I am the Captain America of reporting the bad news about Joe Biden: I can do this all day.
The very latest news comes from the Washington Free Beacon, where Yuichiro Kakutani reports that one of Biden’s “closest labor allies inappropriately siphoned nearly $1 million from a union pension fund.” Kakutani writes that “Harold Schaitberger [really???], the president of the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), which represents more than 300,000 firefighters, is facing accusations of corruption and gross financial malpractice from his closest deputies.” In April of last year, Shaitberger ordered the IAFF to endorse Biden, the first nationwide workers’ union to do so. Finally, the Beacon says, Shaitberger’s union gave “$5,000 to Biden’s campaign in 2019 and spent nearly $75,000 in outside spending to support his candidacy.” That’s a lot of union dues pushed to a particular candidate by an (allegedly!) very shady leader who is believed to have lifted nearly $900,000 from his workers’ pension fund.
How’s that for the likely presidential nominee of the party of the workingman?
A week ago I reported to you about the nascent Draft Cuomo movement to replace Biden, the presumptive nominee, at the top of the presidential ticket. As easy as that notion was to scoff at a week ago, it’s one of those things the chattering class can’t seem to chatter enough about. It’s easy to suppose that indicates widespread uncertainty or a lack of enthusiasm for Biden, even among Democrats and the press (but I repeat myself). The chatter has gotten so loud that President Donald Trump has gotten in on it. This morning, on a Fox & Friends interview, Trump said he “wouldn’t mind running against” Governor Cuomo because “I think he’d be a better candidate than Sleepy Joe.”
The Biden campaign is pretty much reduced to flailing around on the internet.
On Friday I wrote how his campaign somehow wasted four days setting up a fake press conference for Biden, which Biden then loused up because apparently four days isn’t long enough to prepare for a fake presser. As I noted then, “An untrained monkey — that would be me — who just blew most of his paycheck stocking up at the grocery store after breakfast could get your guy up on Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube before lunch.” Biden’s team couldn’t do it in less than half a week, and Biden couldn’t deliver the goods even to a friendly audience of staffers.
Next, Biden tried another internet video, this one a “virtual happy hour” aimed at young people who didn’t partake. The audience for that was about the size of any one of my more-popular debate drunkblogs.
Today Team Biden is trying yet another new thing, this time a podcast called “Here’s the Deal.” I pulled today’s inaugural podcast up in Apple’s Podcast app, and at the time of this writing, it has earned just 15 ratings. While Apple doesn’t release audience numbers, the tiny number of ratings is a pretty good indication that Biden’s podcast isn’t faring any better than his virtual happy hour or his attempt to act as Shadow President for the Wuhan virus crisis.
Maybe having Biden talk with an expert on coronavirus who just happens to be an outside advisor for his campaign didn’t exactly make for Must-Listen Radio.
Perhaps a bigger problem for Biden’s struggling campaign is just starting to bubble up from the depths of the Far Left.
I don't understand why the extremely serious sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden are not getting significant attention outside of left media
— Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp) March 26, 2020
Former Biden staffer Tara Reade went public last week with her #MeToo allegations against the then-senator, something which the mainstream media was happy to mostly ignore. But the even-further-leftwing press is starting to complain, such as in this Guardian piece by “The Week in Patriarchy” columnist Arwa Mahdawi. I wouldn’t advise actually reading the thing, in which Mahdawai has to leaven each complaint regarding Biden with an equal measure of Orange Man Bad. But that doesn’t mean she’s wrong when she writes that “the accusations against the former vice-president are serious; why aren’t they being taken seriously?”
To ask the question is to answer it.
Still, I’m wary of any thinking along the lines of “THIS is the scandal that will finally bring down Biden!” So far, he’s survived:
• Plagiarizing his 1988 campaign speeches, and going further back, maybe some of his classwork in law school, too.
• Said of Barack Obama in 2008, “I mean, you got the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”
• Wandering hands, sniffing hair, general creepiness.
• Using his office as vice president to help secure a cushy million-dollar job and a billion-dollar investment from nasty governments in Kyiv and Beijing.
There are more, but I think I’ve covered the important lowlights.
The point is that if Biden survived all that (with a big assist from the Complicit Media), then what are the odds of him being brought down by his relationship with a corrupt union boss or by a 27-year-old #MeToo accusation?
Unless something big happens to shatter his candidacy, it looks like Biden is going to flail his way right to the nomination. I’ll be happy to see him lose in November, but given just what a corrupt and awful individual Biden is proven to be, wouldn’t you rather face a stronger Democrat on Election Day than let Biden retire with any honor intact?
