Joe biden

Who thinks Biden is a bigger threat to democracy than Trump?

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seemed to shock a CNN reporter when he said in a recent interview that he could make the argument that President Joe Biden is a bigger threat to democracy than former president Donald Trump. “Him trying to overthrow the election clearly is a threat to democracy,” Kennedy said about Trump. “But the question was, who is a worse threat to democracy and what I would say is... I’m not going to answer that question, but I can argue that President Biden is.”Kennedy pointed out that he recently won a court case in which he accused the Biden administration of weaponizing federal agencies to censor the political speech of Americans.

biden gilded cage

Biden uses the gilded cage of the White House to his advantage

As much as things have changed since 2020, the campaign styles and strategies of Trump and Biden have mostly stayed the same. On Tuesday, President Biden held a phone call with Xi Jinping, the president of China. The two were set to speak about a host of important issues for the first time since 2022. Keep in mind that the day before, Biden struggled to get through a softball interview with weatherman Al Roker at the White House Easter Egg Roll. But sure, let’s all pretend that Joe’s conversation with Xi about artificial intelligence went smoothly. Often times Joe’s daily presidential duties — phone calls with world leaders, receiving the presidential daily briefing, attending various ceremonies — are the only things on his calendar.

The injustice of lawfare against Trump

According to President Biden, not since the Civil War has American freedom and democracy been so under assault. In his State of the Union address, Biden characterized January 6 as a day when “insurrectionists stormed this very Capitol and placed a dagger at the throat of American democracy.” With this kind of rhetoric emanating from the White House, it is no wonder a good portion of the country believes that any use of the legal system is justified to protect us from a second Donald Trump administration.  Except... that is not how the law works. By stretching their prosecutorial powers to the breaking point, Democrats are perverting the very system they are claiming to protect.  Take the charade in New York.

donald trump lawfare

RFK’s veep pick could be a gamechanger

Welcome to Thunderdome, where this week we have the first named vice presidential candidate from a 2024 challenger — Nicole Shanahan, whom I know little about outside of this glossy profile in People magazine. Forget the child of immigrants rags to riches story or any of that stuff. On paper she seems like an extremely wealthy progressive California attorney with all the various interests of such a type — yoga, natural living, meeting your third spouse at Burning Man and so on. But none of that matters, and none of it will matter — which is why this choice strikes me as potentially ingenious on the part of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.Understand this: no one, absolutely no one, votes for a president based on his or her vice presidential candidate.

Should Biden change his Venezuela approach?

Venezuela has been leading the United States on, maintaining the pretense that they will ensure that the upcoming presidential elections are free and fair. That's despite the US relieving sanctions, releasing prisoners and months of “diplomacy.” The Nicolás Maduro regime has also gone on offense, threatening to take back the Esequibo, an area now under Guyana’s jurisdiction, where American oil companies have invested billions. This Wednesday, Maduro mocked the Biden administration once again, arresting two high-level officials from opposition candidate María Corina Machado’s team and issuing arrest warrants against several others.

nicolas maduro venezuela

Laken Riley’s murder and the long shadow of Willie Horton

The most effective ad ever made for a presidential election featured a violent, career-criminal, Willie Horton, walking out of a Massachusetts prison on a weekend pass. On one of those passes, he went on another vicious crime spree. George H. W. Bush used those crimes — and the lax policies that let Horton roam the country — to destroy his Democratic opponent, Massachusetts governor Mike Dukakis. The past is prologue. Once again, voters are worried about their safety and angry about the open-border policies that have degraded it. Donald Trump knows that, so he will be using ads like the one Bush used against Dukakis. They will have the same devastating impact. A little background is helpful.

laken riley

Biden and Trump become presumptive nominees after Tuesday wins

President Joe Biden is the presumptive presidential nominee for the Democratic Party after his victory in the Georgia primary pushed him passed the threshold of 1,968 delegates. Donald Trump also passed the threshold of 1,215 delegates to become the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party, following his triumphs in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington. "It is my great honor to be representing the Republican Party as its Presidential Nominee," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "Our Party is UNITED and STRONG, and fully understands that we are running against the Worst, Most Incompetent, Corrupt, and Destructive President in the History of the United States. Millions of people are invading our Country, many from prisons and mental institutions of other Countries.

joe biden
ukraine

Resisting the escalation in Ukraine

The drums of war are reverberating across Eastern Europe. Every geopolitical decision made by global powers carries immense weight. Amid the fear of growing conflict, one figure has emerged, wielding a sharp tongue and a pointed finger, challenging hesitant American lawmakers to bolster Ukraine’s defense against Russian aggression. Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski has embarked on a media offensive, chastising Republicans for their reluctance to green-light the Biden administration’s proposed $60 billion military aid package for Ukraine. Despite his purported noble objectives, Sikorski’s appeal deserves closer examination.

robert hur

Robert Hur’s damning testimony about Joe Biden

“We identified evidence that President Biden willfully retained classified materials after the end of his vice presidency, when he was a private citizen," former special counsel Robert Hur testified Tuesday to the House Judiciary Committee, confirming the contents of a report he released last month. Hur also testified that his report did not “exonerate” Biden, contrary to statements from Democrats on the committee. Hur was professional and prepared and only testified to the facts contained in his report; he would not engage in hypotheticals and would not speculate or opine on cases he was not involved in.

Democrats splurge on ads for tough Senate battle

As we look ahead to a Biden-Trump rematch, the map for Senate remains filled with uncertainty, and the Senate Democrats’ super PAC is making major money moves with the “largest ad reservations in Senate history,” according to the group.Senate Majority PAC’s total ad reservations for the fall currently amount to $239 million, as first reported by the Washington Post. It’s a wise move, as the early bird typically gets the cheaper ad buy rate. The ads are booked to run in seven states: Nevada, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Montana. SMP’s president said they will focus on “a woman’s access to abortion, healthcare coverage for preexisting conditions and the preservation and strengthening of Medicare and Social Security.

‘My kid’s name resonated in that body’: Steve Nikoui’s first interview after State of the Union outburst

Steve Nikoui’s son, Lance Corporal Kareem Nikoui, was killed alongside twelve other American service-members outside of Abbey Gate at the Kabul Airport during the Biden administration's hasty exit of Afghanistan in August 2021. That's why Nikoui's outburst, “Do you remember Abbey Gate,” interrupted the president’s State of the Union address on Thursday, roughly fifty-one minutes through the speech. Nikoui was escorted out, arrested, placed in handcuffs and charged with a misdemeanor that could see him in jail for up to ninety days. “I remember what set me off," Nikoui told The Spectator Friday night, in his first interview since his arrest. "When he was talking about kids, in one moment, they're glorifying these abortions...

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A very unusual State of the Union

One of the first things I noticed last night as I arrived on Capitol Hill to cover President Joe Biden’s fourth State of the Union address was the insane amount of security. Multiple blocks of streets surrounding the Capitol were fenced off by police and cop cars with their flashing lights on were ubiquitous. I hadn’t seen anything like it in downtown DC since the Capitol complex was locked down in the aftermath of the January 6 Capitol riot. Except then, staff and press were allowed to enter the gates with a valid ID badge. This time, we all had to make the trek around the massive perimeter in the hopes of finding one open door to get into a congressional building and then snake through the tunnels to the Capitol.

Joe Biden and the war on truth

I had been told that Joe Biden, the president of the United States, would be delivering the 2024 State of the Union Address on Thursday, March 7. As it happened, he didn’t. Instead, he indulged in a surreal, medically enhanced species of primal scream therapy. This was laced with liberal dollops of what Freudians call “projection,” accusing his political opponents of stifling democracy when everyone outside the orbit of the state propaganda machine knows that the surveillance apparatus over which Biden presides — ex officio, at least — is a self-perpetuating machine for extinguishing democracy and its prime nutrient, frank commitment to the truth.

joe biden samizdat

Biden uses human shields to avoid Pelosi

NBC anchors play with traffic Spotted: NBC News anchors Chuck Todd and Hallie Jackson furiously waving cars under a parking garage gate after the State of the Union address. Cars started to pile up at a broken pay station before an enthusiastic Jackson, who hosts Hallie Jackson NOW, yelled down the ramp for everyone to line up bumper-to-bumper so they could follow each other out before the gate closed in between cars.  “I feel bad,” Jackson lamented as one car missed the cutoff. Joe Biden uses human shields to avoid Pelosi: source Never fear, “Uncommitted” voters. It turns out Joe Biden may have more in common with Hamas than previously thought.

The worst State of the Union in history

Welcome to Thunderdome. We all know what the best version of Joe Biden sounds like — a throwback to images of old Irish bipartisan politicking, itself an act of role-play for a senator who has more often than not been an angry partisan and constant fabulist both away from the cameras and in front of them. But at least there’s something respectable about that caricature, when given the Jon Meacham veneer of gestures toward the other side of the partisan aisle, framed by misquotes of Saint Augustine, half-remembered fables and snatches from the worst entries in the Catholic hymn book. There was no such respectability to be found in Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech last night.

Biden rails against ‘predecessor’ in partisan State of the Union speech

President Joe Biden has shamelessly abandoned his chief campaign promise to unite the country. It became clear quickly into his presidency that this was a false promise as he railed against “extreme MAGA Republicans” and painted them a threat to democracy. The trend continued during Thursday night’s State of the Union address, as with each issue he brought up, he made sure to throw a jab at his “predecessor” and Republicans. On a recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling that said an embryo is a human life for the purposes of families having recourse when embryos are destroyed by fertility clinics, he pointedly asked the GOP side of the aisle which “freedoms” they intend to take away next.

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state of the union

A make-or-break State of the Union for Biden

Tonight President Joe Biden is set to deliver one of what may be his final major speeches as president: the State of the Union. After a completely empty schedule today, the president will address both Houses of Congress — but rivals are speculating if he’ll even make it through the evening. “Will the president be juiced enough to appear to be coherent?” Representative Darrell Issa wonders. And, “how will he deal with immigration. Those are the two issues that I think are on everyone’s mind,” he said. Prior to the speech, the House Republican Conference hosted a media row where dozens of lawmakers spoke about their expectations heading into tonight’s speech. “Border, border, border,” is what some, such as Oklahoma’s Kevin Hern, want to hear from the president.

The big lessons from Super Tuesday

It’s (basically) officially over: former president Donald Trump and President Joe Biden will face off again this November. Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, the only remaining viable challenger to Trump, dropped out of the race this morning after eking out just one Super Tuesday victory in Vermont’s open primary. (And Biden challenger Dean Phillips suspended his campaign as well). It wasn’t exactly a surprise. One of her biggest donors, Americans for Prosperity, pulled support last week; she had no public events scheduled in South Carolina as reporters holed up in hotel rooms rather than flocking to watch parties, and she was eerily quiet for hours as results poured in.

Donald Trump dominant on Super Tuesday

Donald Trump is cleaning up in the Republican primaries on Super Tuesday. The 45th president has secured victories in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia. Nikki Haley's sole victory is in Vermont. President Biden also bagged easy wins in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont and Virginia. The Democrats also held caucuses in American Samoa and Iowa on Tuesday. Biden won Iowa with 91 percent of the vote, but lost American Samoa to unknown businessman Jason Palmer.

trump super tuesday
victoria nuland

Victoria Nuland was the Kremlin’s princess of darkness

It was not a Super Tuesday for either Senator Kyrsten Sinema or State Department official Victoria J. Nuland. Each announced that they were stepping down from their positions. Sinema is declining to run once more in Arizona for the Senate. Nuland is exiting her post as the number three official at State, where she was widely seen as the champion of a hawkish approach to foreign policy. Sinema delivered a mawkish message that essentially blamed the American people for failing to recognize, let alone value, her valorous attempt to restore American power and prosperity. Nuland, by contrast, had to be satisfied with a statement from secretary of state Antony J. Blinken: “She always speaks her mind.