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Officials have said that more than half of all children initially placed in shelters have gone on to be reunited with at least one parent already living in the United States, and 85 percent of all children have been placed with a close family member.

NEWINGTON — When Talia Maselli envisioned her perfect prom date, one man immediately sprang to mind: Vice President Joe Biden. “Joe Biden makes me laugh,” the Maselli said. “He just cracks me up.” So she mailed Biden a handwritten note last fall asking him to escort her to the Newington High School prom. “I am inviting you so far in advance because I’m sure many 17-year-old girls send you prom invitations, and I had to beat them to it,” Maselli said in her letter. “I could only tolerate a high school dance if I was to be escorted by the...

The New Yorker's Evan Osnos has been working on a profile about Vice President Biden for months, and it finally published this week -- with a big focus on the vice president's role in the Ukraine crisis. Osnos conducted many interviews with Biden -- and even talked to President Obama. You should read the whole thing -- especially since the New Yorker archives are now open for browsing this summer -- but here's a look at some of the most interesting tidbits. As the wars in the Middle East have ended, Biden has shifted to smaller foreign policy priorities, although...

President Barack Obama said Joe Biden would make a "superb" president, but questioned whether his vice president or potential rival Hillary Clinton would want to endure another campaign for the White House, a media report Monday said. Obama, in an interview with the New Yorker, said Biden "has seen the job up close, he knows what the job entails. He understands how to separate what's really important from what's less important. I think he's got great people skills. He enjoys politics, and he's got important relationships up on the Hill (in Congress) that would serve him well." "Joe would be...

From reducing student loan debt to expanding voter rights to dealing with the scourge of violent crime, liberals have laid out an ambitious agenda for the waning years of the Obama presidency. At a day-long summit Wednesday organized by Generation Progress, the youth division of the influential Washington-based think tank Center for American Progress, speakers such as Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi articulated their goals to a Washington audience of more than 1,000. Here are five issues that came up again and again at the Make Progress National Summit, and the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on Thursday it appeared that the downing of a Malaysian airliner near the Ukraine-Russia border was not an accident and that the passenger jet apparently was "blown out of the sky." "This is truly a grave situation," Biden said in a speech in Detroit. He said he had seen reports that Americans may have been on board and that "we're now working every minute to try to confirm those reports as I speak." Biden said the downing of the jet was tragic. He spoke by phone to Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko.

It appears Vice President Joe Biden admitted that President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign slogan of “hope and change” never happened. Speaking during a Generation Progress event Wednesday, Biden told the crowd that he and Obama tried for change in 2008. “Look folks, this is within our power to change. Everybody says because we tried in ’08 and it didn’t happen, it’s not possible,” Biden said.

The surge of Latin American children trying to cross the U.S. border threatens to strain states’ resources and is testing their already fragile relationship with Washington, governors from both parties warned Friday. As they gathered here for a meeting of the National Governors Association, the state leaders seethed at what they said was a lack of support and information from the federal government. The border crisis was on the tip of nearly every governor’s tongue in the early part of their meeting here, yet the group passed on the chance to grill Vice President Joe Biden on the subject when...

A new Zogby Analytics poll of likely Republican primary voters in 2016 shows Rand Paul starting to build a lead over better known – and more establishment – GOP figures. In the poll, Rand polls 20%, followed by “Establishment” candidates New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush with 13% each. In fourth place is Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker with 8%, then Florida Senator Marco Rubio 7%, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindahl 4%, and New Mexico Governor Suzanna Martinez, Ohio Governor John Kasich, and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley all with 1% each. Rand does well among all...

Vice President Joe Biden on Friday condemned the political gridlock crippling Washington, calling on Republican and Democratic governors alike to lead the nation “out of this mess” while insisting that Congress approve billions of dollars to repair the country’s aging infrastructure. “The way things have gotten today, and I’m not singling out any party or any group of people—the politics, the culture in Washington, it’s become too personal, it’s too corrosive,” Biden said during a meeting of the National Governors Association. “I think you’ve got to lead us out of this mess we’re in.” …

<p>Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2008, is advocating the impeachment of President Barack Obama. “It’s time to impeach,” she wrote, “and on behalf of American workers and legal immigrants of all backgrounds, we should vehemently oppose any politician on the left or right who would hesitate in voting for articles of impeachment.”</p>

Everybody on the Left, and Brit Hume at Fox, has tried to blame Bush for the 2008 law which contained a little-known requirement preventing the fast deportation of kids. Not true. Biden was behind it. He secretly and sinisterly perverted what was supposed to be a standard renewal of a Bill Clinton sex trafficking law that had nothing to do with illegal immigration, in order to help create the very situation we now have. In other words, he added a loophole specifically to flood the country with new, young, undeportable, future Democrat voters.

Vice president Joe Biden has disparaged gun-rights advocates as “tea baggers,” CNN host John Walsh told reporters today. ... ‘They’re all scared sh*tless of the NRA, aren’t they?’” (said John Walsh) “‘John, every one of them,’” the vice president replied, according to Walsh. “‘Because the NRA will run a tea-bagger against you. . . . They’ll put 5 million bucks against you.’”

On Friday, Vice President Joe Biden used an Independence Day celebration and speech in Philadelphia to compare gay marriage to the Civil Rights Movement and push for more gay marriage. According to The Hill, "[Biden] said he was reminded of two Philadelphias, one where the Declaration of Independence was signed 238 years ago and the other in Mississippi where civil rights workers were murdered in June 1964, two weeks before President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act." After saying that the two Philadelphias helped give meaning to the words “all men are created equal," Biden reportedly said that gay...

So, the Won’s are stiffing Hillary, Bill and Joey in favor of a mini-me ideologue of dubious provenance. Who, other than see-all, know-it-all mirror, could have seen that one coming? And I don’t mind saying I told you so because it gives me an opportunity to do summer reruns from the vault.From June 15, 2012: Channeling our inner Cherokee: a social contract story “You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us...

<p>"The crisis now gripping Iraq and the Middle East was not only predictable but predicted — and preventable. By looking the other way and unconditionally supporting and arming Maliki, President Obama has only lengthened and expanded the conflict that President Bush unwisely initiated. Iraq is now a failed state, and as countries across the Middle East fracture along ethno-sectarian lines, America is likely to emerge as one of the biggest losers of the new Sunni-Shiite holy war, with allies collapsing and radicals plotting another 9/11."</p>

Three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and killed by Hamas. One of those teenagers was also an American citizen. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Hamas would pay for kidnapping and killing three innocent teenagers who were hitchhiking home. US President Barack Hussein Obama, the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, urged restraint. The world is becoming a dangerous place for Americans. Obama recently traded five top al Qaeda leaders for one American deserter, making American troops, State Department personnel and any other employee of the American government in the Middle East or Afghanistan a target for...

Vice President Biden is doing everything he can to make sure people don’t forget that it’s not just Hillary Clinton who has an interest in the White House in 2016. He does, too. After Clinton struggled to contain criticism of her lofty personal finances, there was Biden last week, highlighting his every-man status.

Vice President Joe Biden said during a speech on Tuesday that protecting gay rights trumps national cultures and social traditions, as President Barack Obama's administration continues promoting LGBT rights around the world. "I don't care what your culture is," Biden told about 100 guests at the Naval Observatory's vice presidential mansion, The Associated Press reported. "Inhumanity is inhumanity is inhumanity. Prejudice is prejudice is prejudice." He added that the cause is a "defining mark of a civilized nation" and met with a number of religious, human rights and HIV health care advocates in a forum dedicated to promoting gay rights...

ienna (AFP) - Coinciding with a visit to Vienna by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian energy giant Gazprom on Tuesday signed a deal with Austria's OMV approving the EU country's section of the controversial South Stream pipeline. The crisis in Ukraine has made the planned pipeline bringing Siberian gas to the European Union -- bypassing Ukraine -- a new focus of tensions between Moscow, Brussels and Washington. EU member Bulgaria earlier this month said it was suspending work on building its section of the multi-billion-euro (-dollar) project following pressure from the EU and the United States. The European Commission has...

<p>VIENNA (AP) — The U.S. is trying to derail a project to build a gas pipeline that bypasses Ukraine to supply Europe, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday after Russian and Austrian energy firms agreed to build the pipeline's western end.</p>

Seeking to mobilize a global front against anti-gay violence and discrimination, Vice President Joe Biden declared Tuesday that protecting gay rights is a defining mark of a civilized nation and must trump national cultures and social traditions. Biden told a gathering of U.S. and international gay rights advocates that President Barack Obama has directed that U.S. diplomacy and foreign assistance promote the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender men and women around the world "I don't care what your culture is," Biden told about 100 guests at the Naval Observatory's vice presidential mansion. "Inhumanity is inhumanity is inhumanity. Prejudice...

The U.S. should elect a female president "as soon as possible," first lady Michelle Obama said Monday. "You know, I think this country is ready — this country is ready for anyone who can do that job," the first lady said while speaking at a working families summit in Washington. Obama said the country had learned a president didn't need to have a particular race, gender, or background. "The person who should do the job is the person who is most qualified — and we have some options, don't we?" Obama said, drawing loud applause. While the first lady's comments...

Can Democrats running in 2016 give the fake class warfare a rest? First Hillary claimed that she left the White House broke (and bought two mansions) and that after making $100 million she’s not truly well off. Now, never one to let his foot leave his mouth for too long, Joe Biden had to jump in and cry poverty. Hoping to establish credibility with the audience, which was gathered to discuss ways to improve working conditions for working families, Biden reminded people that he used to be the poorest member in Congress (in reality, the poorest member of the Senate)...

At a White House summit for working families Monday, Vice PresidentJoseph R. Biden tried to relate to the audience by calling himself “the poorest man in Congress.” While acknowledging that he was wearing “a mildly expensive suit,” Mr. Biden said he’s not as wealthy as most of his peers in Washington. “I don’t own a single stock or bond,” Mr. Biden said to laughter. “I have no savings accounts. But I got a great pension and I got a good salary.” Mr. Biden and wife Jill reported $407,009 in adjusted gross income in 2013, including $230,700 for his salary as...

Admits to lack of savings, desire to subsist on six-figure government pension Vice President Joe Biden plans on relying solely on taxpayers to fund his retirement. Biden declared that he had neither a savings account, nor any stocks to pay off his golden years on Monday. “I have no savings account, but I have a great pension and a great salary,” Biden told the crowd at the White House Summit on Working Families. Biden proudly admitted that he was “the poorest member of Congress” over his four-decade career in Washington. The line garnered laughs and applause at the plush Omni...

In a feeble attempt to stem the deluge of illegal immigrants crossing the U.S. border, the Obama administration Friday dispatched Vice President Joe Biden to Guatemala to talk tough to regional leaders. Instead, the man renowned for sticking his foot in his mouth sent a decidedly mixed message. In meeting with Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina, Salvadoran President Sanchez Ceren and senior officials from Mexico and Honduras, Biden said families would be detained at the border and that the “vast majority” would be sent home. But at a televised news conference later in the day, Biden said if the illegals...

During a media picnic at his official residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., Vice President Joe Biden had this to say to gathered journalists: “Anybody who writes a bad story about me is dead,” he announced, bearing that familiar grin.

Washington DC: Vice President Joe Biden is chasing a bunch of kids with a water gun, no wait, they have started chasing him and the 71-year-old vice president is still fleet of foot. Now he’s telling the kids to turn the guns on the adults and they oblige and we all get drenched. If you want to know why those around Joe Biden love the VP so much then attend his annual summer barbecue at his residence in the grounds of the Naval Observatory in Washington and you will soon find out. Dozens of kids, staffers and adults were present...

Captain Firaz Jacob knows he may well be mounting a last stand at the frontiers of the Christian settlement of Bartella on the outskirts of Mosul. Less than a mile down the road are the jihadists of Isis, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, and the portly, middle-aged Mr Jacob is aware that his home-grown militia are outnumbered.

Vice President Joe Biden inadvertently offered U.S. citizenship to thousands, or even tens of thousands, of illegal immigrants from Central America — even though he was trying to persuade them to not cross the border. “We’re going to hold hearings with our judges consistent with international law and American law, and we’re going to send the vast majority of you back,” he said during a June 20 press press conference in Guatemala. But “vast majority” is not “all.” So Biden’s statement says the U.S. will award the Grand Prize in human life — ‘U.S. citizenship for you and all your...

As Iraq edges toward chaos, Joe Biden is having a quiet I-told-you-so moment. In 2006, Biden was a senator from Delaware gearing up for a presidential campaign when he proposed that Iraq be divided into three semi-independent regions for Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. Follow his plan, he said, and U.S. troops could be out by early 2008. Ignore it, he warned, and Iraq would devolve into sectarian conflict that could destabilize the whole region. The Bush administration chose to ignore Biden. Now, eight years later, the vice president’s doom-and-gloom prediction seems more than a little prescient. …

The United States must respect the “universal rights” of the tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors illegally entering the country, according to the Salvadoran ambassador to the United States. “We understand the concern of the U.S. government about the issue of immigration. We are aware that the phenomenon is not a stranger to electoral considerations; however, we must not ignore the fact that children detained at the border have universal rights that should be given priority over the interests of an expedient solution,” Rubén Zamora, the ambassador of El Salvador to the United States, wrote in a Miami Herald op-ed...

Vice President Biden spoke today with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Iraqi Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi, and President of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region Masoud Barzani. The United States has been working to support the Iraqi government and all of Iraq's communities in their common fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The Vice President discussed the security situation, the U.S. assistance currently being provided to Iraqi security forces, and additional measures that could be taken under the Strategic Framework Agreement. In each call, the Vice President also stressed the need for national unity in responding...

The US is reported to have demanded the resignation of Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki as a condition for US military intervention. The Wall Street Journal says the US has signalled its desire for unity government in Iraq without Maliki. Maliki's government has rejected calls for the prime minister to quit. His spokesman, Zuhair al-Nahar, said the west should focus instead on providing immediate military help to the Iraqi government.

Terror Group ISIS Declares Guns Illegal in Parts of Iraq They Control June 16 2014 by Dan Cannon Share This Post isis If you’re a terror group attempting a coup of an unstable country what’s the last thing you want to see? Probably citizens gathering and taking up arms against you. You may be able to scare some uniformed members of Iraq’s military who may not believe in their cause anyway, but eventually enough people are going to get fed up, organize, and fight back. ISIS (The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) looks like they are attempting to nip...

( Bit late for that, Joe: Biden to 'emphasize' that illegal immigration of children to US is against the law and 'not safe' ) Vice President Joe Biden will meet with senior representatives of Latin American countries this week to 'emphasize that illegal immigration is not safe' and clear up 'misconceptions' about the U.S.'s policy on child immigration, a senior White House official said Sunday. The senior official told reporters on a conference call that a visit to Guatemala had been added to Biden's schedule last-minute so that he could meet with representatives of the governments of Guatemala, Honduras and...

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As Ukrainian protesters rallied against the Kremlin-backed government, were killed by government forces and weathered a subsequent Russian invasion, President Obama left it up to Vice President Joe Biden to directly communicate with the Ukrainian government. Obama even went so far as a skip a national security meeting on the Russian invasion at the beginning of March, which Biden joined via teleconference. Now, it appears that foreign policy methodology is playing out again in Iraq. Last night, the White House announced that Biden had jumped on the phone with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan “regarding the security situation around Mosul, Iraq,...

US Vice President Joe Biden suggested Germany was hostile towards immigrants in a speech on Tuesday, in which he described the US as the only "non-xenophobic" major economy in the world. In the speech in Washington DC at the National Association of Manufacturers' annual summit, Biden said the US needed to reform immigration policy to maintain its competitive edge. “We have to pass an anti-immigration bill. Look at Germany. Look at the rest of the world. We're the only non-xenophobic nation in the world that's a major economy,” he said. However, the facts would seem to disagree with Biden's thoughts...

On Larry King Live last night, Vice President Joe Biden said Iraq "could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You're going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You're going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government." The vice president said he’d been to Iraq 17 times and visits the country every three months or so. "I know every one of the major players in all the segments of that society" he said. "It's impressed me. I've been impressed how they have...

Vice President Biden painted a rosy picture of the outlook for U.S. businesses Tuesday, but said economic growth hinges in large part on immigration reform, now languishing in Congress. “We need it badly from a purely – purely economic point of view,” Biden said during remarks to the National Association of Manufacturers. The call came amid a wide-ranging address to the business group, in which Biden said the United States is better positioned than its rivals to compete in the global marketplace. “We have the most resilient economy in the world,” Biden told hundreds of people gathered at the business...

Vice President Joseph R. Biden told a National Association of Manufacturers’ crowd this week that what the United States needed was more, not fewer, immigrants. Specifically, he called for a “constant, unrelenting stream” of new immigrants — “not dribbling [but] significant flows,” to bolster the national economy, The Hill reported.

In the last 17 months since the U.S. government financially blacklisted the Haqqani Network, one of the deadliest insurgent groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan, not a single dollar associated with the group has been blocked or frozen, according to U.S. officials and one of the Congressman who oversees the Treasury Department’s financial war on terrorism. But it’s not just the Haqqanis—an ally today in the Taliban’s fight against U.S. troops and the Afghan government—who seem to have been spared from America’s economic attacks. According to a Treasury Department letter written in late November, not a single dollar been seized from...

WASHINGTON — Vice President Joe Biden defended the economic recovery and admitted that the White House never promised high paying jobs. “We’ve grown and made sure no one got left behind. No one got left behind,” Biden said Wednesday at a jobs event sponsored by the think tank Third Way. “We didn’t guarantee that every new job was going to be a high-paying job.”

Vice President Joe Biden tells University of Delaware graduates they’re stepping into a rapidly changing world that presents profound dangers and challenges as well as incredible opportunities. […] Biden says the threats the world faces include international terrorism, pandemic disease, climate change and global inequity. But he said Americans have always risen to challenges…

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Under a blazing sun, Vice President Joe Biden challenged graduating Air Force Academy cadets on Wednesday to help create a “new world order for the 21st century.”

Did you happen to catch America’s big talent show yesterday? No, I don’t mean American Idol or The Voice.  I note, however, that in both cases the white boys won, despite the fact they were not the most talented. Talk about a war on women; the Republicans obviously found a way to suppress the votes.Nor am I talking about the mid-morning talent show where BO demonstrated his two most awesome talents, teleprompter reading and dancing – simultaneously! Wow! When Big Guy humbly noted back in 2008 “Harry, I have a gift,” I bet even old Harry had no idea how...

I watched this video and was left wondering . . . WHAT EXACTLY IS GOING ON HERE??

Revelations that Hunter Biden and Aleksander Kwasniewski serve on the board of a company controlled by a Yanukovych ally raise serious conflict of interest questions for Western countries’ Ukraine policy. DONETSK, Ukraine — U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s youngest son has joined the board of a gas company owned by an ally of Ukraine’s fugitive ex-president Viktor Yanukovych and a key European interlocutor with Kiev who was previously president of Poland. The move raises questions about a potential conflict of interest for Joe Biden, who was the White House’s main interlocutor with Yanukovych while the latter was president and has...