Talk:Political positions of Joe Biden/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

July 2007

I think if a single vote on the budget in 2005 is included, then information on other votes regarding the budget should be included as well. I find it is often misleading to identify a single vote without explanation, as there may be components of the bill which outweigh the main benefit of it. Please note I am not implying this was Mr. Biden's reasoning in this case, but merely that more information, or perhaps more general information, might be more useful.

Also, I am placing a {{refimprove}} tag on the article since the only secondary source seems to be ontheissues.org. --Evil1987 13:43, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

ARA?

What is the ARA mentioned in the Social security section? None of the articles linked on the disambiguation page pop out at me as making sense, and I can't find an answer on ontheissues.org. --Evil1987 13:59, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Some of the things written here are not from a neutral point of view (that Biden's rating by the CoC indicates an "anti-business voting record" - that depends on your point of view) or are phrased incorrectly (I doubt Biden "supports nuclear proliferation," which would indicate he wants more countries to have nuclear weapons).

Reflecting a ____ voting record on _____

Several of the entries for Mr. Biden's voting record end with an approval rating from some organization and the comment of it revealing a trend about his voting. The ARA, ACLU, etc., are simply organizations with their own opinions. Mr. Biden's deviations from the "approved" votes of those organizations simply shows a difference of opinion, not that he is for or against some group of people.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jersey72 (talk • contribs) 2007-08-07T18:14:37 (UCT).

I agree this is a definite issue with this article. If you have time to address these issues, please be bold and do so! Thanks. --Evil1987 18:20, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Format problems?

Is it just my browser, or is this article weird-looking? There's no Wikipedia logo or sidebar or anything. It's just text and pictures?

Never mind. It's working now...

Copyright

If I read well(the lines and between), half of this article comes from Joe Biden's website. Happy neutrality !!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.90.146.62 (talk) 06:41, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

"Biden is considered moderate liberal, with a 77.5 percent liberal voting record in 2006 and lifetime score of 76.8 percent, according to a Washington Post analysis."

First of all, the cited source is really an editorial. Secondly, the analysis is actually done by the National Review. This should be corrected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.140.79.102 (talk) 07:11, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Lock This Page

if the Joe Biden page is locked, why isn't this page locked as well?--AveryG (talk) 10:11, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Typically the main article gets a lot more traffic (and thus pov hacks and vandalism) than any of the subarticles, so it's not uncommon for only the main article to be semi-protected. Subarticles can be protected too, of course, if experiences warrants. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:57, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I've sene multiple instances of vandalism in the last few hours. (they have been reverted) I agree that this page should be at least in a semi-locked state.76.106.198.122 (talk) 14:25, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Then take it to WP:Requests for page protection. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:27, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Sex Education and Birth Control Position Unclear

Under education, it says, "He supports abstinence education." However, if you scroll down to the Africa section, it says, "Biden is opposed to American financing of abstinence only programs to combat HIV-AIDS in Africa. In 2007, he cosponsored the HIV Prevention Act which would end President Bush's mandate that one third of all funds be earmarked to abstinence only programs." This leads me to believe that he does not support abstinence-only education, but instead, that he supports teaching abstinence in addition to teaching about other birth control methods. If this is true, then the sentence "He supports abstinence education" at the beginning should be changed to make his position on the matter more clear, in my opinion. Since I don't actually know his position though, I will leave it to somebody more knowledgeable to edit it. --66.75.38.222 (talk) 19:00, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

School Prayer

Somebody added an uncited position here claiming that Biden is "against ... voluntary prayer in schools", which was later softened to "against ... requiring schools to allow voluntary prayer in schools". This seems to be a reference to the Improving America's Schools Act of 1994, Section 14510. If I'm reading these amendments correctly, Biden first voted to deny funds to schools with a "policy" of denying voluntary prayer, and later voted against that amendment and instead for a more realistic amendment to deny funds to schools which ignored court rulings finding that they were violating the pre-existing constitutional right to voluntary prayer. So I'm actually going to reverse this position, unless anybody thinks it should just be removed altogether for being too incidental or whatever. --Trickster721 (talk) 22:02, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

• I'm inclined to start removing all unsourced material from this article. In many cases nuances appear to discarded, and without sources to verify the actual words or deeds it is likely that we are misstating his positions. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 22:13, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Tech Record

Cnet did a review of BIden's Technology based voting record here. Although there is some question as to the neutrality of the author apparently.... --Falcorian ^(talk) 18:15, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I added in a section on Biden's tech record using multiple sources. Please give me a heads up brfore someone removes it. Wikilost (talk) 15:21, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

"Africa" in Foreign Relations

Africa is an extremely diverse continent and not a single country, like the rest of the nations mentioned on the Foreign Relations list. People always refer indiscriminately to the entire continent and this advances the stereotype that the whole place is nothing more than disease, massacre and poverty. Why not call the section Sudan and move the mention of AIDS to social issues? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.251.100.115 (talk) 03:26, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

As diverse as Africa may be, if Biden's policies generalize Africa, we should also generalize in describing them. Editors should not promote the POV that Africa is diverse, or that it is more than disease, massacre, and poverty. Earl (talk) 04:01, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Foreign Relations

There definitely needs to be something added regarding his stance on the Georgian/Russian conflict. This could also involve references to other former Soviet countries and dealings with NATO expansion. HotOne121 (talk) 04:42, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

We could also use some information on Afghanistan and the War on Terror. HotOne121 (talk) 05:10, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Crime

"The Violence Against Women Act was drafted by Senator Joseph Biden, which enhanced the investigation and prosecution of violent crime perpetrated against women, increased pre-trial detention of the accused, provided for automatic and mandatory restitution of those convicted, and allowed civil redress in cases prosecutors chose to leave unprosecuted."

This is duplicate content from the VAWA article. VAWA is the legislation that says woman have the right to have their homes invaded by the armed forces to eliminate violence against women.203.108.140.130 (talk) 07:02, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Partition

Biden has recently stated on Meet the Press regarding whether he supports a partition solution or not:

MR. BROKAW: But two years ago you were the principal author, along with Les Gelb of the Council on Foreign Relations, of an entirely different kind of plan. You were promoting heavily the idea of a confederation, or a partition.

SEN. BIDEN: That’s exact–not, not a partition. You guys keep saying that. It was never a partition.

MR. BROKAW: Or the–we’ll make it a confederation.

SEN. BIDEN: We–yeah, yeah. That’s what it was. OK.

MR. BROKAW: But the–but terms of real political terms, it would quickly become a partition.

SEN. BIDEN: Not true. Absolutely, positively not true.

The rest can be found here. I have removed the inaccurate sentence that said, "Biden is a leading advocate for partitioning Iraq." Khoikhoi 09:19, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

That's good. Biden and Gelb never called it a partition at the time either, as far as I can tell. It was commonly viewed as a partition within Iraq, accounting for its poor reception there, but that's a different matter. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:52, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Some issues not mentioned

These are some issues not mentioned in the article. The list does not imply that I think they should be in the article but some of these are very hot issues that concern certain people.

Offshore oil drilling, trade issues, estate tax (sometimes called "death tax"), corporate tax, deductibility of state sales tax, C-17 air force cargo plane and F-22A stealth fighter funding, Social Security solvency, Medicare funding and cuts, NATO expansion, missile defence, coal, air traffic control, gun control, mortgage bailouts proposed for 2008, Republic of China on Taiwan and People's Republic of China issues, Pakistan, Chile/Singapore free trade agreements (still opposed and want to cancel them? or is our article outdated?), taxes on expatriates' housing allowance (a big issue among Americans overseas), AIDS research, teacher accountibility and private school vouchers, Georgia (country), section 179 depreciation (small business deducting equipment instead of depreciating it), nuclear cooperation with India, Arctic mineral claims, Brazil and disputes over ethanol, sugar, and cotton, subsidies for ethanol production, tobacco subsidies, Basque separatism, space exploration, etc. 903M (talk) 05:04, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Yup, all good issues, start researching, start adding. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:15, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

What is the difference between a domestic issue and a social issue?

Shouldn't they all just be labeled as domestic issues? - Schrandit (talk) 22:36, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

The difference isn't always clear. Social issues may be a subset of domestic issues, though they can also extend outside U.S. borders. —ADavidB 23:16, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

There's no real distinction, and I don't think most of the other "Political positions of X" articles break them apart like this (although someone should check). It's okay with me to coalesce them. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:38, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I quickly reviewed some "political positions" articles for other leading politicians. The most commonly used issues section names were "foreign", "social", and "economic". I didn't see "domestic issues" used as a section name elsewhere. —ADavidB 16:07, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, so go ahead and coalesce the two here into one "social". Wasted Time R (talk) 00:14, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

With no further discussion, I went ahead and did, not that it was any more my desire than yours. —ADavidB 00:34, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't the term "Domestic" be a better fit? Are these things really "social" issues? - Schrandit (talk) 07:57, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

As used currently, the term covers societal (social?) issues that aren't primarily economic or foreign in nature. —ADavidB 13:35, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

The terms aren't perfect, and some issues intersect with all three sets (immigration, for instance). But these are the terms used in other "Political positions of ..." articles, so at least it's consistent now. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:48, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Supposed Serbs comments

May I ask why Biden's racist blood libel about Serbs being baby killing degenerates (on Larry King 1st Aug 1993 or his subsequent call for all 10 million of them to be put in "Nazi style concentration camps" has been cenosred from this site? It strikes me that being an out and out proven Nazi is a political position worth mentioning. Neil Craig — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.8.238.84 (talk) 12:20, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Because there are no WP:RS that state that he ever said such things, just a lot of claims in Freeper posts and the like. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:08, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Homeland security section has an error

The section claims that after the Oklahoma City bombing, Biden drafted a piece of anti-terrorism legislation. However, the bill he wrote was submitted to Congress BEFORE the bombing. The section needs to be completely reworked to correct that reference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rumpleteasermom (talk • contribs) 20:09, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Rework the section yourself, with appropriate sources included. That's how it's done around here. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:59, 8 January 2012 (UTC)