Politics

by Luis Miranda

Hope for a better world is reborn

The time has come to focus on our new President Joe Biden.
Joe Biden's political career is one of the most impressive in the history of this country.
Joe Biden's life in politics has been marked since its inception by painful family tragedies. Victories followed by unthinkable personal tragedy put him through severe tests that have shaped his character and personality.
Determined to serve his country, he has survived - 36 years in the Senate, eight years as vice president in the Obama administration - and now as president-elect, with the largest vote ever achieved by any of his predecessors: 81.2 million votes, defeating populist Donald Trump by more than 7 million and summoned the largest voter turnout in the entire history of the country.
His third race for the White House was taking place in a difficult climate with many candidates and much polarization between the population and between the same pressure groups of the two parties. Joe Biden is the man who has just made one of the most unlikely political comebacks in history in a tenacious battle with the various ideological sectors of his own party and especially with Bernie Sanders who represents the most left-wing within the Democratic Party.
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., the oldest of four children born to Joseph Sr.. and Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Finnegan, spent her childhood in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where her father struggled to find a steady job after a series of business setbacks.
When "Joey" was 10 years old, the Biden family moved to Wilmington, Delaware, after his father got a job selling cars. The family lived in a three-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath house. The three Biden boys shared a bedroom with their uncle, Edward Blewitt Finnegan, who they affectionately called "Boo-Boo," nicknamed that because he stuttered; all four stacked in two sets of bunks.
As a child, Biden had a debilitating stutter. The classmates mockingly called him "Dash", comparing his staccato to Morse code, and "Bye-Bye", due to his attempt to say his last name. She tried to avoid stuttering by replaying conversations ahead of time in her head, practicing speaking while holding pebbles in her mouth, and memorizing paragraphs instead of reading them aloud from textbooks in class.
During his junior and senior years at Archmere Academy, a Catholic preparatory school, he was elected class president. He played wide receiver and running back on Archmere's undefeated 1960 football team, catching 19 touchdown passes.
He met his future wife, Neilia Hunter, during spring break in the Bahamas during his junior year of college.
On the couple's second date, Joe didn't have enough money to pay the restaurant bill. Neilia slipped $ 20 under the table for him.
When he met Neilia's mother, she asked him what he wanted to do for a living. Biden informed him that he intended to become President of the United States.
He and Neilia were married in 1966. Their son Beau was born in 1969, followed by Hunter a year and a day later. "I'm not a man to keep them barefoot and pregnant," Biden said in an interview in 1970. "But I'm in favor of keeping them pregnant until I have a girl. The only good things in the world are children. ”Their daughter, Naomi, was born the following year.
In 1967, while studying law at Syracuse University, he bought a puppy for Neilia and named him "Senator."
He was recruited after finishing law school, but failed the physical because he had asthma. "I don't really like bulletproof vests and tie-dye shirts," Biden said when asked later why he didn't join the anti-Vietnam War protests. “Other people marched. I ran for office, was elected to the United States Senate at age 29, and I came here and was one of those whose votes helped stop the war. "
As a public defender in Delaware, he defended a 25-year-old fisherman who stole a prize-winning Holstein cow.
He claimed that he received racist phone calls for his support of public housing during his 1970 campaign for New Castle County Council. “The first time the phone rang and someone said:" Nigga lover ", that is, lover of blacks, with vulgar and racist language, do you want them living next to you? I was surprised. I said, 'If you are the alternative, I guess the answer is yes.'
In 1972, at age 29, he defeated incumbent Republican Senator Cale Boggs, becoming the fifth-youngest person elected to the United States Senate.
Elected Nov. 3, Biden, now 78, will be the oldest president ever to take office.
Biden's father died at the age of 86. His mother died at 92.
Just weeks after Biden won his Senate seat, a trailer truck with ears of corn hit the family's truck as his wife and three children were driving home after picking up a Christmas tree. Neilia and her 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, died before reaching the hospital. Her two young children, Beau and Hunter, were hospitalized with serious injuries.
He was sworn in for the Senate in his son Beau's hospital room. After the accident, he remained at his home in Wilmington, Delaware. He took the 75-minute Amtrak train to and from Washington every day for more than 30 years. He has called Amtrak crews "family" and has even hosted barbecues for drivers and attendants at his home.
In the 1970s, Biden opposed court-ordered school buses as a method of desegregating public schools. He has said that he was in favor of other desegregation methods, such as in housing, and that he supported voluntary buses.
Biden remarried in 1977 to Jill Tracy Jacobs, an English teacher who met Biden on a blind date arranged by her brother.
As the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1984, he led efforts to block then-Alabama federal prosecutor Jeff Sessions from a federal judge position on charges of racism. Sessions denied the allegations.
He owns a 1967 Corvette Stingray that his father (who worked at a car dealership) gave him as a wedding present.
In speeches throughout the 1980s, he repeatedly claimed to have "marched in the civil rights movement" and cited "Bull Connor and his dogs" as the thing that "galvanized" his political awakening. In 1987, he ran for president for the first time.
That same year, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, he led the opposition to the Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork, a conservative jurist and federal judge. Biden's strategy, in part, was to give Bork plenty of time to express his views, posing questions in clear, relatable language, and prompting Bork to air his politically controversial views (on, for example, Griswold v. Connecticut) in thick legal jargon. Bork's nomination failed in the Senate, 42-58, and some historians cite it as the beginning of a new era of political wars over the judiciary.
In February 1988, after complaining of headaches for several weeks, Biden underwent surgery for a brain aneurysm. Three months later, he was operated on for a second brain aneurysm.
As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Biden presided over the Supreme Court confirmation of Clarence Thomas, in which Anita Hill testified that Thomas had sexually harassed her. Thomas was confirmed by the Senate on a 52-48 vote.
In 2019, while preparing to run for president, Biden privately expressed his regret to Anita Hill for what she had endured in 1991. "To this day, I regret that I was unable to provide her with the kind of audience she deserved." said. "I wish I could have done something."
In 1991, Biden, along with the majority of Senate Democrats, voted against the use of force to drive Iraq from Kuwait.
During a tour of the Balkans in 1993, Biden met Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic. Biden says he called Milosevic a "bloody war criminal" to his face, although others at the meeting recall that it was worded more diplomatically.
He co-sponsored the Violence Against Women Act in 1994 with Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah. The law, which was incorporated into the broader crime bill, provided $ 1.6 billion to investigate and prosecute violent crimes against women, imposed automatic and mandatory restitution on convicts, and allowed victims to sue their attackers in court. civil even if the prosecutors did not proceed criminally.
He voted in favor of the Iraq war in 2002 and was present at the White House when then-President George W. Bush signed the resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq. Since then, Biden has called the vote a "mistake."
He was known on Capitol Hill for his long, rambling speeches and spontaneous comments. A close friend of John McCain dating back to McCain's time as the Navy liaison with the United States Senate, Biden and his wife Jill were with McCain at a Navy reception in Hawaii in 1979, where he first saw time to his future wife, Cindy. They urged him to come over to talk to her.
McCain asked Biden to deliver a eulogy at his funeral in 2018.
Biden does not smoke or drink alcohol, referring to such behaviors as "a crutch." Instead, Biden said in a 1970 interview: "I use soccer as a crutch, and motorcycle jumping and skiing ... but those are crutches that I have some control over."
In 2008, Biden ran for president a second time, but withdrew after finishing fifth in the Iowa caucus. Seven months later, Barack Obama chose him as his running mate.
At the infamous 2009 "beer summit" at the White House, featuring Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cambridge, Massachusetts, police sergeant. James Crowley, Biden drank a Buckler, Heineken's nonalcoholic brand.
He infuriated then-President Obama by publicly declaring his support for gay marriage as Obama's reelection campaign raged in 2012.
In early 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea, which was part of Ukraine, Vice President Biden became the Obama administration's "highest emissary" to Eastern European nations, such as Ukraine, who were alarmed by Russian aggression.
In May 2014, Biden's youngest son Hunter joined the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company whose owner was being investigated in a corruption investigation. Hunter Biden received monthly compensation of up to $ 50,000 during his roughly five-year tenure. In December 2015, Vice President Biden was one of many Western leaders who called for the removal of Ukraine's attorney general, Viktor Shokin, on accusations that he was not rooting out corruption in the country. "My son did nothing wrong," Biden said in October 2019. "I did nothing wrong."
Biden's eldest son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015.
In 2014, Joe Biden was listed as one of the least wealthy government officials in the United States, ranking 577 out of 581.
He considered running for president in 2016, but was persuaded by Obama not to, believing that Hillary Clinton had a better chance of defeating the Republican candidate. Biden and his wife, Jill, earned more than $ 15 million combined in 2017 and 2018. Favorite movie is Chariots of Fire. He has a known penchant for ice cream. He once challenged a reporter to a wrestling match.
He is a gears and car enthusiast who receives notifications from Car and Driver magazine on his iPhone.
Until the primary he won in South Carolina, Biden had not won a presidential nomination race in three seasons and 32 years. Four days later, his total was 11 wins.
48 years dedicated to public service, his personal discipline, his unconditional commitment and his flair as a diplomat has allowed him to make agreements and achieve legislative triumphs in conjunction with his Republican opponents. Truly a personality worthy of the deep respect of all American citizens, since his is a very long personal battle to stay active in an environment that demands great personal sacrifices. Worthy of respect and admiration are his family and friends who have had to endure decades of absences from their loved one while they spent time seeking greater well-being for an entire country.
Joe Biden will be the president who will rescue the true meaning that the name of the country indicates: the United States of America, building bridges and knocking down walls that exceed Trump's legacy: "the Divided States of America."
Biden receives a disjointed country. Hit by a pandemic that already throws incredible death figures, almost 400,000, total chaos in the federal government's handling of the needs and resources to combat Covid 19, the highest unemployment ever imagined, the very badly managed international relations that have given a wrong message to the world on issues such as the arms race, nuclear disarmament, treaties to confront global warming, irrational economic measures with other powers, etc; show a grim picture where the coming to power of Joe Biden represents a real hope to return this country to its place as a world leader in maintaining scientific, economic and social achievements and in defense of a true democracy in search of greater justice social and political and diplomatic respect within the country and throughout the planet.