Joe Biden speaks at the PD&R Event, April 7, 2015. Photo courtesy of USHUD.
And then there were two.
It was an amazing week in the Democratic race for the party’s presidential nomination. After Joe Biden’s victory in South Carolina, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Mike Bloomberg, and Elizabeth Warren jumped ship in quick succession. The first three endorsed Biden, and Warren isn’t saying what she will do. That leaves Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden as the only two candidates left with a serious chance of getting the nomination.
(Tulsi Gabbard is so toxic to the Democratic establishment that the Democratic National Committee changed its eligibility rules to keep her off the next debate, and CNN refuses to give her a town hall even though they had ones for candidates with less support than her. Apparently being a woman, a woman of color, and a veteran is too off limits for the “diverse” Democratic Party to accept as a candidate.)
The narrative now parroted by the “mainstream” (i.e., Democratic) media is that this two-mule race is between a socialist who’s not even a Democrat and a “moderate” party stalwart who is the only hope of saving the Democrats and defeating President Trump in November. As usual, the media narrative is BS.
The Democratic race is really between a populist candidate (Sanders) and the party establishment’s candidate (Biden). This is the 2020 Democratic equivalent of the contest that took place in the GOP in 2016, between a populist (Trump) and the party establishment (collectively, most of the other candidates). This dichotomy also reflects what is going on throughout Europe.
And Joe Biden is no moderate.
Granted, he’s not as honest about his democratic socialist beliefs (or whatever you want to call them) as Bernie Sanders. And his demeanor and appearance don’t brand him as a radical. He’s too happy, for one thing, as well as too confused, too incoherent, too…sleepy. (Jim Pinkerton said it best: Biden is “newly woke, if not always awake.”) We expect our radicals to be strident and wave their hands in the air—like Bernie. But a look at Biden’s record reveals that he will go wherever necessary to get what he wants, and in today’s “woke” Democratic Party that’s way, way to the left. This is not your father’s or your mother’s Democratic Party.
Celebrating his resurrection from the dead in South Carolina, for example, Biden headed for delegate-rich Texas and accepted the endorsement of Beto O’Rourke (remember him?). Beto is a role model for Biden when it comes to “evolving” personally alongside the evolving wokeness of the party. When he ran for the U.S. Senate in Texas in 2018, he recognized that an anti-Second Amendment stance was suicide in the Lone Star State and he declared: “Nobody wants to take [your guns] away from you—at least I don’t want to do that.” But by 2019, on the national stage, that changed to “Hell, yes! We’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.”
As Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby noted about Beto’s about-face, “None of the other candidates had a problem with O’Rourke’s vow to confiscate a legal weapon owned by an estimated 15 million Americans . On the contrary, several went out of their way to praise his recent anti-gun rhetoric.” Jacoby added: “The eruption of cheers that greeted O’Rourke’s ‘Hell, yes!’ and the failure of anyone on stage to demur, will convince many voters that whatever anti-gun lobbyists may say today, what they intend for tomorrow is to seize guns from millions of Americans whose right to own them is guaranteed by the nation’s fundamental legal charter.”
So what does Biden do, on the eve of his victory in South Carolina, when he embraces Beto in El Paso? He “guarantees” that when he is president “you’re going to take care of the gun problem with me. You’re going to be the one who leads this effort. I’m counting on you.”
Some “moderate”!
The same is true on immigration. Biden believes the federal government has “an obligation” to provide free healthcare to illegal aliens (which would create an incentive for more millions to enter the U.S. illegally). As National Review noted: “So, Biden would force you to finance medical care for people who have broken into the U.S., even as 29.7 million law-abiding citizens lack health coverage and some 554,000 Americans sleep on sidewalks, many sorely needing the mental-health and anti-addiction treatment that would move them indoors.”
Biden also believes that “the 11 million people living in the shadows [illegal aliens, and they probably number more like 20 million], I believe they are already American citizens”; that many DACA students are “more American” than most legal U.S. citizens; that these “Dreamers” should be eligible for federal student loans; and that ICE agents who arrest and deport illegal aliens for drunk driving should be fired, and besides, “I don’t count drunk driving as a felony.”
And the same is true on abortion. Last year his campaign made the mistake of reaffirming that Biden still supported the longtime ban on using taxpayer funds to pay for abortions under Medicaid. This led to predictable outrage from the Party of Abortion, and within 24 hours Biden had reversed course. He now opposes any restrictions on abortion up to and including the moment of birth—infanticide, and the Democrat position.
And so it goes, on all the important issues that separate Democrats from Republicans today.
Not that Biden ever was a raging moderate. After all, his U.S. Senate career started after he got a critical favor from Mafia hit man Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran, who is accused of killing Jimmy Hoffa. Sheeran was president of Teamsters local 326 in Delaware, and he put up picket lines to keep the state’s Delaware-wide newspapers from reaching readers with GOP ads exposing the campaign misrepresentations by candidate Biden. As Sheeran said of Biden: “You could reach out for him, and he would listen.”
No surprise, then, that Senator Biden voted for the union bosses and against union workers and the public: Voted against protecting workers’ rights to a secret ballot when deciding on unionization. Voted against requiring unions and corporations to obtain permission from dues-paying members or shareholders before spending money on political activities. Voted to give collective bargaining rights, including the right to strike, to police, firemen, and other public safety officers.
Biden served as a U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1973 to 2009, when he became Obama’s vice president. I’ve checked his voting record in detail and here are just a few of the highlights from his votes as a Senator:
- From 1998 to 2008, he earned an “F” every year in the report card issued by the National Taxpayers Union Foundation. Said NTU’s president: “Biden sponsored or co-sponsored $322 million of spending hikes for every dollar of suggested decreases. His vote record was even worse.”
- He’s been a lapdog of Wall Street and the financial sharks: Voted for taxpayer bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Voted to subsidize and further nationalize the mortgage industry. Voted to bail out the financial services industry. And of course he’s been a shill for one of Delaware’s prominent industries, the credit card companies, as noted by Tucker Carlson.
- Immigration and open borders: Voted to extend Social Security benefits to illegal aliens. Voted for amnesty for most illegal aliens, offering them a path to citizenship. Voted against fencing and vehicle barriers along the U.S.-Mexican border. Voted against increasing funding for border protections.
- Against American energy independence: Voted repeatedly against allowing drilling in coastal waters off the Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, and Alaskan Arctic coasts, or on the Outer Continental Shelf. Voted to raise taxes on oil and gas development. Voted to raise taxes on energy companies and direct the revenue to “renewable energy” initiatives. And of course he’s joined the other Democrats in opposition to fracking, which has made America energy independent.
- Guns and the Second Amendment: Voted repeatedly to allow lawsuits against gun and ammunition manufacturers and distributors, making them liable for gun violence in which they had no role. Voted to prohibit the sale or transfer of handguns without certain safety devices. Voted to extend a ban on “assault weapons” for 10 years. Voted for a HUD gun-buyback program, buying guns from the public.
- Against school choice: Voted repeatedly against school voucher programs. Voted repeatedly against charter schools.
- Judicial and executive nominations: Voted against nomination of constitutionalist Samuel A. Alito to the Supreme Court. Voted repeatedly against Republican nominees to lower courts. Voted against timely hearings on judicial nominees, requiring action within a year after they were nominated. Voted against confirmation of John Ashcroft to be Attorney General, a critical test of whether conservatives could be confirmed for executive positions by the Senate.
- Weakening Medicare and Social Security: Voted against a “lockbox” for Medicare and Social Security, hastening their bankruptcy by allowing the politicians to spend surpluses in these programs for programs in other areas. Voted for a bill that discriminated against private Medicare insurers, keeping doctor payments and taxpayer costs high.
- For the politicians, against citizens: Voted to keep the names of Senators requesting special interest “earmarks” secret. Voted to reveal the names of contributors to grassroots lobbying organizations, opening them up to leftist vilification campaigns.
- Ballot security: Voted against requiring voters to present photo identification at the polls in order to vote. Voted to increase federal control over state and local elections.
- American sovereignty: Voted to force the U.S. into compliance with the “global warming” Kyoto Treaty that was never ratified by the Senate, and would have required massive, expensive reductions in carbon dioxide. Voted to join the International Criminal Court, thereby reducing American legal sovereignty.
- “Global warming” hoax: Voted in 2005 to require U.S. businesses to return to the “greenhouse gas” emission levels of 2000, which would have severely damaged the American economy.
- Welfare: Voted against extension of the welfare reforms passed during the Clinton administration.
- Expanding federal power: Voted to nationalize education policy by establishing standards and funding programs. Voted against regulatory relief for small businesses. Voted for massive new regulations on the energy industry, including a ban on the incandescent light bulb. Voted to give government agencies advantages over private firms in competing for government defense contracts. Voted to expand the definition of “hate crimes” to cover crimes motivated by the victim’s gender, sexual orientation, or disability. Repeatedly voted for expanding federal police power regarding “hate crimes.”
I repeat: Some “moderate”!
