Turn the reigns of power over to the next generation.

I just retired this past June at 67 and I feel like I did my part back in the days. Our time on this earth is coming to an end and if the younger generation wants a better future then it's up to them to go out and fight for it. I fully support them with my vote but I'm all done with the activist stuff. My idea of enjoying my golden years does not include fighting for a future I won't be around to experience.

as the selfish generation. Exhibit A is right here:

Just kidding. I am ok with Bernie or Joe running as long as they make an ironclad promise to serve only one term if they win. I think suck a vow will help them win easily.

I like the guy, but we need new faces.


Peace

We need more energetic young women and men running the country.

I enjoyed watching Obama with his kids, Michelle getting kids to exercise.

Also maybe someone that while not new to politics hasn’t been in for decades, we need fresh new ideas. Something and someone to get people excited.

I hope he is not the best option in the primary.

I remember how he demolished Paul Ryan in the vice-presidential debate, and I look forward to seeing him do the same to Trump.

old white man.
Let's highlight our differences

He called the Russians liars to their faces. He also looked good physically.

See my post below.

I would want to know where he stands on bank regulation and especially on the issue of bankruptcy for student loans.

get to spam anti-Bernie propaganda, or is this a one-way street??

....and his policy positions on all issues over the years.

Bank regulation is only one small aspect of being President. There's foreign affairs, education, social issues, etc.

repeating nonsense like that against Hillary?

Or maybe Corey Booker?

The 2005 bankruptcy bill made it next to impossible if not impossible to declare bankruptcy on them.

What are students who owe so much in student loans supposed to do?

If you start a business, borrow money to fund your business, and it does not go well, you can find the opportunity to start again financially by declaring bankruptcy.

But if you get a degree and borrow money to get your degree, and you don't get a job, i.e., your career does not go well, you are stuck with the debt for your student loan.

Education should be less expensive in the first place, and student loans should be dischargeable in bankruptcy.

Biden sponsored the 2005 Bankruptcy Bill.

Don't believe me?

As a senator from Delaware -- a corporate tax haven where the financial industry is one of the state’s largest employers -- Biden was one of the key proponents of the 2005 legislation that is now bearing down on students like Ryan. That bill effectively prevents the $150 billion worth of private student debt from being discharged, rescheduled or renegotiated as other debt can be in bankruptcy court.

Biden's efforts in 2005 were no anomaly. Though the vice president has long portrayed himself as a champion of the struggling middle class -- a man who famously commutes on Amtrak and mixes enthusiastically with blue-collar workers -- the Delaware lawmaker has played a consistent and pivotal role in the financial industry's four-decade campaign to make it harder for students to shield themselves and their families from creditors, according to an IBT review of bankruptcy legislation going back to the 1970s.

Biden's political fortunes rose in tandem with the financial industry's. At 29, he won the first of seven elections to the U.S. Senate, rising to chairman of the powerful Judiciary Committee, which vets bankruptcy legislation. On that committee, Biden helped lenders make it more difficult for Americans to reduce debt through bankruptcy -- a trend that experts say encouraged banks to loan more freely with less fear that courts could erase their customers’ repayment obligations. At the same time, with more debtors barred from bankruptcy protections, the average American’s debt load went up by two-thirds over the last 40 years. Today, there is more than $10,000 of personal debt for every person in the country, as compared to roughly $6,000 in the early 1970s.

http://www.ibtimes.com/joe-biden-backed-bills-make-it-harder-americans-reduce-their-student-debt-2094664

https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/08/24/434331154/the-biggest-divide-between-joe-biden-and-elizabeth-warren

Biden is a likeable guy, but he has a serious problem. Let's see whether he does anything about it. And if he does, what?

Or is this a one-way street. BTW, your posts at that other site in favor of the two “peace” candidates, Trump and Stein show questionable judgment about candidates.

"I think we should try to find someone younger with fewer difficult issues in her past."

You must have the wrong person.

I always have warned against voting for Trump.

I am very concerned about the environment. Other Democrats should be as concerned about it as I am. So I will say good things about the Green Party and its candidates.

the peace candidate. You said they should have voted for Stein. Unless you deleted your JDPriestly posts, that’s what you said. Not sure if you posted how it was a mistake not to vote for Hillary?? Probably not at that site. I can’t look there very long, sorry, so maybe I missed it.

Jill Stein is a fraud. Anyone who can promote her has really poor judgment — look at the actual facts. They are out there, not the propaganda that you are trying to promote. And you don’t have to be for a fraud like Jill to be for the environment. Please!

website.

Your interpretation of my ideas and my writing are utterly false and wrong.

I live in California. My vote does not matter as long as the vast majority of Californians vote one way, my vote is lost.

I favor environmental policies that are much stronger than anything Hillary supported. In fact many of the policies I would favor are different from Hillary's. Yet I agree with her on many issues.

I have never in any way supported Trump.

Jill Stein was not a realistic candidate. Hillary won the popular vote and won in my state.

We are each entitled to vote as our consciences allow us.

I am a strong Democrat. I have worked on Democratic campaigns and even been an officer in my Democratic Club.

We live in a democracy. Each of us is entitled to our own opinion.

If people on the internet are chased down and attacked in the way that you are attacking me, our democracy cannot survive. We cannot have the kinds of civil conversations that are vital to democratic discourse.

I also feel sorry for you that you want to attack me in personal ways and that you are so limited in your ability to participate in democracy and to allow for the kind of exchange of ideas and growth and learning that is essential if we are to have a democracy.

It is imperative in democracy that discourse be civil and that people be encouraged to engage in it and to exchange ideas.

It is destructive to democracy to attack people, to limit their ability for growth and to denigrate people personally.

Good heavens!

I also feel sorry for people who are so bitter about Hillary. She and Bernie will probably both never run again. But both of them have a role to play in the democratic discourse of our time. Both of them. The bitterness I find here is tragic. It does not lead the way toward winning elections with new candidates in the future.

seriously by gullible types.

had to say about stein voters in his own inimitable way..

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=10247399

RB

....drawing some conclusions that might not be accurate.

For example - you talk about personal debt in the early 1970s being $6000 and today being $10,000. Have you considered the effect of inflation over those 45+ years? I'm not going to research it, but it would seem that $6,000 vs. $10,000 would be an overall improvement over those years considering inflation. Plus, you're discussing it in terms of "every person in the country", even including those with zero debt and also including children.

Is that all he's done since being the youngest person elected to the Senate?

I'm saying that the 2005 Bankruptcy Bill would be raised frequently in 2020 if he is the Democratic candidate.

I think we should try to find someone younger with fewer difficult issues in her past.

...I don't recall it coming up at all in the 2008 or 2012 campaigns.

PS - Biden is a male, no worries about "difficult issues in her past"!

In 2008, the banks were desperate. The student loan issue was not as important. It will become very important if Biden is the candidate.

....than positive things about our candidates. That's not a winning formula.

about using our current bankruptcy laws for anyone seeking to reduce, delay, or discharge student loan debt.

https://studentloanhero.com/featured/bankruptcy-and-student-loans-what-happens/

You make an interesting final point in your post headlined:

"I'm not saying that is all that Biden has done since he was elected to the Senate."

"I think we should try to find someone younger with fewer difficult issues in her past."

I like Biden, but I think it is a big mistake to pick a candidate with a lengthy past and many votes and statements that Republicans (and/or Russians and others) can dissect for voters.

People change. I would bet that Biden like most seasoned politicians would do a lot of votes or statements or appearances differently now than he did in the past.

We need some new voices in the Democratic Party. I am looking forward to hearing from them.

We should not pick our candidate so early and so obviously that he or she is a sitting duck for those whose profession it is to destroy the reputations of candidates of the Democratic Party. Hillary had already been devastated by the time she ran in 2016. The gossip about her, some true and some false, as it would be for any seasoned candidate was just everywhere. Fox News had a heyday with it.

We have to be smarter and less predictable about our presidential candidate.

Everything that went wrong during Obama's presidency most of which was not Obama's fault, would be thrown at Biden if he runs for the president. It makes it too easy for the naysayers (who earn big bucks) on the other side.

I just think we need a candidate who is a bit of a surprise and not one who is pre-picked and easily poked and pummeled and torn apart by conservatives.

Trump is the most flawed, most horrible president and was the worst presidential candidate of our time. But the campaign was too short to show to the American people how bad he really was. Trump lost the popular vote, but was never torn apart by negative advertising the way Hillary was. She had too much of a past. So does Biden.

That's the headline of the post I replied to. You were writing about Biden.

Those who can't bother to read the actual legislation and its concomitant statutes should probably refrain from making claims they cannot support. While student loan debt is difficult to discharge in bankruptcy, loan reduction and payment extension are not uncommon.

A 2011 study showed that while only 10% of those with student debt chose to pursue discharge (total loan forgiveness) through bankruptcy, 40% of those who tried were successful.

Post 2005, 40% of those who sought to discharge student loan debt through bankruptcy were able to walk away from their loans.

That doesn't sound like a cogent definition of "impossible" to me.

You never explained why you referred to Joe Biden's "problems" as "her problems".

https://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/student-loan-ranger/2014/08/13/debunking-the-student-loan-bankruptcy-myth

core Democratic party values. From our 2016 platform.

“To build on the success of the lifesaving Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, we will expand and strengthen background checks and close dangerous loopholes in our current laws; repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) to revoke the dangerous legal immunity protections gun makers and sellers now enjoy; and keep weapons of war—such as assault weapons and large capacity ammunition magazines (LCAM’s)—off our streets.”

But he is weak on student loans. He can do something about the student loan problem.

Why are you so obsessed with student loans? In the grand scheme of things (foreign policy, nuclear proliferation, climate change, health care, and so many more issues), student loans are very very insignificant.

Anyone but a puke, anyone ...

We make it easy for Republicans to do opposition research when we pick our candidate early and make sure that person has lots of experience and history.

We choose a candidate who is vulnerable and then are surprised when the electoral college picks the Republican.

We should be less naive about picking candidates.

It's what got him in trouble during the Anita Hill hearings -- he didn't want to disturb relationships with the other Senators. And it's what recently caused him to give DT credit he did NOT deserve.

He said that Trump shouldn't have the interview with Mueller because even if he weren't "planning to be disingenuous," he might say the wrong thing.

As if Trump would be planning to be honest!

will love supporting Joe.

He’s toast.

I'll be a concern troll but Russian meddling and collusion may have pushed Trump over the magic number but he was too close for comfort anyway, more than I thought possible because I was one of the early voices who insisted Trump was not serious and just making a publicity stunt. Obama was hope, and change, and fresh, we need that again.

And we should not identify our candidate too early because the Republicans will jump all over him or her. Keep them wondering. Make them do their opposition research on a lot of possible presidential nominees so that they have to spend lots of money on it.

Choosing Hillary so early was a big mistake. It gave the Republicans lots of time to slander her.

Russian style, long before the GOP had their chance. Russian style being a reference to yesterday’s criminal indictments, where it was confirmed that Bernie’s campaign was helped by the Russians because of the divisiveness.

People have different opinions and values. That's natural. We learn from each other. We differ from each other.

I wouldn't want it any other way. As long as we are civil to each other, democracy works. It's not perfect, but it is the best we can have.

Would you really have preferred that Bernie had not run?

I was originally hoping that Elizabeth Warren would run. But she didn't, so Bernie stepped in.

Should the Democratic Party all march in step as soon as the leadership of the Party has picked its "chosen one," whomever that shall be?

Is it democratic for the leadership of the Party to favor a candidate in the primaries?

Or is it democratic for the leadership to remain neutral until after the primaries?

long and damaging primaries. Common knowledge has always been to drop after there is no path to victory and not to damage the front runner. It’s a split country, and has been, and that’s the reality of the electorate.

Perfect, that is, for the role of moving target to draw fire until a young new dynamic candidate emerges later on who will take the nomination Joe Biden (I hope) was never really shooting for in the first place.

Maybe TPTB can send him to the White House to wash that Trans Am?

In Biden's favor: Name recognition, association with Obama, experience, likability, relatable life story, "regular guy," can set up younger VP for run in 2024.

Negatives: Age, likelihood of only one term (giving up the incumbency advantage), old-school politics, maybe too much history open to criticism, old white guy.

I like him and would happily vote for him if he's the nominee, but maybe it's time for someone new. I just don't know who that can be.

1} BAPCPA....really really bad.....no excuse for this....none

https://www.salon.com/2015/10/21/joe_bidens_greatest_betrayal_the_one_senate_vote_that_makes_it_hard_to_support_a_biden_run/

2} Clarence Thomas

3} Plagiarism

He will not make it past the primary

In the unlikely event he does, for the nth time, I will hold my nose and vote dem

Just under 3 years before the 2020 primaries and an actual member of the Democratic Party is touted as the strongest candidate.

And here come a whole lot of ‘new’ members along others who apparently found a more ‘radical’ place for a while attacking one of the most trusted members of our party.

Shocked, I tell you. Shocked.

I would love to have Joe Biden as a foil to Donald Trump and I think Biden is personally qualified to take Trump down. In so many ways, Joe Biden is the anti-Trump. He is all the things Trump pretends to be in terms of being this tough guy who knows how to reach the real issues that blue collar and/or other middle class Americans are facing.

But I don't know if Trump will be a candidate in 2020. The Russia take down is coming, if not legally, then at least politically. In that case, I don't know who the Democratic nominee should be.

Sometimes though, I still think that a President Biden would be the big hug America needs, especially after the kind of thing that happened this past week. I know that sounds corny but thats how I feel about what it would be like if Joe Biden was President right now.

You think Biden could beat him?