The challenges ahead (Biden's America)

[Dave_LF]

The 90s wasn't really a time when you were supposed to think too much about song lyrics. By the time it occurred to me to wonder, I knew enough to know what they were talking about.

Edit: It is apparently an 80s song . The 90s is when U2 was brought to my attention, though.

[Alatar]

Thats interesting. So when people hear U2 sing Sunday Bloody Sunday, is that what they think of?

People don't think of Glenda Jackson, Peter Finch, and Murray Head? Nominated for four Oscars in 1972.

I would sincerely doubt it!

[Túrin Turambar]

FWIW, the Irish Bloody Sunday is what comes to mind first for me. I know there's some others. Given that Sunday isn't a workday in culturally Christian countries, it's an obvious choice of a day to hold demonstrations and rallies, and so is probably more prone to political violence than others.

I know that the same thing happened in the Arab Spring - many of the biggest demonstrations were on Fridays after prayers.

[N.E. Brigand]

Merrick Garland has been confirmed as Attorney General.

And the House, in a 220-211 vote, has passed the Senate version of the $1.9 trillion Covid relief package. All Republicans and one Democrat voted against it. The other day a journalist pointed out that despite Democrats having voted overwhelmingly for the CARES Act a year ago, President Trump only invited Republican legislators to the White House for the bill's signing.

Oh, and Senate Republicans have introduced a bill to abolish the estate tax, which currently only affects estates worth more than $11 million. Just a week ago they were arguing against Covid relief for anyone who makes more than $75,000 per year.

[N.E. Brigand]

Finally.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/10/politics ... index.html

The fact that 30 Republicans voted against him given his qualifications, and relative lack of partisanship, is truly remarkable.

The fact that Merrick Garland got 70 votes suggests he could have been confirmed to the Supreme Court in 2016 if Mitch McConnell had allowed a vote. And McConnell himself voted for Garland today.

Here's how today's vote compares to that of other nominees for attorney general over the past 40 years:

96-1 William French Smith (1981)
63-31 Edwin Meese (1985)
85-0 Dick Thornburgh (1988)
v.v. William Barr (1991)
98-0 Janet Reno (1993)
58-42 John Ashcroft (2001)
60-36 Alberto Gonzalez (2005)
53-40 Michael Mukasey (2007)
75-21 Eric Holder (2009)
56-43 Loretta Lynch (2015)
52-47 Jeff Sessions (2017)
54-45 William Barr (2019)
70-30 Merrick Garland (2021)

Wikipedia says that Meese's 63 votes in 1985 were the fewest for an A.G. nominee since the 1920s. Apart from that blip, there's a clear change from near unanimous to close votes starting in the 2000s.

[N.E. Brigand]

Pleased to see this.

Manchin announces he will vote to confirm Haaland as Interior secretary

With Manchin's support, Deb Haaland path to confirmation as the first Native American Interior Secretary is pretty clear, despite intense Republican opposition.

Haaland's vote is still to come, but a bunch of Biden's Cabinet nominees have been confirmed in the past two weeks, including Marcia Fudge at HUD just in the past hour. I've updated this post.

[N.E. Brigand]

An actual statement issued today by Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi:

"Independent restaurant operators have won $28.6 billion worth of targeted relief.

This funding will ensure small businesses can survive the pandemic by helping to adapt their operations and keep their employees on the payroll."

To be clear: he voted against this relief.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That is so very strange. I see that his statement was made in a tweet, but do you have any idea of what the context was. It seems to make no sense whatsoever. But then as I have long maintained, sense is what you make of it.

[River]

They'll tell their big money donors they were against it and then celebrate with the rank and file voters who desired it and hope everyone's too stupid to notice. Time will tell if that actually works out for them.

[N.E. Brigand]

As River says, Wicker wants credit for something he voted against. In another tweet, he says that he and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona co-sponsored the amendment (more than a month ago) that introduced restaurant funding into the reconciliation negotiations in the first place, but given that he then voted against even moving forward on those negotiations, in a resolution that only passed because Vice President Harris broke the tie, and given that he this week again voted against the bill, in a vote that went 50-49, so what? He doesn't deserve credit for a bill he voted to kill (at least twice), even if it happens to include something he supports.

Also the House passed the Restaurants Act as a standalone bill in 2020, but Mitch McConnell never let the Senate vote on it. So Wicker deserves even less credit.

[N.E. Brigand]

The Washington Post reports that there are 3,500 unaccompanied minors now being held at Border Patrol facilties for adults (because shelters for juvenile immigrants are full), which is 900 more than were ever held in such facilities during Trump's administration. Not necessarily Biden's fault, but obviously a problem that he needs to address.

[River]

The southern border is getting swarmed with migrants right now, including unaccompanied children. I'm not sure what exactly triggered the surge. As you said, it's not Biden's fault...but it's now his problem.

[Frelga]

AOC throws some shade.

This week in Congress:

Dems: Passed $1.9T COVID package to deliver stimulus checks (w/ dependents!), cut child poverty in half, extend $300 UI, prevent cuts in state + local services, largest-ever investment in Native communities, etc

GOP: Took a week to read The Cat in the Hat

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I often admire her. This is not one of those times.

Sent from my VS988 using Tapatalk

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Here's a good reminder of how things could have been:

Post

[N.E. Brigand]

In 2015, Rep. Eric Swalwell (Democrat of California) was warned by the FBI that an associate of his had ties to Chinese intelligence. Swalwell cut off his ties with this individual and offered to help the FBI in their investigation, an offer they apparently took him up on. He has not been accused of any wrongdoing. He says the FBI thanked him for his assistance.

All of this emerged in late 2020 when the associate was publicly identified as spy working for China. Swalwell himself cannot comment further on what happened because to do so would reveal the details of an FBI counter-intelligence investigation.

Now House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Republican of California) is calling for Swalwell to be removed from the House Intelligence Committee because of this past association.

The effect of this public shaming by McCarthy will be to discourage people from cooperating with the FBI in counter-intelligence investigations.

Why is McCarthy working to help the Chinese government (and others) undermine U.S. national security in this way?

[Sunsilver]

Here's a good reminder of how things could have been:

Post

I just saw in the COVID thread that the U.S. administered 2.9 MILLION doses of vaccine in ONE DAY!
That's amazing!

I really wish Canada would step up to the plate in the same way Biden has been doing!

I feel Ontario is doing a particularly bad job of it.

[River]

Canada can't step up because Canada is hamstrung (we talk about this in biotech circles because it's been a huge eye-opener).

There're a couple things up with Canada. First, over the past few decades and across multiple governments, y'all sold off and outsourced your pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity. It was all fine and dandy until COVID hit and President Trump shut down any and all exports of US-manufactured vaccine. Biden hasn't reversed that. It would probably be political suicide, even if it's a smart foreign policy move. Maybe once there's enough shots on order for everyone he'll ease it up but right now, no. Instead, the Biden Admin is trying to help other nations/regions beef up their current capacity, which is a nice long-term fix but maybe not what's best right now in this moment. Anyway, back to Canada. Canada's made choices that limits its capacity to homebrew pharmaceuticals and you can't rebuild that overnight. You just can't. It's not that there's a shortage of talented scientists in Canada. It's just not that trivial. Second, for some reason, the Canadian government was slow to place orders for vaccines, so in addition to needing to import, Canada's toward the back of the line in getting orders filled. It is, indeed, a huge mess and you can point your finger pretty much anywhere and be correct in assigning a portion of the blame.

[Frelga]

Meanwhile, Russia and China are both making a power play of leveraging their domestic vaccines for international influence. Russia is using all its official outlets and unofficial troll farms (happily thriving via Facebook) to undermine rival vaccines. I think I posted that link somewhere.

[River]

So Serbia, after getting caught with its pants down, bought every vaccine they could. Including Sputnik. The relationship between Serbia and Russia is complicated and the feelings among Serbs on the street are pretty mixed. Sputnik is not their first choice, in other words. My mother- and father-in-law got the Chinese vaccine. My sister-in-law got COVID and is getting her antibodies titered to determine if she needs one.