Back to Basics

This week, Sheriff Joe made a campaign stop and empathized with the pain of an infant who was obviously concerned about the prospect of inheriting the burden of trillions in new spending possible future tax cuts:

“That’s another trillion dollars in tax cuts over the next ten years going to the top 1% of American taxpayers. [baby crying] I don’t blame her for crying. She is going to inherit it. She’s going to pay for it. That’s one smart baby,”

Biden later successfully convinced the baby to stop panicking about her future by instead focusing on things she won’t have to pay for if Obama and Biden are given another four years, such as the continued “spending of money to keep from going bankrupt.”

Personally I think the crying had nothing to do with tax cuts, but rather the baby had just learned that Al Franken is now considered a “leading legal scholar” in our government.

Click the pic to roll the hilarity:

Keep in mind though that he also predicted the Dems would hold the House in 2010 and that the economy would create half a million jobs a month.

From Politico:

Vice President Joe Biden predicts the Supreme Court will uphold the new health care law, despite the blundering defense of the administration’s signature accomplishment by Solicitor General Donald Verrilli.

“No one has made any money betting on [the] outcome of cases based on oral arguments and the questions asked,” Biden said in an interview aired Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “We think the mandate and the law is constitutional, and we think the court will rule that way.”

At least Joe hopes so… he’s still got a trunkload of “BFD” t-shirts left to sell.

Is there any more apropos pairing than a story about Joe Biden on April Fools’ Day?

I think I’ll start making Fridays “all Biden, all the time.” It’s great comic relief heading into a weekend.

From Byron York:

Vice President Joe Biden offered a frank assessment of his career in remarks at a Democratic fundraiser in Chicago Thursday night. According to a White House pool report, Biden, surrounded by the city’s movers and shakers, praised former Mayor Richard M. Daley and then said: “I never had an interest in being a mayor ’cause that’s a real job. You have to produce. That’s why I was able to be a senator for 36 years.”

Biden’s attempts at self-deprecating humor are when he’s at his most honest. And let’s not forget his tenure as VP — according to Plugs, it’s wonderful to have a job where you don’t have to do anything.

Semi-related but obligatory nonetheless when talking about productivity:

Joe Biden’s days as Sheriff in charge of the Recovery Act are winding down, and with that extra free time he’s now obviously been charged with dispersing a massive aggrandizement stimulus on behalf of his boss:

“I’ve watched him make decisions that would make another man or woman’s hair curl,” Biden told the crowd of 150 inside the Italian Community Center in Milwaukee, according to a pool reporter on scene.

Biden, who has said he’s the last man in the room with Obama before a tough call, often attests that his boss has a “backbone like a ramrod.”

And today he said that mettle — and the “serious problems” Obama faced upon taking office — put the president in a class of his own.

“I think I can say … no president, and I would argue in the 20th century and including now the 21st century, has had as many serious problems which are cases of first-instance laid on his table,” Biden said. “Franklin Roosevelt faced more dire consequences, but in a bizarre way it was more straightforward.”

Tougher decisions than all other presidents in the 20th and 21st centuries? Tougher than World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, the Bay of Pigs (in spite of what Joe says the Cuban Missile Crisis didn’t end because JFK told Castro “after my election I have more flexibility” with Fidel replying “I’ll transmit this information to Nikita”), Vietnam, Jimmy Carter’s bunny attack, the Iran hostage crisis, ending the cold war and 9/11?

Joe Biden is best described by a simple, four letter word: Funny. And it beats having a real job.

Update: Biden’s on a roll this week: “We want to create a global minimum tax.”

Maybe this is why Biden’s been talking about lubrication lately — because he plans to keep screwing the economy until at least 2020:

For the past couple of years, Vice President Joe Biden has quietly assembled an A-team of advisers who would, without doubt, be considered the nucleus of a presidential campaign — if only he wouldn’t be 73 in 2016.

Biden’s age would snuff the last embers of a presidential ambition that led him to a pair of crushing defeats in 1988 and 2008, or so many in Barack Obama’s camp thought when they first tapped him. But the old fire crackles yet. And Biden, spurred in part by those rumors about being replaced on the ticket by Hillary Clinton (who turns 69 in ’16), is campaigning with a young man’s tenacity in 2012 — with an eye toward keeping all of his options open.

Biden has gone on a recent staffing spree — culminating with the hire of Clinton-era operative Steve Ricchetti — that has many Democrats, and even some on Obama’s own team, wondering if the preternaturally spry and congenitally upbeat vice president just might confound conventional wisdom.

Let’s help him out with some slogans:

–Biden 2016: At least he’s not Obama

–Biden 2016: A simple 3-letter word: Jobs

–Biden 2016: Chuck will finally stand up!

–Biden 2016: He’ll get America out from under the mountain of debt he just helped create

Joe Biden officially hit the 2012 campaign trail only yesterday and he’s already opening with his funniest material:

“I want to tell you what’s real bankruptcy — the economic theories of (Newt) Gingrich, (Rick) Santorum and (Mitt) Romney. They are bankrupt. If you give any one of these guys the keys to the White House, they will bankrupt the middle class again,” Biden said.

Only continuing with this trend can save America from bankruptcy?

Video of the Stimulus Sheriff getting his Biden on by way of The Right Scoop. I changed the starting point to hit at the relevant time:

Keep in mind though, the warning against Republican candidates who will bankrupt the country comes from the same guy whose prescription for avoiding bankruptcy is to… spend more money:

And then there’s this.

Home Depot Joe Photoshop: American Elephants

The Myth of “Middle-Class” Uncle Joe
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2012

This has got to be the bazooka of all Joe Biden blowhardisms. The nation’s vice campaigner in chief went on the attack against Republicans this week, clad in full populist armor. “These guys don’t have a sense of the average folks out there,” said The Everyman. “They don’t know what it means to be middle class.” But who was his audience?

Nope, not blue-collar workers in Allentown, Pa. Biden was speaking to an exclusive club of $10,000-per-couple campaign donors gathered at the home of the Senate’s $200 million man, Democratic Mass. Sen. John Kerry, in Georgetown, D.C.

That’s smack dab in the middle of Beltway America, where they like a twist of cognitive dissonance with their aperitifs.

The White House is once again drawing on the fantastical myth of middle-class Joe to portray Republicans as out-of-touch elitists. A Washington Post headline described Biden “digging back into his roots to move Obama forward.” But the administration’s leading populist poster child is a wretched symbol of entrenched Washington power. And his fables are getting oldy-moldy.

At another campaign event in Ohio, Regular Joe rolled up his sleeves and pumped out the common-man colloquialisms. “It’s good to have a dad in the automobile business, man,” he said. Yeah, man. Preach it, man. Oh, hey, weren’t you the man who savaged average-guy Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher in Ohio four years ago by lying about his income and mocking his American dream to own a small business? Man.

While Biden’s family came from humble beginnings, the wheeler-dealer politician and his family (including two lobbyist sons) have reaped the benefits of public office for nearly a half-century. The entrenched senior senator from Delaware amassed wealthy donors and crooked cronies over six Senate terms. These are some of the stories, reported in my book “Culture of Corruption,” that have been whitewashed out of the loquacious veep’s campaign folklore:

–Biden’s custom-built house in Delaware’s ritziest Chateau Country neighborhood, assessed at $2.5 million four years ago, is the Bidens’ most valuable asset. He secured the estate with the help of a corporate executive who worked for Biden’s top campaign donor, credit card giant MBNA. In 1996, Biden sold his previous mansion to MBNA Vice Chairman John Cochran. The asking price was $1.2 million. Cochran forked over the full sum. Biden then paid $350,000 in cash to real estate developer Keith Stoltz for a 4.2-acre lakefront lot. Stoltz had paid that same amount five years earlier for the undeveloped property.

–Among Pal Joey’s dearest old pals: campaign finance “rainmaker” William Oldaker, who showered generous benefits on both the elder Biden and his lobbyist son, Hunter; Baltimore-based Peter Angelos, whose law firm gave Biden $156,250; Wilmington-based Young Conaway Stargatt and Taylor, which kicked in $127, 979; and Pachulski Stang Zielhl and Jones, which donated $145,625, according to The American Lawyer.

–Disgraced trial lawyer Richard Scruggs donated $11,500 to Biden in 2008. After Scruggs was convicted of attempting to bribe a federal judge, Biden tried to show his ethical bona fides by donating the money to a worthy charity. But Biden couldn’t steer clear of nepotism.

Once again, Americans are reminded that Vice-President Joe Biden is an incredibly dangerous man of little talent and even less common sense.

Biden’s latest encounter with “foot-in-mouth” disease, in which the disease again prevailed, involves Biden’s disclosure of the fact that Navy SEALs executed the successful kill mission that ended Osama bin Laden’s notorious career.

As reported in part, that information was supposed to be held in confidence for obvious security reasons:

“Since President Barack Obama announced that “a small team of Americans” had killed Osama bin Laden, US government officials have carefully stuck to the line that they will not talk about which units were involved.

“Obama did not say it was the SEALs. In numerous television appearances, Obama’s counter-terrorism chief John Brennan didn’t and his deputy national security adviser Denis McDonough didn’t. Despite the numerous news reports that named the SEALs, none of the anonymous briefers from the CIA and Pentagon would confirm it.

“Here’s a typical response to a question about the SEALs from a senior defense official in a Pentagon briefing on Monday:

QUESTION: Can I ask you, can you confirm that it was a (Navy) SEAL team? And was this a specially designated team that had been practising or reviewing intelligence for a while and they were the unit of choice?

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: Not going to comment on units or numbers.

But here’s what the legendarily verbose and loose-lipped Vice President Joe Biden said at a dinner at Washington’s Ritz Carlton Hotel last night to mark the 50th anniversary of the Atlantic Council:

Let me briefly acknowledge tonight’s distinguished honorees. Admiral James Stavridis is a, is the real deal. He can tell you more about and understands the incredible, the phenomenal, the just almost unbelievable capacity of his Navy SEALs and what they did last Sunday.

And:
Folks, I’d be remiss also if I didn’t say an extra word about the incredible events, extraordinary events of this past Sunday. As Vice President of the United States, as an American, I was in absolute awe of the capacity and dedication of the entire team, both the intelligence community, the CIA, the SEALs. It just was extraordinary.

Given Biden’s goofy performance, it is laughable that anyone would fear that a Vice President Sarah Palin would in any way diminish the IQ pool in Washington!

In fact, compared with Biden, Sarah Palin would bring a much needed upgrade to the intellectual prowess of the Veep’s office.

As you’ll see below in a Hardball interview back when the famous leg thrill was just a glimmer in the inseam of Chris Matthews’ slacks, in 2007, Joe Biden argued that the president had no constitutional authority to launch an attack without congressional approval against a nation that hadn’t attacked or threatened imminent attack on the United States. Biden also insisted that doing so is an impeachable offense.

Sheriff Joe agreed with Dennis Kucinich in those days, but ever since then Biden’s legal opinion has evolved with stickleback-like speed: