Joe Biden

Wednesday November 24, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday November 24, 2020

Trump Administration Approves Start of Formal Transition to Biden

November 17, 2020

President Trump’s government on Monday authorized President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. to begin a formal transition process after Michigan certified Mr. Biden as its winner, a strong sign that the president’s last-ditch bid to overturn the results of the election was coming to an end.

Mr. Trump did not concede, and vowed to persist with efforts to change the vote, which have so far proved fruitless. But the president said on Twitter on Monday night that he accepted the decision by Emily W. Murphy, the administrator of the General Services Administration, to allow a transition to proceed.

In his tweet, Mr. Trump said that he had told his officials to begin “initial protocols” involving the handoff to Mr. Biden “in the best interest of our country,” even though he had spent weeks trying to subvert a free and fair election with false claims of fraud. Hours later, he tried to play down the significance of Ms. Murphy’s action, tweeting that it was simply “preliminarily work with the Dems” that would not stop efforts to change the election results.

Still, Ms. Murphy’s designation of Mr. Biden as the apparent victor provides the incoming administration with federal funds and resources and clears the way for the president-elect’s advisers to coordinate with Trump administration officials.

November 14, 2020

The decision from Ms. Murphy came after several additional senior Republican lawmakers, as well as leading figures from business and world affairs, denounced the delay in allowing the peaceful transfer of power to begin, a holdup that Mr. Biden and his top aides said was threatening national security and the ability of the incoming administration to effectively plan for combating the coronavirus pandemic.

And it followed a key court decision in Pennsylvania, where the state’s Supreme Court on Monday ruled against the Trump campaign and the president’s Republican allies, stating that roughly 8,000 ballots with signature or date irregularities must be counted.

November 6, 2020

In Michigan, the statewide canvassing board, with two Republicans and two Democrats, voted 3 to 0 to approve the results, with one Republican abstaining. It officially delivered to Mr. Biden a key battleground that Mr. Trump had wrested away from Democrats four years ago, and rebuffed the president’s legal and political efforts to overturn the results.

By Monday evening, as Mr. Biden moved ahead with plans to fill out his cabinet, broad sectors of the nation had delivered a blunt message to a defeated president: His campaign to stay in the White House and subvert the election, unrealistic from the start, was nearing the end. (New York Times) 

 

Tuesday November 17, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday November 17, 2020

America’s divisions run deeper than you think

As the dust finally settles two weeks after the American-election earthquake, two undeniable facts are now clear.

November 6, 2020

First, whatever Donald Trump says, Joe Biden was elected president. Second, before Biden can put his progressive agenda fully to work, he must achieve the political equivalent of scaling a sheer, vertical mountain face. 

To comprehend Biden’s predicament, look beyond the bitterly divided country he will lead. He’s also the head of a seriously splintered Democratic Party that agreed to a truce long enough to defeat the common enemy of President Donald Trump but then immediately returned to fighting itself. 

This internecine conflict, along with ongoing confusion over what the party truly stands for, partly explains why the Democratic landslide so many pollsters predicted never materialized. Remember how, just before the election, the Democrats had high hopes of winning America’s political trifecta; the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate?

Poll after poll buoyed these expectations. And with the always outrageous Trump bungling his way through a pandemic, economic crisis and the most serious racial unrest in a half century, the planets seemed aligned for a historic Democratic victory.

October 31, 2020

Pretty much any Democratic body with a healthy pulse should have been able to trounce Trump, or so it seemed. Why this didn’t happen should result in some profound Democratic soul-searching. Yes, Biden won the presidency, but in many of the states he carried, he did so by razor-thin margins. 

Somehow, the Democrats managed to lose seats in the House of Representatives. Nor does it seem likely they’ll wrest control of the Senate from Republican hands. As a result, Biden’s dreams of massive infrastructure spending, a concerted nationwide campaign against climate change as well as overdue health-care reforms could remain just that — dreams.

The Democrats are at loggerheads over why they didn’t do better — a dispute that should itself point to the answer they need. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a self-proclaimed democratic “socialist” who sits in the House of Representatives, blamed incompetent party strategists and their failure to tack farther to the left.

March 6, 2020

To which Democratic Virginia Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger replied, the party should never again use the words “socialist” or “socialism,” and stop talking about defunding the police.

To be sure, this is a fight the Democrats must settle themselves. But it’s worth noting the Democrats made Biden president by persuading more Democrats to come out and vote, not by convincing Republicans to abandon Trump. Millions of more people voted for Trump in 2020 than did in 2016. To really make a difference moving forward, the Democrats need to win over some of those Americans. 

February 11, 2020

As hard it will be for his opponents to admit, Trump expanded his base, including with Black and Hispanic voters. Despite this, the post-election Republicans are also divided, uncertain whether they should stick with Trumpist populism or whether their future lies in more moderate, centrist politics.

What happens next matters greatly, not just to the U.S. but other countries, including Canada, which have experienced sharp, political polarization within, as well as between, political parties. For instance Erin O’Toole, who billed himself as a “true blue” Tory before becoming leader of Canada’s federal Conservatives, is suddenly flirting with populism.

It is fitting that Biden has pledged to be a great unifier and healer. We hope he brings his country together. But first he must unite his own party. Politics has been called the art of the possible. In a democracy, politics can also be categorized as the fine art of compromise. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Saturday November 7, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday November 7, 2020

Biden Agenda To Face The Challenges Of A Closely Divided Congress

President-elect Joe Biden said Friday, as ballots were still being tabulated in states across the country, that voters had spoken loudly to embrace the policies and principles he campaigned on.

October 31, 2020

“They have given us a mandate for action on COVID and the economy and climate change and systemic racism,” Biden said in a late-night speech in Wilmington, Del. “They made it clear they want the country to come together — not pull apart.”

Biden followed Saturday night by calling on Democrats and Republicans to come together after the election and pledged to join them.

“And I believe that this is part of the mandate from the American people. They want us to cooperate,” Biden said. “That’s the choice I’ll make. And I call on the Congress — Democrats and Republicans alike — to make that choice with me.”

But Biden, who secured enough votes to win the Electoral College on Saturday morning, will face a narrowly divided Congress when he takes office in January. Biden’s significant lead in the popular vote did not translate to a Democratic wave in the House and Senate, leaving Biden without the votes necessary to pursue an aggressive legislative agenda in Congress.

Democrats maintained control of the House of Representatives but the GOP made gains, picking up at least five seats in the election. Control of the Senate will remain undecided until early January following a pair of runoff elections in Georgia.

November 6, 2020

Republican reaction to Biden’s victory has been muted as focus shifts to GOP efforts to defend incumbent Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in those Georgia seats. So far, most Republican senators, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., have not congratulated Biden or acknowledged his victory.

But Democrats are already calling those races the linchpin that determines the success of Biden’s agenda. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., used Biden’s victory as a call to arms in the Georgia races.

Regardless of the outcome in Georgia, the victors will have a narrow majority in the Senate. And Democrats will be forced to contend with divisions within their own party on some of the biggest policy items on Biden’s list.

Among the most controversial is a plan to combat climate change. Democrats themselves are not fully unified on how to approach the issue. Divisions over how quickly and aggressively to move to limit carbon emissions have simmered within the party since progressive lawmakers like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., introduced the Green New Deal — a plan to eliminate the carbon footprint by 2030 — back in 2019.

Progressive activists are also calling for Biden to move on another issue that divides the party, Medicare for All. Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., both oppose the plan and instead want Obamacare expanded with a public option. But progressives argue that the party has shifted to embrace widespread government-sponsored health care.

The COVID-19 Pandemic

Biden has consistently promised that one of his top priorities will be to take immediate steps to combat and control the spread of the coronavirus, which has surged in recent weeks. His plan includes investing in expanded testing with a Pandemic Testing Board and a vast Public Health Jobs Corps as well as better tracing capacity and greater production and distribution of personal protective equipment. His plan also includes a plan to boost jobs to aid in economic recovery.

Congressional leaders say they hope to pass some COVID relief before the end of this year but Democrats have long insisted that they expect the economy will need further support in 2021. (NPR) 

 

Wednesday November 4, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday November 4, 2020

Trump prematurely crowns himself winner in chaotic U.S. election that remains undecided

The ingredients have now been assembled for a combustible post-election aftermath in the United States. And Donald Trump has begun flinging matches.

November 9, 2016

Uncertainty had been predicted for months and early returns confirmed that voting day would indeed pass without a clear winner.

As in 2016, Trump outperformed the polls, forcing a state-by-state duel with Democratic challenger Joe Biden that could conceivably culminate in Trump winning a second term.

The result could become clearer within hours, or perhaps days.

States are still counting mail-in ballots, which tend to skew Democrat, and Biden is quickly narrowing gaps in the count in several states; in some cases, he’s possibly set to overtake Trump.

October 31, 2020

The chaotic finale illustrates the country’s bitter polarization; the parties are arguing about which types of ballots are legitimate.

The president has eagerly fanned that polarization. Early Wednesday morning, he falsely claimed that he had already won. Trump did so in an unusual rally from the White House, a seat of government not typically used for election events. 

“This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment,” Trump said from the executive residence. “We did win this election.”

Trump promised to head to court to try cutting off the counting of votes. 

In Pennsylvania, for example, Republicans have been trying to cancel the counting of ballots that are postmarked before election day but arrive after. It’s one of more than 350 such casesthis year over pandemic-related voting measures. (CBC) 

 

Saturday October 31, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday October 31, 2020

Biden’s Call for ‘National Mask Mandate’ Gains Traction in Public Health Circles

October 10, 2020

As the nation heads into what public health experts are calling a “dark winter” of coronavirus illness and death, public health experts are coalescing around Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s call for a “national mask mandate,” even as they concede such an effort would require much more than the stroke of a presidential pen.

Over the past week, a string of prominent public health experts — notably Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease specialist, and Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration under President Trump — have said it is time to seriously consider a national mandate to curb the spread of the virus.

Overseas this week, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia became the latest foreign leader to impose a national mandate for citizens to wear masks. Mr. Trump is opposed to a mandate, and Mr. Biden has conceded that a presidential order for all Americans to wear masks would almost certainly face — and most likely fall to — a legal challenge.

March 6, 2020

Mr. Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, echoed the “dark winter” language during the most recent presidential debate, and he is already using his bully pulpit to promote and reinforce a culture of mask wearing. If elected, he will almost certainly do more.

Mr. Biden has already said that, as president, he would mandate masks on all federal property, an executive order that could have wide reach. He could use his authority under federal transit law to require masks on public transportation. He could also prod governors who are resisting mask mandates to at least require masks in public buildings in their states.

But that is delicate terrain in the United States, where Mr. Trump has turned the act of wearing or not wearing a mask into a political statement. Public health and legal experts say it would be far better for Mr. Biden — or Mr. Trump, for that matter — to use his powers of persuasion to convince Americans that covering one’s face to curb the spread of the virus is a patriotic or civic-minded action.

“Instead of making it about the president’s coercive authority under law it should be about whether the president can support a norm that supports public health, which is in people’s self interest,” said Harold Hongju Koh, a law professor at Yale University and an expert in national security and human rights.

Mr. Trump, however, has shown little interest in supporting such norms. At a rally on Wednesday in Arizona, he mocked California’s mask mandate, saying, “You have to eat through the mask.” (New York Times)