The Biden Presidency

[Cain]

From what I read, getting rid of the filibuster is never going to happen because democrats don't have the votes needed. So reconciliation and executive orders are the only options to get anything done at the moment.

The filibuster is stupid, but maybe Democrats can get traction on reforming it. Why should the majority have to vote to break the filibuster? Shift the burden of proof. Force the minority to bring 41 bodies into the Senate. Also, make them actually talk rather than merely threaten to filibuster.

The problem is even deeper though: The US Senate is a garbage institution. We need a Constitutional amendment that evacuates power from the body. A majority of the House should be able to pass laws on its own. Senate approval should only be needed for things fitting the body -- like renaming Post Office buildings.

 

[CapelDodger]

That depends. Do those progressives enjoy being useful idiots for the Republicans?

Let's talk principle, not how people get their jollies. If they have issues, should they not set them out? This is, after all, just a forum. It's not Congress, where one might maintain a tactical silence on occasions. Critical arguments should be judged on themselves, not on what scumbag Republicans are spewing at the same time.

 

[acbytesla]

We get things done best by involving government just the right amount.

I always want to go a little nuts when those on the right pretend that government can't do great things.

There are so many great inventions we take for granted that wouldn't exist if it wasn't for government. There wouldn't be farms in Eastern Washington if it wasn't for the dams. Farming has been revolutionized because of government studies about soil erosion and increasing yields. Computers wouldn't exist let alone advanced semiconductors. The Nuclear industry wouldn't exist. Neither would the Internet or GPS or the Solar power industry. I'm sure I haven't scraped the surface. Hell, Tesla wouldn't exist.

Anyone remember the Solyndra failure? People forget that the same government initiative invested in Tesla.

 

[wareyin]

Let's talk principle, not how people get their jollies. If they have issues, should they not set them out? This is, after all, just a forum. It's not Congress, where one might maintain a tactical silence on occasions. Critical arguments should be judged on themselves, not on what scumbag Republicans are spewing at the same time.

No, these critical arguments aren't formed in a vacuum or spoken in a vacuum. Pretending that the scumbag Republicans are spewing garbage while the "noble" progressives making the same claims are acting principled is naive at best.

 

[Blue Mountain]

From the portion you quoted:


Either the "million" is a misquote or the bridge is a pedestrian bridge about 2 meters long.

That's for the sign reading "SITE OF A NEW BRIDGE TO CANADA." Everyone knows the Canadians will pay for the bridge.

 

[bruto]

Yeah, a gov't program that basically said "we agree to temporarily step aside and let you do what you gotta do".



Agreed that the Trump administration did little to nothing, but in the internet age, we don't need government to hold our hands every step of the way. People made conscious, individual choices to not take this seriously enough, which resulted in a lot of those deaths, too. Yes, Agent Orange fueled the anti-masker fires, but ultimately it was individual choices that filled the body bags.

I was under the impression that Operation Warpspeed involved a bit more than just not interfering, but included a fair amount of actual money given to developers of vaccines, and a relaxing of some of the rules concerning the manufacture of vaccines before the tests were completed. If one were to say one positive thing about the prior administration, one might point to the first half, at least, of this program as being a success, in part because it was not at all a "stand back" operation, but a combination of funding and regulation revision that helped an actual thing to happen.

And I must disagree that the administration did little to nothing. They lied and reinforced the choice not to take the pandemic seriously. People make individual choices but they rely on reasonable and true information, and this is more, not less, relevant in the internet age, when disinformation is so rampant, and when a corrupt and imbecilic administration repeats its lies, feeds them, retweets them, lauds and rewards liars, and bases policy on them.

The president should know that, especially among the large number of people who supported him, he has some credibility and some responsibility to tell them the truth, and in his usual manner even to say he failed them miserably is to undersell the degree to which he betrayed them. I believe many people made, and continue to make, bad choices as a direct result of his bad leadership.



Even if you subscribe to the idea that we are best off with a "hands-off" government, we sure as hell did not get that. The grabber-in-chief always had his hands somewhere.

 

[dirtywick]

The public has a right to be well informed so their individual decisions are well informed.

 

[CapelDodger]

No, these critical arguments aren't formed in a vacuum or spoken in a vacuum. Pretending that the scumbag Republicans are spewing garbage while the "noble" progressives making the same claims are acting principled is naive at best.

If the claims are garbage, they are whoever makes them. Could you provide an example of a garbage claim progressives and Republicans have in common?

 

[CapelDodger]

The public has a right to be well informed so their individual decisions are well informed.

Indeed : the bedrock of democracy is a well-informed electorate. Without that it's just bread and circuses.

 

[Belz...]

Senator Mitt Romney tweeted

@SenatorRomney
I voted against the $1.9 trillion #COVID19 package because it’s full of wasteful spending unrelated to urgent pandemic needs. Republicans, in good faith, sought to negotiate a compromise bill that would have targeted COVID assistance to those who really need it.

Doesn't seem that urgent for him, then.

 

[Tero]

The filibuster is stupid, but maybe Democrats can get traction on reforming it. Why should the majority have to vote to break the filibuster? Shift the burden of proof. Force the minority to bring 41 bodies into the Senate. Also, make them actually talk rather than merely threaten to filibuster.

The problem is even deeper though: The US Senate is a garbage institution. We need a Constitutional amendment that evacuates power from the body. A majority of the House should be able to pass laws on its own. Senate approval should only be needed for things fitting the body -- like renaming Post Office buildings.

The Democratic senate could just do investigating. Republicans: benghazi. Democrats: 2016 Russian election of trump.

 

[Belz...]

What progressive have "joined with the Republicans"? Is there a shred of evidence for this horseshoe theory BS?

I see 8 conservative Democrats voting with the Republican block to undermine the party agenda on minimum wage. For all the crying about how progressives aren't team players when it comes to party politics, these conservative elements of the party are almost always the ones preventing the party from governing effectively. When have progressives ever voted with the Republicans to block the party's platform, as we see here?

Seems like this is a problem that the party machine should be trying to deal with.

American politics make my head hurt.

 

[Belz...]

The filibuster is stupid, but maybe Democrats can get traction on reforming it. Why should the majority have to vote to break the filibuster? Shift the burden of proof. Force the minority to bring 41 bodies into the Senate. Also, make them actually talk rather than merely threaten to filibuster.

The problem is even deeper though: The US Senate is a garbage institution. We need a Constitutional amendment that evacuates power from the body. A majority of the House should be able to pass laws on its own. Senate approval should only be needed for things fitting the body -- like renaming Post Office buildings.

The fact that the US Senate is now elected has rendered the institution redundant. Upper houses in the UK or Canada are not elected, so the incentives are different than those of the lower house.

 

[thaiboxerken]

I predict that Democrats will not change or get rid of the filibuster. When the GOP gains control of the Senate again, the GOP will get rid of the filibuster and use the excuse that Democrats are obstructionists and were already trying to get rid of it.

IOW, those who fear GOP retaliation for eliminating the filibuster are dumb. The GOP is going to do whatever they can when they have the power to abuse and keep that power. The GOP is already ramped up voter suppression and disenfranchisement because they lost the last election. They will not make the mistake of allowing people to vote again or allow Democrats to have a voice.

 

[Bob001]

.....
The problem is even deeper though: The US Senate is a garbage institution. We need a Constitutional amendment that evacuates power from the body. A majority of the House should be able to pass laws on its own. Senate approval should only be needed for things fitting the body -- like renaming Post Office buildings.

You think what the Repub-led House could have gotten away with for 10 years on their own would have been better? Really?

 

[wareyin]

If the claims are garbage, they are whoever makes them. Could you provide an example of a garbage claim progressives and Republicans have in common?

Yes. The one in this thread, for instance, where it is being claimed that Democrats don't care about a $15 minimum wage.

 

[Horatius]

You think what the Repub-led House could have gotten away with for 10 years on their own would have been better? Really?

In some ways, yes, because then they'd have to own their policies, and everything that comes from them. How many years did they dine out on "We're going to repeal and replace Obamacare with something Super Awesome!", safe in the knowledge that they'd never have to actually do any of that? The dysfunction in the US Congress as a whole is what lets them keep getting away with this routine.

It's the same way with the COVID relief bills. They can just keep whining about the Democrats not "compromising", because they know they'll never have to come up with a their own plan.

As it is, they can keep blocking everything the Dems want to do, and then blaming the lack of action on everyone else. If they actually had the power to do something, then the utter lack of action is clearly all their fault.

At some point even the stupidest GOP voter would have to start noticing that.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

The public has a right to be well informed so their individual decisions are well informed.

I agree.

Which is why I am not satisfied with this,

I haven't seen any reporting on the sources, though, so I can't give a direct answer. Perhaps delving into records from the relevant committees would handle that, if they're public

How can we determine whether these earmarks really are 'wasteful' and 'unrelated' as Romney claims, if we don't even know why they were included in the bill? More importantly, why are we not being informed?

 

[acbytesla]

The difference between the Trump Administration and the Biden Administration

There is a lot more than just this. But the following video shows the different approaches to government. It is just under 5 minutes long.

 

[GodMark2]

From the portion you quoted:


Either the "million" is a misquote or the bridge is a pedestrian bridge about 2 meters long.

The number is correct. The context is an outright lie.

The bill would give $1.5 million to the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corp. "to prevent, prepare for and respond to coronavirus by conducting the operations, maintenance and capital infrastructure activities of the Seaway International Bridge," which connects New York state and Ontario.

Not a "bridge", just the changes required by the pandemic to the ongoing operations of a government funded bridge.