The Biden Administration (No Lago)

[MGuy]

Maybe it's things like 'Biden is a center right corporate shill' being easily disputed by voting records.

VoteView.Com.

Here's another source that scores Biden on his level of conservativism.

A score of 0.00 would be 'center'. A score of +1 would be as conservative as possible. A score of -1 would be as liberal as possible. They score Biden -.326. That would be 'left of center'. It's also left of the Democratic Center mean. And it's from 2008. Sanders has a -.529.

The only way comments like that can be squared is you're using a definition of 'center' to mean 'whatever Bernie Sanders believes'.

As happy as I'd be to actually argue over whether or not Biden is a corpo shill and how little I believe voting along party lines gives a good estimation of one's politics (right or left leaning) the point of all that was to show I wasn't lying about what occurred or the reason it did. As I said in the post you must have read I'd be happy to have that argument. Hit me up or start a thread about it. I don't care which. I'm more than willing to repeat all the same arguments I made. But 1) This isn't the thread for that and 2) That wasn't the point of that post. I already went through the motions on what my stance is and why in that conversation and it ended well after the pointlessness of the exchange became apparent. If you want to have a similar conversation be my guest but let's not pretend you and YLM are doing anything other than threadshitting at this point. I spoilered that for a reason. I am not above having pointless arguments with people who want to contest my beliefs but if you're going to do so really commit to it.

[deaddmwalking]

You're right - I am threadshitting. Because even though the title is 'the Biden Administration', the actual content is 'why Biden is more evil than Satan' and those appear to be the only welcome opinions. So my entire point in posting in the first place (as I said in my original post) was to point out that consensus opinion in this thread is far from a consensus opinion in this world.

You know, in case you were experiencing the detrimental effects of group-think in an echo-chamber of your own making. But I do agree with ...You Lost Me that this thread really concentrates a lot of the hyperbolic vitriol that was destroying these boards. So carry on, twats!

[PhoneLobster]

Do you really think that criticizing the actions of Biden destroys the gaming den?

Not, you know, failed vitriolic bullying on obviously dishonest terms attempting to silence that.

DeadDM, it's you singing along to the "love me I'm a liberal" song which hurts this community. It is not an effective political position, it is not a helpful thing for community bonding, it is also, and this you really need to understand, not a thing that will ever make anyone even slightly left of Ronald Reagan ever love you.

Not that peoples political opinions or discussions within a segregated section of the forum explicitly for that AND a segregated thread within that explicitly for talking about what Biden is actually doing should be limited by it hurting your feelings personally or your (completely shallow, selfish and one sided) ideas of what helps the community.

But certainly jumping onto this thread and trying to shut it down in the way you are now very clearly and dishonestly trying to do because you cannot even face people discussing the facts of just what Biden's actual actions are (or even will be since it's barely started yet). Don't you think trying to literally shut down all discussion you find uncomfortable might be I don't know actually the thing that hurts a community trying to have discussions?

[MGuy]

You're right - I am threadshitting. Because even though the title is 'the Biden Administration', the actual content is 'why Biden is more evil than Satan' and those appear to be the only welcome opinions. So my entire point in posting in the first place (as I said in my original post) was to point out that consensus opinion in this thread is far from a consensus opinion in this world.

You know, in case you were experiencing the detrimental effects of group-think in an echo-chamber of your own making. But I do agree with ...You Lost Me that this thread really concentrates a lot of the hyperbolic vitriol that was destroying these boards. So carry on, twats!

So when someone posts about what 'the world believes' I translate that to mean what the person believes the world believes. I'm really sure that most of the world's opinion of our politics is that it is dumb and incomprehensible. I do not believe that you actually desire to speak for the world. You also definitely didn't post for my benefit because in this very thread I explicitly talk about people who don't agree with me. Hell the argument with PL was about the proliferation of voters of your ilk exist in such numbers that there's no reason for Dems to fear the party collapsing. Even if it was supposed to be for me that would clearly not be the rhetoric you would use to move me. So don't put your threadshit on me. You're threadshitting because the existence of this thread offends you personally.

If you wanted whatever your idea of a better political discussion is on these boards you'd have joined hands with YLM and started that thread. You didn't. YLM hasn't. Make it, ban the people you don't like from it. That remains the big evil gotcha I have for you. If you want to see a thing happen push to make it happen.

[Kaelik]

You're right - I am threadshitting. Because even though the title is 'the Biden Administration', the actual content is 'why Biden is more evil than Satan' and those appear to be the only welcome opinions. So my entire point in posting in the first place (as I said in my original post) was to point out that consensus opinion in this thread is far from a consensus opinion in this world.

You know, in case you were experiencing the detrimental effects of group-think in an echo-chamber of your own making. But I do agree with ...You Lost Me that this thread really concentrates a lot of the hyperbolic vitriol that was destroying these boards. So carry on, twats!

How does DeadDM know that this thread is about how Biden is as evil as Satan?

He doesn't read any of my posts! He can't let himself! So he doesn't know what most of the thread it about!

Or does he open his ignore, read each post in the thread, and then still not address a single concrete example of a bad thing about the Biden administration to show why it is a) false, or b) actually not as bad as I have described it.

Obviously it seems like the first thing, he doesn't read the thread, but that does tend to make criticisms of it even more obviously false then when Grek shows up and literally tells him that he's wrong about the thread he doesn't read.

But also Mguy is correct, imagine being a democrat in the US and thinking the WORLD agrees with you. Most of the world would really like you to stop bombing them or couping them or funding death squads! The parts not being bombed also think you suck because you don't want people to have healthcare. Feel free to crow on a daily basis about how the United States population supports continuing to do all the harm you love, but probably avoid citing a world opinion.

[Grek]

To clarify, I actually AM blaming Biden for not making noises about Medicare For All.

He's been handed a popular mandate to give all of the stuff Obama wanted to do with the Affordable Care Act a second go around, but appears to be doing absolutely nothing with said mandate. I'm not even expecting him to actually do a good job of it, I'm just deeply frustrated that he is too busy trying to spite the AOC wing of the party to even consider trying for the parts of M4A that would involve meritless political handouts to insurance companies. It's the same feeling that I'd get if I rolled up to a Taco Bell, fully expecting to come to regret the decisions I was about to make, only to find the manager pouring the last of the taco shells into the trash while yelling at the line cooks and saying that America isn't ready for mandatory employee hand washing and that it'll be a cold day in hell before he starts providing hand sanitizer in the employee restrooms.

[Kaelik]

To clarify, I actually AM blaming Biden for not making noises about Medicare For All.

He's been handed a popular mandate to give all of the stuff Obama wanted to do with the Affordable Care Act a second go around, but appears to be doing absolutely nothing with said mandate. I'm not even expecting him to actually do a good job of it, I'm just deeply frustrated that he is too busy trying to spite the AOC wing of the party to even consider trying for the parts of M4A that would involve meritless political handouts to insurance companies. It's the same feeling that I'd get if I rolled up to a Taco Bell, fully expecting to come to regret the decisions I was about to make, only to find the manager pouring the last of the taco shells into the trash while yelling at the line cooks and saying that America isn't ready for mandatory employee hand washing and that it'll be a cold day in hell before he starts providing hand sanitizer in the employee restrooms.

I uh... don't think "the parts of the affordable care act Obama wanted to do but couldn't" or "parts of M4A that would involve meritless handouts to insurance companies" fall under M4A. I think M4A clearly means single payer at this point in all political discussions.

That being said, I too am mad that Biden who campaigned on how we don't need M4A because a public option with auto enrollment for poor people and also free for poor people was all we really needed, has, as soon as he won the election, just never mentioned the public option again.

I'm just not even remotely surprised, because Obama ALSO ran on a public option and then immediately dropped it shortly after taking office. I was always expecting Biden to never even try for the public option even once so this change has not surprised me at all. Therefore I haven't brought it up in this thread the way I have concrete decisions like cabinet picks or surprises like "we aren't going to do anything about concentration camps for a while."

[Whatever]

2) "getting Vaccines out to everyone" is exactly what Trump was doing and would have done, hence "Trump but with masks" because the funding for vaccines already came in the COVID bills that Trump signed and people are already getting the vaccine right now under Trump.

The distribution of the vaccine is going terribly because states are wasting time and resources trying to pick the most deserving vaccine recipients in extremely granular and mostly pointless ways. At the current rate we would vaccinate the entire country in 7 years. Many doses are likely to expire.

It's almost like there's a difference between shitty Republican vaccination plans that leave everything up to the states, and shitty Democratic vaccination plans that contemplate any role at all for the federal government.

But no, anyone who says that we'll vaccinate has exactly the same plan for what that means. Biden is Trump but with masks. Clearly.

[Kaelik]

2) "getting Vaccines out to everyone" is exactly what Trump was doing and would have done, hence "Trump but with masks" because the funding for vaccines already came in the COVID bills that Trump signed and people are already getting the vaccine right now under Trump.

The distribution of the vaccine is going terribly because states are wasting time and resources trying to pick the most deserving vaccine recipients in extremely granular and mostly pointless ways. At the current rate we would vaccinate the entire country in 7 years. Many doses are likely to expire.

It's almost like there's a difference between shitty Republican vaccination plans that leave everything up to the states, and shitty Democratic vaccination plans that contemplate any role at all for the federal government.

But no, anyone who says that we'll vaccinate has exactly the same plan for what that means. Biden is Trump but with masks. Clearly.

Texas is doing a better at vaccinating people than New York, in part because their governor isn't using it as weirdo fuck off power trip where he keep setting increasingly larger fines for people not obeying him and denying requests to vaccinate form people with the infrastructure to vaccinate.

I don't think "contemplating a role for the federal government" is the issue! I think the issue is that neoliberalism destroyed our infrastructure (at state and federal levels) and our politicians (at state and federal levels) are all absolutely piles of shit who care about a bunch of dumb bullshit more than saving lives. A Joe Biden presidency probably isn't going to improve the vaccination rates because the problems aren't are a consequence of things he's not willing to change.

[Pseudo Stupidity]

I can see two ways Biden's federal involvement could work:

1. He does means testing bullshit at the federal level, making him do a worse job than Trump is currently doing.

2. He declares it a threat to public safety and uses federal agencies to do mass vaccinations. This would be much better than Trump.

Trump sent the army corp of engineers to build dumb shit in the desert, Biden should be able to mobilize the military and any other emergency response orgs to do vaccinations en mass (so long as we have supply). Do I think Biden will actually do the good thing? Eh, probably not. That sounds a little like socialism to me, and how do we know all those people deserve to not die of COVID? Better to do some means testing.

Realistically I think Biden will do nothing to improve it except also release guidelines, a thing Trump's administration also did.

[Kaelik]

I think there's a better than even chance Biden will use the Defense Production Act to order lots more vaccine produced so we can have more of it expire because we can't distribute it because that's the easy flashy thing that doesn't require institutional capacity.

I also think if for some reason there's a virus we need to mass vaccinate against in 2024 Biden will have improved, however slightly, and possibly by a lot, our ability to do so. But building institutional capacity isn't something you can do in the short term and Biden is likely to not want to step in and actually take responsibility for mass vaccinations federally, same as Trump, because that's big scary government and also putting himself on the line. And nothing about Biden's campaign and beginning of his administrative decisions as that he doesn't actually want to be responsible for doing anything.

[Pseudo Stupidity]

I refuse to believe Biden is so dumb as to produce more of the thing we can't distribute. I'll believe it if it happens, but come on. We've got a lot of vaccine! Just have all the people we've got in the military who have medical training go use that training on sticking needles into arms. That's a thing we've done in the past (not specifically for vaccines), isn't it?

Edit: Bonus points if he does it and then has the army corps of engineers build a bunch of hospitals that are then staffed with the military. Use the military as single-payer healthcare, Biden. We all know you're a secret socialist or whatever.

[Kaelik]

I refuse to believe Biden is so dumb as to produce more of the thing we can't distribute. I'll believe it if it happens, but come on. We've got a lot of vaccine! Just have all the people we've got in the military who have medical training go use that training on sticking needles into arms. That's a thing we've done in the past (not specifically for vaccines), isn't it?

Edit: Bonus points if he does it and then has the army corps of engineers build a bunch of hospitals that are then staffed with the military. Use the military as single-payer healthcare, Biden. We all know you're a secret socialist or whatever.

\
It was a promise he made to do it, and it's not like Biden is known for adapting to the situation, so whether he carries through with that promise in January who knows.

[MGuy]

Dealing with the virus is going to be one of the most important things Biden is going to be hanging his term on so I could see him going the extra mile to get something going. As kaelik pointed out the problem is distribution. Right now we are apparently having trouble dispensing the vaccine we have and according to the professionals we are not meeting the kind of thresholds we would need to hit in order to have this thing under control by September. While I do believe that Biden might try harder to deal with the virus than he might on other important issues it's looking like the our healthcare and distribution systems are trash to begin with.

[Kaelik]

Somehow the Biden admin managed to fuck up the one appointment I was sure they were going to nail and has appointed Merrick Garland as AG.

This is....... certainly not the worst choice?

On the one hand, if Garland was too fucking old and selfish and stupid to retire (like all judges are, so it's likely) then at least is clears out an important seat for a Biden appointee who can be 40. That's good.

Garland himself has.... not the worst record when it comes to being AG. I seriously doubt he's up for what we actually need, comprehensive systemic investigation and dismantling of bad actors. But he's certainly better than most people in terms that he actually wanted to go back to working the AG's office when he was doing his private practice stints because he liked the work. His work as AG does include a bunch of kind of bad over emphasis on the belief that the AG's office exists to target people for drug crimes and flashy "terrorism" as opposed to financial crimes and local low grade terrorism that causes more damage, much less what we actually need, the AG's office waging a war against the police. But that was going to be most people. Garland is more of a cop and less of a politician than anyone should ever want as AG.

I want to stress that Doug Jones would have been a lot better and Garland could have just retired. But this is definitely the weirdest fucking pick. He's probably going to be the squishy centrist from the 90s therefore really far right that he was originally picked for by Obama for the SC, but I at least could be surprised by him being a competent administrator who motivates lower attorneys without constraining them.

Head of the Civil Rights Division Kristen Clarke is pretty good.

[Koumei]

Is there a reasonable chance of Garland spite-fucking the Republicans over the SC thing and basically being "the AG that Republicans don't want to have", or is he really comfortable with the centre-right "let's go back to the bad but apparently sensible days that absolutely built towards the mental era" thing?

[Kaelik]

Is there a reasonable chance of Garland spite-fucking the Republicans over the SC thing and basically being "the AG that Republicans don't want to have", or is he really comfortable with the centre-right "let's go back to the bad but apparently sensible days that absolutely built towards the mental era" thing?

I mean I don't know the guy, so anything is possible, but he's worked for republicans before and he was picked by Obama because republicans like him, I seriously doubt he's likely to hold and act on a grudge in a specific way.

[Kaelik]

But I guess while we are talking about a bunch of MAGA raiding the capital and then me criticizing democratic party leaders where I mostly wasn't doing that.

It sure fits here:

"Mr. Biden has said he plans to make a priority of passing a law against domestic terrorism, and he has been urged to create a White House post overseeing the fight against ideologically inspired violent extremists and increasing funding to combat them."

YES! THE EVEN MORE PATRIOT ACT! GIVE THE COPS WHO OPENED DOORS FOR THEM AND GAVE THEM DIRECTIONS TO SCHUMER'S OFFICE MORE MONEY! MORE POWER! IF YOU JUST GIVE THE COPS ENOUGH POWER THEY WILL STOP MURDERING BLACK PEOPLE AND START ARRESTING THEMSELVES WHEN THE OFF DUTY COPS FLASH THEIR BADGES WHILE INVADING THE CAPITAL.

This a bad idea.

A good idea would be to oppose domestic terrorism using non cop solutions. There's a lot you could do by regulating corporate platforms and supporting local deradicalization efforts. You could also use the existing powers of the police state without giving them more to target white supremacists if you could drag them away from violently beating black people who protest long enough to direct them.

But a very bad idea that has never worked ever at disempowering right wing terrorism is to give more money and power to the white supremacist terrorists.

The suppression of the left and protection of the proud boys and right wing militias is on of the major uses of the police state. It's not failing at it's job! It is succeeding.

Any new law against “domestic terrorism” will be applied with the same disparate treatment that we saw in the response to BLM protests as compared to the mob that ransacked the capitol.*

*I literally just stole this sentence word for word from Adam Serwer.

[Kaelik]

Joe Manchin has announced that there will be no $2k checks.

So just in case you were wondering if Democrats have a majority or not, they still don't.

Almost like it's bad to have republicans with Ds in front of their name be an essential part of your campaigning strategy.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

"No there aren't any more checks, and fuck you for asking. Also, we're giving the police apparatus more money for body armor and automatic weapons." - Joe Manchin, maybe

[Kaelik]

Osita Nwanevu still doing the best job of articulating the political moment of anyone.

https://newrepublic.com/article/160864/ ... sh-the-gop

If its party cannot use its majorities to pass significant legislation, progressive activists, donors, and voters will have little reason to take a significant interest in giving it majorities.

[Kaelik]

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 ... 15419/full

Good thing we will be getting that far reaching changes to global capitalism and stopping the use of fossil fuels under the biden admin or else maybe we should all be worried.

[Kaelik]

Some big policy releases.

Unsurprisingly, the Biden economic policies are absolutely dogshit bad. A fucked up focus on the EITC and other horrific poor fucking ways to pretend to care about poverty.

In this case specifically "poor people over 65 need an income tax credit that you only get if you do more work because otherwise they are at a disadvantage relative to younger workers in job search." Which apparently means that younger workers who qualify can work for less money thanks to the EITC, so explicitly supporting the idea of subsidizing low work. Meanwhile, poor old people are actually disadvantaged by being old and people not wanting to hire old people. A solution to that might be to raise the minimum social security benefit, but that would be anti poverty. And Joe Biden isn't anti poverty, he's pro work, even when that means forcing old people to work for too little money.

On the COVID front, I guess we definitely aren't getting 2k checks because Biden is already softballing COVID relief by downgrading the checks to $1400.

$2000 was never the perfectly calculated amount to actually help people suffering a pandemic for an indeterminate period of months, it was just a random number people latched onto. There is no reason to downgrade the amount because people received $600 a month before your COVID relief. People need much more money than the 2k and the 2k number should just be recycled at the absolute minimum. But democrats have to bid against themselves first so that republicans can then negotiate them down from there.

On a more optimistic note, something that actually has nothing to do with Joe Biden, Updated H.R. 1 is a significant improvement over the old H.R. 1 which was also very good. (H.R. 1 is a voting rights bill both for the 2019-2020 and the 2021-2022 sessions because Democrats decide the order of bill introduction.) Now, chances are still very good that the Senate will refuse to abolish the filibuster, or Manchin will personally vote against it, or whatever.

H.R. 1 is very good with somes thing: automatic voter registration, same day registration, online registration, all being made mandatory in all states. Another very good move is that they've added from 2019 a bunch of provisions that make it illegal to do cross checks or other voter purges in the 6 months before the election. A huge upgrade. Another change was added courtesy of the Sanders primary debates about felon disenfranchisement and the Florida voters, still disenfranchised despite a constitutional amendment to allow them to vote. It would be illegal to disenfranchise any person for felony unless they are CURRENTLY SERVING IN A CORRECTION FACILITY after having been found guilty. The caps part is essential because it negates all the bullshit "restitution" poll tax shit and parole issues.

It also has rules mandating ways to inform voters of their right to vote, and they added a rule for felons requiring the state update them on release that they are eligible to vote again.

Obviously the bill does nothing about the electoral college or the senate (because it can't) and it doesn't grant statehood, but aside from that two other problems with it:

1) It should enfranchise immigrants. At a minimum all permanent residents, but truthfully anyone living here.

2) It does nothing about selective poll closings and under polling areas and staffing. It should mandate a specific ratio of poll stations to population as a minimum that can be exceeded to end the "one polling station for the entire city" bullshit.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

"$2000 checks? Where are we going to get the money for $1600 checks, man? We would have to raise taxes on poor people for $1200 checks! This is a pandemic and people are strapped for cash, so taxing them more just to get some $800 checks is bogus, jack. Why are we asking for $400 checks in the first place, anyway?" - Joe Biden, probably

[MGuy]

It is real funny that Biden is going with 1400 dollars. Like on what planet is 'that' the political move you want to make? Haha yea I 'said' 2k very clearly and sure this isn't 2k but but but if you add it up~ you will see that it is 2k.