The Taliban Kidnapped a Navy Vet in Afghanistan. The Biden Administration Risks Leaving Him Behind.
Mark Frerichs held hostage in Afghanistan as U.S. military completes withdrawal
The Biden administration's full withdrawal from Afghanistan could leave behind a U.S. Navy veteran kidnapped by the Taliban.
Haqqani network operatives backed by the Taliban abducted Mark Frerichs, a civilian contractor in Afghanistan for the U.S. government, in January 2020. The government has made little progress in retrieving the Navy veteran. U.S. authorities have been able to establish that Frerichs is alive, but have yet to disclose his whereabouts. The State Department has briefed lawmakers in recent weeks, but according to Rep. Mike Waltz (R., Fla.), a former Green Beret in Afghanistan and lead advocate for bringing Frerichs home, the Biden administration's opacity has hindered the urgent recovery operation.
"I am incredibly frustrated by their lack of responsiveness and lack of answers," Waltz told the Washington Free Beacon. "The question is: What's the plan now?"
The United States faces dwindling leverage over the Taliban amid a public deadline for withdrawal. As the Biden administration completes a full evacuation of military forces from Afghanistan, the Taliban are waging a violent offensive across the country, effectively squeezing the Afghan government—which receives backing from the United States—out of power. President Joe Biden conceded in a July speech that the Taliban are at their strongest since 2001, and analysis from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies shows the terrorists took control of some 139 districts in the country in two months. American nationals are not the sole focus of the pull-out. The State Department is scrambling to evacuate Afghan translators from the country as the Taliban steamroll through local security forces.
The State Department, Justice Department—which often plays a role in international hostage negotiations—and White House did not return requests for comment. Biden mentioned Frerichs's name for the first time in a July speech, but it is unclear if government authorities have yet met with the hostage's family. A U.S. government official familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, told the Free Beacon they are working on Frerichs's release with "focused purpose."
"Mark shouldn't be held against his will far away," the official said. "He should be home with his family. As the president said in his remarks to the American people about Afghanistan a couple of weeks ago, we are going to continue to work for the release of detained Americans, including Mark. Our team is very focused on Mark's case, bringing together experts from across the government."
Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the dwindling strength of America's position makes for much tougher negotiations with the Taliban to secure the release of hostages.
"The United States continues to back negotiations with the Taliban as they rampage across Afghanistan, so I'm not sure what kind of leverage the U.S. government has to secure Frerichs's release," Roggio said. "The United States just continues to look weaker and weaker while the Taliban continue to look stronger. The administration has very tough cards to play. They basically need to give up the deck to get one card back."
Roggio also noted that the United States' slipping foothold in Afghanistan could up the Taliban's asking price to return Frerichs. The Taliban have repeatedly asked for the return of Bashir Noorzai, a narcotics trafficker often called the "Pablo Escobar of the Middle East," in exchange for Frerichs—a price which Roggio says comes with complications.
Another possible play left in the Biden administration's playbook could be appealing to Pakistan, a U.S. ally that has consistent channels of communications with the Haqqani network. When Afghan terrorists kidnapped U.S. citizen Caitlan Coleman and her husband in 2012, it took close cooperation with the Pakistani government to get a breakthrough in their case in 2017. Lisa Curtis, a former senior White House official who worked on Afghan issues and program director at the Center for a New American Security, told the Free Beacon that looking to Pakistan could prove vital.
"Now that U.S. forces are out of Afghanistan, we are really going to have to look to the Pakistanis to use their leverage with these groups to get him released," Curtis said. "It took a great deal of pressure from the Trump administration on the Pakistani government [to secure Coleman]. I'm not sure the Biden administration has exerted that kind of influence with the Pakistanis. …We're losing leverage very fast now."
Frerichs's family could not be reached for comment in time for publication.
Russia Sends U.S. Marine to Soviet-Era Gulag
Trevor Reed has been imprisoned in Russia for more than one year
Russian authorities transferred a U.S. Marine veteran imprisoned in the country for more than a year to a penal colony in a region known for Soviet-era gulags.
Trevor Reed, who served in a Marine security detail tasked with protecting then-president Barack Obama, will likely serve the remainder of a nine-year sentence in a penal colony some 217 miles away from Moscow.
Reed spent last year in multiple prisons. The American embassy and Reed's family say Russia subjected the Marine veteran to brutal conditions, denied him medical treatment, and limited his access to diplomatic services. In March, Russia moved Reed to a maximum-security facility in Moscow without notifying American diplomats, likely violating international treaty law.
A Russian human rights organization said Friday that Reed was transferred from his small cell in Moscow to Mordovia, a region with penal colonies for political prisoners. Reed will join fellow Marine veteran and American citizen Paul Whelan in the region. Whelan, who was arrested on espionage charges in 2018, was moved to a penal colony in August 2020. He has complained of abuse and mistreatment from Russian authorities.
Lawmakers have called for Reed's release for months, with House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Michael McCaul (R., Texas) and Reed's congressman, August Pfluger (R., Texas), leading the efforts. In more than seven months in office, the Biden administration has secured the release of just 1 hostage abroad, while over 50 Americans remain detained.
A resolution pressuring the Biden administration to bring Reed home passed the House in June and awaits a vote in the Senate. President Biden first raised Reed and Whelan's status in his June summit with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Biden has given no public update since then. In June, Putin called Reed a "drunk" and said he needs more time to consider a prisoner swap.
Reed's transfer comes days after Biden climate envoy John Kerry met with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov to advance cooperation on climate change policy. Lavrov, who has defended the Putin regime's human rights violations, has acted as the State Department's primary point of contact for discussing Trevor Reed.
Rep. Don Bacon (R, Neb.), who cochairs the House Baltic Caucus, told the Washington Free Beacon that the president's inaction on Reed's case is just one of several missteps on Russia.
"President Biden now and over the years has talked loudly but carried a small stick in regards to Russia," Bacon said. "Pulling sanctions on the Russian pipeline while shutting down our Keystone Pipeline and American jobs, caving on strategic nuclear talks, and not pushing Putin on dissidents and hostages reflect that. Actions speak louder than words."
The State Department did not return a request for comment.
Biden Passes Up Chance To Press Jordan’s King for Terrorist’s Extradition
"You've got to bring this person to justice," victim's father tells Free Beacon after Biden neglects issue at meeting with King Abdullah II
In the face of emotional pleas from a young terror victim's family, President Joe Biden on Monday passed up an opportunity to press Jordan's King Abdullah II on the Palestinian terrorist who remains a free woman in the Middle Eastern kingdom.
Although the White House maintains it is working to extradite Hamas terrorist Ahlam Tamimi from Jordan, Biden neglected the issue entirely during his Monday afternoon meeting with King Abdullah. Neither the public meeting nor the White House readout of what the leaders discussed privately included any mention of Tamimi.
Arnold Roth, whose 15-year-old daughter was killed in the 2001 bombing of an Israeli restaurant carried out by Tamimi, said the United States is "betraying its own values" by not raising the issue.
"The United States is betraying its own values, its own commitment to justice, and this I find to be inexplicable," Roth told the Washington Free Beacon following Biden’s meeting with Jordan’s king. "There’s always a price when you trash core values."
Ahead of Biden's meeting with the Jordanian king, Roth and his wife Frimet took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal, urging Biden to press for Tamimi's extradition. "The president, a grieving parent himself, pledged during his inauguration speech to write ‘an American story of decency and dignity,'" the parents wrote last week. "Is anything more dignified than doing justice?"
Abdullah’s meeting at the White House came on the tail end of a three-week trip to the United States. The Jordanian leader is lobbying for an extension of U.S. foreign aid to Jordan, which is set to expire next year. Roth said aid provides the perfect leverage for the Biden administration to get cooperation on the case of Tamimi, who was released to Jordan through a 2011 prisoner swap.
"The degree of dependence on the United States is huge," Roth said. "The notion in principle terms that the United States should use its irreplaceable, key role in Jordanian affairs to look after American interests, and in this case, not political interests, but the interests of simple justice, is self-evident."
"Why aren't people as shocked as I am? I don't know, I'm really baffled by this," Roth said.
The Trump administration set the stage for America to take action on the case of Tamimi. In 2017, the Department of Justice unsealed the details of Tamimi’s charges in the deadly 2001 attack, which killed 15 people including two Americans. Tamimi was also added to the FBI’s Most Wanted List, where she still remains. Trump’s State Department said in 2019 that Jordan was required to hand over Tamimi based on a 1995 extradition treaty, but Jordan refused to comply.
A White House National Security Council spokesman said the United States seeks "[Tamimi's] extradition and the government of Jordan’s assistance in bringing her to justice."
Tamimi lives with her family in Jordan and regularly discusses the successful terrorist attack that killed Roth’s daughter, Malki Roth. Shortly after her 2011 release, Tamimi said she would "do it again" if given the chance.
"I dedicated myself to the path of jihad for the sake of Allah, and Allah granted me success," Tamimi said in a Jordanian television interview. "Do you want me to denounce what I did? That's out of the question. I would do it again."
Tamimi became a regular contributor on Al-Quds TV, a now-defunct Hamas-run propaganda outlet, and is a columnist for Egypt’s Arabi 21, where she regularly praises Palestinian terrorists. In a column published Monday, for example, Tamimi praises fellow terrorist Qahira Saadi, who drove a suicide bomber to the center of Jerusalem and killed three Israeli civilians. Saadi, described as a "liberated captive," was also released in the 2011 prisoner exchange.
Roth said Tamimi is treated as a "success model" in the Arab world.
"The murderer has had her own damned TV program, and she gives speeches where thousands of people come along," Roth said. "She’s been shipped all over the Arab world to make speeches because she’s such a fantastic example, and students at the Jordan Media Institute call her a success model."
Roth said Biden should have taken a "moral stand" with King Abdullah to press for Tamimi’s extradition.
"I'm compelled by the language that Biden has used himself about himself—he talks about principles and values, and he speaks about dignity," Roth said. "There are moral stands that a leader like Biden, the leader of the United States, can take, and can use as an instrument of policy, particularly foreign policy."
Biden during the meeting referred to Abdullah as a "good, loyal, and decent friend," adding that the United States "will always be there for Jordan."
Those who argue against pressing for Tamimi’s extradition say it would cause Jordan’s large Palestinian population to rise against King Abdullah, destabilizing the region. Similar arguments were made ahead of the Trump administration's move of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and after the killing of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani. Neither action resulted in lasting turmoil.
Jordan will receive approximately $1.65 billion in total financial and military assistance from the United States in 2021. This week alone, America directly transferred over half-a-billion dollars to Jordan’s treasury, the first part of an $845 million grant.
Israeli authorities arrested Tamimi shortly after the 2001 bombing and sentenced her to 16 life sentences. Judith Shoshana Greenbaum, a 31-year-old teacher from New Jersey, was also murdered in Tamimi’s attack.
"I'm coming at this as the father of a child, a child who was an American citizen who was murdered by this woman," Roth said. "You've got to bring this person to justice."
Glazov Gang: Hunter Biden, Crack, Lies and Videotape
The most devastating video on the internet.
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[Visit MyPillow.com (or call 1-800-854-0673) and get your MyPillow products with AMAZING DISCOUNTS using promo code GG21].
Follow us on our Rumble Channel – and also on Instagram: @JamieGlazov, Twitter: @JamieGlazov and FrankSpeech.com.
This new Glazov Gang episode features Jeff Crouere, author of America’s Last Chance.
Jeff focuses on Hunter Biden, Crack, Lies and Videotape, shedding disturbing light on The most devastating video on the internet.
Don’t miss it!
And make sure to watch Jeff discuss Vaccine Passports to Hell, where he analyzes how the Gestapo has arrived in America to check your papers.
Follow us on our Rumble Channel – and also on Instagram: @JamieGlazov, Twitter: @JamieGlazov and FrankSpeech.com.
STAB IN THE HEAD ANY DEMOCRAT POLITICIAN YOU CATCH PERFORMING THEIR POPULIST CRAP!
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Meet the Government Junta of National Destruction
Now proceeding with the demolition of the United States of America.
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“Our democracy,” is the official government term for conditions following the 2020 election. Angelo Codevilla argues that it’s not a democracy but an oligarchy. Since that means rule by a group, “junta” would also appropriate, and historical examples are instructive.
Portugal had its junta de salvação nacional in the 1970s, and after the toppling of Allende in a coup, the Junta Militar de Gobierno ruled that nation. After the fall of Somoza, Nicaragua fell under the Junta de Gobierno de Reconstrucción Nacional, the Junta of National Reconstruction. In the United States, what Democrats call “our democracy” is effectively the Government Junta of National Destruction (GJND) of the nation as it has been known to exist, with emphasis on the period from 2016-2020.
Joe Biden is the Junta’s figurehead, more properly the bobblehead. As Mark Bowden noted in 2010, Biden is a plagiarist and underachiever but “not an intellectual.” Party bosses confined the gaffe machine to a basement during the campaign, tipping off the ensuing election fraud, as it were, with a flare gun.
As head of the Junta, Biden does what he’s told. Trump achievements such as energy independence, a thriving economy, full employment, peace in the Middle East, a border wall and so forth must be stopped, whatever their benefits for the American people. The Junta represents the government, and Nancy Pelosi is the Junta’s La Pasionaria.
Pelosi, 81, is a big fan of Communist and Soviet agent Harry Bridges, to the point that in 2001 she marked the centenary of his birth in the Congressional Register. Pelosi believes the proper role of government, even during a pandemic, is to fund abortion. So she has no basis for objection to the taking of adult lives if the Junta deems them unwanted. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley makes it a military junta.
Back in 2013, Gen. Milley predicted that conditions were set for victory in Afghanistan. They weren’t and the Princeton political science grad now finds the home front a target-rich environment. As the general contends, Donald Trump was like Hitler and his supporters are Nazis, something one would expect from Derek Lutz, (Robert Downey Jr.) in Back to School, babbling about football as a “crypto fascist metaphor.” Like Gen. Jack Ripper in Dr. Strangelove, Milley is straight out of central casting, but the key figure in the Junta is Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Biden’s chief medical advisor contends that to criticize him is to attack science itself, in effect, “La science c’est moi,” in the style of Louis XIV. Fauci earned a medical degree in 1966 and in 1968 took a cushy “yellow beret” job with the National Institutes of Health to avoid treating American soldiers in U.S. military hospitals. Fauci’s bio shows no advanced degrees in molecular biology or biochemistry.
Back in the 1990s, Kary Mullis, PhD in biochemistry from UC Berkeley and winner of the Nobel prize for the polymerase chain reaction, contended that Fauci “doesn’t understand electron microscopy and he doesn’t understand medicine. He should not be in a position like he’s in.” Fauci was wrong about AIDS but remained as the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
More recently, Fauci funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) for dangerous gain-of-function research with a cargo of deadly viruses the WIV received from a lab in Canada. If Communist China and the World Health Organization every did anything with which Fauci disagreed, it’s hard to know what it might be. In January of 2020, Fauci opposed President Trump’s ban on travel from China, with no explanation of the “science” or how opposing the ban promoted public health.
This certified megalomaniac, a physician who first does harm, is the Junta’s Lysenko figure. Dr. Fauci is responsible for shutting down the nation, wrecking a thriving economy, causing untold misery, and menacing the people’s constitutional rights. A serial prevaricator who never once had to face the voters, Dr. Fauci is the embodiment of white coat supremacy (WCS), an ideal ethos for the Junta of National Destruction that calls itself “our democracy.”
Juntas in Portugal, Argentina and Chile have given way to a vote of the people but with the aging GJND the American people have to wonder. The Junta appears to have its own Brezhnev doctrine, a claim of permanent one-party power, upheld by an imported electorate, institutionalized voter fraud, and intimidation from the Junta’s BLM-Antifa axis. On the other hand, the Junta’s draconian rule is not proving popular, and democratic institutions remain in place.
The midterms are just around the corner but the race to watch is the September 14 recall for scandal-ridden California governor Gavin Newsom, the Jerry Brown protégé and former Nancy Pelosi nephew Democrats have been grooming for president. In January, California Democrat Party boss Rusty Hicks proclaimed, “this recall effort, which really ought to be called ‘the California coup,’ is being led by right-wing conspiracy theorists, white nationalists, anti-vaxxers and groups who encourage violence on our democratic institutions.”
As Ben Christopher of CalMatters explained, “a recall campaign is a democratic mechanism written into the California constitution that allows voters to remove an elected official by popular vote.” Democrat secretary of state Shirley Weber tried to keep black conservative Larry Elder off the ballot, but Elder sued and won.
As the California Globe reports, “New Poll Finds Larry Elder In Commanding Lead of Recall Candidates, Newsom Approval Slipping Once Again.” The Junta is all-in for Newsom, whose autocratic style and colossal incompetence would be a good fit. As Trump likes to say, we’ll have to see what happens.
HOW THE BANKSTERS’ RENT BOY JOE BIDEN HELPED STRIP BANKRUPTCY PROTECTION FROM MILLIONS JUST BEFORE THE RECESSION THE BIG BANKSTERS CAUSED
Biden and Elizabeth Warren have been fighting each other since the 2005 bankruptcy bill.
BY LUKE DARBY
During the most recent Democratic presidential primary debate, Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren had an awkward and tense exchange over the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The friction between the two of them goes back quite a ways, long before Biden was vice president and Warren became a senator in Massachusetts. The two first butted heads over Biden's support of bankruptcy reform in the late 1990s and early 2000s, back when he represented Delaware in the Senate.
The key detail is the difference between the two kinds of bankruptcy a person can declare: Chapter 7 and Chapter 13. Chapter 7 is known as liquidation bankruptcy and is meant for people with limited income. It allows them sell off what assets they can to pay creditors and then discharge most of the rest of their debts relatively quickly. In contrast, Chapter 13, reorganizing bankruptcy, puts the debtor on a payment plan, so a portion their future income is guaranteed to go to paying back their creditors. If you're a creditor, this is the option you would rather someone take when they owe you money, since you're going to get more out of them over the long run.
The 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) was meant, on paper, to prevent people from abusing Chapter 7 bankruptcy. It accomplished that through means testing, making it harder for people to declare Chapter 7 bankruptcy versus Chapter 13. If a person's income exceeds a certain threshold, they're ineligible for declaring Chapter 7. The bill also required people to complete a credit counseling course no more than 180 days before they declare bankruptcy. It also limits the kinds of debt a person can discharge through bankruptcy: If they use a credit card to spend too much money on "luxury goods" or withdraw too much in cash advances, that credit line can't be erased. And, gallingly, the bill made it completely impossible to discharge student loan debt. It may very well be the single piece of legislation most responsible for putting the U.S. in the current student debt crisis.
Biden was one of the bill's major Democratic champions, and he fought for its passage from his position on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He had pushed for two earlier bankruptcy reform bills in 2000 and 2001, both of which failed. But in 2005, BAPCPA made it through, successfully erecting all kinds of roadblocks for Americans struggling with debt, and doing so just before the financial crisis of 2008. Since BAPCPA passed, Chapter 13 filings went from representing just 24 percent of all bankruptcy filings per year to 39 percent in 2017. Melissa Jacoby, a University of North Carolina law professor specializing in bankruptcy, told Politico, "I doubt that the bill reined in the abuses that the bill was premised on, in part because they didn’t necessarily exist in the first place."
Unions, consumer protection groups, and the National Organization for Women all opposed the BAPCPA, but it had heavy support from the credit card industry. Delaware is essentially a domestic tax haven for corporations, and as a result financial institutions like credit card companies hold tremendous power in the state. As political writer Alexander Cockburn once wrote, "The first duty of any senator from Delaware is to do the bidding of the banks and large corporations which use the tiny state as a drop box and legal sanctuary. Biden has never failed his masters in this primary task. Find any bill that sticks it to the ordinary folk on behalf of the Money Power and you’ll likely detect Biden’s hand at work."
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Biden at the time stressed that he wasn't acting on behalf of the credit card companies, and as Matt Ygelsias writes at Vox, Biden's camp claims now that BAPCPA was an effort to get some concessions out of a Republican bill that would have been a bigger disaster without his intervention. But to his critics, there were red flags. For example, one of the biggest credit card companies in Delaware, 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." But even without the shadows of impropriety, critics of Biden's support for bankruptcy reform had plenty of fodder.
One of Biden's biggest antagonists was none other than Elizabeth Warren. Back when she was a mere Harvard law professor specializing in bankruptcy law, Warren questioned the entire rationale of bankruptcy reform, telling The Washington Post in 1998, "Those who want to say the way to solve rising consumer bankruptcy is by changing the law are the same people who would have said during a malaria epidemic that the way to cut down on hospital admissions is to lock the door." In the 2003 book she co-wrote with her daughter, The Two-Income Trap, she took special aim at Biden's efforts to make it harder for Americans to declare bankruptcy and framed it as an issue that disproportionally effects women:
This year, more women will file bankruptcy papers than will receive college diplomas. More women with children will search for a bankruptcy lawyer than will seek subsidized day care. And in a statistic with special significance for Senator Biden, more women will be victimized by predatory lenders than will seek protection from an abusive husband or boyfriend... The point is simply that family economics should not be left to giant corporations and paid lobbyists, and senators like Joe Biden should not be allowed to sell out women in the morning and be heralded as their friend in the evening. Middle-class women need help, and right now no one is putting their economic interests first.
Two years after Warren wrote that, BAPCPA overwhelmingly passed with Biden's support—while bankruptcy reform had been dead on arrival just a few years earlier, 18 Senate Democrats chose to side with all 55 Republicans and the lone independent to vote in favor of the bill. Then president George W. Bush promptly signed it into law, and 14 years later BAPCPA is still making it more costly and cumbersome to declare bankruptcy. With the U.S. likely heading for another recession and credit card debt at a record $870 billion, millions more Americans could end up struggling with mountains of debt than they would otherwise had Biden not fought so hard to strip them of bankruptcy protection.
BIDEN WAS SELECTED BY BANKSTER-OWNED OBAMA BECAUSE OF HIS LONG HISTORY OF SERVING THE BANKSTERS!
Biden backed brutal bankruptcy bill in 2005
By Chris Talgo
In 1999, then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) declared, “I’m not the senator from MBNA.” Apparently, Biden felt it was necessary to clarify that he did not exclusively represent credit card giant MBNA because his constituents were thoroughly confused, based on his track record of being a shill for credit card companies located in the First State.
Then, six years later, Biden inserted his foot directly into his mouth (again) when he championed the notorious (and ill-named) Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA). A more appropriate name could have been the Act to Protect Credit Card Companies and Shaft Students and Workers.
In short, BAPCPA was a terrible bill that favored credit card companies, big banks, and millionaires over working-class borrowers. It also is solely responsible for the fact that student loan debt is totally impossible to dismiss -- even after one has declared bankruptcy.
Wait a minute, I thought Joe Biden was the consummate defender and advocate of the working class and oppressed. Far from it. In reality,Biden’s political career of more than four decades was predicated upon protecting the interests of credit card companies.
And he and his son, Hunter, were compensated handsomely for doing so. According to a 2019 GQ article titled “How Biden Helped Strip Bankruptcy Protection From Millions Just Before a Recession” -- “one of the biggest credit card companies in Delaware, 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.” Can you say, quid pro quo, Joe?
As if the backroom deals and “you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours” shenanigans that Biden blatantly engaged in before, during, and after BAPCPA was passed were not bad enough, the bill wrought untold damage among the very people Biden constantly claims to protect.
According to Adam J. Levitin, professor of law at Georgetown University, BAPCPA “was perhaps the most anti-middle class piece of legislation in the past century.” And, as Levitin writes, “Biden used his clout to push for the law’s passage and to defeat amendments to shield servicemembers, women, and children from its harsh treatment. When votes were taken, ‘Middle-Class Joe’ was no friend to the middle class.” It sure seems that Biden abandoned his Lunchbox Joe persona when it came to voting in favor of BAPCPA, not to mention that he strongly supported amendments that made the bill even more hostile to the middle class!
And adding insult to injury, Biden also voted against several amendments that were specifically meant to help several “underprivileged” groups. As Levitin writes, “He voted against three amendments to ease bankruptcy requirements for consumers whose financial troubles stem from medical expenses. He voted against an amendment that would have helped seniors keep their homes. He voted against exempting servicemembers and widows of servicemembers killed in action from the law’s eligibility restrictions. He voted against an amendment to exempt women whose financial troubles stemmed from deadbeat husbands’ failure to pay child support or alimony. And Biden even voted against an amendment that would have ensured that children of debtors could still be given birthday and Christmas presents. Biden also voted against allowing debtors to pay their union dues during bankruptcy, potentially imperiling their employment and ability to achieve financial rehabilitation.” Could Biden’s voting record on this bill get any worse? Actually, yes.
Not only did Biden strongly oppose BAPCPA amendments aimed to help “disadvantaged” groups, he voted for two giant loopholes that effectively allowed millionaires to shield their assets from collectors after they filed for bankruptcy. What a joke, Joe.
As a senator, Biden vigorously voted for several similar bills. In short, based on his voting record, Joe Biden is not (and never was) a champion of disadvantaged Americans, unless you consider multi-billion-dollar credit card corporations and millionaires “disadvantaged.”
Chris Talgo (ctalgo@heartland.org) is an editor at The Heartland Institute.
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