Joe Biden Is as Corrupt as They Come

Eric Zuesse

Bernard Schwartz, a former Vice Chairman and top investor in Lockheed Martin (which is by far the largest seller to the U.S. Government, and also the largest seller to most of America’s allied Governments), is one of Joe Biden’s top donors. CNN headlined, on October 24th, “Biden allies intensify push for super PAC after lackluster fundraising quarter”, and reported that, “Bernard Schwartz, a private investor and donor to the former vice president’s campaign, said he spoke with Biden within the last two weeks and encouraged him to do just that.”

It’s not for nothing that throughout Biden’s long Senate career, he has voted in favor of every U.S. invasion that has been placed before the U.S. Senate. If you are a weapons-maker whose sole market is the U.S. Government and its allies, then you need Senators and House members who will vote in favor of buying the weapons that you are manufacturing. And those same Senators and Congressmen also need to hire, as the U.S. Secretary of State, people such as Hillary Clinton, who likewise was a “super-hawk,” and who negotiated in favor of invasions, by the U.S. and its allies, against whatever nations are instead the targets, which are to be either taken over as U.S. allies, or else invaded with those weapons.

It’s not enough to have as many markets as possible; there also need to be nations against which your products can be used. This serves the ‘patriotic’ function of expanding the empire, not only for your own firm, but also for the U.S. extractive firms such as ExxonMobil, which need this military protection, in order to be able to apply the kind of pressure that will ‘persuade’ foreign leaders to choose them, instead of to choose a foreign competitor, to do the extractions.

Joe Biden has done surprisingly well in the polling thus far, despite poor performance in the debates, and despite having supported every foreign invasion that now the American public think shouldn’t have been done. He is the candidate with the most “experience” — like Hillary Clinton was — and, for the majority of voters (especially in today’s Democratic Party), this means the largest numbers of the worst possible decisions — neoconservative (i.e., U.S.-imperialist) decisions. And, so, he leads the Democratic field today, much like Hillary Clinton did in 2016.

Furthermore, as that CNN article notes: “Nearly 70% of the individual contributions that Sanders has raised so far came from donors giving $200 or less; Warren has a similar profile, at about 64%. Biden’s share of individual contributions raised from small dollar donors during the course of the campaign stands at roughly 35%.”

And both Sanders and Warren have raised lots more money from small donors than Biden has raised thus far from large ones. This scares people such as Bernard Schwartz. They don’t want their investments to fail.

And moreover: “The former vice president has relied on maxed-out contributors for 38% of the money he’s raised so far in his presidential bid, according to an analysis of financial disclosure reports, giving the candidate fewer opportunities than many of his rivals to return to loyal donors again for cash as the Democratic primary campaign heats up.” And, so, “the conversations intensified in the wake of a cash crunch for the former vice president’s campaign. He reported last week having less than $9 million in the bank, significantly less than his leading rivals.”

And this is the reason why Biden needs to open up the spigots, now, so as to become enabled to collect the more-secret types of money, which aren’t so subject to disclosure and limit rules, and which, increasingly, constitute Joe Biden’s path to the White House.

The CNN article, as propaganda for the Democratic National Committee or the people who fund the Democratic Party, opens in its first sentence by presenting this contest as being already between the Democratic Party’s Presidential nominee versus the Republican Party’s Presidential nominee, even though the reality is that it’s between contestants for the Democratic nomination: “A coalition of top Democratic strategists and donors are intensifying conversations about setting up an outside group to bolster Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy, people familiar with the matter tell CNN, aiming to create a super PAC designed to fight back against a barrage of well-funded attacks from President Donald Trump’s campaign.”

So: they open by falsely characterizing what the Democratic Party’s primaries are actually all about (between Trump and Biden, instead of between the Democratic-Party candidates so as to determine whom that Party’s nominee will be). This is subtly, but fundamentally, deceiving the Party’s voters, regarding the rules of the electoral game in which they will be participating. This is how they had won the nomination for Hillary Clinton in 2016: by making suckers out of a large-enough percentage of the Party’s voters.

Biden is doing remarkably well, considering his appalling record in public office. Here are summaries of the latest polls:

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https://politicalwire.com/2019/10/24/buttigieg-jumps-to-second-place-in-iowa/

Buttigieg Jumps to Second Place In Iowa

October 24, 2019 at 8:06 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 261 Comments

A new Iowa State University/Civiqs poll finds Elizabeth Warren leading the Democratic presidential field with 28%, followed by Pete Buttigieg at 20%, Bernie Sanders at 18% and Joe Biden at 12%.

The poll of likely caucus-goers also asked voters to list the candidate they do not want to win the nomination. Biden and Sanders topped this list with Tulsi Gabbard third.

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https://politicalwire.com/2019/10/24/new-poll-shows-warren-expanding-her-lead/

New Poll Shows Warren Expanding Her Lead

October 24, 2019 at 6:06 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 147 Comments

A new Quinnipiac poll [October 17-21] finds Elizabeth Warren leading the Democratic presidential race with 28%, followed by Joe Biden at 21%, Bernie Sanders at 15%, Pete Buttigieg at 10%, Kamala Harris at 5% and Amy Klobuchar at 3%. No other candidate tops one percent.

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https://politicalwire.com/2019/10/23/biden-still-way-ahead-in-south-carolina/

Biden Still Way Ahead In South Carolina

October 23, 2019 at 12:34 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 64 Comments

A new Monmouth poll in South Carolina finds Joe Biden way ahead in the Democratic presidential race with 33%, followed by Elizabeth Warren at 16%, Bernie Sanders at 12%, Kamala Harris at 6%, Tom Steyer at 4%, Pete Buttigieg at 3%, Cory Booker at 2%, Amy Klobuchar at 2% and Andrew Yang at 2%.

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https://politicalwire.com/2019/10/23/biden-widens-national-lead/

Biden Widens National Lead

October 23, 2019 at 6:50 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 276 Comments

A new CNN poll [October 17-20] finds Joe Biden’s lead in the race for the Democratic nomination for president has rebounded, and now stands at its widest margin since April.

Biden has the support of 34%, followed by Elizabeth Warren at 19%, Bernie Sanders at 16%, Pete Buttigieg at 6%, Kamala Harris at 6%, Amy Klobuchar at 3% and Beto O’Rourke at 3%. [Almost all of Biden’s advantage there comes from his having a crushing 42% from Blacks, whereas all 6 of the next-supported candidates together are favored only by 40% of Blacks — it’s no contest. And it’s exceedingly irrational: “No public policy, in the last half century has been more detrimental to African Americans than mass incarceration, and no law has aided mass incarceration more than Clinton’s 1994 Crime Bill which was drafted and supported by Joe Biden.” And, “Blacks make up nearly 40 percent of the inmates in the nation’s prisons, although they are only 12 percent of the U.S. population.” Biden and Clinton led in the ‘criminalization’ of Blacks’ ‘crimes’. So: are most Blacks simply gluttons for punishment? Or is there a different explanation?]

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

On 25 October 2019, Lee Fang at The Intercept headlined “JOE BIDEN’S SUPER PAC IS BEING ORGANIZED BY CORPORATE LOBBYISTS FOR HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY, WEAPONS MAKERS, FINANCE”, and he reported that among the billionaires who were planning a PAC to support Joe Biden’s campaign was Bernard Schwartz. On that same day, I headlined “Biden Backer — Former Lockheed Leader — Convinces Biden to Sell-Out”, and I reported that the “Former Lockheed leader” who was leading this effort was Schwartz, himself, formerly a Chairman of Lockheed Martin, the company that sells more to the U.S. Government than does any other — it’s by far the largest federal contractor.

In other words: if Biden does become the U.S. President, then he will be heavily in debt to the world’s biggest weapons-maker, a corporation whose profits are totally dependent upon selling to the U.S. Government and to its allied governments such as Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Israel. This is exactly the opposite of what America’s Founding Fathers urged subsequent generations of Americans to do. They were very wise. Joe Biden is not.

Only an uninformed person would expect such a President to be seeking Mid-East peace. Biden would instead be seeking the standard neoconservative’s objective, “Peace Through Strength” — in other words, fear-mongering the public against ‘America’s enemies’, and ‘love’-mongering for ‘America’s allies’ (such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, etc.). That’s the opposite of what, for example, George Washington urged the American people to do.

Biden’s relying upon people such as Bernard Schwartz to place him into the White House is the worst possible form of selling himself out — selling-out to America’s “Military Industrial Complex” or “MIC.”

But the reason why such people as Schwartz want Biden to become the President is that, consistently, Biden has been precisely such a war-monger or “neoconservative” as they have always been wanting — such as when Biden helped to lead Democrats in the U.S. Senate who backed the 2003 invasion of Iraq. That wasn’t a ‘mistake’ by him as he now claims — it was the way Joe Biden has always been. And, now, we know that the former Chairman of Lockheed Martin thinks that Biden still remains that way.

On 23 October 2019, Luke Darby at GQ magazine, headlined “How Biden Helped Strip Bankruptcy Protection From Millions Just Before a Recession”. Joe Biden was the leading Democrat in Congress backing and pushing for the George W. Bush and Republican-backed ‘bankruptcy reform’ bill which passed, in the Senate, with 18 Senate Democrats for the ‘bankruptcy reform’ bill, while 25 Democrats were against it. All 55 Republicans were for it.

In the U.S. House, the Independent Bernie Sanders voted against. All 229 Republicans were for. 73 Democrats there were for, 125 were against.

A lot of Biden supporters say that Biden is “a real Democrat” and that Sanders is no Democrat at all (since he’s an Independent who merely caucuses with the Senate’s Democrats). But Sanders voted like most Democrats did, and Biden voted like all Republicans did.

Back when the ‘bankruptcy reform’ bill first was first being drafted in 1999, the Washington Post headlined “Creditors’ Money Talks Louder in Bankruptcy Debate”  and reported that,

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), a key Judiciary Committee member who hails from the home base of credit card issuers MBNA Corp. and First USA, opposes the liberal faction’s bill. “I’m not the senator from MBNA,” he said.

Luke Darby’s article noted that,

MBNA hired Joe Biden’s son Hunter in 1996. Even after Hunter became a federal lobbyist in 2001, he stayed on at MBNA as a consultant at a fee of $100,000 per year, meaning he was pulling in a six-figure salary at the same time his father was pushing for the industry’s top priorities. Biden’s interests were so aligned with MBNA’s that in 1999 he was forced to defend himself by declaring, “I am not the senator from MBNA.”

Joe Biden has always expected voters to ignore his record and simply trust his promises because he’s a “regular Joe” like they are. He promises that he won’t keep promoting invasions of countries that never even so much as threatened the United States, and that he won’t keep supporting corporations which were his biggest financial backers. So, he says, voters should just trust him to do the right thing. According to Open Secrets, headlining in 2008, ”The Money Behind Biden”, “His largest contributor over time has been credit card giant MBNA Corp.,” the credit-card issuer, “which, despite being acquired by Bank of America a few years ago, remains atop the list of Biden’s major contributors.” That company knew how to repay a debt, and they had a big debt, to him, to repay. In fact, while the ‘bankruptcy reform’ bill was being drawn up, during the 2000 political campaign-cycle, MBNA wasn’t merely Biden’s #1 donor, but its employees donated over twice as much to his campaign as did his #2 donor during that cycle, and he delivered the goods so well that they owed him now even more.

And, like Lee Fang said, it’s not only credit-card companies, but, “JOE BIDEN’S SUPER PAC IS BEING ORGANIZED BY CORPORATE LOBBYISTS FOR HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY, WEAPONS MAKERS, FINANCE”.

And he will be very grateful to all of them if he wins the Democratic nomination. It’ll be as usual in American politics, one corrupt politician up against another corrupt politician, each of whom is trusted by the voters in his own Party. Truth, to them, makes no difference; but, in a land where truth makes no difference, does “democracy” even mean anything, other than an empty slogan?

On 27 November 2007, C-Span showed a Joe Biden Town Hall. A brief clip from that was posted online as “User Clip: Joe Biden 2007, Money in Politics”, and here’s my transcription from what I consider to be the most revealing (about Biden’s values) part of it:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4817532/user-clip-joe-biden-2007-money-politics&start=3322

“User Clip: Joe Biden 2007, Money in Politics”

27 November 2007, Iowa Town Hall

(0:40-) People who accept money [from lobbyists] aren’t bad people. But it’s human nature. You go out and bundle $250,000 for me, all legal, and then you call me after I am elected, and say “I would like to come and talk about something.” You didn’t buy me, but it’s human nature, you helped me. I’m going to say, “Sure, come on in.” … What it does mean, it means that the front of the line is always filled by people whose pockets are filled, people who are special interests. Most of you are no part of any special interest.

He went on there to promise that if elected President he will change that, by campaigning constantly (AFTER winning the Presidency — not BEFORE) against the corrupt system which had made him President. He thinks that his audience will believe in the tooth-fairy, if only he tells them that the tooth-fairy exists and that he’s it. The deceptive irrelevant line from all of the corrupt candidates is the same: “I’m the most electable one!” But corrupt people constantly lie, and nobody is actually certain whom the “most electable” one is; but that’s really not even the question here. What the Democratic primaries are actually about isn’t about beating Trump. He’s not even a candidate in the Democratic primaries. They’re not about ‘beating Donald Trump’, but instead about whom the person will be that’s going to be running against Trump in the general election. The primaries won’t be selecting the next President. They will only narrow the field of contenders, to two. Which two? That’s the question here.

Of course, lots of Democrats think that any Democrat will be better than Trump. And lots of Republicans believe that Trump is better than any Democrat. There is a sucker born every second; and, so, people believe this way, and their Party thus ends up having lousy individuals carrying its banner, such as both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were in 2016. Both Parties deserved to lose, but that (a Hobson’s choice) isn’t a democracy. It’s corrupt politicians, and it’s stupid voters who refuse to recognize the corruption of, and in, ‘our own side’ — not only the other’s. It’s not democracy, because it’s thoroughly corrupt, on all sides. Democracy is rejection of the corrupt system, and of corrupt candidates. It’s demanding better than that. It’s not only the donors — the mega-donors (the people who really are seeking special personal favors and NOT good government) — who are corrupt, and who always do “buy” politicians, such as Joe Biden. It’s also stupid voters, who make things bad for everyone except the corrupt and the corrupters. No actual democracy consists of the corrupt and the corrupters. That’s just a fact which all of the resolutely stupid voters ignore because they’re so attached to their chosen tooth-fairies.

On January 22nd, the Washington Post headlined a 6,000-word article about the day in politics “The Daily 202: Joe Biden talks Ukraine, but not impeachment, in Iowa”, and reported that “The centerpiece of Biden’s pitch is that he can bridge the partisan divides and work with Republican senators to get big things done.” Yes, that’s actually true: Biden is clearly aiming to become the ‘Democratic’ President who can be ‘bipartisan’ with congressional Republicans, and sign into law legislation that until his occupancy of the White House had been only decades-long Republican and billionaires’ dreams, but under a Biden Presidency would now become his proud “bipartisan achievements.” He could turn out to be the most effective Republican (but of the Democrat-in-name-only, hyper-hypocritical, type of) President ever — a truly bipartisan-fascist President. It would be a fitting culmination to his career.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.