Cont: The Biden Presidency Part II

[TurkeysGhost]

That's the problem though, we're not in a political situation where someone who on balance proves to be good for the country is sufficient to cut the mustard. We need someone to do a little more than that.

Indeed. Sometimes better just isn't good enough.

Covid is an excellent example. Plenty of countries had better responses than the US and still saw the disease rip a bloody hole through their population. Some crisis are so severe that half-measures simply don't work.

Take the current situation with the new variant. Western leaders listened to their lobbyists (thanks a lot Bill Gates) that insisted protecting the intellectual property of the vaccine makers was more important than allowing the entire planet to mass produce this lifesaving medicine and quickly as possible. We chose to let covid mutate and infect freely in many corners of the globe, and it was only a matter of time and chance before a new variant came of it.

The Democrats always talk a big game when they need support at the ballot box, and they almost always balk when the time comes to follow through.

 

[Tero]

It's not exactly simple to make a safe vaccine. There are tight rules. If it is a RNA vaccine there are component supply issues.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer–BioNTech_COVID-19_vaccine#Manufacturing

One plant in the Dakotas makes the entire US supply of plasmids.

 

[Blue Mountain]

(Respectful snip)

If we had taken strong swift action from the start we could have saved 750,000 lives and billions of dollars. The markets would have quickly bounced back better than ever. 'Stingy' dems would have loved it.

(snip)

By my calculations, the number is "only" 550,000 lives saved. This is based on how Canada dealt with COVID-19 vs the USA. Granted, Canada got off to a rather slow start, but once we got our act together we did pretty well. As of the start of December, Canada had a fatality rate of 778/million vs the US at 2,376/million. That difference translates to 550,000 lives saved over the course of the pandemic.

 

[Tero]

Biden is becoming less and less a news item. With Trump also fading into obscurity, the 2022 election willbe about abortion. Only the 2024 will be about Biden/inflation/CRT etc. https://www.theguardian.com/society...-driving-force-2022-elections-experts-predict

 

[JoeMorgue]

An election about abortion is closing the barn door after the horse have escaped, the barn burned down, the horses all died of old age, the family sold the farm, and a Walmart has been built where it once stood.

We don't elect SCOTUS Justices. We can have a solid blue Presidency, House, Senate, every state Governorship, every state Legislature, all 7 Kingdoms of Westeros, the heads of the 5 New York Crime Families, and the East and West Coast rappers and accomplish nothing about it now.

The Conservatives own the Supreme Court for the next 20 years. There is no getting out of that.

 

[Tero]

That does not matter. The election will be about that and voting rights.

In the same way that the election for the GOP is about big government.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

The Conservatives own the Supreme Court for the next 20 years. There is no getting out of that.

Packing the court is a way around that, but Democrats have no interest in such things or pretty much any other decisive action.

 

[Tero]

Packing the court is a way around that, but Democrats have no interest in such things or pretty much any other decisive action.

Nothing of any sort will happen till BBB is passed this month.

Filibuster next year. Then abortion law. that will energize the Republicans. Then nothing will happen on that as no Democrat president will pass their bills. So basically another stalemate 2022-2028. People will be disgusted at the "government doing nothing" for 6 years. Then they nominate DeSantis again, and unlike 2024 he will win 2028.

 

[SteveAitch]

An election about abortion is closing the barn door after the horse have escaped, the barn burned down, the horses all died of old age, the family sold the farm, and a Walmart has been built where it once stood.

We don't elect SCOTUS Justices. We can have a solid blue Presidency, House, Senate, every state Governorship, every state Legislature, all 7 Kingdoms of Westeros, the heads of the 5 New York Crime Families, and the East and West Coast rappers and accomplish nothing about it now.

The Conservatives own the Supreme Court for the next 20 years. There is no getting out of that.

I think if you've got the first, the second can be sorted fairly easily...

 

[Paul2]

Here's a depressing article from the Guardian about how the Biden administration is not making any plans nor developing strategy to get the voting rights bills passed (including dealing with the filibuster).

Goodbye, democracy, it was nice the worst form of government except for all the others while it lasted.

 

[Tero]

Here's a depressing article from the Guardian about how the Biden administration is not making any plans nor developing strategy to get the voting rights bills passed (including dealing with the filibuster).

Goodbye, democracy, it was nice the worst form of government except for all the others while it lasted.

The Senate will recess before bringing up voting rights. It was never on the schedule after failing to advance earlier in the year. If there were a law, the Supreme Court would ban it as "stepping on state rights." Any bill that would pass would have very short use. This needs an amendment. No amendment will pass for many more years.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

The Senate will recess before bringing up voting rights. It was never on the schedule after failing to advance earlier in the year. If there were a law, the Supreme Court would ban it as "stepping on state rights." Any bill that would pass would have very short use. This needs an amendment. No amendment will pass for many more years.

There's always an excuse for why Democrats never even try to do anything.

 

[theprestige]

You'd think that a career legislator would have a barn full of horses to trade, for any legislative result he desired.

 

[Tero]

It's not just an excuse. It's a strategy to get something done in 2 years with very minimal majorities. This is how they have to handle Sinema and Manchin.

 

[Aridas]

Here's a... Err, What? thing.

Huge amounts of drugs have been seized at the border and Republicans are very mad about it

To poke at one bit in particular where a course of action is actually proposed - "We need border security!" says Ronna McDonald, GOP leader. Err, it's because we HAVE border security that those drugs were seized. Quite frankly, though, the Republicans really don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to border security, after all that boondoggling and aiding the criminal organizations they pretend to oppose that that they've done, not that that'll actually stop them from doing their usual schtick. Maybe, just maybe, if Republicans weren't so intent on creating situations that increase demand for said drugs and empowering the organizations that are trying to profit immensely in the drug trade, I'd be more sympathetic to their cries here, though.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Remember when Biden ran on offering a public option during the campaign?

Has anyone in his admin even mentioned this idea since then? That was just total BS, right? It's not in his BBB plan, and that's looking to be the only meaningful piece of legislation that is going to pushed before the Democrats lose the legislature.

A decade later, Joe Biden campaigned on making the public option a reality, but so far, he's done little to get Congress to enact one. Instead of outrage, influential progressives seem to be OK watching the promise go unfilled, preferring to pursue universal health care through other means, like expanding Medicare eligibility.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/health-insurance-public-option-might-be-fizzling-left-ok-n1269571

 

[TurkeysGhost]

It's not just an excuse. It's a strategy to get something done in 2 years with very minimal majorities. This is how they have to handle Sinema and Manchin.

Hard to explain why they did nothing about Roe during the 2008 supermajority control. It simply wasn't high priority, so they allowed abortion rights to hang solely on the ruling of the judicial branch.

 

[Horatius]

You'd think that a career legislator would have a barn full of horses to trade, for any legislative result he desired.

The thing about trying to be a horse trader is, the people you're talking to have to want some horses.

The modern GOP wants nothing other than to be in power. They have no interest in "trading" anything with the Democrats, and have in fact started censuring anyone in their party who even looks like they might be leaning towards trading with the Democrats.

The fact that so many GOP supporters can't seem to see this is the main reason why they keep getting away with it.

 

[Tero]

That does not matter. The election will be about that and voting rights.

In the same way that the election for the GOP is about big government.

Explained better than I can:


https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/04/poli..._HCDQ-anx32ZqBiIzbItza2n_z_7R8fK59IsXtMDxkcxE

 

[Aridas]

The thing about trying to be a horse trader is, the people you're talking to have to want some horses.

The modern GOP wants nothing other than to be in power. They have no interest in "trading" anything with the Democrats, and have in fact started censuring anyone in their party who even looks like they might be leaning towards trading with the Democrats.

The fact that so many GOP supporters can't seem to see this is the main reason why they keep getting away with it.

So many, perhaps. To poke another part of the picture, a fair part of the reason why they do it is exactly because too many GOP supporters get enraged by the mere thought of compromise, after having bought too much of what the right wing propaganda network has sold them. There are other, more general factors, too, of course, such as the long term trend to self-segregate - people who identify as "conservatives" and those who happen to be authoritarians to the Republican Party, with the consequences of such being various and notable, but not least being distinctly powerful levels of dislike towards compromise compared to perceived "sticking to one's principles" and greater tendency to look at things in black and white/good people who can be trusted to be good and bad people who can only be trusted to do bad. At present, Democrats seem like they may fairly quickly be shifting to be distinctly unhappy with compromise as well currently, of course, but more as a reaction to the current extended streak of overt evil and bad faith nature of too much of the GOP.