Biden Cartoon

Biden’s running! (Or not!) But what is his rationale against Hillary?

Joe Biden is inching closer to a presidential run—or is he?
With media speculation raging out of control, perhaps the better question is: How would he fare against Hillary Clinton if he indeed jumps in?
I doubted the vice president would take the plunge, especially after he engaged in the public therapy of grieving for his late son and saying he didn’t have the emotional bandwidth for a White House campaign. Now it’s clear his team is setting up an operation that would give Biden the option of a late launch if he decides to hit the go button.
Perhaps the clearest indication is this leak to the moderator of “Meet the Press”:
“Jill Biden, sources tell NBC's Chuck Todd, is 100 percent on-board with a presidential run, despite reports indicating her hesitation is part of what's keeping Biden from jumping into the race.” The second lady’s office even put out a statement saying she is behind her husband if he chooses to make the race.
This followed a Wall Street Journal piece quoting “people familiar with the matter” as saying:
“Vice President Joe Biden’s aides in recent days called Democratic donors and supporters to suggest he is more likely than not to enter the 2016 race, and their discussions have shifted toward the timing of an announcement.” But there was a caveat: “Unless they change their minds.”
And that, in turn, followed a Journal piece in late August saying Biden “is increasingly leaning toward entering the race if it is still possible he can knit together a competitive campaign at this late date.”
But now Biden is telling the Catholic magazine America: “We’re just not there yet, and I may not get there in time to make it feasible to be able to run.”
So I’m a little dizzy. But I do know that Biden can’t wait much longer. A series of state filing deadlines is approaching, and if he’s going to run, he should be on stage at the first Democratic debate on Oct. 13.
A new CNN poll gives Hillary a nice bump to 42 percent among Democrats—maybe doing more interviews wasn’t such a bad move—with Bernie Sanders at 24 percent and Biden at 22. That’s impressive for a guy who isn’t running, but keep in mind it also reflects that he isn’t being attacked.
Let’s say Biden makes his third bid for the presidency. What is his rationale, other than that Hillary’s campaign is faltering?
As the veep complains about income inequality and the middle class getting screwed, how does he explain the Obama-Biden administration’s failure to do more for the last seven years?
Other than Hillary being a bit more hawkish, how does Biden differentiate his record from hers? Is he willing to personally attack the first potential female president—and if not, why is he running?
In a year when voters crave authenticity, Joe is the real deal, a great retail campaigner. But the flip side is that his big mouth has also gotten him into trouble again and again.
Biden knows the toll of the campaign ordeal, and he knows it’s time to decide. Either way it will be a BFD.

Clock controversy risks backfiring for Obama as critics cast doubt on narrative

President Obama’s public backing of a Texas high school freshman, who got national headlines last week when his homemade clock was mistaken for a bomb by teachers, could be causing a headache for the White House and other supporters as questions are being raised about the motives in the case. 
Fourteen-year-old Ahmed Mohamed’s father has said he now plans to withdraw the freshman from MacArthur High School, and said Monday that they intend to visit New York City where he says they will meet with dignitaries at the United Nations, before making a pilgrimage to Mecca and later visiting Obama at the White House, The Dallas Morning News reported.
It was not immediately clear which dignitaries had requested a meeting with Mohamed.
Mohamed had received praise and support from figures such as Obama and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in the wake of the incident, in which Mohamed was arrested on bomb hoax charges after bringing the device to school.
However, amid huge support online for the family, there also has been growing criticism and doubts about the motive behind the incident.
Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins linked to a video posted to YouTube by electrical expert Thomas Talbot, which closely scrutinizes a photo of the controversial clock.
In the video, Talbot argues the clock is actually a commercial alarm clock, removed from its casing. Features of the clock such as the printed circuit boards and ribbon cables are indicative of a manufactured product, he explained.
Dawkins asked, “If this is true, what was [Mohamed’s] motive?”
Mohamed’s father has a colorful history of his own. Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed announced in February that he planned to run for president of Sudan, as he also did in 2010, the North Dallas Gazette reported. In 2011, he defended the Koran when controversial pastor Rev. Terry Jones put the book “on trial."
On HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Dallas Mavericks’ owner Mark Cuban also expressed concerns about the family’s involvement. While calling Ahmed a “super smart kid,” he said that when he spoke to Ahmed, "his sister, over his shoulder, you could hear, listening to the question, giving him the answer.”
Maher, a left-wing comedian, also expressed skepticism, saying “the people at the school thought it might be a bomb, perhaps because it looks exactly like a [expletive] bomb.”
Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Napolitano said that if the whole thing was a fraud, and the family was involved, they could be open to legal charges.
“It now appears as though this was a purposeful hoax," Napolitano told Fox News' Megyn Kelly Monday. “If the parents were involved now you have a fraud going on as you have funds going on for him right now,” he said, adding that the two funds to raise money for the family now amount to over $20,000.
Napolitano added that this could turn out to be a politically difficult issue for Obama.
"If this was part of a purposeful stunt and if the parents were involved in this and if everybody from Mark Zuckerberg to President Obama fell for this, this is not good," Napolitano said.
If so, it wouldn’t be the first time Obama has stepped into hot water after jumping into a local debate. In 2009, Obama reacted to initial media reports that black professor Henry Louis Gates had been arrested by Sgt. James Crowley for trying to get back into his own house after being locked out. Obama said at a press conference “the police acted stupidly” and cited a “long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately.”
It later turned out the arrest was much more complex than it initially appeared, with it being alleged that Gates made offensive comments about Crowley’s mother. Obama came under criticism and later held a “beer summit” with the two in the Rose Garden.
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin blasted Obama over his involvement in the clock controversy on Saturday, saying in a Facebook post his remarks were "about as presidential as a selfie stick."
"By the way, President Obama's practice of jumping in cases prematurely to interject himself as the cool savior, wanting so badly to attach himself to the issue-of-the-day, got old years ago," Palin wrote.

After the hype: Why Walker wilted in the media spotlight

Since Scott Walker called for a Stop Trump effort in bowing out of the presidential race, it’s easy to conclude that he was vanquished by The Donald.
And that’s not quite right. The Wisconsin governor vanquished himself.
In the harsh glare of the national spotlight, he just wasn’t a very good candidate.
Walker was prematurely hyped by the media, boosting expectations to a level he had no hope of meeting. He peaked too soon and could never find his footing.
Walker is a competent governor but a boring guy who found himself trying to compete in a Trumped-up atmosphere. By the final weeks, the man who shops at Kohl’s was shouting at a crowd that he was “unintimidated,” and just looked uncomfortable on the trail, as he did taking questions from the Fox and CNN moderators.
I’ve never seen a presidential candidate drop out and urge others to do so, but that was Walker’s plea—perhaps to give meaning to his move and lash out at the “personal attacks” by Trump. Don’t hold your breath waiting for others to follow.
Walker didn’t have to quit on Monday, even though he had dropped below 1 percent in national polls and his fundraising had dried up. He could have hobbled along and hoped for an upturn in his fortunes. But he has a day job—an actual state to run—and for him to turn into a punchline would have hurt him at home. So he chose a dignified exit.
I watched with amazement as the media utterly hyped Walker’s chances based on a single punchy speech he gave in Iowa last January. That led to rising poll numbers, which in turn produced more good press. It was the worst thing that could have happened to Walker.
He soon started ducking questions, such as his stance on evolution, and complaining about “gotcha” questions. Then he dialed way back on interviews, took two overseas trips and didn’t talk to reporters. That signaled to me a candidate who wasn’t confident.
When Walker reemerged, it was clear that he wasn’t ready for prime time, especially on foreign policy. It didn’t help that he compared fighting ISIS to battling public employee unions in Wisconsin. Asked on CNBC about Rudy Giuliani’s remark that he didn’t think Barack Obama loved America, Walker said: “I’m not going to comment on what the president thinks or not.”
I wrote this in July: “When I met Walker, he struck me as a meat-and-potatoes guy: Solid, disciplined, earnest, the son of a Baptist preacher was not at all flashy. That means he could wear well over a long campaign, but could also be overshadowed on a debate stage.”
Things soon reached the point where Walker had trouble giving straight answers to media questions. After Trump called for repealing birthright citizenship, Walker took three different positions in interviews over seven days. He was so eager to appear tough on illegal immigration that he allowed himself to muse about the possibility of building a fence along the Canadian border.
Of course, running on a governor’s record in a year of fierce anger at politicians and politics as usual didn’t help.
Liz Mair, the GOP strategist who briefly worked for Walker’s campaign before being dumped over past controversial tweets, ripped her former boss:
“Things he got wrong: Misunderstanding the GOP base, its priorities and stances. Pandering. Flip-flopping…
“Becoming so invested in winning, no matter what it took, that he lost sight of his real identity as a political leader.”
So what does Walker’s exit mean for other single-digit candidates, beyond the usual scramble for donors and organizers?
It leaves John Kasich as the only Midwestern governor; Chris Christie as the tough-talking governor; Jeb Bush as the ex-governor running on his record, albeit with far more money; Marco Rubio as the fresh young face, and Ted Cruz as the anti-establishment senator.
It means if one or two contenders follow the lead of Walker and Rick Perry, we’ll be done with the undercard debates.
It leaves Trump, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina, the non-politician brigade, at the head of the field, with Carson spending yesterday trying to explain away his comments about not advocating a Muslim for president.
Scott Walker was a strong candidate on paper. But elections, as we keep learning, aren’t won on paper.

FBI reportedly recovers deleted emails from Clinton server

Federal investigators reportedly have recovered work-related and personal emails from Hillary Clinton's time as secretary of state that the Democratic presidential front-runner claimed had been deleted from her personal server.
The recovery of the emails was first reported by Bloomberg News late Tuesday. The initial report, which cited a source familiar with the FBI investigation into Clinton's private email server, was corroborated by The New York Times, which cited two government officials.
It was not immediately clear whether all 30,000 messages Clinton said she had deleted from the server had been recovered, but one official told the Times that it had not been difficult to recover the emails that had been found so far.
The FBI is investigating whether classified information that passed through Clinton's so-called "homebrew" server during her time as secretary of state was mishandled. Clinton turned over approximately 30,000 copies of messages she deemed work-related to the State Department this past December. Clinton said earlier this year that the emails she deleted from the private server she kept at her Chappaqua, N.Y., home mostly pertained to personal matters such as her daughter Chelsea’s wedding and the secretary’s yoga routines.
An intelligence source told Fox News earlier this month that investigators were "confident" they could recover the deleted records. The source said that whoever had been deputized to scrub the server must "not be a very good IT guy.  There are different standards to scrub when you do it for government versus commercial."
It is not known when exactly Mrs. Clinton “wiped” her server, nor who was directed to do so. However, it seems the move came after October 2014,  when the State Department requested personal emails be returned as part of her business records.   
The source also told Fox News an FBI "A-team" is leading the "extremely serious" investigation into Clinton's server and the focus includes a provision of the law pertaining to "gathering, transmitting or losing defense information. The section of the Espionage Act in question is known as 18 US Code 793.
When asked about the report, Clinton’s presidential campaign spokesman Nick Merrill told Fox News that Clinton’s team “will always cooperate with the FBI,” and that Clinton and her staff “simply don’t know what the FBI has, and doesn’t have” in regard to the ongoing investigation.
Fox News’ Ed Henry said Tuesday that should the report of the newly-recovered emails prove true, some of the emails recovered would already be in investigators’ hands.
A separate source, who also was not authorized to speak on the record, said the FBI will further determine whether Clinton should have known, based on the quality and detail of the material, that emails passing through her server contained classified information regardless of the markings. The campaign's standard defense and that of Clinton is that she "never sent nor received any email that was marked classified" at the time.
It is not clear how the FBI team's findings will impact the probe itself. But the details offer a window into what investigators are looking for -- as the Clinton campaign itself downplays the controversy.