Joe Biden

spaminator

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Speaker directs House to open impeachment inquiry into U.S. president
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Lisa Mascaro And Farnoush Amiri
Published Sep 12, 2023 • 4 minute read
McCarthy says he's directing a House committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
McCarthy says he's directing a House committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
WASHINGTON — Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced Tuesday he is directing the U.S. House to open an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden over his family’s business dealings, launching historic proceedings ahead of the 2024 election.


McCarthy said that House investigations so far “paint a picture of a culture of corruption” around the Biden family as Republicans probe the business dealings of the president’s son Hunter from before the Democratic president took office.


“These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption and they warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives,” McCarthy said at the Capitol, announcing that he was directing the House, led by the oversight committee, “to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.”

The White House shot back, calling the action in the midst of the presidential campaign “extreme politics at its worst.

“House Republicans have been investigating the president for nine months and they’ve turned up no evidence of wrongdoing,” said spokesperson Ian Sams.


The White House and others pointed to McCarthy’s past statements when he insisted a Speaker could not unilaterally launch an impeachment inquiry or it would have no legitimacy.

McCarthy “flip-flopped because he doesn’t have support,” Sams said.



In fact, the Republican leader faces mounting pressure from his right flank to take action against Biden or risk being ousted from his leadership job — while he also is struggling to pass legislation needed to avoid a federal government shutdown at the end of the month.

McCarthy is launching the inquiry on his own without a House vote and it’s unclear if he would even have enough support for approval from his slim GOP majority. Some Republicans have panned the effort as unwarranted, not seeing evidence that reaches the constitution’s bar of “high crimes and misdemeanours.”


An inquiry is a step toward impeachment and McCarthy essentially outlined the potential charges as he prepared to brief lawmakers behind closed doors this week. The inquiry will be led by oversight committee chair James Comer in co-ordination with judiciary committee chair Jim Jordan and ways and means chair Jason Smith. They are heading across the Capitol Wednesday to brief the Senate.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has warned House Republicans off the effort, but said Tuesday: “I don’t think Speaker McCarthy needs advice from the Senate.”

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the impeachment inquiry “absurd.”

The Republican Speaker is once again at a political crossroads — trying to keep his most conservative lawmakers satisfied to save his own job. It’s a familiar political bind for McCarthy, who is juggling the impeachment inquiry and a government shutdown threat with no clear end game.


Government funding is to run out on Sept. 30, which is the end of the federal fiscal year, and Congress must pass new funding bills or risk a shutdown and the interruption of government services.

Minutes after McCarthy spoke, a chief Republican critic stood on the House floor deriding the inquiry as merely a “baby step” and reviving the threat of ousting the Speaker. “We must move faster,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz.

The White House has insisted Biden was not involved in his son’s business dealings. And Democrats are stepping up to fight against what they view as unfounded claims against him ahead of the 2024 election as Republicans attempt to blur the lines with Donald Trump, who is the Republican front-runner, in a comeback bid for the White House.


Former president Trump was twice impeached by the House, but acquitted by the Senate. He now faces more serious charges in court, indicted four times this year, including for trying to overturn the 2020 election Biden won.

House Republicans are probing the business dealings of Hunter, but so far have not produced hard evidence linking them and the president. They have shown a few instances largely during the time the elder Biden was Barack Obama’s vice-president when he spoke by phone with his son and stopped by for dinners his son was hosting with business partners.

An impeachment inquiry would provide more heft to the House investigation, especially as the oversight committee battles in court for access to Biden family financial records.


Republicans contend the Justice Department has not fully probed the allegations against Hunter and say he received preferential treatment in what they call a sweetheart plea deal that recently collapsed. The Department of Justice has appointed a special prosecutor in that probe.

“We will go wherever the evidence takes us,” McCarthy said.

Comer, the oversight chair from Kentucky, is digging into the Biden family finances and is expected to seek banking records for Hunter as the panel tries to follow the flow of money.

On Tuesday, Comer demanded the State Department produce documents about the work Biden did as vice-president during the Obama administration to clean up corruption in Ukraine. Comer wants to understand the State Department’s views of former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, whom Biden and many western allies wanted removed from office because of allegations of corruption.
 

spaminator

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White House deletes Biden post identifying wrong Vietnamese leader
Author of the article:postmedia News
Published Sep 13, 2023 • Last updated 2 days ago • 1 minute read

A photo shared to social media identifying the wrong Vietnamese leader shaking hands with U.S. President Joe Biden was quickly removed by White House staff.

The image, shared to X earlier this week, came from the official @POTUS account and showed Biden greeting Vuong Dinh Hue, Vietnam’s Chairman of the National Assembly, and not President Vo Van Thuong.



“President Vo Van Thuong, thank you for such a productive meeting,” the post was captioned in error.

“This partnership is about unleashing our peoples’ potential and, with it, a range of incredible possibilities.”

Both men wear glasses and part their hair the same way.



Biden was in the country’s capital Hanoi to meet with the its top leaders following the two-day G20 summit in India over the weekend.

Meanwhile, during a press conference Sunday to wrap up the president’s trip to the Asian nation, Biden told reporters that he was heading straight to bed.

“But I tell you what, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to go to bed,” Biden said.

A reported yelled a question, but a staffer thanked reporters who attended and abruptly ended the press conference.
 

spaminator

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Reluctant Republicans changing tune on Biden inquiry
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Lisa Mascaro, Stephen Groves And Kevin Freking
Published Sep 13, 2023 • Last updated 2 days ago • 4 minute read

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s sudden decision to launch an impeachment inquiry into U.S. President Joe Biden has won over even the most reluctant Republicans, with some GOP lawmakers pushing for swift action while others expect it to drag into the 2024 election year.


McCarthy opened and closed a private meeting Wednesday of House Republicans justifying his reasoning for the inquiry sought by former president Donald Trump, the party’s front-runner to challenge Biden next year.


The White House mobilized to fight what it called the “unprecedented, unfounded claims” against the president regarding his son Hunter and family finances.

Biden did not respond to shouted questions about impeachment during an event on cancer research at the White House.

“They have turned up no evidence,” said White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “This is a political stunt.”

The moment is a politically pivotal one for embattled Republican Speaker McCarthy, whose job is targeted by Trump’s right-flank allies. He has already signalled potential charges of abuse of power, corruption and obstruction for possible articles of impeachment.


“There’s a lot of accusations out there you just want the answers to,” McCarthy told reporters at the Capitol.

In the inquiry, House Republicans are trying to link Biden to the business dealings of his son Hunter and deflect attention away from Trump’s own legal peril as the two men battle anew for the White House.



The White House has said that Biden was not involved in his son’s business affairs. And so far, Republicans have unearthed no significant evidence of wrongdoing by Biden, who spoke often to his son and as vice-president and stopped by during a business dinner with his son’s associates.


In a 14-page memo to news media leaders, the White House urged them to hold Republicans “accountable for the fact that they are lurching toward impeachment over allegations that are not only unfounded but, in virtually all cases, have been actively disproven.”

Biden’s chief rival Trump is the only president to be twice impeached — acquitted both times — and he is the first to face criminal charges in four separate indictments, including for trying to overturn the 2020 election he lost to Biden.

The sooner the better to go after Biden, some GOP lawmakers feel.

“I hope we can get it through as quickly as possible,” said Rep. James Comer, the chair of the Oversight Committee leading the impeachment inquiry.

Comer and the other House chairs involved in the impeachment inquiry headed across the Capitol later Wednesday and spent nearly an hour walking Senate Republicans through the evidence they said they had gathered in the last eight months.


Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has warned the House off impeachment. And GOP Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, after announcing he would not seek re-election in 2024, told reporters Wednesday afternoon, “I haven’t heard any allegation of something that would rise to the level of a high crime and misdemeanour.”

But John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Senate Republican, said the briefing by House members left him feeling “there’s enough smoke there that there are legitimate questions.”

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and other senators said they urged the House chair to solidify the process by holding a House vote to move forward with the inquiry.

“I think they’d be better off having a vote. It does give it more legitimacy,” Graham said.


With no vote to launch the inquiry, the impeachment probe is being done without formal House-passed ground rules. That allows Republicans to conduct the investigation in ways the Democrats say are not always transparent, releasing only partial information to the public.

On another front, McCarthy’s decision to launch the impeachment inquiry appears to have done little to appease conservative lawmakers he needs to win over for his more immediate task: Persuading the GOP majority to pass the federal spending bills needed to avoid a government shutdown in just over two weeks.

Hard-right Republicans still want McCarthy to slash federal spending below the levels he and Biden agreed to as part of a budget deal earlier this year. And that stand risks a federal shutdown if they don’t fund the government by Sept. 30 when current money runs out.


Democrats are expected to oppose those Republican efforts as well as fight Biden’s impeachment.

Rep. Adam Schiff, who led the first impeachment of Trump, said McCarthy’s failure to bring the inquiry before the full House for a vote was an “an acknowledgement that he lacks the support in his conference to move forward.

“He is beholden to the more extreme elements,” Schiff said as lawmakers returned to Washington late Tuesday. “It is yet another indication of the weakness in the speakership and the degree by which he is manipulated by Donald Trump.”

Yet moderate Republicans representing districts that Biden won in 2020 over Trump and who are most at risk in next year’s election generally were supportive of McCarthy’s decision to launch the impeachment probe.

“I would have voted for it,” said Rep. Mike Garcia about the impeachment inquiry.

“There’s smoke there, so we have a requirement to go investigate that and see if there’s fire there.”
 

Tecumsehsbones

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Can't be too careful.

Question: Who controls the Jewish Space Lasers starting wildfires in Canada? Sleepy Joe or True Dope?

Meh, don't matter, I guess. Granpa Xi controls both of them,
 

spaminator

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Joe Biden bumps into flag, doesn't shake official's hand in latest gaffes
Author of the article:postmedia News
Published Sep 21, 2023 • Last updated 1 day ago • 3 minute read

Joe Biden was his bumbling self on Wednesday.


While attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, the U.S. President walked into a giant flag and appeared to anger Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva by not shaking his hand and walking off the stage following a joint speech on workers’ rights.




During a speech by Lula, the 80-year-old Biden was having trouble keeping a translation device in his ear.

“Can you hear me, President Biden? This is a historic moment for Brazil and for the U.S.,” the Brazilian leader asked.



After Biden didn’t respond, Lula again asked if he could hear him.

Biden nodded yes, but his earpiece continued to give him trouble as he fumbled to put it back into his ear.

At the end of the joint speech, Biden and Lula shook hands with International Labour Organization Director-General Gilbert Houngbo, but the U.S. President turned away from his Brazilian counterpart, who had his hand out ready to shake, waived at the attendees and shuffled off the stage.

Lula appeared visibly irritated by the apparent snub, making a swiping gesture with his right arm as he turned away.

Also Wednesday, the U.S. President repeated the same story — nearly word for word — about his decision to run for president in 2020 at a campaign reception in Manhattan.


Biden recounted the August 2017 events of Charlottesville, Va.

“You remember those folks walking out of the fields literally carrying torches, with Nazi swastikas, holding them forward, singing the same vicious, anti-Semitic bile — the same exact bile — bile that was sung in — in Germany in the early ’30s,” he said, the New York Post reported, according to an official White House transcript.

“And a young woman was killed. A young woman was killed.”

Biden recounted the reaction his predecessor, Donald Trump, had when asked what he thought would happen.



“He was the sitting president. And he said, ‘I thought there were some very fine people on both sides.’ And I mean this sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, that’s when I decided I — I was going to run again.”


Biden said his extended family urged him to challenge Trump, and then began to repeat the same story.

“You know, you may remember that, you know, those folks from Charlottesville, as they came out of the fields and carrying those swastikas, and remember the ones with the torches and the Ku — accompanied by the Ku Klux Klan. And in addition to that, they had — there were white supremacists. Anyway, they were making the big case about how terrible this was. And a young woman was killed in the process.

“And my predecessor, as I said, was asked what he thought. He said, ‘There are some very fine people on both sides.’ Well, that kept ringing in my head.”

This is the latest in a long list of recent gaffes by the U.S. President, who is facing concerns over his fitness to run for president again next year.

Earlier this month, Biden gave a rambling press briefing in Vietnam.

When the line of questioning turned toward China’s relationship with the U.S., he joked that he was sleepy all of a sudden.

“But I tell you what, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to go to bed,” he said.

Also this month, Biden was lambasted after walking out during a U.S. military medal ceremony at the White House before the closing prayer.