The Biden Administration (No Lago)

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Wed Jan 20, 2021 5:17 pm

I'm not watching the whole inauguration to find out what song they bastardised.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Jan 20, 2021 5:44 pm

Omegonthesane wrote:I'm not watching the whole inauguration to find out what song they bastardised.

Don't worry, you've probably only ever heard the bastardized version in your life.

It's This Land is Your Land.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Wed Jan 20, 2021 5:45 pm

Vaguely aware of that one. Twitter filled me in.

I've in fact only heard a specific bastardisation of it that was made in Flash for the 2004 general election with Bush and Kerry alternating verses about how "this land will surely vote for me".

The Adventurer's Almanac · Wed Jan 20, 2021 9:57 pm

I remember being a child and my mother showing me that and we both found it hilarious.
Why've you gotta make me feel old, man?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Jan 21, 2021 4:35 am

Biden has issued a 100 day moratorium on deportations. So apparently he doesnt agree with his not yet confirmed appointees who said it would be bad to change trump's border policies.

A moratorium reduces the actual harm and murders our state does for now, but far too often moratoriums just result in work resuming later and his choices for dhs head ect. dont give much hope for those changes.

But this does at least delay harm long enough for a senate that isnt stupid enough to keep the filibuster to do something.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Thu Jan 21, 2021 5:04 am

Other notable executive orders include:
-Rejoins Paris Climate Accords and World Health Organization.
-Assigning Fauci as the head of our WHO delegation.
-Eviction/foreclosure/student loan moratoriums extended.
-Keystone XL, Muslim Ban and Border Wall all cancelled.
-Workplace protections for LBGT+ individuals.
-Mask mandate for federal property.
-DACA is back in effect.
-MPP/"remain in Mexico" program ended.
-Non-citizens to be counted toward 2020 census.

Overall, I'm shocked that Biden is actually doing things.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Jan 21, 2021 5:10 am

Grek wrote:Overall, I'm shocked that Biden is actually doing things.

To be fair most of those are pretty meaningless, but I am pleasantly surprised by the ending Keystone XL, and there are a few others that are obvious but still good.

Whatever · Post by **Whatever** » Thu Jan 21, 2021 5:21 am

Biden is also firing some absolute shitbags (like the NLRB lawyer) who would normally expect to serve out the remainder of their term. Extremely good riddance, and a genuine, if small, sign that he's willing to ignore norms in favor of taking power away from Republicans.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Jan 21, 2021 5:41 am

It looks like there are a few good things here and there, however minor they are overall, and while fighting for better is important, "right now we'll take whatever good news we can get".

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Thu Jan 21, 2021 6:59 am

The temptation to sit back and relax is a powerful one I understand but it is important that it not happen. The brunch thing kaelik mentioned is a meme because of some sign that made the rounds on the internet that some person at a march (I think it was the massive woman's march) would be out you brunch of Clinton were elected which is indicative of an attitude that if democrats are in power that no one needs to make noise about the many many many issues they should have with this system and the outcomes it incentivizes.

I cannot state this often enough but Democrats do not want to do things and will not act unless they believe an overwhelming number of people want them to. Ann's even then they will collectively find a way to excuse themselves from acting. Sure we can give light praise when the Dems do something good but it is hyper important that they never be made to feel like they've done 'enough'. A disturbing number of people really are satisfied just by politicians saying they believe something is important or that they intend to get a team together to 'look into a concern' because, for them, as long as the person says the words then people aren't suffering. Just look at how Biden explicitly said 2k checks (an amount that isn't even enough by itself) and switched up the rhetoric as soon as he could. Look at how many god damn fucking idiots are willing to swallow that uncritically.

It is bad enough that people are treating Biden as if he's a god damned hero for getting elected despite the fact that every big moment in his lifelong career in politics being instrumental in producing the exact kind of conditions someone like Trump can get ahead in. Orange man was bad but let's see this new bad man actually do something effectively worth a damn before putting away the (metaphorical) pitchforks.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Jan 21, 2021 2:01 pm

The Biden admin has officially recognized Juan Guiado as the leader of Venezuela. A guy zero Venezuelans voted for who even the opposition parties abandoned years ago to present a new leader.

But because he was opposition leader during the most recent attempt to unseat Maduro that's who the US has decided to pretend is in charge. This is a consequence of our entire criticism of Venezuela being that all their elections are illegitimate except the ones that favor right wingers. So all the election before and since the election that temporarily put guiado in charge of the national assembly are fake, but that one election was very fair.

Obviously on a moral level unless we are willing to invade the KINGDOM of Saudi Arabia tomorrow we have no moral or legal or even realpolitik reason to refuse to recognize Maduro even if all their elections were fake. But also the elections that Maduro has won so far have been significantly more fair than any us presidential election has ever been. There have been numerous "neutral" audits including from decidedly pro right wing orgs like the OAS that have confirmed that.

There is probably some argument against the calling of the constituent assemblies and whether they can be fairly convened and also maybe some legitimate complaints with the running of the 2020 parliamentary elections. But it is hard to know because they take the form of allegations that cheating would occur, then boycotting the election, which makes it impossible to know if those accusations would have been correct since they just refused to run and vote. (Accusations come from bad faith actors who call for coups on the regular and say every election will be cheated, including the one time they won! They said it would be cheated and then they won and decided it was actually fair. But there are some reasons to think this time it might have been cheated if they actually did run.)

But notice that no part of any of those complaints even if all vindicated would put Guiado in charge since he wasnt even the opposition leader for anything having to do with those elections and all of those elections were not about deciding a president.

But that's america for you. We reserve the right to do coups whenever we want for no reason at all and democrats are literally just as bad as republicans.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Jan 21, 2021 2:50 pm

In extremely boring news about who's fault bad things that happen in the future are, even if those bad things are hopefully very minor.

Democratic senators wanted to move forward on COVID relief through reconciliation and Biden told them no and to work with republicans. Senators see this as a time suck that will inevitably result in them doing reconciliation anyway.

So Biden is directly responsible for both whatever delay occurs, and, if Republicans negotiate the relief down, responsible for that too.

Hopefully delay will be minor and they won't negotiate it down much but who knows.

Just a reminder for like 3 months from now when everyone says Biden has no control over the Senate, he clearly has some control because he just did this to them.

Weird Dumb Thing: Biden apparently kept the part of Trump's Muslim Ban that applies to Sudan.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Jan 21, 2021 7:42 pm

McConnell threatening to filibuster the organizing resolution unless those mean democrats agree to never under any circumstances remove the filibuster.

Which 1) Proves that actually, things are different from 2001 and no democratic concessions are ever going to end republican demands, only giving in to embolden more.

2) Is probably going to blow up in his face and end up with democrats abolishing the filibuster six months before they otherwise would have even considered it.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Jan 21, 2021 10:15 pm

In continuing to not learn lessons land, Biden says he wants to keep on the Trump toady who Trump loves, Wray, as FBI Director.

Because after all, never in our entire history has a Democratic President keeping on the partisan tool of the disgraced former Republican President as FBI head caused any problems for anyone.

Fuck my life.

The FBI just going to keep hunting down and murdering black civil rights activists for sport and we are just going to sign off on it again I see.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Fri Jan 22, 2021 5:39 am

Honestly, McConnell threatening to filibuster if unless they pinky promise to let him filibuster is pretty emblematic of the reasons why we should no longer have a filibuster. And yet, here we are, almost certainly about to see him continue to get away with being an obstreperous blight, both politically and upon the nation's health as a whole.

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Sat Jan 23, 2021 3:41 am

The Democrats probably need McConnell to do an unreasonable filibuster to have a chance of getting Manchin onside. So, bring it on McConnell.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:49 pm

I thought Republicans LIKED firing people at will?

So the anti-labour anti-union heads of "We're supposed to be protecting worker rights but we absolutely don't do that" were fired without just cause (or alternately fired just 'cause), so I imagine they don't like at-will employment right now and would like some kind of union to provide worker protections.

So ha ha ha and also HA.

I wasn't expecting even that much from Biden.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Jan 24, 2021 3:04 pm

Koumei wrote:I thought Republicans LIKED firing people at will?

So the anti-labour anti-union heads of "We're supposed to be protecting worker rights but we absolutely don't do that" were fired without just cause (or alternately fired just 'cause), so I imagine they don't like at-will employment right now and would like some kind of union to provide worker protections.

So ha ha ha and also HA.

I wasn't expecting even that much from Biden.

Revolving Door has been tracking Trump hires that Biden has authority to fire on the understanding that it should be literally 100% of them, and he's done some pretty aggressive firings so far, far more than Obama did to Bush hires.

Still not nearly enough as evidence by him just deciding to keep Trump's Trump loyalist FBI director for god knows what reason.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Jan 24, 2021 11:24 pm

As Biden continues to promise to be better at doing Coups than Trump was, probably worth remembering that the American public is systematically mislead about foreign relations by not just republicans and democrats who both agree about who needs to be couped, but also, by pretty much all of big name media.

https://fair.org/home/dictator-media-co ... dont-like/

Whatever · Post by **Whatever** » Mon Jan 25, 2021 5:46 am

The order: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-roo ... ry-review/

the context: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-or ... ae63002e20

Biden is overhauling regulatory review! There's a lot of good changes, but in particular he wants to replace the old cost/benefit analysis with one that "fully accounts for regulatory benefits that are difficult or impossible to quantify".

In other words, businesses who complain that regulations cost too much can now get fucked.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Mon Jan 25, 2021 11:24 am

I'm legit surprised that Biden went straight into using so many executive orders. I really had the impression he'd want to hold back on that because of all the messaging about acquiescing to Republicans. A good deal of it is related explicitly to COVID, which is fine, and I still believe that it is in his best interest to go above and beyond to make sure that he gets this bugbear off of America's back by being as generous as possible with aid and leveraging the powers of his station.

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Mon Jan 25, 2021 5:37 pm

MGuy wrote:I'm legit surprised that Biden went straight into using so many executive orders.

Totally surprised that Biden did exactly what he would say he would do?

That article is from November 7th.

So maybe you're the only one surprised?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Jan 25, 2021 6:20 pm

deaddmwalking wrote:
MGuy wrote:I'm legit surprised that Biden went straight into using so many executive orders.
Totally surprised that Biden did exactly what he would say he would do?

That article is from November 7th.

So maybe you're the only one surprised?

No one is surprised he issued MORE THAN ONE executive order. (To be clear, your article lists two he was going to do.)

Mguy is expressing surprise that many of the orders are very good and not things he has previously promised to do!

For example, your article about "reversing Trump policies" doesn't cover the executive orders on ending Keystone XL, an Obama policy, or a 100 day moratorium on deportations, which is pretty similar to reversing an Obama policy as well.

It is very funny the amount of absolute sniping on any misphrasing that someone ever makes when they are critical of Biden (or even praising him, but not enough as in this case) by the real Biden Bros as contrasted with the amount of charity we are supposed to extent to say, testimony under oath or in TV interviews or on the campaign trail speeches by Biden or his staff.

I have this weird idea that politicians making campaign promises or talking in interviews should be held to a high standard, but for some reason the people who most object to that also believe that posts on message boards need to be read very literally and mocked if they word themselves badly.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Mon Jan 25, 2021 7:13 pm

almost like our existing society conditions us to think that far from expecting more of our leaders than of our masses, we should give them leeway that we would never give to an average person

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Jan 25, 2021 8:47 pm

Just out of curiosity. Is there any possible timeframe where the "$1400 checks are really $2000 checks because they add to past checks" people will agree that you cant add checks from too far in the past?

I ask because it sure seems like 2023 is the earliest we can expect covid relief as Grek turns out to be extremely prescient in her belief that democrats would pass zero laws this term.

Currently McConnell has just declared that unless you have 60 votes to overcome the filibuster that he remains the Majority Leader of the senate and democrats have responded by saying "Yes Majority Leader McConnell."