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Air Force Two, a modified Boeing 757 government airplane carrying Vice President Joe Biden, struck birds Thursday night as it was landing at Santa Barbara Airport in California, an administration official told ABC News. The plane touched down safely without further incident, allowing Biden to continue on his itinerary, officials said. Biden was The bird strike damaged the official plane making it unable to return to Washington, DC. It’s engines were later seen under inspection by mechanics on the airport tarmac. “The Vice President left Santa Barbara this afternoon as scheduled, aboard an alternate U.S. Air Force aircraft,” the official...

Biden: Al Franken is a 'leading legal scholar' byJoel Gehrke Commentary Staff Writer Share on email Share on print Follow on Twitter: Vice President Joe Biden described former Saturday Night Live comedian, Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., as a "leading legal scholar," presumably in the Senate, today. "He has been one of the leading legal scholars," Biden said of Franken today, according to the pool report. He also said that Franken "is deadly serious" as a senator. He made the comments while recalling concerns that then-candidate Franken could not be taken seriously as a Senate candidate given his SNL work. Franken's...

Vice President Joe Biden said the death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin should prompt a debate about gun laws, particularly the state’s “Stand Your Ground” statute. “It’s important that people be put in a position where their Second Amendment rights are protected, but that they also don’t, as a consequence of the laws, unintendedly put themselves in harm’s way,” Biden said in an interview broadcast Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Biden, a former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said any such discussion would be a state issue, not a federal one. Still, he expressed doubt over the idea...

NEW ORLEANS – BP says oil has stopped leaking into the Gulf for the first time since April.

doug -- We've got a fight on our hands. Powerful insurance companies are pulling out all the stops to defeat the President's plan for health reform. They're spending seven million bucks a week on lobbyists, blanketing the country with deceptive TV ads, and just funded two high-profile "reports" to distort what reform would mean for you. I know their game. I was in the Senate the last time health reform came around, and I saw the special interests savage our efforts. Frankly, under the old rules of Washington they were nearly impossible to beat. But now, thanks to you, the...

WASHINGTON — Vice President Joe Biden cited more positive economic data on Tuesday, using it to buttress the Obama administration's argument that its $787 billion stimulus program is doing its job and revving up the economy. "I can tell you today, without reservation, the Recovery Act is working," Biden told reporters after a White House meeting about the stimulus program with members of the administration's economic team. President Barack Obama was not present. Nearly six months after Obama signed the stimulus program into law, the administration is trying to counter criticism, as well as perceptions, that the program has failed...

Face-lifts, tummy tucks and hair transplants could be hit with a new tax to help finance the trillion-dollar healthcare overhaul plan, according to sources familiar with the Senate talks. The Senate Finance Committee has discussed imposing a 10 percent excise tax on cosmetic surgery deemed unnecessary for medical purposes. The idea was broached in a meeting with OMB Director Orszag in mid-July, after which Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus told reporters he had heard some "interesting," "creative," and "kind of fun" ideas. The tax, which has not been officially scored, would plug some of the revenue gap senators are seeking...

Vice President Biden dropped the hammer - if not the sickle - on Russia in a new interview Saturday, leaving the Kremlin "perplexed" about U.S. policy toward the former Soviet Union. In a Wall Street Journal interview published Saturday, Biden teed off on everything from Russia's "withering economy" to its "significant loss of face" on the international stage. He flatly said Russia should not expect the U.S. to accept any attempt to establish a "sphere of influence" over other states and that it's in Russia's interest to shrink its nuclear stockpile. "All of a sudden, did they have an epiphany...

The Record had a chance to ask about an environmental group’s complaint that Amtrak would not be able to use the new Hudson River tunnel – which is benefitting from a provision of the stimulus bill increasing the Federal Transit Administration’s debt limit -- because it doesn’t go to Penn Station.

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - Vice President Joe Biden said on Wednesday he expected the final draft of the nearly $800 billion economic stimulus bill in Congress to attract support from Republicans who did not vote for it earlier. Congress and the Obama administration reached a deal on Wednesday on a $789 billion economic stimulus package that mixes tax cuts and new government spending to boost the faltering economy. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said a final vote on the bill could come as early as Thursday. Biden told a news conference in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, he was confident the measure would...

Pity poor Joe Biden. His "there's still a 30 percent chance we're going to get it wrong" quote is put straight to President Barack Obama during the White House press conference just now and his boss seemed to want to say: "Vice-President Who?" As reporters started giggling, Obama came close to conceding that Biden was indeed a joke. "You know, I don't remember exactly what Joe was referring to, not surprisingly." The President went on to say that "I think what Joe may have been suggesting, although I wouldn't ascribe any numerical percentage to any of this, is that given...

Vice President-Elect Joe Biden said the U.S. economy is in danger of "absolutely tanking" and will need a second stimulus package in the $600-billion to $700-billion range. "The economy is in much worse shape than we thought it was in," Biden told me during an exclusive interview -- his first since becoming vice president-elect-- to air this Sunday on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." "There is no short run other than keeping the economy from absolutely tanking. That's the only short run," Biden told me. Biden said he has canvassed Republican and Democratic members of Congress about a second "big"...

US Vice President-elect Joe Biden has said he will be restoring the office of the Vice President to its historical role as adviser to the president and tie-breaker in the Senate. There has been confirmation that the new Congress will reassert its constitutional independence from the White House by barring the vice president from joining in internal Senate deliberations. Elizabeth Alexander, a spokesperson for the vice president-elect, said Biden would not continue the practice started by current Vice President, Dick Cheney of regularly attending internal legislative branch meetings. Cheney has vastly enlarged the office's power, even claiming at one point...

NOTE: for those who don't know, Gwen Ifill, who will be the debate mod for the Palin/Hairplugs debate on Thursday, has a book coming out at about Inauguration time in January about Obama. I'm sure she won't be at all biased. Right? ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Gwen Ifill Breaks Ankle - The Show Will Go On Our sister site TVNewser broke the story that Gwen Ifill, the moderator of the upcoming vice presidential debate this Thursday broke her ankle yesterday due to a misstep. Now she can have something in common with the two candidates she's moderating...the missteps...ahem. Word is she is still...

Joe Biden, by far the lowest profile member in the club of four now seeking the White House, lashed out on CNN's American Morning today, at economic policies that he says are killing the American Middle Class. Below are a couple quotes from the show (and let's face it, they're Biden quotes, so they're long). When asked what he and Barack Obama would do to fix the current economic mess, he said: "Create jobs, keep people in their homes and increase regulatory oversight of the very people John has refused to regulate. And by creating job, we'd spend $600 billion...

Remarks by Senator Joe Biden--as prepared for delivery The Case for Change Eight years ago, a man ran for President who claimed he was different, not a typical Republican. He called himself a reformer. He admitted that his Party, the Republican Party, had been wrong about things from time to time. He promised to work with Democrats and said he'd been doing that for a long time. That candidate was George W. Bush. Remember that? Remember the promise to reach across the aisle? To change the tone? To restore honor and dignity to the White House? We saw how that...

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — The vice presidential nominee you aren't hearing so much about, Democrat Joe Biden, is planning a more prominent role to help validate Barack Obama among white working-class voters and criticize the Republican rival he's long called a friend. Republican running mate Sarah Palin is soaking up the campaign spotlight with magazine covers and joint rallies with John McCain that draw thousands, while Biden has had a more traditional role of second fiddle to the man at the top of the ticket. But the campaign envisions a new role for its No. 2 in helping make the...

Sen. Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, have given an average of $369 per year to charities during the past decade, according to tax returns posted today to Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign Web site. Senator Biden, the Democratic nominee for vice president, claimed $995 in charitable gifts in 2007 on the joint return with his wife. That figure is 0.3 percent of the couple’s claimed income of nearly $320,000. The 2007 contributions were significantly higher than the couple’s gifts in previous years, which ranged from $120 to $380. By comparison, Sen. John McCain, the Republican Presidential nominee, in 2007 reported...

Hair Plugs Cause Rare Infection August 28, 2001 - New York, NY When Dr. Bruce E. Hirsch saw the 44-year-old man, he was ``about as sick as possible.'' The cause? A hair plug gone awry. ``It's very rare, but...this poor guy had a hair transplant done in a dermatologist's office in New Jersey and gets a lot of bleeding,'' recalls Hirsch, an internist at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, New York. ``He had septic shock, which went to his lungs and made holes there.'' As more and more men turn to hair plugs as a surgical antidote to baldness,...

In case the American voting population may have forgotten, there is another vice presidential nominee out there. His name is Joe Biden. He could be the equivalent of the Professor and Mary Ann in the first year of Gilligan’s Island where they were just referred to as “the rest” in the popular sitcom theme song. But as “Island” fans will remember, in season two they were given their proper billing at the end of the song. Back in the saddle Just like the forgotten duo, Joe Biden is back and getting his proper recognition. Why? Well, it’s because of Sarah...