Tag: Joe Biden

Trump’s sweeping claim that Biden wants to ‘abolish all charter schools’

Washington Post logo“One is incredible: Abolish all charter schools. Charter schools are doing great.”

— President Trump, remarks in the Rose Garden, July 14, 2020

“Abolish school choice, end school choice, abolish — they want to abolish all school choice, end it. They want to abolish charter schools. This is just never-ending.”

— Trump, remarks during an Arizona telerally, July 18, 2020

As president, Bill Clinton was considered a powerful advocate for promoting charter schools, even winning the first-ever lifetime achievement award from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Now, President Trump is charging that former vice president Joe Biden (and his fellow Democrats) has gone so far left that he wants to “abolish all charter schools.” These are publicly funded schools but operated under contract by independent groups, allowing for more flexibility in curriculum and hiring.

Is there much basis for Trump’s claim? Let’s examine what Biden stands for — as well as his position on “school choice,” which Trump also claims he wants to abolish.

The Facts

Trump claims he’s citing a portion of the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force Recommendations, designed to bridge policy gaps between Biden, who has a record as a centrist, and his last rival for the Democratic nomination, the left-leaning Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The section on charter schools was eventually added to the draft Democratic Party platform for 2020: Continue reading.

Biden announces plans to boost black and Latino finances

Washington Post logoWILMINGTON, Del. — Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, announced a plan Tuesday to spend tens of billions of dollars to help people of color overcome inequities in the economy, a move that comes amid financial and racial upheaval nationwide.

The plan calls for dedicating $30 billion of previously proposed spending on a small-business opportunity fund for black, brown and Native American entrepreneurs. Biden also proposed tripling the goal for federal contracting with small disadvantaged businesses, from 5 percent to at least 15 percent of all spending on materials and services by 2025.

“We need to make bold, practical investments to recover from the economic mess we’re in and to rebuild for the economic future our country deserves,” Biden said, adding that his plan would “deal with systemic racism and advance racial equity in our economy.” Continue reading.

Don’t Count Trump Out

Polling could be wrong. The economy could recover just enough. He could announce his own October surprise.

Let’s stipulate right away that President Donald Trump is losing this race. Set aside the particulars—how suburban voters are migrating toward Joe Biden, and how seniors are rethinking their support too. Consider the basics.

Presidents are supposed to keep Americans employed. The jobless rate now stands at 11 percent—more than 3 points higher than when Jimmy Carter lost reelection in 1980 and when George H. W. Bush was defeated in 1992.

Presidents are supposed to keep Americans safe. About 140,000 have died from COVID-19, more than twice the number that perished in the Vietnam War, which doomed Lyndon B. Johnson’s reelection chances in 1968. Continue reading.

100 days out, parties fear chaotic election

The Hill logoA little more than three months before November’s election, partisans who back both President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are growing anxious over what they see as the mounting potential for a chaotic contest marred by disenfranchised voters, administration errors and mountains of litigation.

The new anxiety comes on top of the typical nerves that plague campaign operatives. Republicans are increasingly concerned that Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the attending economic crisis has put off so many voters that his path to reelection is narrowing precipitously. Democrats are almost universally convinced that Biden’s polling lead is a mirage, a potential repeat of the 2016 calamity they did not see coming.

But a series of quieter developments have people on both sides nervous that Election Day may bring a host of its own unpredictable disasters. Continue reading.

Polls Indicate Trump Defectors Could Tip Texas For Biden

While the Cook Political Report still has Texas as a “lean red” state in its 2020 Electoral College Ratings, a Quinnipiac poll released last week showed former Vice President Joe Biden leading President Donald Trump 45 percent to 44 percent among registered voters. And according to the Houston Chronicle, a decisive number of anti-Trump Republicans could be contributing to Biden’s lead in the state.

Jacob Monty, an immigration attorney in Houston, became a Republican years ago — attributing his party affiliation to an affection for the Bush family.

“I never had to apologize for them,” Monty told the Chronicle. “I always felt welcome. I never had to explain, ‘Oh, what Bush meant was …'” Continue reading.

Trump, Biden build legal armies for electoral battlefield

The Hill logoPresident Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden with help from allies have amassed an expansive legal war chest and marshaled armies of attorneys for what is on track to be the most litigated election season in U.S. history. 

The Republican National Committee (RNC) has pledged $20 million this cycle to oppose Democratic-backed efforts to ease voting restrictions while Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said his campaign has assembled 600 attorneys as a bulwark against election subterfuge.

With a little more than three months until Election Day, the voting rules in key battleground states are the focus of bitterly partisan court fights that could influence the outcome of the presidential race. These include lawsuits to expand mail-in voting in Texas, extend vote-by-mail deadlines in key Rust Belt swing states and restore the voting rights of up to one million indigent Floridians with felony records.  Continue reading.

‘He’s kind of co-opted the party’: Trump-Republican defectors in Texas could tip the state in Biden’s favor

AlterNet logoWhile the Cook Political Report still has Texas as a “lean red” state in its 2020 Electoral College Ratings, a Quinnipiac poll released last week showed former Vice President Joe Biden leading President Donald Trump 45% to 44% among registered voters. And according to the Houston Chronicle, a decisive number of anti-Trump Republicans could be contributing to Biden’s lead in the state.

Jacob Monty, an immigration attorney in Houston, became a Republican years ago — attributing his party affiliation to an affection for the Bush family.

“I never had to apologize for them,” Monty told the Chronicle. “I always felt welcome. I never had to explain, ‘Oh, what Bush meant was …’” Continue reading.

Donald Trump’s suburban horror show

If current numbers hold, the Republican Party will suffer its worst defeat in the suburbs in decades — with implications reaching far beyond November.

Donald Trump says Joe Biden wants to abolish the suburbs. But polls show a different truth: The suburbs want to abolish Donald Trump.

If current numbers hold, the Republican Party will suffer its worst defeat in the suburbs in decades — with implications reaching far beyond November.

It was in the suburbs two years ago that Democrats built their House majority, ripping through Republican-held territory across the country, from Minnesota and Texas to Georgia, Virginia and Illinois. Continue reading.

Scare Tactics: Trump Focuses on Fear to Win

With 100 days to go before the election, Trump is focusing on “law and order” while Biden pitches stability.

TRAILING IN NATIONAL polls by 7-15 points. A persistent pandemic that not only presents a public health crisis, but prevents a crowd-loving candidate from holding big rallies. Double-digit unemployment, civil unrest and a revolt by some members of his own party who formed a SuperPAC to bring him down.

It’s not looking rosy for President Donald Trump as the campaign hits the 100 days-out from the election mark this weekend. And the president – who famously goes with his gut when making both policy and campaign decisions – appears poised to get socked in that very body part in the Nov. 3 election. Democrats waver between a giddily confident belief that they are in the final countdown to Trump’s demise and a worried memory of what happened the last time they underestimated Trump.

“I never say never in politics – (after) four years ago, I live by that rule,” says Stu Rothenberg, an independent political analyst and author of The Rothenberg Political Report. But Trump “has gotten himself into a deep hole, it seems to me. Continue reading.