Category Archives: Joe Biden

Coronavirus Pandemic, Democrats 2020, Donald Trump, Economic Policies, Election 2020, Joe Biden

Biden Takes Trump to Task for Leadership Failure Leading to Needless Loss of Life, Livehoods to COVID Pandemic

June 17, 2020 krubin

Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, speaking in Darby, PA, made his strongest attacks on Trump to date, taking Trump to task tens of thousands of needless deaths and millions who have lost their livelihoods as a result failures to effectively lead and take action to address the coronavirus pandemic. It was a condemnation of a federal government completely dismantled and dysfunctional. © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, made his strongest attacks on Trump to date, taking Trump to task tens of thousands of needless deaths and millions who have lost their livelihoods as a result failures to effectively lead and take action to address the coronavirus pandemic. It was a condemnation of a federal government completely dismantled and dysfunctional.

Listening to the remarks, you are reminded that Biden was Obama’s partner in addressing multiple crises often all at once – he came into office with two wars, economic crisis. Soon after there was the swine flu. The BP Oil spill. Later the Ebola epidemic. Obama-Biden did what no president was able to do in 100 years: create a universal health care system which Trump has ceaselessly tried to dismantle, even during a pandemic, as millions are losing their employer-sponsored health insurance; global pact to address the existential threat of climate change. Obama-Biden did their best to address immigration reform, passing DACA; gun violence prevention; and after Michael Brown was murdered in Ferguson, Missouri, created a template for 21^st Century Policing. They left it, along with a template for handling a global pandemic, for Trump, who ignored or shredded or repealed everything that the Obama administration created.

But Biden was there. He was not just “in the room” but was a partner. He knows how to amass the expertise to rebuild the institutions so harmed by a corrupt, self-serving ignoramus. Institutions like the CDC, once so respected; Justice Department which once stood for the Rule of Law; Environmental Protection Agency which once protected rather than pillaged the environment. –Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

Here is a transcript of Vice President Biden’s remarks:

Good afternoon everyone.

And thank you to all the local officials joining me today.

Before I begin my remarks, I want to acknowledge that it was five years ago today when a white supremacist walked into the Mother Emanuel church in Charleston, South Carolina, and slaughtered my friend Reverend Clementa Pinckney and eight other parishioners.

It was hatred unbridled. It was a poisonous expression of the white supremacy that still infects our nation and our institutions — and of the dangers we face as a society if we cannot root out this corrosive and deadly ideology.

When I reflect back on the amazing grace and compassion and forgiveness of the Mother Emanuel community — I see the very best of who we are as Americans.

But we know that grace alone is not enough — we have to put in the work.

And we’re seeing the best of America in that as well — in the weeks of peaceful protests and civil actions taking place in cities and towns of every size all across the country.

People are keeping our eyes focused on how dangerous it is to live in Black and Brown skin in this country.

And Americans are out there marching, notwithstanding the fact that we’re in the middle of a pandemic.

On Monday, Donald Trump said, “if we stopped testing right now” for COVID, “we’d have very few cases, if any.” It’s a statement that’s not only absurd — it’s absolutely tragic.

And yesterday, the head of the White House task force on coronavirus — the Vice President — claimed success in this fight because deaths are “down to” fewer than 750 a day.

750 fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers and husbands, wives, children – dying every day.

More than 20,000 a month. That’s greater than World War II level casualties each month. That’s more than five 9/11’s each month.

And this Administration is self-congratulating?

That may be good enough for Donald Trump, but it will never, ever be acceptable if I am President.

Researchers have shown that tens of thousands of Americans have died needlessly because Donald Trump was slow to respond to this crisis, and then bungled the response.

For weeks in January and February, I was raising my concerns about how we needed to take this virus seriously, all while Trump was ignoring the reporting from the intelligence community in his daily briefing and the warnings of his closest advisors, and praising the Chinese government for being transparent in its handling of the virus, instead of demanding access for the CDC that Beijing was refusing to give.

The American people have sacrificed so much to fight this virus.

We’ve lost lives, we lost businesses, we’ve lost paychecks. And now, thanks to Donald Trump’s bungling, we may lose some of the progress we’ve begun to make. All because he’s lost interest.

He’s once again ignoring the facts. The public health response is still woefully lacking.

More than 117,000 people have died in the United States, with the average daily number of cases still climbing in 21 states — and we still don’t have what we need when it comes to rapid-results testing, contact tracing capacity, widely available personal protective equipment, or clear nationwide guidance.

Instead, President Trump pushes dangerous, disproven drugs, stands in the way of the CDC issuing guidelines on reopening, and he refuses to wear a mask, failing even the most basic test of leadership.

He’s scaled back the meetings of the COVID-19 task force in spite of experts saying testing and tracing is necessary for reopening — he’s sent his Testing Czar home.

Of the money provided to the Pentagon for essential medical supplies, only 15 percent has been moved out the door.

Donald Trump wants to style himself a wartime president against an invisible enemy — the coronavirus. But unlike any other war time leader, he takes no responsibility, he exercises no leadership, and now he’s surrendering the fight.

Instead of leading the charge to defeat this virus, he has waved the white flag and retreated.

And he is so eager to get back to his campaign rallies that he’ll put people at risk, in violation of CDC guidelines that still warn against large gatherings, as long as they sign a waiver promising not to hold his campaign liable.

Donald Trump’s failure to fight the coronavirus with the same energy and focus that he uses to troll his enemies on Twitter has cost us lives — and is putting hope for an economic recovery at risk.

Jobs numbers and retail sales reports were better than expected in May. That’s great news for our country. But now Donald Trump’s desire to declare victory and be done with it will only imperil our continued progress.

Our economy is still sputtering, with more than 20 million people unemployed and no clear guidance from the federal government for what businesses need to do to re-open safely and effectively for a strong recovery.

This isn’t a debate about whether to reopen — it’s about how we make reopening work for everyone.

The employees at the White House get daily COVID-19 tests. They know they are safe before they go to work — and they know their co-workers are safe. They have the confidence to resume their lives.

Workers across the country aren’t asking for daily testing — they’re just asking for regular, reliable access to tests. Don’t they deserve that?

So it’s not that Donald Trump doesn’t recognize the importance of testing. It’s that he’s not up to the task. And now, he’s seemingly decided that he doesn’t even want to try.

But just like he couldn’t wish COVID-19 away in March, just like he couldn’t tweet it away in April — he can’t ignore it away in June.

So I have some basic questions for President Donald Trump: What are you going to do to make sure every worker has access to regular testing so that they have the same confidence to go into a store or go back to work as White House staffers?

Why are you leaving schools and child care centers to navigate this uncertainty all on their own without the effective guidance and resources they need to help protect kids and their communities?

Why won’t you enforce an OSHA standard for worker protections during a global pandemic?

Why is it that the Main Street lending program, created more than two months ago by the Congress to help struggling small businesses, only opened for registration to lenders two days ago — and still hasn’t distributed a single penny?

And why won’t you disclose the names of the businesses who received a total of $500 billion in taxpayer funding? Why are they being hidden?

How many cronies got bailouts? How many donors?

What businesses had to shut down because they were denied funding in April, and what businesses get special approval thanks to a nod from the top?

Why did you get rid of the watchdog originally appointed to oversee it?

What are you trying to hide?

It’s bad management on top of bad planning on top of neglect. And it’s unacceptable.

Folks, here’s the truth: This pandemic is still here.

It’s going to be here for the foreseeable future — until we get it under control, or until we have a safe, proven, widely-available vaccine. COVID-19 is a fact of nature. We have to deal with this virus, and everything that comes with it, head on.

And we can deal with it, if we put in the work and invest in building a dynamic, resilient economy and health system capable of getting – and then staying – ahead of new outbreaks. We have the capacity and the resources to do that.

I’ve laid out the baseline steps of what needs to be done — from the “Make it Work” checklist for a successful, accountable recovery that I put out back in early April, to the steps for a strong re-opening that I released last week.

It’s not rocket science. It’s common sense. It’s straightforward. And that’s why this is perhaps the greatest indictment of Donald Trump’s complete lack of leadership.

He wasted months and months and months passing the buck, blaming everyone else, and refusing to act when we should have been preparing our country for a long-term response and building up our resiliency to respond to future flare-ups. Yet, we still don’t have a comprehensive system for collecting COVID-19 case data. These are the basics.

He should have been preparing us to weather the valleys and peaks of this virus. He should have been working to shore up the vulnerabilities in our health care system that have been laid bare by this crisis. He should have been working to bridge the inequities and strengthen the cracks in the foundation of our economic system that are exposed for all to see.

He hasn’t done any of it.

And because of the depth of Donald Trump’s failures, this pandemic will continue to be worse for all Americans, and much worse for Black and Brown Americans, who are getting hit the hardest. For folks in communities like Darby Borough and Yeadon.

Donald Trump thinks that if he puts his head in the sand, the American people will too.

But it doesn’t work that way. Not when hundreds of people are still dying every day, and millions are unemployed, wondering how they’re going to keep the lights on and food on the table.

Not when workers are weighed down with worries about their safety or what happens if they get sick.

And there are the steps that we need to be taking now to steer us – steady and strong – through these difficult times to a more resilient future.

First, we have to do everything we can to avoid deadly spikes of infections as people begin to go back out into the world. We are not that much better prepared today for a run of cases that over-fills our intensive care units than we were 3 months ago.

And second—we have to help give people the assurance and precautions that are necessary to restart our economy with confidence. If Americans lose what faith they have left in our government’s ability to manage this pandemic, we will see a much deeper and longer-lasting economic impact that will have even greater repercussions for people’s well-being.

Mr. President: Don’t leave the American people to face this threat on their own — with no guidance, resources, or leadership from the federal government.

Don’t let the support from the CARES Act expire next month while people are still hurting.

Don’t leave our front line workers exposed and without the resources they need. And don’t waste any more of our time.

The American people need the confidence of clear guidelines, grounded in science, that will allow them to resume their daily lives safely.

American businesses need the support of the federal government to continue to backstop them through the phases of reopening, and workers need the assurance that their health is your first concern.

America needs a president who will put the American people first, not his own ego. America needs a president who will do the work.

I’m ready on day one.

After more than three years in office, why isn’t Donald Trump?

Mr. President, wake up, get to work. There is so much more to be done.

Later, Biden issued a statement after news broke of John Bolton’s reports that Trump directly asked China to help him get re-elected, a quid pro quo for a trade deal. Here is his statement:

Today, we learned from John Bolton, the President’s former national security advisor, that President Trump sold out the American people to protect his political future. He reportedly directly asked Xi Jinping, China’s leader, to help him get re-elected. He was willing to trade away our most cherished democratic values for the empty promise of a flimsy trade deal that bailed him out of his disastrous tariff war that did so much damage to our farmers, manufacturers, and consumers.

If these accounts are true, it’s not only morally repugnant, it’s a violation of Donald Trump’s sacred duty to the American people to protect America’s interests and defend our values.

For months, our country and the world have suffered through the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 117,000 Americans have lost their lives and tens of millions of workers are unemployed — and we’ve been hurt far worse because of Donald Trump’s inability to lead and his failure to meet the crisis. Today we learned more about the depth and nature of that failure.

Why didn’t he act when the warning signs were so clear? Why did he ignore his briefings from the intelligence community, the warnings from his own team, and from me? Why did he repeatedly praise the Chinese government and President Xi as the coronavirus spread? Because he wanted to have a trade deal with China as a talking point for his re-election campaign. He thought that letting the President of China run the table on us in the long run would give him another term in the short run. In exchange, he was willing to stay silent on Hong Kong. In exchange, he condoned interning more than one million Uighurs in concentration camps. It’s no wonder that this week we’ve also seen reporting that China wants four more years of Donald Trump as president, because he has so weakened the United States.

Donald Trump’s behavior disgraces the American presidency. We knew that long before today’s revelations.

And my message to China’s leaders, or anyone else who President Trump might invite to interfere: stay out of our democracy. Stay out of our elections. The American people alone will decide the future of this country, and I am confident in the choice they will make.

Coronavirus Pandemic, Criminal Justice, Democrats 2020, Donald Trump, Economic Policies, Economy, Election 2020, Health Care, Jobs, Joe Biden, Justice system, News & Photo Features, Race Issues

Biden Bursts Trump’s Bubble Over Jobs Report: ‘The public health crisis, job crisis, and crisis of inequity and indignity are connected’

June 5, 2020 krubin

Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, delivered remarks on the economy and the May jobs report which unexpectedly showed 2.5 million jobs added and an unemployment rate dipping slightly to 13.3%, instead of rising to as much as 20%. But that 2.5 million jobs reflects the fact that states have begun reopening; there were 40 million people who have filed for unemployment, so an unimaginable 37 million are still without jobs. And 13.3% is still higher than at any time during the 2008 Great Recession. Moreover, the Trump administration apparently changed the way certain numbers are calculated, so the actual unemployment rate could be 3 points higher, or 16.3%, which would be closer to what economists forecast. Trump also manages to ignore the fact that the stimulus program pushed by Democrats over Republicans’ objections, worked to keep the economy from descending into a Great Depression. He also ignored the disproportionate unemployment rates among Blacks and Hispanics, groups that are also suffering disproportionately from COVID-19. But Trump is desperate to put a rosy face on an economy while ignoring the fact the coronavirus pandemic is still spreading and his administration has done virtually nothing to provide a national program for testing, tracing and isolating, nor even set standards for workplaces and schools only some tepid guidelines. And Trump was desperate to shift attention from his Fascistic overreach of using military power used against peaceful protesters calling for an end to race-based police brutality.

Instead, Vice President Biden took Trump to task and offered his own analysis of the depth of harm to the economy and public health caused by Trump’s failure of leadership and his preoccupation with Wall Street over Main Street, wealth over wages.

Here is a transcript of Biden’s remarks: –Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

Good afternoon.

Before I speak to the economic situation, I have to take a moment to address something the President said this morning.

Toward the end of his remarks today, Donald Trump said he hopes that George Floyd “is looking down and seeing this is a great day for our country.”

He was speaking of a man who was brutally killed by an act of needless violence — and by a larger tide of injustice — that has metastasized on this President’s watch.

George Floyd’s last words — “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe” — have echoed across our nation.

For the President to try to put any other words in the mouth of George Floyd — is frankly despicable.

And, the fact that he did so on a day when Black unemployment rose and black youth unemployment skyrocketed — tells you everything you need to know about who this man is and what he cares about.

Today, like all Americans, I was glad to see that two-and-a-half million Americans have gotten their jobs back.

For those families, that’s a sigh of relief.

And for all of us, it’s a reminder of the resilience of the American people.

To those Americans, I’m so proud of you, and so happy for you and your families.

I was disturbed, however, to see the President crowing this morning — basically hanging a “mission accomplished”’ banner when there is so much work to be done — and so many Americans are still hurting.

More than twenty million Americans — one out of every seven U.S. workers — are still out of work.

For an enormous swath of our country, their dreams are still on hold. They are still struggling to put food on the table. The unemployment rate remains the highest it’s been in nearly a century.

As I said, Black unemployment went up this month. Latino youth unemployment jumped to over 37 percent. Hispanic unemployment overall is four times higher than it was before the President botched his response to the pandemic. And I’m worried, when you look deeper at the data, that while temporary layoffs went down,permanent layoffs went up.

Donald Trump still doesn’t get it.

He’s out there spiking the football — completely oblivious to the tens of millions of people who are facing the greatest struggle of their lives. Those folks aren’t feeling any less pain today than they were yesterday.

People who’ve lost their health care in this crisis, they’re not celebrating today — especially when Donald Trump is still in court fighting to strip away health care protections from even more Americans.

The fact is, there are about 13 million less jobs today for American workers than the day that President Obama and I left office.

So while it’s wonderful to see ten percent of the families who lost their jobs due to Trump’s disastrous pandemic response start to make their way back — the President’s behavior makes me deeply worried for the 90 percent who haven’t.

So to all those families — who are scared, and hurting, and wondering what’s going to happen next: I want you to know I see you. I won’t ever forget you. And I won’t be satisfied – until this economy starts working for all of you.

Let’s be clear about something. The depth of this job crisis is not attributable to an act of God — but to the failure of a President. The truth is every country dealt with job losses due to the pandemic, but America was hit much harder out of the gate due to Trump’s complete mismanagement of the response.

This morning, he tried to compare our response to Germany’s and South Korea’s.

Okay, let’s compare. Germany has one-third of the deaths per capita that we do. South Korea has less than 300 deaths — total. America has four percent of the world’s population — and more than a quarter of the world’s deaths from this pandemic.

It’s no secret why that is.

Let’s get something straight: he did not act quickly.

For months, he downplayed the threat — falsely promising us that anyone could get a test — and claiming that “like a miracle it will disappear.”

He repeatedly praised China’s containment response – despite a litany of public appeals — including from me — not to bet American lives and the U.S. economy on the word of the Chinese government.

He refused to take action to get adequate testing in place — allowing the virus to spread further than it should have.

Columbia University found that 54,000 lives could have been saved if the administration had acted just two weeks earlier.

His failure didn’t just cost lives. It cost jobs.

New studies this week from Moody’s and Brookings confirm that half or more of those who lost their jobs would still be employed had Trump mounted a competent response like Germany and South Korea and other countries did.

We know why this happened. Donald Trump was more focused on the stock wealth of the biggest corporations than he was on the well-being of the American people.

It’s why he had his top economic advisors telling people to buy stocks instead of preparing our nation to brace for the pandemic.

Now — after 110,000 deaths and more than 20 million people still out of work — the consequences are clear.

We are still facing devastating unemployment, an historic health crisis, and a continuing crisis of violence, injustice, and indignity that is devastating Black Americans and diminishing the soul of our country.

These are some of the sternest challenges our nation has ever faced, and Trump is patting himself on the back.

He just has no idea what’s really going on in this country. He has no idea the depth of pain that people are facing. He remains completely oblivious to the human toll of his indifference. It is time for him to step out of his bunker and take a look around at the consequences of his words and actions.

Let’s be clear — a president who takes no responsibility for costing millions and millions of Americans their jobs deserves no credit when a fraction of them return.

But there’s a deeper concern here. As we recover, some of the temporary job losses we are still not on track to grow back in a way that will actually serve working people.

President Trump is still rewarding wealth over work.

All we hear coming out of the White House is calls for more tax cuts for big investors and big corporations. Well, they didn’t build this country. The middle class did — that’s who I fight for.

And if Trump continues to put the interests of CEOs and shareholders ahead of American workers, we’ll never get to where we need to be as a country.

Look, every American has a choice to make this November. Not simply what kind of President we want , but what kind of country we want. What kind of economy we want — and who that economy serves.

In the coming weeks, I will lay out in detail my comprehensive plan— not just to build things back to the way they were before COVID-19, but to build back better.

To create millions of new, good-paying jobs with benefits where people get a fair return for work and we make our country stronger, more resilient, and more just.

That plan will be anchored in job-creating investments, in small businesses, infrastructure – innovation, manufacturing, and caregiving, and in rewiring the faulty structures of our economy to ensure the dignity and equity of all American workers.

The public health crisis, the job crisis, and the crisis of inequity and indignity being endured by African Americans — those three challenges are deeply connected to one another.

The solutions must be, as well.

Any economic plan must start with a public health plan to make sure tests are available, to get our society functioning, to build back the confidence we need to truly bring back jobs and small businesses.

But that is only the first step.

My jobs plan will also be about restoring dignity to the American people.

In addition to pursuing badly-needed reforms, we need to be growing wages, leveling the playing field, and creating tens of millions of the new jobs we need to build a better American future.

There is a monumental amount of work to do to repair the damage that has been done. And simply tweeting slogans like “transition to greatness” won’t solve anything for families who are hurting.

I look forward to introducing and implementing a real jobs plan that will meet this challenging moment.

Americans can’t afford to have any more of their time wasted.

They need an economy that works for them — now.

They need jobs that bring dignity — now.

They need equal justice — and equal opportunities — now.

They need a president who cares about them, and cares about helping them heal — now.

Thank you.

God bless you — and may God protect our troops.

Civil Rights, Election 2020, Inequality, Joe Biden, Justice system, News & Photo Features

Biden Calls for an End to Systemic Racism and Unequal Justice After George Floyd Murder by Police

May 29, 2020 krubin

Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive nominee for president of the Democratic party summed up centuries of injustice and terror, saying, “And it is long past time we made the promise of this nation real for all people. This is no time for incendiary tweets. This is no time to encourage violence. This is a national crisis, and we need real leadership right now.” © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

Vice President Joe Biden can address the systemic racism and inequality in our justice system in ways that even President Barack Obama couldn’t. In just a few minutes remarks, the presumptive nominee for president of the Democratic party summed up centuries of injustice and terror, saying, “And it is long past time we made the promise of this nation real for all people. This is no time for incendiary tweets. This is no time to encourage violence. This is a national crisis, and we need real leadership right now.” He spoke after meeting with George Floyd’s family, after nights of peaceful then violent protest and just before the officer who caused his death was arrested for murder.

Once again — the words “I can’t breathe.”

An act of brutality so elemental, it did more than deny one more black man in America his civil rights and his human rights. It denied his very humanity. It denied him of his life.

Depriving George Floyd – as it deprived Eric Garner – of the one thing every human being must be able to do: Breathe.

So simple. So basic. So brutal.

The same thing happened with Ahmaud Arbery. The same with Breonna Taylor. The same thing with George Floyd.

We’ve spoken their names aloud. Cried them out in pain and horror. Chiseled them into long suffering hearts.

They are the latest additions to an endless list of lives stolen–potential wiped out unnecessarily.

It’s a list that dates back more than 400 years: black men, black women, black children.

The original sin of this country still stains our nation today.

Sometimes we manage to overlook it, and just push forward with the thousand other tasks of daily life. But it’s always there.

And weeks like this, we see it plainly.

We are a country with an open wound.

None of us can turn away.

None of us can be silent.

None of us any longer can hear those words — “I can’t breathe” — and do nothing.

We cannot fall victim to what Martin Luther King called the “appalling silence of the good people.”

Every day, African Americans go about their lives with constant anxiety and trauma, wondering — who will be next?

Imagine if every time your husband or son, wife or daughter, left the house, you feared for their safety from bad actors and bad police.

Imagine if you had to have that talk with your child about not asserting their rights — and taking the abuse handed out to them — just so they could make it home.

Imagine having the police called on you – for just sitting in Starbucks or renting an Airbnb or watching birds.

That is the norm for black people in this nation — they don’t have to imagine it.

The anger and the frustration and the exhaustion — it’s undeniable.

But that is not the promise of America.

And it is long past time we made the promise of this nation real for all people.

This is no time for incendiary tweets. This is no time to encourage violence.

This is a national crisis, and we need real leadership right now.

Leadership that will bring everyone to the table so we can take measures to root out systemic racism.

It’s time for us to take a hard look at uncomfortable truths.

It’s time for us to face the deep, open wound we have in this nation.

We need justice for George Floyd.

We need real police reform that holds all cops up to the high standards that so many of them actually meet — that holds bad cops accountable, and that repairs the relationship between law enforcement and the community they are sworn to protect.

And we need to stand up as a nation — with the black community, and with all minority communities — and come together as one America.

That’s the challenge we face.

And it will require those of us who sit in positions of influence to finally deal with the abuse of power.

The pain is too immense for one community to bear alone.

It is the duty of every American to grapple with it — and grapple with it now.

With our complacency, our silence — we are complicit in perpetuating these cycles of violence.

Nothing about this will be easy or comfortable. But if we simply allow this wound to scab over once more, without treating the underlying injury — we will never truly heal.

The very soul of America is at stake.

We must commit, as a nation, to pursue justice with every ounce of our being. We have to pursue it with real urgency. We have to make real the American promise, which we have never fully grasped: That all men and women are not only equal at creation, but throughout their lives.

Coronavirus Pandemic, Democrats 2020, Donald Trump, Economic Development, Economic Policies, Economy, Election 2020, Employment & Labor Issues, Jobs, Joe Biden, News & Photo Features, Presidential Campaign 2020

Biden on Trump’s Disastrous Economic Numbers, Worst Since Great Depression: ‘It Didn’t Have to Be This Way’

May 8, 2020 krubin

After the April jobs report showed a loss of 20.5 million jobs and an unemployment rate of 14.7% – the worst since the Great Depression –former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for President, offered these remarks on “Trump’s Disastrous Economy,” saying “it didn’t have to be this way.” Here are the remarks, as prepared for delivery, which provide an alternate to how things could have, should have been handled:

This morning, we received the worst jobs report in history. 20.5 million jobs lost last month, and an unemployment rate now 14.7 percent — the highest it’s been since the Great Depression.

It’s an economic disaster worse than any we have seen in decades — and it’s made all the worse, because it didn’t have to be this way.

Donald Trump utterly failed to prepare for this pandemic and delayed in taking the necessary steps to safeguard our nation against the near-worst-case-economic scenario we are now living.

COVID-19 caused a massive economic challenge. But this crisis hit us harder, and will last longer, because Donald Trump spent the last three years undermining the core pillars of our economic strength.

Many small businesses have closed because of stay-at-home orders. But a lot of them won’t open again because they do not have a cushion due to three years of Trump’s policies that reward the biggest companies.

Yes, many have lost their jobs because of this crisis — but we are seeing so many proud families forced to endure epic lines for food boxes in football stadium parking lots because Donald Trump has spent three years tilting the playing field to the wealthy, and not the middle class.

Trump has loved to crow about the great economy he built. But when the crisis hit, it became clear who that economy has been built to serve. Not workers. Not the middle class. Not families.

Trump’s economic agenda has three unmistakable failings; failings that have been present since day one, but are coming into sharp relief in the current crisis:

First, Donald Trump’s main measure of economic progress is the state of the stock market.

It’s the only metric he values, so it’s the only lens through which he sees our economy.

For the past three years, even as Americans have had to work harder than ever to pay their bills, he’s said the economy was “great” because the stock market was up.

He irresponsibly downplayed and delayed action on the virus to protect the Dow Jones Average, a choice that has so far cost tens of thousands of American lives and millions of American jobs.

Make no mistake: it doesn’t matter how much the market rebounds. As long as there are millions of unemployed people struggling to get by — we won’t be anywhere near bouncing back.

Second, his entire economic strategy is focused on helping the wealthy and big corporations.

Just imagine what we could be doing now with the $2 trillion in tax cuts that Trump delivered for his rich friends as his first priority.

Imagine how much better a position we’d be in right now if — instead of Donald Trump cheering on corporations that spent hundreds of billions buying back their stock — those corporations were using that money to keep workers on their payrolls.

Imagine if, instead of providing incentives to shift jobs overseas – he had ensured we were investing in manufacturing at home.

Imagine how much more resilient our small businesses might be right now if – rather than repeatedly trying to slash the Small Business Administration’s budget – Trump had invested in making them stronger.

Imagine if instead of fighting tooth and nail to take away people’s health insurance, he’d invested in expanding access, so that families didn’t worry that a visit to the hospital would put their finances at risk.

Third, Donald Trump claimed he would fight for the forgotten middle class – and as soon as he got into office, he forgot them.

He’s been President for more than three years, but hasn’t yet followed through on his core economic campaign promises to middle class voters.

He promised to work with Congress to pass a bill to limit offshoring of jobs. He promised to create $1 trillion worth of new infrastructure jobs. He promised to expand child care support.

He said it would all happen before May 2017. It’s now May 2020 and not one of these promises has materialized.

Instead, he’s run the same playbook that has hollowed out our economy time and again over the past four decades.

It always ends up the same way. The rich get richer, the powerful get more power, and everyone else gets told they just need to work harder.

We’ve heard it before — and we’re not buying it.

And if you need proof that Trump’s policies were a failure even before this virus hit, just compare the first 35 months of Trump’s presidency to the last 35 months of the Obama-Biden Administration, hiring was slower and real wages grew more slowly too.

Trump was already well into the process of hollowing out the good economy we left him long before the first case of coronavirus.

The numbers looked good, but underneath the numbers, things were eroding.

But this pandemic has laid bare exactly how much damage Trump has done in just over three years.

Because Donald Trump has gotten the virus response wrong, the jobs and unemployment numbers are just the beginning. His mistakes will also mean it takes more time to recover from this.

We’re already seeing the tell-tale hallmarks of Trump-o-nomics in the way he is implementing the crisis response efforts: no strings, no oversight, no accountability.

I’ve started to think of it as the Corrupt Recovery.

First, Trump made sure we didn’t have an empowered Inspector General to oversee all of this.

And now, we seeing reports that loan money went to Trump’s donors, political allies, and companies with Trump-connected lobbyists.

Here’s how it worked: Trump’s Treasury Department allowed corporations with connections to go right to the front of the line — they got concierge service.

Meanwhile the mom and pop shops that needed help most got shut out.

More than 40 percent of the initial funding designed to support small businesses—didn’t go to real small businesses at all.

The single largest recipient of small-business money was a hotel executive and a major Trump donor.

The Trump Administration let him exploit the loophole to get $59 million in help, and he’s only giving it back now because the press found out.

And, who knows what else we’d find if the Trump Administration would stop hiding the full list of businesses who received help.

This is your money they’re getting.

We’re reading press stories that the Trump Administration is allowing big corporations that take money to lay off their workers, while other big companies are laying off workers then pay-out millions to shareholders.

How hard is it for Trump to say that if you are a major corporation and you are going to receive taxpayer money, you must first use it to take care of your workers?

But it turns out corruption is a feature of the Trump economic agenda, not a bug.

He will pick his wealthy friends, his corporate cronies, over working families every time.

I say it’s time we pick a different way.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be laying out a detailed plan for the right kind of economic recovery. Today, let me outline just a few key principles.

It starts with rebuilding the backbone of this country: a stronger, more inclusive, more resilient middle class – a middle class that can withstand the next public health crisis or whatever else comes our way.

It’s time we make sure everyone gets a fair shot at success, not just the Mar-a-Lago crowd.

Since the very first days of my campaign, I’ve had a simple message:

Wall Street and CEOs didn’t build this country. The middle class built this country. Ordinary women and men who are capable of doing extraordinary things when given half a chance. They built the country.

That’s who I believe in. That’s who I’m in this race to fight for.

Who is out there on the front lines of this crisis? Who are the workers that are literally carrying this nation on their backs?

The doctors and nurses and other health care workers. The EMTs and firefighters and police. The grocery store clerks and the meat packers and the farmers. The delivery drivers and the mass transit workers.

And these heroes are all too often the lowest-paid and the least appreciated members of our society.

But this crisis is showing us what is essential. And, I think it’s time we reward the people who actually make this country work.

I do believe that from this moment, from this crisis, we have the opportunity to not just rebuild our economy—but transform it.

To make our economy more resilient for whatever comes our way in the future.

Making sure everyone has paid sick leave and child care support.

Remaking our system of unemployment insurance into employment insurance, to help keep people in their jobs.

Putting millions and millions of people to work building the new, green economy that will position us to own the 21st century.

Making sure we’re producing here at home the machines and equipment we need to fight the pandemic and ensure public health.

Guaranteeing an education that equips you to succeed,and access to high-quality, affordable health care.

We can restore the basic bargain that used to exist in this country. The bargain was that if you contributed to the success of an enterprise, you shared in the rewards.

And the way we will do that is by empowering our workers. It means encouraging unionization and collective bargaining. It means more protections to ensure fair pay, over-time compensation, worker-safety, and a secure retirement.

We can insist that big corporations – which we’ve bailed out twice in 12 years – set up and take responsibility for their workers and communities. They have to step up to do that.

We can rip out the race-based inequities that infect every part of our society— from the pollution being pumped into the air and water in communities of color to the health care treatment they receive.

I’ll have more to say on all this in the weeks ahead, but here’s what it comes down to: we can choose who our economy, our government,
and our country works for.

Just the wealthy — or everyone else as well. All of us together. All of us together.

That’s the choice we must make – all of us together – this November. It could not be more stark what the choice is.

I’d like to end today by saying thank you to all of our front line workers who are working day in and day out to keep our nation afloat during this crisis. And who are risking their personal health and safety in the process.

And to everyone, to everyone who is struggling with this virus who I talk to or grieving a lost loved one or losing sleep worrying about how you are going to make ends meet for another week — I want to offer my heartfelt condolences.

But I know that we will get through this. We’ll get through it together. I know because I know the American spirit, and the American character. We’re seeing it on display every day.

The proof that there’s nothing, nothing we cannot accomplish when we stand together—one nation, united in purpose, taking care of our neighbors, committing to get the job done.

That’s what has seen us through every moment of crisis in our past — it will see us through again today. It will empower us to write the future we want for our country and our children.

There’s no quit in America. None at all. We’re going to get through this.

Thank you, and God bless you.

Democrats 2020, Election 2020, Joe Biden, News & Photo Features, Women's Rights

Biden Denies Charge of Sexual Assault in 1993 by Former Staffer

May 1, 2020 krubin

Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic candidate for President, in a statement addressing the allegations of sexual assault by a former congressional staffer from 27 years ago, denied the allegations while affirming the woman’s right to be heard and her complaints properly investigated. Biden, who has a distinguished career championing women’s rights, in fact securing passage of the Violence Against Women Act, invited investigation into any evidence of complaint, which he said would be filed in the National Archives. Here is his statement:

April was Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Every year, at this time, we talk about awareness, prevention, and the importance of women feeling they can step forward, say something, and be heard. That belief – that women should be heard – was the underpinning of a law I wrote over 25 years ago. To this day, I am most proud of the Violence Against Women Act. So, each April we are reminded not only of how far we have come in dealing with sexual assault in this country – but how far we still have to go.

When I wrote the bill, few wanted to talk about the issue. It was considered a private matter, a personal matter, a family matter. I didn’t see it that way. To me, freedom from fear, harm, and violence for women was a legal right, a civil right, and a human right. And I knew we had to change not only the law, but the culture.

So, we held hours of hearings and heard from the most incredibly brave women – and we opened the eyes of the Senate and the nation – and passed the law.

In the years that followed, I fought to continually strengthen the law. So, when we took office and President Obama asked me what I wanted, I told him I wanted oversight of the critical appointments in the Office on Violence Against Women at the Department of Justice and I wanted a senior White House Advisor appointing directly to me on the issue. Both of those things happened.

As Vice President, we started the “It’s on Us” campaign on college campuses to send the message loud and clear that dating violence is violence – and against the law.

We had to get men involved. They had to be part of the solution. That’s why I made a point of telling young men this was their problem too – they couldn’t turn a blind eye to what was happening around them – they had a responsibility to speak out. Silence is complicity.

In the 26 years since the law passed, the culture and perceptions have changed but we’re not done yet.

It’s on us, and it’s on me as someone who wants to lead this country. I recognize my responsibility to be a voice, an advocate, and a leader for the change in culture that has begun but is nowhere near finished. So I want to address allegations by a former staffer that I engaged in misconduct 27 years ago.

They aren’t true. This never happened.

While the details of these allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault are complicated, two things are not complicated. One is that women deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and when they step forward they should be heard, not silenced. The second is that their stories should be subject to appropriate inquiry and scrutiny.

Responsible news organizations should examine and evaluate the full and growing record of inconsistencies in her story, which has changed repeatedly in both small and big ways.

But this much bears emphasizing.

She has said she raised some of these issues with her supervisor and senior staffers from my office at the time. They – both men and a woman – have said, unequivocally, that she never came to them and complained or raised issues. News organizations that have talked with literally dozens of former staffers have not found one – not one – who corroborated her allegations in any way. Indeed, many of them spoke to the culture of an office that would not have tolerated harassment in any way – as indeed I would not have.

There is a clear, critical part of this story that can be verified. The former staffer has said she filed a complaint back in 1993. But she does not have a record of this alleged complaint. The papers from my Senate years that I donated to the University of Delaware do not contain personnel files. It is the practice of Senators to establish a library of personal papers that document their public record: speeches, policy proposals, positions taken, and the writing of bills.

There is only one place a complaint of this kind could be – the National Archives. The National Archives is where the records are kept at what was then called the Office of Fair Employment Practices. I am requesting that the Secretary of the Senate ask the Archives to identify any record of the complaint she alleges she filed and make available to the press any such document. If there was ever any such complaint, the record will be there.

As a Presidential candidate, I’m accountable to the American people. We have lived long enough with a President who doesn’t think he is accountable to anyone, and takes responsibility for nothing. That’s not me. I believe being accountable means having the difficult conversations, even when they are uncomfortable. People need to hear the truth.

I have spent my career learning from women the ways in which we as individuals and as policy makers need to step up to make their hard jobs easier, with equal pay, equal opportunity, and workplaces and homes free from violence and harassment. I know how critical women’s health issues and basic women’s rights are. That has been a constant through my career, and as President, that work will continue. And I will continue to learn from women, to listen to women, to support women, and yes, to make sure women’s voices are heard.

We have a lot of work to do. From confronting online harassment, abuse, and stalking, to ending the rape kit backlog, to addressing the deadly combination of guns and domestic violence.

We need to protect and empower the most marginalized communities, including immigrant and indigenous women, trans women, and women of color.

We need to make putting an end to gender-based violence in both the United States and around the world a top priority.

I started my work over 25 years ago with the passage of the Violence Against Women Act. As president, I’m committed to finishing the job.

Democrats 2020, Election 2020, Joe Biden, News & Photo Features

Warren Endorses Biden for President: ‘He knows that a government run with integrity, competence and heart will save lives and livelihoods’

April 15, 2020 krubin

By Karen Rubin, News-Photos-Features.com

Senator Elizabeth Warren, one of the two giants in the progressive wing of the Democratic party who ended their presidential campaigns, like Senator Bernie Sanders just days before, officially endorsed Vice President Joe Biden for president in a message to her supporters writing, “Joe Biden is a selfless public servant. He’s committed to the fight for social, racial, and economic justice. And he will lead a government that works for the American people.”

She stated, “Empathy matters. And, in this moment of crisis, it’s more important than ever that the next president restores America’s faith in good, effective government.

“Joe Biden has spent nearly his entire life in public service. He knows that a government run with integrity, competence, and heart will save lives and save livelihoods. And we can’t afford to let Donald Trump continue to endanger the lives and livelihoods of every American.

“Now, when Donald Trump is gone, we will need to do more than heal a nation that has been bitterly divided. We will need to rebuild and transform our country.

“And I’ve seen Joe Biden help a nation rebuild.

“In 2009, President Obama put him in charge of leading the implementation of the historic Recovery Act to help our economy and help working families.

“During the recovery, and later when I worked at the White House setting up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, I saw him up close, doing the work, getting in the weeds -— never forgetting who we were all there to serve.”

Vice President Biden, acknowledging Warren’s call for structural change, responded, “It’s an endorsement that I am grateful for — and one I don’t take lightly. Her courage, tenacity, and persistence shed a light on some of the most important issues facing our country — and has made a real difference in people’s lives. The plans — and the people who organized for them — changed this race, the conversation, our party, and the country.

You know, primaries can often put a magnifying glass on small differences and bury broad consensus. Elizabeth and I believe at our cores Wall Street didn’t build this country, the middle class did. And it’s time our government worked harder for the middle class, but to do that we can demand nothing less than ‘big, structural change.’

When I say ‘winning a battle for the soul of our nation’ people often misunderstand me,” Biden stated. “I’m not being nostalgic. I’m not trying to take us back to a country that never existed. The foundational principles of our country — that all men are created equal — are ones that we’ve never lived up to. But we’ve never given up trying to live up to them.

“America wasn’t built by Wall Street. It was forged by working people — strivers, looking for their chance to get ahead. People like you, doing the work to make our country a better place.

“It is not enough to ‘go back’ to anything. We have to take immediate, bold action to tackle the climate crisis (and if you don’t know, I wrote one of the first bills on climate change). We have to relieve a generation of the crushing burden of student debt. We have to make health care a right and not a privilege. And to get there, we’re going to need millions of grassroots supporters to take action right away.

“If you join our campaign, we will not just defeat Donald Trump. We will not just win the battle for the soul of our nation. We will transform it too.”

In a formal statement, Biden said, “Throughout this primary, there was no competitor more passionate in her convictions or sharper in her arguments than Senator Elizabeth Warren. Her voice made the debate stage, the Democratic Party, and every candidate competing against her better and stronger. By centering her campaign in the importance of ideas and comprehensive policy plans, she helped set a high-water mark for what our politics can be at their best — authentic and service-oriented, focused on how we can deliver the most help to the most people. And I’ve been proud to work with her over the past few weeks to identify and adopt important policy proposals that will strengthen us as a people.

“At a moment of crisis for our nation, Senator Warren’s ideas will be more important than ever as we chart a path forward. The cracks in our economy that have left so many Americans exposed and vulnerable were there before the pandemic, and now they are laid bare for all to see just how dangerous they are. We know how much work it will take to come through this crisis, and I am proud to have Senator Warren in my corner for the fight ahead — not just as we work to defeat Donald Trump in November, but in the years to come, as we push through a bold and progressive policy agenda for the American people.

“Senator Warren knows what’s possible when leaders put their own egos aside and do the work. And thanks to her integrity and determination, today there are millions of little girls and young women who know that their voices can command any stage and change the world for the better. Generations of women will be inspired to get involved in public life — to dream big and fight hard — because of Elizabeth.”

In addition to Senator Warren’s endorsement, Vice President Biden also picked up endorsements from Senators Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters of Michigan and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin.

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