Former Vice President and Democratic front-runner Joe Biden found himself in the middle of a political quagmire this week after reaffirming his longstanding support for the Hyde Amendment banning federal funding for abortion, and stepping on yet another plagiarism landmine.
After a massive backlash which saw most of his Democratic rivals taking pot-shots when he reaffirmed his support for the legislation, Biden has had a dramatic change of heart – announcing on Thursday evening at an Atlanta DNC event that he can no longer support the 1976 provision.
“I can’t justify leaving millions of women without access to care they need and the ability to exercise their constitutionally protected right,” adding “Times have changed.”
What makes this hilarious is that Biden initially appeared to have dropped support for the abortion legislation in May – telling an ACLU activist that he would repeal the amendment – only to announce weeks later on Wednesday that he “misheard her” and still supports it.
On Wednesday, his campaign said in a statement that the former vice president was sticking with his long-standing support of the Hyde Amendment, which has been routinely added to government funding bills and blocks federal medical programs from paying for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the woman.
After his stance was reported by NBC News, several of his competitors in the campaign highlighted their differences on Twitter. –Bloomberg
No woman’s access to reproductive health care should be based on how much money she has. We must repeal the Hyde Amendment.
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) June 5, 2019
There is #NoMiddleGround on women’s rights. Abortion is a constitutional right. Under my Medicare for All plan, we will repeal the Hyde Amendment.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) June 5, 2019
And now Biden has seen the light, again, after un-seeing the light. And after Senate legislation to repeal the Hyde Amendment now has 22 Democratic cosponsors, including 2020 candidates Sanders, Warren, Gillibrand, Harris, Booker and Klobuchar.
The former Vice President also found himself getting ripped this week over plagiarism, after a CNN panel called him out over lifting language for his environmental plan word-for-word from environmental nonprofits without attribution.
As we noted on Wednesday, Biden’s 1988 presidential run went off the rails when it was revealed that he plagiarized speeches from a British labour party politician, which brought to light examples of Biden lifting material from other politicians without attribution, and an acknowledgement that he was also accused of plagiarism in law school.
In short, Biden will simply shed longstanding political beliefs when they become unpopular, and has no problem stealing other people’s ideas. Let’s see who brings this up first during the 2020 debates. We already know President Trump will.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2ZijXFv Tyler Durden