mva1958 wrote: Sun Nov 08, 2020 9:33 am One commentator mentioned last night that the Bidens' dog will be the first rescue dog in the White House. One more reason to feel good about this victory.

Joe Blewitt, a cousin of Joe Biden, and his wife, Deirdre, celebrate in Biden’s ancestral home of Ballina, County Mayo, Ireland.

Joe Biden’s ancestral home in the west of Ireland celebrated his victory with champagne, Guinness, flags and a declaration it was now Bidenland. Ballina, a County Mayo town near the Atlantic coast, toasted the US president-elect as a native son on Saturday night and early Sunday after he defeated Donald Trump. Families gathered under a pop art-style mural of Biden in Market Square to clink glasses and express relief that the Blewitt didn’t blow it. The Democrat is the great-great-great-grandson of Edward Blewitt, who emigrated to the US after the 1840s famine and settled in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

“The count just dragged out and dragged and finally it happened. We’re thrilled, we’re delighted,” said Joe Blewitt, 41, a plumber who is a third cousin of Biden.He had endorsed his relative during the campaign with a sign on his van – “Joe Biden for the White House, Joe Blewitt for your house” – that spread on social media, prompting abuse from some Trump supporters in the US. Blewitt lauded Biden’s victory speech in Delaware, more than 3,000 miles west of Ballina, as conciliatory and presidential. “He was brilliant. You can see that he’s a president, like, he stands up there. It was all about the people that didn’t vote for him, which is right.”

Biden has expressed pride in his Irish roots – another branch of his family came from County Louth – and visited Ireland many times, meeting relatives whom he then hosted in the US. He turned the sod on a hospice in Ballina, which has a plaque honouring his son Beau, who died in 2015. Villagers erected US and Irish flags, balloons and Biden and Kamala Harris posters last week in anticipation of a party. It started on Saturday evening as television networks declared the Democrats on course for the White House. A speaker played Biden’s campaign song, Bruce Springsteen’s We Take Care of Our Own, and a cherry red 1957 Buick Electra coupe cruised Market Square for extra US atmosphere. A poster declared Ballina the US’s newest state.

“We’re just delighted, it was a little bit surreal,” said Laurita Blewitt, 37, a fourth cousin who helped gather the clan for a lunch when Biden visited in 2016. She spoke to the president-elect’s brother and nephew on Sunday, she said. “They were all emotional and exhausted.” Ballina hopes to welcome back Biden during his four-year term.

But there was something else new in the photo: The president-elect was wearing a hat that played off Trump’s red “Make America Great Again” hats. “We Just Did,” Biden’s blue cap reads, with the number “46” underneath it.

highdesert wrote: Thu Apr 25, 2019 3:47 pm

DispositionMatrix wrote: Thu Apr 25, 2019 9:34 am

senorgrand wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 5:13 pmIn the age of MeToo, Biden is playing with fire. I think it shows how detached he is from the zeitgeist (sp?).

If the DNC were to anoint Biden, #MeToo#find a word and #believeallwomen would carry about as much weight as they have with Justin Fairfax. Now that he has announced, it looks like Biden is being given a pass by the media on any improprieties. The narrative is Biden is an older man who has been insensitive to changing social norms but has evolved, so it's all good now. Besides, Biden previously offered an apology video.

The only ones going overboard on this are Democrats, as usual they got their .... in a twist and haven't figured out how to get out of it. They act more and more immature.

These are early days, but some pollsters have been running heats between Democratic candidates and Trump and Biden is beating Trump. One day is an eternity in politics and things can change as we get closer to November 2020. I haven't decided yet, but like YT I'm looking to see who can win.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epoll ... _election/

finderd wrote: Tue Nov 10, 2020 11:54 pm

That's not what I need

finderd wrote: Tue Nov 10, 2020 11:54 pm That's not what I need

sig230 wrote: Wed Nov 11, 2020 7:18 am Welcome home. Pull up a stump and set a spell. What do you need?

sig230 wrote: Wed Nov 11, 2020 7:18 am

finderd wrote: Tue Nov 10, 2020 11:54 pm That's not what I need

Welcome home. Pull up a stump and set a spell. What do you need?

It’s not exactly divine intervention, but even the pope considers the U.S. presidential race over. President-elect Joe Biden, a lifelong Roman Catholic, spoke to Pope Francis on Thursday, despite President Donald Trump refusing to concede. Trump claims — without evidence — that the election was stolen from him through massive but unspecified acts of fraud.

Biden’s transition team said in a statement that the president-elect thanked Francis for “extending blessings and congratulations and noted his appreciation.” He also saluted the pontiff’s “leadership in promoting peace, reconciliation, and the common bonds of humanity around the world.” Biden said he hopes to work with Francis on issues such as climate change, poverty and immigration.

News of the call came even as some Catholic bishops in the U.S. decline to acknowledge Biden’s victory and argue that the faithful should not back him because of his support for abortion rights. On Tuesday, for example, Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, tweeted that Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris support “the slaughter of innocents” at any point during pregnancy.

Biden has said he accepts church doctrine about abortion on a personal level, but does not want to impose that belief on everyone.

Having the pope on board, too, likely has special significance for Biden.

He is just the second Catholic to be elected president in U.S. history, and the first since John F. Kennedy. Biden speaks frequently and openly about the importance of faith in his life and attends Mass near his home in Wilmington, Delaware, nearly every week.

No matter their faith, American politicians are often eager to meet with the pope when traveling near Rome, though Francis declined to meet with Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, in September, citing rules against such sit-downs during election periods. Francis last visited the U.S. in 2015.

Known for advocating for openness on issues like gay rights, the environment and religious tolerance, Francis has been embraced by some liberals as furthering their causes.

wings wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 5:56 pm I think there's a certain wisdom to letting Cyrus Vance take the lead with state charges. Makes it clear that there's no escape for the family and their business accomplices, no federal pardon capable of saving them. Leaves federal authorities free to investigate other people who pose more direct threats to democracy - Giuliani, Barr, Graham, and the like. Build the case, so that if he's still free and thinking about running in '22, there's a legion of former supporters with the opportunity to turn states witness for a reduction of charges.

It'll be easier to get convictions with guilty pleas, and harder for federal appeals judges to overturn them. But it's going to take time, persistence, grit. Let Covid responses and economic recovery take center stage at first, take attention off the federal investigators.

YankeeTarheel wrote: Thu Nov 19, 2020 12:42 pm Y'know, ALL the leaders of the radical reactionary right, all of 'em, are college-educated, just as college-educated as the left. Both Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz are Harvard-educated, for example. You'll see THEY actually have even less respect and MORE cynicism about the great Trump base. But they poured money into the heartland, which all dries up just after Christmas, and voters have responded to being given money since Julius Caesar "salted" the voters with cash, spending a huge part of his fortune. Money and giving simple, easy (and false) answers to complex, painful problems, and, uses the old standby--scapegoats: it's the Jews, the Blacks, the Browns, the "illegal immigrants", the Muslims, the Coastal elites.

But it's never that you voted in assholes who don't give a shit whether you live or die, that unlike those "dirty immigrants" YOU didn't pick up and move to where the jobs are, instead sitting on your ass and whining that your job was "stolen" by foreigners. But you VOTED for the guys who arranged for your jobs to be shipped overseas, who worked to break your unions, who sank your economy every single time you voted them in--William Howard Taft, Harding/Coolidge/Hoover, Eisenhower, Nixon/Ford, Reagan/Bush, Bush II, and now Trump.--Taft was elected 112 years ago and you learned NOTHING in that time!

Despite that you always say people need to be self-sufficient and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps--that doesn't apply to you and your fellow Redhats. Yeah, you say it, but how many of you do it?

I actually believe there is NO WAY to convince these people. Even as Covid is killing them, they are claiming they don't have it. "I don't have Covid. I have the Flu. I have Pneumonia. I think I have lung cancer. Why won't you give me the magic medicine Trump got?" Even at the moment of death "i don't believe this is happening!" So I really have trouble seeing how we stay one nation when it's clear we've divided into The United Blue States of American, and Dumfukistan!

500 counties went for Biden and produce 70% of GDP. 2400+ counties went for Trump and produce 30% of GDP, yet those are the ones who swear on their children's lives that the 500 are the Big Drain on the economy!

President-elect Joe Biden’s team is confronting a logistical headache as it prepares for his formal inauguration on January 20, 2021: How can you hold a mass-attended event in the midst of a pandemic while also preventing it from becoming a Trumpist counterprotest? At issue is a potentially combustible mix of complications owing to the likelihood that both COVID-19 and President Donald Trump’s hurt feelings will persist into the time when Biden is scheduled to be sworn into office.

Officials who have been involved in talks around inauguration planning said public safety would be top of mind. Over the course of the campaign, Biden consistently downscaled events or went entirely virtual to ensure no risk of COVID spread on his behalf. The expectation is that mindset won’t change for his inauguration. “Inaugurals always require intricate planning. This one will be a really delicate dance to have that element of accessibility without risk,” said Steve Kerrigan, who served as the CEO of the 2013 Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC). “I cannot see a President-elect Biden, like Trump, putting narcissism or ego ahead of the safety of people.”

But the questions being confronted by inauguration planners are now twofold. How do you actually keep attendees away? And if wannabe revelers decide not to show up, will you be left with a mass gathering of Trump supporters in their place?

Stephanie Cutter, the veteran Democratic operative who has worked on past inaugurations, noted that there is no provision requiring Biden to even go to the Capitol to be sworn in. “It is all ceremonial. You can do it in the [Capitol] rotunda if you want,” she said. “You just have to be sworn in by a Supreme Court justice.”

Officials familiar with past planning said the Secret Service and the National Park Service could, if asked, seal off the entirety of the Mall and surrounding streets to make sure that crowds are kept far away. Kerrigan noted that in 2009 Obama’s team eventually tried to keep the crowds away—out of fear that they’d overwhelm D.C. infrastructure—by encouraging them to hold neighborhood inaugurals instead.

The Biden campaign-turned-transition has told high-roller donors—who, along with corporate sponsors, typically fund the inauguration festivities—that while plans are still highly fluid, there is a full understanding that any inauguration needs to put the safety of the public before any sense of tradition.

“I think it’s going to be almost impossible to keep people away from the Mall,” the official said. “If Saturday is any indication of how people want to participate, it is going to be hard. Part of the point of it is to allow people to participate and the cathartic nature of it being the end of Trump. People are going to want to go.” They also will likely show up to heckle. In 2001, President George Bush was greeted with jeers, signs accusing him of thievery, and an egg thrown at his motorcade after the controversial recount in Florida put him in the White House.

But Trumpism presents an entirely different dimension of potential disruptions. Already, Trump-supportive groups have signaled that they intend to organize in D.C. to protest Biden’s win. This weekend, a rally is scheduled in D.C. to include pro-Trump women’s group Women for America First, members of the far-right Proud Boys, and some white supremacists who marched in the 2017 Charlottesville rally. Another entity called the Stop the Steal Caravan, led by a host from conspiracy-theory hub Infowars, is driving from Austin and plans to arrive in Washington on Friday.

The senior adviser who helped organize a recent inaugural said that it would be a personal surprise if Trump didn’t encourage something similar for when Biden’s inauguration was scheduled. It would be similarly surprising if Trump himself even participated.

“I could see no church, no invitation to tea. He’d bounce from the South Lawn, and then go hold a rally to entertain the masses,” the adviser said.