Don't mention Sen. Biden anywhere near me.

[Bluebear]

Thanks, Joe. Thanks for championing the bankruptcy bill. Now, as corporations go "bankrupt" one by one, a Republican-appointed judge after the other will allow the corporation to escape their pension CONTRACTS with their workers, since the company is in "crisis"! (Of course, the CEO's still get their stock options and golden parachutes so it's OK, right?

So as the pensions dwindle and financial promises are broken, WE the people can no longer file for bankruptcy as a corporation can. Medical bills be damned, no more excuses. Safety nets with gaping holes in them thanks to Bushco...and YOU, Senator. Thanks an awful lot.

[DanCa]

1. If it is any concellation

I no longer want Biden as a pres nomination or vp nomination. Shame Joe I have no problem with you shooting your 2008 campaign in the foot but did you have too take the rest of us down with you?

[Bluebear]

2. Your ticket in your sig line looks OK by me!

[ashling]

4. You were considering Biden for Prez?!

???????????????

[DanCa]

5. Regretably yes

but you know I am on psych drugs so that means am allowed to do foolish things :)

[ashling]

8. Stay on your medication!

Mine keep me from doing foolish thinge . . . sometimes.:)

[leveymg]

3. Senator DuPont. Always reliable, brings home the bacon again. n/t

[Donna Zen]

6. Regrettably

We will see Biden's name posted on supposed liberal boards with kudos over and over again. Sometimes I think I'm living in an alternate universe.

I cannot vote for war. I cannot for the Patriots Act. I cannot vote for national identity cards. I cannot vote for half the crap these people have supported.

As long as there is a war with its loss and debt, we will have no health care, no education, no friends in the world.

Maybe I no longer belong in the Democratic Party. I guess not.

[Jo March]

7. Oh, no - you do belong in the Democratic party

They don't belong in the Democratic party.

We need real Dems. We seriously do.

[Bluebear]

9. YOU belong

It is these sellouts who don't!

[Roland99]

10. Biden is a very well-spoken and very strong Democrat

Senators cannot vote the way every single DUer up here wants them to vote. There is one aspect of the bankruptcy bill that is ok: If a person has spare income minus allowable deductions for housing, transportation, food, and clothing, why shouldn't they be forced to pay back their debtors with what's left?

That's the way the IRS works collecting back taxes from people and it's the way every state in the union collects back taxes, too.

Biden has done plenty of good and, imo, he shone during the grilling of Ashcroft re: the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal.

[Donna Zen]

12. Very conservative

bankruptcy judges were against this bill because of what it will do to the "least" of us.

Adjustments that needed to be made to the current law(s) could have been accomplished without this draconian piece of legislation.

Joe Biden is probably a very nice man, but as a legislator I find him very lacking in real spine. Giving Ashcroft the dickens is one thing; undermining Democrats week after week on the Sunday gasbags is quite another thing. And he does. The Sunday before the Dem convention Biden dissed Kerry on the $87 billion and touted his own vote, a vote that gave the junta a blank check without accountability or a plan for success in Iraq.

There are many instances that Biden has let me down including but not limited to, the Patriots Act.

Biden is from a safe seat with a wide margin, he can, if he chose, provide the type of leadership needed in an opposition party. He doesn't.

Again, this is not personal, but my vote will no longer be taken for granted.

[FrenchieCat]

26. I agree that he could be way more principled in reference to Democratic

ideals instead of presidential aspiration; his new pastime.

Why he always shows up every Sunday on the Pundit Pap Parade, I'll never know...but he's not doing his party any great service...that's for sure.

[beaconess]

27. He's also pretty wishy washy on judges -

he falls all over himself to vote for Bush's nominees - they have to practically be exposed as an axe murderer before he'll vote against them.

[Bluebear]

13. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander

'If a person has spare income minus allowable deductions for housing, transportation, food, and clothing, why shouldn't they be forced to pay back their debtors with what's left?'

Do you really think that is how it will work? Really?

Corporations can declare bankruptcy and cheat their employees out of pensions. That luxury is no longer afforded to us ordinary folk. This is not the pain of a 'single DUer', this will be a pain for tens of thousands of people.

[Roland99]

17. I never said it was the best bill but that provision is hardly

stabbing people in the back. If there's extra income, pay off your debts. It's the moral thing to do.

[AntiCoup2K4]

16. Biden signed a PNAC document

What's your justification for that one? Or better yet, what's his?

[Roland99]

18. I don't know of that. Please share.

BTW, Clinton's part of the Carlyle Group and signed NAFTA. But yet he's well-loved up here.

[Donna Zen]

21. Do you have a link

to Clinton being part of Carlyle. (This is not a snark...I'm very interested in this.)

NAFTA hasn't exactly panned out now has it? No environmental or worker protections...
A race to the bottom.

[Roland99]

23. Some info:

http://www.thecarlylegroup.com/eng/company/l3-company737.html

Arthur Levitt: Former Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; Carlyle Senior Advisor. Mr. Levitt advises Carlyle management on strategic business matters.

Thomas F. McLarty: Former Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton; Carlyle Senior Advisor. Mr. McLarty advises Carlyle management on strategic business matters.

Arthur Levitt was appointed a member of the SEC under Clinton and was the chair.


http://www.publicintegrity.org/pns/report.aspx?aid=424&sid=200

former Clinton chief of staff Thomas F. "Mack" McLarty; former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Arthur Levitt and former Federal Communications Commission chairman William E. Kennard.

<...>

Kennard, who served as Bill Clinton's FCC chairman, is now managing director for Carlyle's global telecommunications and media group, directing the firm's business investments in companies he regulated.

Kennard and Levitt also endorsed Kerry/Edwards.



The "New World Order" is more far-reaching than many want to believe.

[Donna Zen]

25. I don't doubt the revolving door

especially where giant money is concerned, but that doesn't put Clinton's name on the letterhead. Lots and lots of out of work pols doing it for the big bucks--no surprise.

edit: do not assume I loved Clinton; I tolerated Clinton and thought he was a very good candidate/politician. From the beginning I suspected that Clinton would go along to get along and he did just that.

He did manage to save medicare three times with a brave veto, but I never saw much of a "vision" thing when it came to progressive politics. He also did not expand the base, something normally done during an 8 year run.

[beaconess]

28. How does the fact that two of the thousands of people who worked

in the Clinton Administration are now affiliated with Carlyle make Clinton himself "part of the Carlyle Group?"

[Roland99]

29. Wait a minute here...

We consistently lambast the GOP for all of the links we see between the highest levels and groups like Carlyle, GOPUSA, etc. but completely dismiss any thought that Clinton was connected to Carlyle?

Come on. Be honest with yourself.

The CHAIR of the SEC? An economic advisor?


Writing.
Wall.

[beaconess]

30. Oh, please - is Clinton responsible for the actions of every person

who worked in his Administration after he leaves office?

This is considerably different than the links between DeLay and his buddies or Cheney and Haliburton or the other smarmy connections we've seen on the GOP side.

Clinton Administration officials are doing all manner of things post 2001, from heading up think tanks to teaching to holding public office to working for law firms to hosting network news programs. That does not mean that Clinton is CONNECTED to every single entity that they are involved with.

Jeez.

[LittleClarkie]

19. Which one?

What was the subject matter?

[bonzotex]

31. You have a point but,...

...we can't afford the inconsistency. Biden talks a good game then goes and votes with the opposition to "get along" or whatever he thinks he's doing.
One part of the Bankruptcy bill being OK doesn't make the rest of it OK. When the repukes shot down an amendments to exempt people suffering medical calamities and even deployed military members for god's sake, No Democrat should have supported it. What was the urgency of passing this bill anyway? Credit Card companies were making record profits anyway and they are the only real beneficiaries of this bill.

How about the Real ID Act tacked onto the Emergency Defense Authorization? Passed 99-0. Not one Senator would stand up and call Bullshit on it. The list goes on and on. There is no bi-partisanship in either house any more and it's not the Dems fault. Biden doesn't get it yet. He thinks he can play the old game but he's wrong. We will continue to lose until we become a real opposition party and show other Americans we have principles that won't be compromised.

Biden has respectable Democratic bona-fides and he's smart as hell, but he's old school (in a bad way) and no matter how many times he puts on a good show he doesn't stand his ground in the end when it matters.

[funflower]

32. But what about that diabolical hair?

[baldguy]

11. Look at the business address for your credit card company.

Guess what state Biden represents.

[smartvoter]

15. Yep. nt

[funflower]

33. They're either from Delaware

or South Dakota. Senator Daschle wasn't exactly tough on the credit card companies either (for whatever good it did him).

[LittleClarkie]

14. That was a while ago, wasn't it

what prompted a thread now?

Sometimes I don't like the guy. Too smarmy.

He does get a cookie for how he's been fighting over Bolton. But just the one so far.

[Bluebear]

20. What prompts the thread now is United Airlines

They can go bankrupt and dishonor their contract with their employees to pay their pension benefits which were EARNED, but a consumer cannot go bankrput and discahrge debt now.

[LittleClarkie]

22. Ah, Ed Schultz was talking about that

and how it just points up why we need Social Security just as it is, or these folks would have nothing.

[RUMPLEMINTZ]

24. What if Congress

does the same thing with social security? They could go to a judge and say they don't have the money to pay out anymore. Is there anything that could stop them?

[rockedthevoteinMA]

35. I was talking about that last night. I wonder if there is anything that

could stop it. But, of course, with the fillibuster battle, they're probably going to stack the courts, so any ruling like you mentioned would undoubtedly go towards the jerks.

[orleans]

34. i became disappointed and cynical about joe

when it came out that he plagiarized a paper.

i don't remember much detail about the story--he was running for the nomination of prez at the time. then he dropped his tail between his legs and left the primaries.

[BeachBuckeye]

36. Joe Biden is, without question the biggest blow-hard ever

Biggest blow-hard to ever walk the halls of congress. He is for Joe Biden and doesn't give a tinker's damn about anyone else.

I've had the experience of sitting in several meetings with him and about a dozen other people and it was obvious from the time he opened his mouth that he is the consumate politician. He looked me in the eye and told me "I'll have the troops out of Iraq in 3 months" and that was a year and a half ago. Joe is a fake Democrat and proved it when he championed the bankruptcy bill. He should be shown the door by Dems in Deleware.