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Joe Biden 2021


tantric superman

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I follow my logic fine.  I stated it more clearly in the Dem Party thread.  

I do not hold the party unaccountable and can see the confusion.  I think the speech he gave should have gone more like this:

"We wanted to give you $2000 in the last package, but to do that the Republicans would have insisted on some things that would have hurt you more than the benefit of the full amount.  We held our ground on your behalf and settled for a lesser check of $600.  Consider that a down payment.  Now we are going to complete that by giving additional funds to reach $2000.   So,  (W)we are sending out an additional $1400 we feel you are due.   In addition to completing that promise to you, we are implementing a,b,c,d, and e to help you and your families get back on your feet.  Let me explain those actions.....

 

The first part should have been clarified several times.  I will agree.  And throw in all the stuff from the GA race, yes it could have been handled better.  

My point is we should be helping explain what is happening and bolstering the additional steps (in italics) so people can better understand everything that is being done on their behalf, and how that differs from what happened so far with CARES.  Seems to me a lot of people want to nitpick instead of try to help.  He laid out a legitimate plan yesterday and had to walk a fine line to keep from alienating either side.  

I know you loathe Biden and Pelosi and all the more centrist Ds, but our society moves slow and I think if they can get us past this Covid mess and bring the economy back (not just the stock market) then they stand a better chance introducing and passing some of the more progressive measures concerning racism, healthcare, wealth inequality and environment.   

I think we have the people in place and the party is being forced to listen to them, to allow them their voice.  Warren, Klobs, AOC, Porter, Yang, and Abrams for instance.  Amazing how the bulk of them are women.   Bernie was the one who unlocked that door,  I won't deny that, and applaud his relentlessness in doing so.  

But Sanders isn't the incoming POTUS.  Biden is.  Which beats the hell out of 4 more Trump years.    I just hope we can support him until he shows us he is as duplicitous as you claim him to be.  

 

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4 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

From Crooked Media:

WHY?!?!?  FUCKING WHY?!?!?!  They would and have NEVER done the same.  This is why we lose.

I don't think that's the idea at all.  I think the idea is to get the legislation passed.  And Manchin already said he opposed the $2,000 checks.

We've only got 50 votes.  Even if we can do this through reconciliation, we'd still need Manchin on board.  That necessarily is going to dilute some of the more ambitious parts of the legislation.

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42 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

I don't think that's the idea at all.  I think the idea is to get the legislation passed.  And Manchin already said he opposed the $2,000 checks.

We've only got 50 votes.  Even if we can do this through reconciliation, we'd still need Manchin on board.  That necessarily is going to dilute some of the more ambitious parts of the legislation.

Harris is the tie breaker.  It should pass 51-50, right?   I thought there were some republicans that were in favor of the $2K last time around, do they change just because it is a different president? I know, stupid question.

 

Edited by TexasEd
tie, not tire
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Just now, TexasEd said:

Harris is the tire breaker.  It should pass 51-50, right?   I thought there were some republicans that were in favor of the $2K last time around, do they change just because it is a different president? I know, stupid question.

 

Not necessarily. Rubio is still supporting it. 

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2 hours ago, TexasEd said:

Harris is the tie breaker.  It should pass 51-50, right?   I thought there were some republicans that were in favor of the $2K last time around, do they change just because it is a different president? I know, stupid question.

 

It's only a 50-50 tie if we have Manchin.  Don't expect that we'll have any Republicans voting for anything.  They're about to suddenly convert back to the religion of deficit control.

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1 minute ago, Biff Tannen said:

Sadly, I think it’s going to be a long while, if ever, that we get to that point. 

Generally speaking, yes. But I don’t have to wake up and wonder what Biden tweeted or watch him insult people at press conferences 

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15 minutes ago, Pancho said:

Yeah joe really needs to stop playing the hero here and do the inaug via zoom. 
 

 

The actual article said they have no evidence of any attack and have been vetting the NG troops since last week. Better safe than sorry on preparations 

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I am leaving in the morning for five days in the mountains in Vermont. It would be cool if the Secret Service, CIA and FBI can keep the cult from pulling off something crazy while I am gone. Hopefully the inauguration goes off without a hitch and the cleanup of the cult begins as well!

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  • President-elect Biden is to consult with intelligence advisers on whether to provide President Trump with daily intelligence briefings
  • Every former president has normally benefited from the national security perk with routine intelligence briefings and access to classified information
  • Sue Gordon, who left the Trump administration in 2019, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that Biden should move to deny Trump briefings after leaving office 
  • She wrote there was a national security risk posed by Trump as a private citizen
  • Gordon was the principal deputy director of national intelligence from 2017-19
  • https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9158239/Biden-wait-recommendation-security-services-share-briefings-Trump.html
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57 minutes ago, UpperWestside said:

I am leaving in the morning for five days in the mountains in Vermont. It would be cool if the Secret Service, CIA and FBI can keep the cult from pulling off something crazy while I am gone. Hopefully the inauguration goes off without a hitch and the cleanup of the cult begins as well!


On the other hand, if they aren't able to stop the apocalypse, it would mean that you are stuck in the mountains of Vermont.

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8 hours ago, Satchel said:
  • President-elect Biden is to consult with intelligence advisers on whether to provide President Trump with daily intelligence briefings
  • Every former president has normally benefited from the national security perk with routine intelligence briefings and access to classified information
  • Sue Gordon, who left the Trump administration in 2019, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that Biden should move to deny Trump briefings after leaving office 
  • She wrote there was a national security risk posed by Trump as a private citizen
  • Gordon was the principal deputy director of national intelligence from 2017-19
  • https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9158239/Biden-wait-recommendation-security-services-share-briefings-Trump.html

Um durr. There’s no fucking way he should be getting briefings. Fucker will sell them to the highest bidding enemy in a heartbeat. 

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12 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Um durr. There’s no fucking way he should be getting briefings. Fucker will sell them to the highest bidding enemy in a heartbeat. 

Just feed him the opposite of the truth. He can be a font of misinformation, and when our enemies figure it out, then we can have him arrested for espionage or even treason if we are at war. 

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Well most former presidents go into a sort of "council of elders" type of mentor relationship for the incoming President. It's not unusual for there to be a good relationship between the past Presidents and the current especially when the current President seeks advice.

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9 minutes ago, immamac said:

Well most former presidents go into a sort of "council of elders" type of mentor relationship for the incoming President. It's not unusual for there to be a good relationship between the past Presidents and the current especially when the current President seeks advice.

Ah, the good ol days. 

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1 hour ago, immamac said:

Well most former presidents go into a sort of "council of elders" type of mentor relationship for the incoming President. It's not unusual for there to be a good relationship between the past Presidents and the current especially when the current President seeks advice.

Sure, but I see no reason for former presidents to continue to receive security briefings. They are private citizens and they are old and at risk for dementia and the like. 

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 Joe Biden: I’m on the motherfucker. Go back in there, chill them out, and wait for the Wolf, who should be coming directly.

 

Quote

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Gary Gensler will be named chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) by President-elect Joe Biden, said two sources familiar with the matter, an appointment likely to prompt concern among Wall Street firms of tougher regulation.

 

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https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/20/biden-staff-takeover-government-460600

 

Quote

Joe Biden’s transition team had no illusions about the chaos they were inheriting from President Donald Trump. They expected a disorganized government and mismanaged agencies, many of them hollowed out and ignored over the past four years.

Hours before they assume office, however, there is a fear among Biden’s team that the roadblocks they encountered during the chaotic transition shielded them from understanding the full scope of the problems at various agencies, and that the state of the executive branch is far worse than they understood — “the tip of the iceberg” as one senior transition aide put it.

 

Quote

At the National Security Council, Trump officials were reluctant to share information about who was even on the staff, and at the Department of Defense, requests for information were either ignored or only partially answered. At the Office of Management and Budget, the practice of making career officials available for the incoming administration to craft their budget was disregarded, leaving Biden officials frustrated that their budget will likely be delayed. And at the Office of the United States Trade Representative, the lack of interest in assisting the Biden transition was stated plainly.

“Transition is not a priority for USTR,” Robert Lighthizer’s chief of staff told a Biden official, according to a person briefed on the conversation.

 

Quote

A spokesperson for USTR did not respond to a request for comment. Officials at the Defense Department and OMB, meanwhile, have vocally defended their transition cooperation. “Our DOD political and career officials have been working with the utmost professionalism to support transition activities in a compressed time schedule,” Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller said in a Dec. 28. statement.

Complicating matters even more was the massive SolarWinds hack discovered late last year, which left open the possibility that suspected Russian operatives are still lurking inside federal computers, impacting virtually everything that Biden's team tries to do.

 

Spoiler

The obstacles to the Biden transition’s work spanned across the government and ranged in severity. Some Trump staffers tried to be helpful, Biden officials said, but President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede to Biden stymied the handoff from the top. The feeling on Biden’s team, as they turn to governing after the exhilaration of victory and the frenzy of transition planning, is something akin to peering into a dark abyss: They don’t yet know what lurks out of view.

And as Biden and his staff move into the White House and agencies on Wednesday, administration officials recognize that some of their priorities will inevitably be sidelined by the need to fix messes from the outgoing administration that they aren’t even aware of yet.

Biden’s team has already prepared a flurry of executive action that will kick off immediately after he is sworn in, much of it aimed at undoing Trump’s signature policies on climate change, immigration and the coronavirus response. But without full visibility into the processes and procedures of the Trump administration, one senior transition official warned about delays and hiccups.

The overall lack of cooperation from a significant number of Trump administration officials was “laughable,” the senior aide said, adding that some officials tried to slow down information sharing while others were completely unresponsive.

One person close to Biden's transition told POLITICO that even in the transition’s final days, Trump administration political appointees were limitingthe landing teams’ access to data and sitting in on all of their meetings with career staff.

“Even as late as now, they’re not conveying information,” the person said. “Data about where vaccines are, their distributional analyses, data they haven’t released publicly about Covid cases. It’s shocking. I don’t remember this happening from Clinton to Bush, from Bush to Obama, or from Obama to Trump.”

Biden’s team was completely blindsided, for instance, by the Trump administration’s acknowledgment last week that, despite announcing that they planned to release all reserve doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, those reserves were already empty.

At the Office of Management and Budget, which will drive his fiscal and regulatory agenda for the next four years, Biden is set to inherit an agency that former officials say has reached its lowest point in terms of morale.

The Trump administration has moved to strip OMB’s career civil servants of some of their decision-making authority and worker protections, making them more easily fireable.

Amid the chaos, career staffers have fled the agency. Rebuilding the staff, expertise and trust will be key to moving forward, said Shaun Donovan, who served as OMB director under President Barack Obama and is now running for New York City mayor.

“The number of really remarkable public servants who’ve left the government means that even before we can solve the worst budget deficit in our lifetimes, even before we can solve the worst pandemic of our lifetimes, even before we can undo the deep damage to our climate, to our schools, to our economy ... the Biden administration will have to rebuild OMB to get the talent and trust that’s needed to move the country forward,” Donovan said.

“I’ve never seen a more toxic atmosphere in my lifetime within the federal government more broadly and within OMB,” he added.

OMB Director Russell Vought has disputed the Biden administration and Democrats’ criticism. In a Dec. 30 letter to Biden’s transition team, Vought wrote that, “As the record shows, OMB has fully participated in appropriate transition efforts. What we have not done and will not do is use current OMB staff to write the (Biden Transition Team's) legislative policy proposals to dismantle this Administration's work. OMB staff are working on this Administration's policies and will do so until this Administration's final day in office.”

Biden’s team will also have to grapple with a flood of “midnight” regulations Trump agency heads are pushing through in their final days in power. Among them, new guidance from the Labor Department released the day before the inauguration telling owners of local news outlets that their reporters are not subject to federal minimum wage and overtime laws because their work is primarily “creative” in nature.

Other agencies have been pumping out last-minute rules, as well. The Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday moved to strip the FDA’s oversight of genetically-modified animals, prompting outgoing FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn to publicly denounce the policy change on Twitter as a threat to the agency’s goal of “protecting public health based on good science.”

This follows a blitz of other rules by the department seeking to ban researchers from using fetal tissue from abortions to develop new drugs and treatments, as well as rules to make it harder for Biden to reverse conservative changes to the Medicaid program, and exempt religious groups from bans on discrimination against LGBT people.

The Biden administration will also have to track down the Trump administration political appointees who have burrowed into career federal positions across the government, many of whom have partisan and advocacy backgrounds that have lawmakers and watchdog groups worried they will attempt to thwart Biden’s policy agenda from the inside.

Weak disclosure laws have made it so that Biden will be taking office without knowing exactly how many of these “conversions” have happened in the final months of the Trump administration or where in the bureaucracy the burrowed workers are. Biden's team is worried they’ll have to spend scarce time and resources finding and then reassigning the individuals so they don’t have access to sensitive information.

Jason Briefel, the director of policy and outreach at the Senior Executives Association, which represents thousands of career employees, said he’s concerned there’s been far more “installations of loyalists with dubious qualifications” than during past transitions.

The administration’s day-to-day operations will also be complicated by the security issues created by the SolarWinds breach, which intelligence agencies have attributed to Russia.

It is unclear how much agencies know about what the hackers targeted and what they were able to access. While there is no evidence that the breach compromised classified information, some agencies may decide to abandon ongoing plans that were discussed on unclassified systems. Ongoing digital decontamination efforts could also slow down Biden's agenda, as political appointees and career staffers wait for their agencies' networks to be scrubbed clean.

At agencies that still have not ruled out ongoing compromises stemming from the initial breaches, it is difficult to imagine how staffers could be conducting any sensitive work.

The FBI is investigating the SolarWinds breaches, turning any affected networks into digital crime scenes. Just as police investigators must dust furniture for fingerprints and haul it away to be stored in evidence lockers, the need to preserve evidence of the SolarWinds intruders' activities may force agencies to replace hundreds of computers and other networking equipment.

That, in turn, would require time and planning that federal officials could otherwise dedicate to implementing Biden's sweeping policy agenda.

 

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