORCED the media to address it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsiuqOip2dg - Biden admitted he did the very thing Trump is accused of doing - run 7:51)

President Obama stood by and did nothing while Russia stole huge portions of the Ukraine, including the Crimea! The Democrats did NOTHING for the Ukraine until after Hillary got beat! Joe Biden has been hurt worse than Trump by this whole Ukraine "scandal!"

"Oh I am sure the Senate will not vote to convict Trump."

No, they won't. There's been no crime committed. The U.S. Senate does NOT take orders from Nancy Pelosi or Adam Schiff. The Senate will vindicate President Trump just in time for his 2020 re-election win over whatever loser the Democrats end up nominating, and progressives will respond with their usual psychotic rage & frustration against the U.S. Constitution not allowing them to have their way!

 

[Dumpington]

Julie Kelly says on the American Greatness web-site that the Democrat impeachment effort is DESTROYING the presidential candidacy of "Gropin' Joe!"

Impeachment Inquiry Is Bad... for Biden

Schiff’s impeachment tribunal, aimed at Trump, is misfiring—and it comes at a precarious moment for the Biden campaign

Amid the consensus that Wednesday’s congressional testimony by the Beltway version of the Duke brothers (that’s a “Trading Places” reference, millennials) fell flat without any “pizazz,” Democrats undoubtedly are scrambling to create some fireworks next week.

Unfortunately for director/orchestrator Adam Schiff, the one name that continues to make an unwanted cameo appearance is Hunter Biden.

As former Vice President Joe Biden’s partisan bodyguards in the press continue to bury any criticism of Hunter’s lucrative overseas business deals, the Democratic presidential candidate has declared “war” on negative coverage of his son. But Schiff is arguably staging Biden’s biggest political liability for all of the American people to see, unfiltered.

George Kent, a Ukraine expert in the State Department, described Ukraine’s legacy of endemic corruption and the U.S. government’s attempts to curb fraud and political malfeasance in that country, and under questioning from Republican members, Kent provided a number of sound bites that Trump can leverage and the media cannot ignore. Kent reiterated his objection to Hunter Biden’s position on the board of Burisma, a private gas producer owned by an Ukrainian oligarch known for shady, and possibly criminal, business practices.

A stalled investigation into the company should be restarted, Kent admitted when pressed by the Republicans’ legal counsel. “I would agree that the Ukrainian... authorities should uphold the rule of law and hold people accountable for breaking Ukrainian law,” Kent said, without mentioning Burisma by name.

Burisma started hiring influential Americans to fight the company’s legal battles and burnish its image abroad. According to a 2015 New York Times article, the chairman of Burisma’s board announced Hunter Biden’s appointment: “The company’s strategy is aimed at the strongest concentration of professional staff and the introduction of best corporate practices, and we’re delighted that Mr. Biden is joining us to help us achieve these goals.”

Not only was the junior Biden’s father the vice president of the United States at the time but President Obama had just appointed Joe Biden as his direct liaison to the region. During Wednesday’s hearing, neither Kent nor Ukraine ambassador Taylor could confirm whether Hunter Biden spoke Ukrainian, had experience in the global energy sector, or moved to the country to fill his new role.

Burisma wasn’t just under scrutiny in the West. The Ukrainian prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, also was probing the company’s crookedness. And this is where Hunter Biden’s hubris becomes his father’s biggest political pitfall. Joe Biden was caught bragging about threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees in 2016 unless the Ukrainian president fired Shokin. The prosecutor resigned in February 2016; the White House announced the loan guarantee and $335 million in U.S. aid in March 2016.

“Can you give me an example any time where the vice president of the United States shows up and demands that a specific prosecutor be fired and gives them a six-hour time limit to do that?” Representative Chris Stewart asked Kent and Taylor. “Are you aware of that happening any other place?" Neither answered.

Schiff’s impeachment tribunal, aimed at Trump, is misfiring—and it comes at a precarious moment for the Biden campaign. Aside from Biden’s own gaffes and occasional creepiness, Elizabeth Warren is gaining on him in the polls. His fundraising is lagging; even South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg raised more money in the third quarter of this year than Biden did. Biden seems out of gas and out of step with the party’s new radical leadership.

Schiff’s charade is an attempt to influence the 2020 presidential election; the problem for his Democratic colleagues, however, is that he might end up destroying the electoral chances of his own party's strongest candidate.

 

[Dumpington]

I realize that picking on former Vice President Joe Biden is like shooting fish in a barrel, but has anybody seen that video clip that ran tonight on the nightly news, showing Biden angrily calling a retired farmer a "dirty liar?"

Biden lashed out at an Iowa town hall earlier this afternoon after the man suggested that the former vice president helped his son get a sweetheart deal in Ukraine and was “selling access” like President Donald Trump is accused of doing.

The fiery exchange with the man, who only identified himself as a non-Republican Iowa farmer, ended with Biden challenging him to a contest of push-ups, running or an IQ test before he yelled at him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g51dwY0wuak - (Joe Biden loses it today in Iowa - runs 2:19)

Nobody on this Literotica former, not even the loudest Trump-haters, seem to be supporting Joe for president, and I imagine THIS is why! Biden is a weird gaffe-prone machine who recently discussed kids touching the hairs on his legs! There's NO WAY he's ever going to win the nomination!

 

[Fuzzy1975]

Fuzzy1975 writes: "He asked a foreign government to investigate corruption?"

Yes, Fuzzy - Joe Biden openly bragged about withholding a billion-dollars in aid money to the Ukraine, and President Trump wanted that looked into. The U.S. media was shielding & protecting Biden like they'd shielded & protected Obama from negative news coverage. Trump's phone call FORCED the media to address it!

So go on and investigate Biden, I don't care, But, don't use that to deny the other. Do you wear blinders so badly you can't see one for the other? You cannot use the crime of one to deflect or deny the crime of another, and say you are unbiased. It does not work that way. Otherwise it is just bull shit deflection.

President Obama stood by and did nothing while Russia stole huge portions of the Ukraine, including the Crimea! The Democrats did NOTHING for the Ukraine until after Hillary got beat! Joe Biden has been hurt worse than Trump by this whole Ukraine "scandal!"

So what? The above has nothing to do with the call, or the offer. There is amply direct evidence and indirect evidence for further investigation of Trump, (and) Biden if you so choose. Investigate them all.

"Oh I am sure the Senate will not vote to convict Trump."

No, they won't. There's been no crime committed.

Impeachment does not need a criminal offence to occur. I figured you should at least know that much about impeachment?

NOT[/I] take orders from Nancy Pelosi or Adam Schiff.

The Senate should not take orders from anyone, except the constituents.

The Senate will vindicate President Trump

I thought the senate body was supposed to be the judge? With the House acting as the prosecutor?

Prosecutors can be biased, it's allowed.

Judges though are supposed to be impartial. Therefore according to you, and your predicted outcome, the Senate is biased, which means they should not hear the case, or, if they do, the true outcome of the case will forever be in doubt.

just in time for his 2020 re-election win over whatever loser the Democrats end up nominating, and progressives will respond with their usual psychotic rage & frustration against the U.S. Constitution not allowing them to have their way!

Well in time we will all know if the above is correct.

 

[Dumpington]

Fuzzy1975 writes: "So go on and investigate Biden, I don't care"

Adam Schiff wants to leave Joe & Hunter Biden out of it - but once this thing goes to a U.S. Senate trial they'll very likely bring in both of those two corrupt pieces of crap and force them both to testify about their dealings in the Ukraine!

"There is amply direct evidence and indirect evidence for further investigation of Trump"

And if it goes to a U.S. Senate trial they will then examine the House findings and determine whether or not any of Schiff's "evidence" is valid!

"Impeachment does not need a criminal offence to occur."

Exactly right - they can impeach Trump simply for beating Hillary Clinton back in November of 2016.

"The Senate should not take orders from anyone, except the constituents."

Exactly right - and the constituents of those House Democrats voting to impeach will very likely have something to say about their party remaining in control of the House after the 2020 elections!

"I thought the senate body was supposed to be the judge?"

Wrong, Fuzzy - U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts will be the judge - the U.S. Senate will be acting as the JURY, determining whether or not the president is guilty or INNOCENT of those charges brought against him by the House Democrats.

"Well in time we will all know if the above is correct."

I'm hoping that the Democratic Party's anger, rage, & frustration matches the anger, rage, & frustration they expressed following the 2016 presidential election!

 

[The_Trouvere]

He's a pig and everyone in DE knows it.

Not me. He is our favorite son.

 

[JackLuis]

It's only the third inning. plenty of time for the PeeResident to blow it.

He's only down:

Ten Obstruction from Muller

and

Conspiracy to commit extortion

Extortion

Solicitation of foreign interference with US Elections.

and Miscellaneous fuckery.

So all he has to do is part the Red Sea and voila, Rubles falling like Manna from Putin!

 

[Dumpington]

JackLuis writes: "It's only the third inning. plenty of time for the PeeResident to blow it."

Yeah, Jack - Donald Trump is no polished politician, is he? But just as they did before the Mueller Report was released, the Democrats have once again OVER-PLAYED their hand! They promised to show PROOF that President Trump extorted promises from the Ukraine, but then failed to come up with any actual witnesses to make their case. They once again end-up looking like bumbling fools.

"Conspiracy to commit extortion... Extortion... Solicitation of foreign interference with US Elections... and Miscellaneous fuckery."

That's what Adam Schiff says. He said a year ago that he had PROOF that Trump's campaign colluded with the Russians, but then Robert Mueller reported that no such thing happened. And so Schiff shifted all of his attention to the Ukraine, but ended-up hurting only Joe Biden!

Creepy-Sleepy Joe has since acknowledged that it all "may have looked bad" for his son to serve on the board of foreign companies, but the former vice president stood firm that his son did nothing wrong. "What may have looked bad but wasn't anything wrong is totally different than whether a president has held up $400 million in aid for the Ukrainian military when Ukrainians are dying," Biden said during an interview with Telemundo released Thursday. "That is criminal."

Once again, "Gropin' Joe" insists that his son Hunter did absolutely NOTHING wrong, and then in the very next sentence promises that he'll NEVER do it again!

 

[Fuzzy1975]

Wrong, Fuzzy - U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts will be the judge - the U.S. Senate will be acting as the JURY, determining whether or not the president is guilty or INNOCENT of those charges brought against him by the House Democrats.

Actually that was what I meant Dump, the Senate is the jury ( my error, thanks for pointing it out), and they should not have preconceived notations until all the evidence is presented. Yet i see a whole bunch of Senators saying we will not vote to remove the President period!!

Now Senators can think that, but they should not be vocalising it. If this was in a regular court, and while Jury selection is happening, any potential juror who made claims similar to what some Senators are, would be rejected by either the prosecutor, or the defendants lawyer.

That however is not how it works in this process, as such I can already see the writing on the wall. I fear this current Impeachment trial will be the beginning of the end for the current democracy in the US.

Donald Trump, President for life.....

 

[Dumpington]

Fuzzy1975 writes: "Actually that was what I meant Dump, the Senate is the jury, and they should not have preconceived notations until all the evidence is presented. Yet i see a whole bunch of Senators saying we will not vote to remove the President period!!"

So what are you suggesting?

Should Adam Schiff move that he & Nancy Pelosi be put in charge of selecting a jury pool made up of pro-Democratic Party legal scholars who hate President Trump and are willing to accept hearsay evidence in a criminal trial? Or maybe Adam Schiff himself can accept the position of jury foreman while simulaneously prosecuting the case? And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi can even agree to open the proceedings with a prayer for President Trump?

"Now Senators can think that, but they should not be vocalising it. If this was in a regular court, and while Jury selection is happening, any potential juror who made claims similar to what some Senators are, would be rejected by either the prosecutor, or the defendants lawyer."

Again, you're trying to make up new rules demanding that U.S. Senators have NO PRECONCEIVED NOTIONS regarding one party's prosecution of another party's freely-elected president! There's NOTHING partisan about these impeachment proceedings, Fuzzy! The ONLY bipartisanship shown thus far is with those legislators opposing impeachment (which includes both Democrats AND Republicans!)

"That however is not how it works in this process, as such I can already see the writing on the wall. I fear this current Impeachment trial will be the beginning of the end for the current democracy in the US."

TRANSLATION: if our side doesn't win on impeachment, we're going to loudly bitch & moan and hold protest rallies, and continue supporting those people who hate this country! Our anger & frustration knows no bounds!

"Donald Trump, President for life..."

The U.S. Constitution doesn't allow that, but then modern Democrats don't really care about what the U.S. Constitution says, do they?

 

[OrLaTime]

Explain...
Biden and the whole WEST, especially Britain, wanted Burisma investigated
WE forced that to happen
But it was to investigate the company that hired Biden’s son
The subsequent investigation did not find anything (?)

There are worse companies in Ukraine
Giuliani and his buds played

You want to fucking play?
Russia Deutch Bank Cyprus Wilber Ross Trump
Huge money laundering.
At least the Florida mansion deal! How much more?
No investigation? Who the fuck has the corrupt government?
Deutch Bank was minimally fined by Russians and more so by us.
Crimes happened!

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/23/wilbur-ross-russian-deal-bank-of-cyprus-donald-trump-commerce-secretary

Ukrainian corruption ? Sure but less than RUSSIA !!
Why the Fuck does our President kiss the Ass of Putin and other oligarchs and dictators? $$$$$ or stupidity

 

[needit700]

GOD !!!! I hope so!!!!!

He's to old and dumb!!!! And a crook!!

 

[Dumpington]

Former Obama administration staffers abandoning Creep-Sleepy Joe!

Over 200 foreign policy and national security professionals, including dozens of veterans of the Obama administration, are today endorsing Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg for president over former vice-president Biden!

The text of their joint letter may target President Trump, but it's ALSO aimed at former Vice President Joe Biden, who has been regularly touting his foreign policy experience with the Obama administration as a major asset in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Among those from the Obama administration who signed the statement are former Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning, former deputy CIA director David Cohen, former Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon, former Under Secretary of Commerce Francisco Sanchez, former State Department adviser Vali Nasr, former White House associate counsel Tess Bridgeman and former National Security Council spokesman Ned Price.

The list of 218 names also includes Anthony Lake, national security adviser for President Clinton; Peter Galbraith, former deputy U.N. envoy to Afghanistan; Virginia Rep. Don Beyer; a dozen former U.S. ambassadors; and former officials from the State Department, Pentagon, CIA, NSC and elsewhere.

The endorsements of experts RARELY do anything to sway voters. In 2016, a series of public declarations signed by foreign policy veterans with impressive resumes backed Hillary Clinton and warned against Trump, who won the White House anyway.

 

[Crownvic]

Thanks joe for your efforts...Bloomberg...is the man!!

 

[Fuzzy1975]

F
The endorsements of experts RARELY do anything to sway voters. In 2016, a series of public declarations signed by foreign policy veterans with impressive resumes backed Hillary Clinton and warned against Trump, who won the White House anyway.

So your saying the Experts who warned against Trump were right?

 

[Dumpington]

Fuzzy1975 writes: "So your saying the Experts who warned against Trump were right?"

No, they were NOT!

The foreign policy experts who endorsed Mrs. Clinton were all hoping to get in line for State Department jobs under her administration, which they thought was a sure thing! Only it WASN'T, as she lost that election to Trump, conceding the very next day!

Likewise, there were people in the FBI and the Department of Justice who wanted to pave the way for their being hired in the Clinton administration under President Hillary, who ALSO did enormously unethical things to damage the Trump campaign that we are only now learning of today!

President Trump has done amazing things with our nation's economy that even President Obama continues to want to claim credit for, making our nation's economy stronger than it's ever been before! Jobs that Barack Obama claimed would need a magic wand to ever bring back are coming back under Trump! It's all quite astounding!

There's NO WAY an inept & corrupt hair-sniffer like Joe Biden is ever going to defeat Donald Trump's re-election efforts, and most Democrats now accept this. It's one of the reasons for that party's impeaching Trump, in the forlorn hope that impeachment might somehow benefit Creepy-Sleepy Joe. But instead it's simply shining a light on his family's shady dealings in the Ukraine!

 

[Dumpington]

Nathan Robinson just posted the following advice for Democrats in the U.S. edition of The Guardian web-site:

Stop saying Joe Biden is the 'most electable' Democrat - Trump will run rings round him

Supporters of Joe Biden are unlikely to be persuaded - they all know their guy is often rambling and unintelligible. And they know his record is unimpressive and that he doesn’t really have “policy proposals.” None of that matters, though, because they believe he's the only Democrat who can beat Donald Trump. Nothing else matters!

There’s just one problem: it’s a myth. It is a myth just as it was a myth that Hillary Clinton was a good candidate to run against Trump. Biden would NOT beat Donald Trump. He would lose. And we must say this over and over again. Forget his flubs. Forget his finger-nibbling. Biden would be crushed by Donald Trump. If you want Trump out of office, don’t support Biden.

Last time around, Hillary supporters lived in a strange kind of denial. Anyone could see she had unique vulnerabilities that Trump could & would exploit. She was Wall Street's candidate, while he was running to “drain the swamp.” She was under investigation by the FBI, while Trump was saying that Washington was corrupt. She had supported the catastrophic Iraq war, while he portrayed himself as an outsider opponent of those wars. Trump could make criticisms that she would be unable to respond to, because they were accurate. Clinton’s attempts to attack Trump as an out-of-touch, reckless billionaire sex-criminal would fail, because Trump would point out that she herself was out of touch, bought by billionaires, and had an unrepentant alleged sex criminal as her husband and chief campaign surrogate.

Joe Biden will face many of the same problems. He's been in Washington since the age of 30, representing Delaware, the “capital of corporate America.” He is infamous for his connections to the credit card industry, and he lied about his support for the Iraq war. Even Matthew Yglesias of Vox calls Biden the “Hillary Clinton of 2020” for his corporate ties and war support. It is worth remembering what being the “Hillary Clinton” of anything means in an election against Trump.

Consider the Ukraine scandal, which is far worse for Biden electorally than usually acknowledged. Democrats have made this the centerpiece of their impeachment case against Trump, charging that he tried to force the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden was paid up to $50,000 a month by a Ukrainian oil company. Officially, the chief Ukrainian prosecutor had an open investigation into that company. Joe Biden bragged about pressuring Ukraine to fire that prosecutor, which they did. Hunter Biden says he told his father about his position in Ukraine, and Joe did not ask him to step down. Joe Biden contradicts his son’s story, saying they never discussed Hunter’s “work” in Ukraine. One of them is not telling the truth.

Left-leaning journalists and pundits love to “fact-check” Trump, as if proving that he has lied is in itself persuasive. But 2016 should have showed us how powerless “debunking” is next to “optics.” If you have a Democratic candidate who looks really corrupt, it doesn’t matter if they’re not. People don’t trust the press and they don’t trust politicians.

Biden's campaign slogan is “no malarkey,” but since Biden himself is a longtime spewer of malarkey, Trump will successfully paint Biden as a hypocrite. Biden’s central case is that he is “not Trump,” that he will return the country to virtuousness and decency. But if Biden doesn’t actually look virtuous and decent – because he isn’t – the argument that he has made for himself collapses completely.

Compared with Trump, Biden has:

No money
No voter enthusiasm
No organization
No agenda
No real argument for himself

Ask yourself: how likely is such a candidate to win? Is such a person really the one you want to run against Trump? Look at the enthusiasm Trump gets at his rallies. It is real. Trump has fans, and they’re highly motivated. How motivated are Joe Biden’s “fans?” Say what you want about Hillary Clinton, but she had some truly committed Clinton fans, and a powerful base of support. By comparison, Biden looks weak, and Trump is savagely effective at preying on and destroying establishment politicians. People’s already limited enthusiasm for Biden will further wane, and Trump will point to his “strong economy” and “jobs creation” as evidence that Obama & Biden were weak failures. Biden already looks tired and irrelevant, and has possibly already forgotten why he was even running in the first place. Trump will be re-elected comfortably.

 

[Dumpington]

Frank Miele says he seriously overestimated the intelligence of the average Democrat voter. How in God's name, he asks, can they still support Joe Biden for president?

Miele, a writer for RealClearPolitics.com, says Joe is a serial plagiarizing-groper with a dysfunctional brain who is consistently out of synch with reality. Other than that, he's OK. Oh, wait, he's also an old white guy. Isn't that a disqualifier for Democrats if your name isn't cranky old Bernie Sanders? Miele thought Biden was safely retired, and would remain so throughout the 2020 campaign. And after he entered the race, Miele thought the luster would wear off quickly with the radical Dems quickly throwing him under the bus. Instead, Biden has never left first place. How can this be?

Isn’t this the candidate who called an octogenarian voter “fat” and challenged him to a push-up contest? Isn’t he the same “Creepy-Sleepy Joe” who bragged about letting children stroke his leg hair, and then do his best Hillary impression by telling coal miners that they should forget about their hefty paychecks and instead go to night school to learn how to code software?

In any normal campaign year, Joe Biden would have preceded Eric Swalwell and Bill de Blasio to the exit. I guess you might say that Biden has been fortunate in his choice of enemies. That's certainly true regarding his Democratic opponents. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders definitely scare establishment Democrats who realize that most of America is firmly in the anti-socialist camp. You can fool some of the Deplorables some of the time, but you can't fool all the Deplorables all of the time. So Biden might look like the safe choice when sizing him up against Fidel Castro-lite.

By mentioning Biden’s role in getting a Ukrainian prosecutor fired, President Trump unintentionally changed the entire dynamic of the 2020 election cycle. We won’t go into the details of how Biden’s son Hunter obtained a cushy job on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, or how Burisma had been under investigation for corruption for years, or how the former vice president thus had an apparent conflict of interest when he intervened by threatening to withhold U.S. aid unless the investigating prosecutor was summarily fired.

Suffice it to say that by mentioning the scandal in his conversation with President Zelensky, which was later made public by a “whistleblower” complaint, Trump had accomplished two things that no one could have anticipated — first, he inoculated Biden from criticism by his Democrat opponents and, second, he sucked all the oxygen out of the Democratic primary campaign by igniting the media conflagration known colloquially as the “Impeachment Hoax.”

Suddenly, Biden was elevated to a folk hero among the Democrats on the sole basis that he had become Trump’s favorite target. By the perverse logic of “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Biden’s involvement in the Ukraine was off-limits. Joe and Hunter had already been investigated and cleared of wrongdoing, we were told, although no one ever said who had done the “investigation,” nor where we could find the report. The only thing certain was that the Fake News Media didn’t investigate, and had no intention of doing so.

Assuming that Speaker Nancy Pelosi ever locates the two missing articles of impeachment and forwards them to the Senate for trial, three of Biden’s most significant opponents — Sanders, Warren and Amy Klobuchar (not to mention vice presidential “candidate” Cory Booker) — will all be locked up in the impeachment proceedings during the all-important Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, possibly even through Super Tuesday on March 3 if Pelosi stalls long enough.

Biden could not have asked for anything better. Hell, if he can’t beat Alfred E. Newman (e.g. Pete Buttigieg), there is no chance he'll defeat Trump in November!

 

[jp55665566]

IMO Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee. It's all about political capital. Bernie has a good amount 'cause he let Hillary walk all over him, but Joe has more. The other candidates have none. 2020 results? President Trump wins: 100,000,000 to 1