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Joe Biden Tag

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest has announced that President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will not attend the funeral for Cuba's oppressive murderous dictator Fidel Castro, who died this weekend:
In an effort to halt a series of questions about the potential attendance of various individual government officials, Earnest would confirm only that the president and vice president would not travel to Cuba for the funeral service. He pointedly refused to rule out that Secretary of State John Kerry would attend, but would not confirm his attendance, either.

I would say we're being trolled, but this is about par for the 2016 course. I'm not sure why Hillary's camp is floating the idea of Joe Biden as a potential Secretary of State, but they are. Politico reported late Thursday night:

The Obama Administration told Kurdish forces in Syria to move back from their positions after they seized control of the ISIS-held Syrian town of Manbij. “We’ve made it absolutely clear [to the Kurdish forces that] they must move back across the river,” Vice President Joe Biden said during a visit to Turkey on Wednesday. “They cannot — will not — under any circumstance get American support if they do not keep that commitment.” Biden's stance is widely seen as an attempt to pacify Erdogan’s Turkey, alarmed by recent Kurdish gains against ISIS in Syria. Erdogan’s Turkey, after maintaining long tacit alliance with the Islamic State, has recently dispatched military troops into Syria -- not to fight ISIS but to hold the line against Kurds. In contrast, Kurds of Syria and Iraq have proven themselves as the most reliable fighting force in war against the Islamic State. The Associated Press reports:
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is calling on Syrian Kurdish forces to move back across the Euphrates River, telling them they will lose U.S. support if they don't.

In my old liberal hometown of Ithaca, NY, back in the George W. era it seemed you couldn't drive a block without seeing a "Dissent Is Patriotic" bumper sticker. But the night Barack Obama was elected, one imagined all across town earnest souls in their driveways, scraping those stickers off. And so it is that Joe Biden, the Vice-President of the United States, traveled to Ireland to imply that Donald Trump is 'un-American." For good measure, when it comes to illegal immigration, Biden proclaimed a preference for "bridges" over "walls." Think about that.

The White House held a State of Women Summit this week and for some reason, chose Vice President Joe Biden to represent the Obama administration at the event. Joe Biden isn't guilty of any crimes against women but he does have a demonstrable habit of being a little too intimate with ladies. Wired has a report on the summit:
VP Biden: Changing Rape Culture Will Take All of Us Biden, speaking today at the White House State of Women Summit, made two things abundantly clear: violence against women is an epidemic, and the country is a long, long way from eradicating it.

The official Palestinian Authority television celebrated the death of U.S. tourist Taylor Force, calling his murderer a martyr 11 times in the broadcast. From the report:
Official PA TV newsreader: "In Qalqilya, hundreds of citizens accompanied the body of Martyr Bashar Masalha [to his burial]..." Official PA TV reporter: "After delays by Israel in the transfer of his body, Martyr Bashar Masalha’s family, from the village of Hajja, east of Qalqilya, received their son in the evening... The Martyr Bashar returned from Qalqilya to his village Hajja in a procession... His family, friends, and people of the region took it upon themselves to ensure that this [burial] would be a large national wedding (i.e., to the 72 Virgins in Paradise) befitting of Martyrs... The Martyr was accompanied to his last resting place in the cemetery for Martyrs in Hajja..."

Elizabeth Warren is on the, er, attack against Donald Trump, who slashed back by mocking Warren's false appropriation of Indian identity to try to advance her career. The back and forth begs the real question, which is why did Warren decide to launch a tirade now against Trump? Trump has been being Trump at least since last summer. If Warren wanted to go ballistic on him, there were plenty of earlier opportunities.

Ahead of Vice President Joe Biden's trip to Israel, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that the White House is considering new efforts to revive the Middle East peace process.
The internal discussions are aimed at offering a blueprint for future Israeli-Palestinian talks in a bid to advance a critical foreign-policy initiative that has made little progress during Mr. Obama's two terms in the White House, the officials said. The strongest element on the list of options under consideration would be U.S. support for a Security Council resolution calling on both sides to compromise on key issues, something Israel had opposed and Washington has repeatedly vetoed in the past. Other initiatives could include a presidential speech and a joint statement from the Middle East Quartet, an international group comprising the U.S., the United Nations, the European Union and Russia.
According to the Journal, the President Barack Obama hasn't made up his mind but "is considering a range of options." In any case no decision is expected until later this year.

Resuming a pattern seen during the Second Intifada, and intermittently since then, there was a wave of terror attacks launched by Palestinians just as a major diplomatic event was occurring, in this case the arrival of Vice President Joe Biden. There were several knife and gun attacks today, the most deadly being in Jaffa, just south of Tel Aviv and a frequent tourist stop. American veteran and Vanderbilt University student Taylor Force was stabbed to death, and his wife seriously injured. The sad news was announced by Vanderbilt University Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos:
It is with extreme sadness that I write to inform you that Taylor Force, a student at our Owen Graduate School of Management, was fatally wounded March 8 in a stabbing attack while on an Owen school trip to Tel Aviv, Israel. All other Vanderbilt students, faculty and staff on the trip are safe. Taylor embarked on this trip to expand his understanding of global entrepreneurship and also to share his insights and knowledge with start-ups in Israel. He exemplified the spirit of discovery, learning and service that is the hallmark of our wonderful Owen community. This horrific act of violence has robbed our Vanderbilt family of a young hopeful life and all of the bright promise that he held for bettering our greater world. Taylor’s family and his friends and colleagues have our deepest sympathy and utmost support.
This video shows the terrorist trying to escape. Fortunately, he was shot dead before he could kill anyone else, though accordingly to the Jerusalem Post he did manage to wound several others:

Democrats are pushing hard for the senate to lay down and approve an Obama nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court even after Chuck Schumer was caught on video urging Dems to block Bush nominees to the court in 2007. Now a video of Joe Biden has surfaced in which the VP, then a senator, said that SCOTUS nominations shouldn't happen during an election season. A group called the Judicial Crisis Network has spliced together the Biden footage with Hillary and other Democrats talking about the issue recently.

Non-partisan organization, PoliTech, a student organization from Texas Tech University in Lubbock ventured out to George Mason University with a very basic man on the street test: Can students identify three public figures? To their credit, PoliTech appears to sample student from various majors, including an international politics major who had no clue who Joe Biden was, at least not when looking at a photo.

Now that Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton split the vote in Iowa and are essentially tied in some polls, nervous Democrats are starting to think another old, white person might be able to save the day. Reuters reports:
Democratic donor contacts Biden allies about possible run A prominent Democratic donor worried about the party's chances of winning the presidency emailed dozens of fans of Vice President Joe Biden on Friday, urging them to remain prepared to donate if Biden jumps into the race. The donor, Bill Bartmann, cited new polling showing Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont nearly tied with the Hillary Clinton, eroding the 30-point lead the former secretary of state held at the end of last year. Bartmann and other party insiders are concerned that Sanders, a self-proclaimed Democratic socialist, is too far to the left to win against a Republican in the Nov. 8 presidential election.

Joe and Dr. Jill Biden sat down with 60 Minutes to discuss the Vice President's decision not to sit out a run for White House. "We couldn't win. I'll be very blunt. If I thought we could've put together the kind of campaign that our supporters deserved and our contributors deserved, I would've gone ahead and done it."

Joe Biden is holding a press statement from the Rose Garden, with Obama by his side. He is NOT running due to the grieving process. (full transcript here)
BIDEN: As the family and I have worked through the -- the grieving process, I've said all along what I've said time and again to others: that it may very well be that that process, by the time we get through it, closes the window on mounting a realistic campaign for president. That it might close. I've concluded it has closed. I know from previous experience that there's no timetable for this process. The process doesn't respect or much care about things like filing deadlines or debates and primaries and caucuses. But I also know that I could do this if the -- I couldn't do this if the family wasn't ready. The good news is the family has reached that point, but as I've said many times, my family has suffered loss, and -- and I -- I hope there would come a time -- and I've said this to many other families -- that, sooner rather than later, when -- when you think of your loved one, it brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eyes. Well, that's where the Bidens are today. Thank god. Beau -- Beau is our inspiration. Unfortunately, I believe we're out of time, the time necessary to mount a winning campaign for the nomination. But while I will not be a candidate, I will not be silent.
Watch:

According to a new CNN/ORC poll, most Democrats who tuned in for the first Democratic primary debate thought Hillary Clinton won the night---but that "win" didn't translate into boosted poll numbers. Clinton has remained steady at 45%; Bernie Sanders is still in at a respectable 29%...and Joe Biden rounds out the top three with 18%---and he hasn't even declared yet. Clinton hasn't moved the needle much since before this month's debate, but Sanders has managed to gain 5 points since mid-September---the only candidate to do so. More from CNN:
Overall, 31% of registered Democrats say they watched all or most of the CNN/Facebook debate, held October 13 in Las Vegas. More than 6-in-10 Democrats who watched say Clinton did the best job, almost doubling the 35% who thought Sanders had the best performance. On the other side of the coin, 43% of those who watched said Chafee had the worst night, 31% thought Webb did, 12% O'Malley.

Hillary Clinton's performance in last night's debate set off a maelstrom of media filings questioning everything (apparently) we thought we knew about the Democratic primary. Is Joe Biden finished? Did Hillary Clinton just knock Biden out of the running? Is Joe Biden even relevant now? Personally, I think many of these writers are overstating Clinton's performance. She sounded strong, but also rehearsed; that being said, nothing we saw last night should shock us. For all her crimes (give it time,) Hillary Clinton was a First Lady, a Senator, and Secretary of State. She knows how to handle herself. Should we use her lack of meltdown as evidence that Biden 2016 is a lost cause? On the whole, I think not. It's still too early---and Americans still like Joe Biden. A Gallup poll released today shows that 49% of Americans still have a favorable view of Biden; this is his best polling performance since Obama's 2009 "honeymoon" period. biden favorable unfavorable october 2015

Hillary Clinton struggles to get her campaign on track, lurching to the left on a variety of issues near and dear to the hearts of the progressive base and facing the fallout from her decisions as Secretary of State as her poll numbers tank. Here's a chart via Hot Air that shows the trend of her and other Democrat candidates' polling (Real Clear Politics has an interactive version, if you're interested): rcp-dems According to Fox News' Special Report, the coming few weeks will be key to determining the success of these attempts.  Watch:

After Beau Biden died in late May, Republicans and Democrats alike offered a sincere (although brief) reprieve from politics to the grieving Vice President and his family. Joe Biden, for his part, didn't attempt to hide the pain he and his family shared; he talked about it. He even offered an interview to Stephen Colbert, which has since been lauded as a true glimpse into the mind and heart of one of the most powerful men on the planet.