Inauguration Day 20 Jan 2021

Vixen said:
Did you spot the rewording 'change of President'. Only three or four presidents did not have more than one term: Andrew Jackson iirc, Nixon and the current incumbent. I think Ford might be another.
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Carter, GHWB, Hoover, sort of Johnson.

If you count people dying in office that adds some more.


However, it's good to see one more name on that list.

ETA: And, it's a good thing to have a thread for it. I don't have any church bells to ring at noon, but the passing of the hour will not go unnoticed.
 
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Spektator said:
The State of Georgia has finally certified Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff as winners of the Senatorial runoff. In addition to being Inauguration Day, tomorrow these two gentlemen will be sworn in by the Vice-President, balancing the Senate as fifty Republicans and fifty Democrats.
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I didn't think that would happen so soon. I was thinking there would be court challenges dragging it out or months and months. Not necessarily good faith court challenges, just mindless frippery to delay them from being able to do anything.

I'm happy to be wrong about that.
 
crescent said:
I didn't think that would happen so soon. I was thinking there would be court challenges dragging it out or months and months. Not necessarily good faith court challenges, just mindless frippery to delay them from being able to do anything.

I'm happy to be wrong about that.
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Court challenges don't usually delay certification. Also, both candidates did better than Biden. There wasn't a recount. Once I saw the margins, I figured they would both be certified within a week of the inaugural.
 
Did anyone watch the memorial to the people lost to COVID?

Quiet, respectful, understated elegance, no one bragging up themselves, concise and to the point, and Biden was actually the shortest part of the service.

Such a contrast to Trump. Well done!
 
Horatius said:
Did anyone watch the memorial to the people lost to COVID?

Quiet, respectful, understated elegance, no one bragging up themselves, concise and to the point, and Biden was actually the shortest part of the service.

Such a contrast to Trump. Well done!
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I agree. I gotta little verklempt.
 
Vixen said:
Did you spot the rewording 'change of President'.
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You still have it wrong.

"The inauguration of the president of the United States is a ceremony to mark the commencement of a new four-year term of the president of the United States. The inauguration takes place for each new presidential term, even if the president is continuing in office for a second term."


Obama was inaugurated in 2009 and 2013


Vixen said:
Only three or four presidents did not have more than one term: Andrew Jackson iirc, Nixon and the current incumbent. I think Ford might be another.
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Wrong again

Andrew Jackson had two full terms, Richard Nixon had more than one term, he resigned during his second term.

John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, James K. Polk, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Donald Trump & John Adams all only served one term

Additionally, Grover Cleveland had non-consecutive terms (the only president do so).
 
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smartcooky said:
You still have it wrong.

"The inauguration of the president of the United States is a ceremony to mark the commencement of a new four-year term of the president of the United States. The inauguration takes place for each new presidential term, even if the president is continuing in office for a second term."


Obama was inaugurated in 2009 and 2013
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But the corrected OP doesn't use the word "inauguration" at all, so it can't be used incorrectly.


Well no matter how often it happens, the important thing is that it will happen exactly once tomorrow.
 
Horatius said:
Did anyone watch the memorial to the people lost to COVID?

Quiet, respectful, understated elegance, no one bragging up themselves, concise and to the point, and Biden was actually the shortest part of the service.

Such a contrast to Trump. Well done!
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carrps said:
I agree. I gotta little verklempt.
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It’s going to take a little readjustment.

Not dissimilar to those post-surgical videos of cochlear-implanted toddlers who can for the first time hear something.
 
smartcooky said:
You still have it wrong.

"The inauguration of the president of the United States is a ceremony to mark the commencement of a new four-year term of the president of the United States. The inauguration takes place for each new presidential term, even if the president is continuing in office for a second term."


Obama was inaugurated in 2009 and 2013
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I remember waiting for a haircut in a barbershop and hearing the only other patron saying "You gonna watch the in-******-ation"? Instant hot button, wanting to call him out as a racist ****. But I didn't.
 
acbytesla said:
Court challenges don't usually delay certification. Also, both candidates did better than Biden. There wasn't a recount. Once I saw the margins, I figured they would both be certified within a week of the inaugural.
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Yes both Ossoff and Warnock were well over the .5% margin of votes that in Georgia make a recount mandatory - so much over that Loeffler and Perdue had no plausible reason to call for a recount.

However, their victories have made the Georgia Republicans (a solid majority in the legislature) vow to tighten up 'em voter registrations, cull the voting lists of certain people, an' make it ooh jes' loads more difficult to request absentee ballots. Mebbe cut out early votin' too and do away with them dang ol' ballot boxes.

We really need national voting rights standards.
 
Spektator said:
Yes both Ossoff and Warnock were well over the .5% margin of votes that in Georgia make a recount mandatory - so much over that Loeffler and Perdue had no plausible reason to call for a recount.

However, their victories have made the Georgia Republicans (a solid majority in the legislature) vow to tighten up 'em voter registrations, cull the voting lists of certain people, an' make it ooh jes' loads more difficult to request absentee ballots. Mebbe cut out early votin' too and do away with them dang ol' ballot boxes.

We really need national voting rights standards.
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Senate Democrats make democracy reform first bill of new majority
 
rdaneel said:
Senate Democrats make democracy reform first bill of new majority
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I'd have to see the bill, but I get the impression it might not pass. I wish Democrats would play things a bit smarter. Put in the reforms that almost everybody can agree on.

Adding in ethics rules, especially for Congress, is likely to put many people off. Members of Congress aren't real keen on passing laws that restrict themselves. Many Republicans will likely view those sections of the bill as accusing them of being unethical during the election. If they feel the bill is attacking them, they will fight back and vote it down.

Many Republicans claimed all kinds of problems with this election. Address those concerns. Then they can package that with something like requiring no-excuse absentee or mail-in ballots. They can do that for House and Senate elections, but since Presidential elections are on the same ballot the law would basically apply to Presidential elections as well unless a State really, really wanted to work around it.

A bill now, likely without a thorough review of all the issues and no real plan to get something that Republicans will pass seems more like a symbolic gesture than any sort of real attempt at reform.
 
The Biden Presidency: The Pause Before the Storm

I wish Biden well, and Harris even more so, given it is she who most likely will run in 2024 against Trump or his White supremacists replacement.

I retain, however, the same sober regard as most Europeans, firmly believing Trump marked the definitive end of the postwar order, and new strategic alignments must be made.

At the end of the Obama admin, the US was on the brink of signing the TPP and was a seen as a solid, trusted, and oft-admired partner to most of the free world. Oops! Trump strangled that baby in the bathtub, along with 70 million other hicks, savages, and backstabbing Libertarians.

Post-Putin, my bet is on a Russia-EU reconciliation and partnership, able to offset and compete with either the US or China. I am quite certain Germany is now hard at work grooming potential new Russian leaders, and it is already seen as the primary haven for its dissidents. Such a partnership would be quite a bit more formidable than a nativist, science-phobic US no longer able to attract the free infusions of brain power and know-how it has vitally depended on since the last major war.

The US could, maybe, perhaps yet manage a win, but it would truly take flushing "true" America down the toilet and finding a way for the remaining locals to compete with far larger numbers of better-educated scientists and engineers elsewhere, all hell-bent on surpassing them. Won't be easy without the dollar as reserve currency, paying top euro and yuan for loans on ballooning debt.
 
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It is after midnight, which means the very last day of the Trump presidency has begun.

Soon, Trump will take his rightful place along such luminaries as James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, and Herbert Hoover.

If only he had more closely emulated William Henry Harrison, history would have treated him more kindly.
 
Meadmaker said:
It is after midnight, which means the very last day of the Trump presidency has begun.

Soon, Trump will take his rightful place along such luminaries as James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, and Herbert Hoover.

If only he had more closely emulated William Henry Harrison, history would have treated him more kindly.
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That's unfair to Hoover. Hoover was a good guy (in some regards, but not others) and he had some great accomplishments before becoming President. But he was a "behind the scenes" management type of guy, not a politician. He let the Republican party run over him telling him he had to do certain things for political reasons that were against his nature, and that did not turn out well.

Maybe go with Harding instead.
 
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