The Biden Presidency - 2020

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by bhlloy

This, two posters have basically ruined the board.

Nonsense. We all have the choice of who we engage with and who we don't. We can just ignore anyone we're not interested in discussing things with. The amusing part is, the arguments by the majority tend to not be any better, and often worse, than those by the 'bad' posters.

Echo chambers suck. I certainly don't think FOFC is any better than it was when people were running in circles venting about how Trump sucks and literally nobody disagreeing with them but it just happened again ... and again . .. and again. At least now we have actual substantive disagreements to potentially learn from.

[larrymcg421]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

I certainly don't think FOFC is any better than it was when people were running in circles venting about how Trump sucks and literally nobody disagreeing with them

This has never been the case.

[Brian Swartz]

Umm, yes it has been. There was an extended period where you could go several pages of posts in the Trump threads with nobody defending him at all. Jon wasn't posting much and when he did he was as likely to criticize Trump as he was to back what he was doing. Edward was against what he was doing in the great majority of cases, so was I ... there were repeated, large blocks of time where it was just a question of how effusive and bombastic the critical rhetoric was going to be.

There was nobody saying Trump was a good president around here. Nobody even close to that. There were issue debates on climate change or Afghanistan or racism or whatever, but there simply was no pro-Trump contingent at all.

[JPhillips]

The polling for the UK election is just brutal for the Tories.

LABOUR: 476
TORY: 66
LIB DEM: 59
Green: 2
Reform: 0

[Edward64]

CNN said that its debate would be held at 9 p.m. ET in its Atlanta studios with no audience present in a break from recent precedent. Moderators will be anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, CNN said.

Looking forward to a competent, if not strong, showing by you Joe on Jun 27. You got your wish with no audience.

Please make sure your make up guy makes you look less old.

[Lathum]

I still don't think this happens. I think Trump finds a way to weasel his way out of it.

[Brian Swartz]

I'm looking forward to ignoring the debate

[Edward64]

Looking forward to the carefully planned zingers.

Trump kinda gets a pass. IMO there’s little he says/does that will help/hurt him significantly. He may surprise on some policies (hey, let’s do a bipartisan immigration bill, let’s help Ukraine etc.) but no one will believe him unless it’s sustained/repeated the next 4-5 months.

Joe can help/hurt himself significantly by performing/not well. The American public needs to know if Joe is all/mostly there. They already know about Trump.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

I'm looking forward to ignoring the debate

If you're in the neighborhood come on over & we can ignore it together

Hard for me to come up with many things that are bigger waste of time that watching one of those in real time.

State of the Union (regardless of who is in office) comes to mind but after that I'm pretty hard pressed.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

wasn't posting much and when he did he was as likely to criticize Trump as he was to back what he was doing.

This opens the door for me to toss a recent social media post I saw in here. (Bear with me a moment & I'll tie this together)

To be fair, I enjoyed the Trump term in office, but that was largely for entertainment value. There were good moments, but not really enough actually accomplished to make me a huge fan of the 4 year span.

Which brings me to what I mentioned at the beginning of this post.

It comes from Doug Collins, former Congressman (R/GA-9) and failed Senate candidate.

I don't remember the last political post I liked as much as this one and I believe it applies in a non-partisan manner. It's simple basic truth, and I loved it a ton.

It takes 218 votes in the U.S. House to get anything done.

If you hear any political candidate throw out a policy proposal to change America, as an informed citizen, you should ask them, “How are you going to get 218 votes?”

If they can’t answer that, then they have divorced politics from reality

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Hard for me to come up with many things that are bigger waste of time that watching one of those in real time.

Amen, I couldn't agree more.

It's a little weird that for someone as interested in politics as I, one of the things in life that makes me cringe the most is listening to almost any politician speak. Even most of Obama's stuff made my cringe. Don't know what it is, but it is, and debates are the worst form of it.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I don't remember the last political post I liked as much as this one and I believe it applies in a non-partisan manner. It's simple basic truth, and I loved it a ton.

Vast swathes of the American populace have long not understood how our legislative system works. But whereas back in the day there seemed to be a sort of acceptance that the system worked slowly and sometimes you didn't have the votes, these days you have morons on both the left and the right utterly convinced that they absolutely know how it works and it should be completely easy to do X, Y, and Z.

Lots of them get elected to office - witness Cruz in the Senate self-owning when his botched parliamentary procedure (years ago) got some Democratic bill passed. Or pretty much anything MTG thinks she can do in the House. And, conversely, all the Bernie Bros who are so convinced that if all you did was elect Bernie, he'd kick that ole Congress into shape and pass every left-wing pipe dream of legislation you could think of.

The electorate is, by and large, a bunch of idiots.

[thesloppy]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

Vast swathes of the American populace have long not understood how our legislative system works. But whereas back in the day there seemed to be a sort of acceptance that the system worked slowly and sometimes you didn't have the votes, these days you have morons on both the left and the right utterly convinced that they absolutely know how it works and it should be completely easy to do X, Y, and Z.

.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Please make sure your make up guy makes you look less old.

Joe, not sure if possible, but can you stop appearing in public with other younger world leaders. You looked really stiff and old walking beside Macron, and walking down those steps.

[GrantDawg]

The only thing that is going to make Joe look less old is a time machine.

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[Edward64]

Makeup does miraculous things.

Source: Hollywood A-listers

[NobodyHere]

Cant we use CGI to de-age Joe?

[Brian Swartz]

We can just accept the fact that an old man was chosen on purpose. Trying to hide the fact that he's old as some seem to be trying to do is silly IMO.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

We can just accept the fact that an old man was chosen on purpose. Trying to hide the fact that he's old as some seem to be trying to do is silly IMO.

Seriously, the party of Reagan going on about how old a dude is seems a bit much.

[Edward64]

Optics matter, especially so in politics, that is reality. Is it shallow? Sure but everyone does it and it’s for the greater good.

Re: Reagan, there is about 8 ‘presidential years’ difference.

[Reagan was born on Feb. 6, 1911. His final day in office was Jan. 20, 1989. His age on that day was about two weeks shy of 78.

Biden was born on Nov. 20, 1942. His first day in office was Jan. 20, 2021. His age on that day was two months older than 78.

[Brian Swartz]

They also aren't the party of Reagan anymore in anything beyond a historical sense. Reagan was 35 years ago, at the end of his presidency. What percentage of the people who voted for him are even still alive?

[RainMaker]

I think he looks good for his age. Just age naturally and try to give off a wise, strong presence instead of trying to look 20 years younger than he is. Like the facelift he had looked worse to me.

I also think your overall presence and demeanor matter (take a look at Eastwood looking tough into his 90's). Trump is nearly as old but comes across as more of a fighter. Reagan's whole gimmick was some tough cowboy who gave off a strong presence. Biden looking so weak on so many issues makes him seem older by proxy.

[stevew]

That Trump thing with the electric boats and the sharks is hilarious. I wish he was just a standup comedian.

[Thomkal]

Well would you look at that-American juries can find both republicans/Trump and Democrats/Biden guilty-jury took 3 hours to find Hunter guilty on all 3 charges

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

Well would you look at that-American juries can find both republicans/Trump and Democrats/Biden guilty-jury took 3 hours to find Hunter guilty on all 3 charges

Cool. Lock him up.

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

Cool. Lock him up.

You just know he's going to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court.

[thesloppy]

Trump accused Joe Biden of playing politics with his son’s trial, saying, “Joe is more concerned with pleasing the gun control lobby, so he won’t have the courage to step in and help Hunter. Don’t worry, Joe – I will Save your son after I get elected (for the third time)!”

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

You just know he's going to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court.

Thing is, at least on the gun charges he might win. That law I believe is already being challenged in the courts, so it might get overturned before he has a chance.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

You just know he's going to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court.

I think he wins it too.

[Thomkal]

Nice tip of the hat from the President on the anniversary of the supreme court allowing same sex marriage: pardoning those who had been banned from the military for having consensual gay sex


chevron-right

[Thomkal]

Senator Menendez and his co-conspirators found guilty on all charges-now lets see him resign. His wife's trial was put off as she recovers from breast cancer surgery

[PilotMan]

I think one of the things we've seen with the trump cases and the resulting Biden presidency, is that the bully pulpit is much, much stronger for the executive than anyone realized, thanks to the Rs. The failure to recognize and willingness to use by the Ds has exacerbated the issue to an exponential degree.



People want to feel like their leader is taking charge, has an opinion, and is willing to use it. Biden doesn't. Obama didn't. Clinton.....eh, I was an R at that time. I hated him too.

But it's clearly a factor is the perception of a president's ability to get shit done.

[GrantDawg]

The retired general that they had put in charge of prosecuting the two masterminds of the 9/11 attacks had worked out a plea deal with them for life imprisonment. Tonight Defense Secretary Austin said "ah, hell no" and revoked the deal, putting the death penalty back on the table.

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[GrantDawg]

In another Friday night bombshell, the Secret Service Inspector General report was just released. They report that then VP-Elect Harris came within 20 feet of the pipe bomb at the DNC.

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[Edward64]

WTF? I don’t know the chain of command here but at the very least, you’d think Joe signed off on the plea deal (therefore not needing SecDef approval).

More to come on this cluster I’m sure.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin abruptly revoked a plea deal for the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks and his co-conspirators, and he relieved the overseer in charge after years of effort to reach an agreement to bring the cases to a close.

In a surprise memo quietly released Friday night, Austin said the responsibility for such a significant decision “should rest with me.” Only two days earlier, the Pentagon announced that it had reached a plea deal with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, more commonly known as KSM, and two other defendants – Walid Bin ‘Attash, and Hawsawi – accused of plotting the attacks.

[Edward64]

Forgot all about this. So much has happened since the last time. Sep 30 is the deadline.

Access to this page has been denied

Lawmakers are returning to Washington on Monday for a three-week sprint that will be headlined by the fight over government funding, as this month’s shutdown deadline inches closer.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is poised to kick off the process this week by putting legislation on the floor that pairs a six-month continuing resolution (CR) with a bill to require proof of citizenship to register to vote — titled the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act — a strategy favored by former President Trump and hardline conservatives. Democrats, however, have deemed the effort a nonstarter, and some House Republicans are expressing skepticism about the gambit.

[JPhillips]

Given that all of the changes would currently be made as of the date of implementation, the SAVE Act would absolutely cause chaos to the elections. I'm not sure that anyone would be able to vote without re-registering with a new document standard.

As usual the GOP isn't interested in making sure things work.

[Edward64]

I guess this is good news on the yield rate. And good for US strategically so we aren't so dependent on the island of Taiwan.

Not a Joe initiated thing though, I read in another article the plant location was already selected in early 2021. Article says state of AZ was encouraging chip companies to invest. But Joe's CHIPs act helps with federal funds.

There was another article on how TSMC was running this plant like a Taiwanese company and not Americans running a TSMC plant. Reminds me a little of Japan back in the heydays with auto companies.

TSMC’s Arizona Trials Put Plant Productivity on Par with Taiwan

The Taiwanese chipmaker’s yield rate in trial production at its first advanced US plant is similar to comparable facilities in the southern Taiwanese city of Tainan, according to a person familiar with the company, who asked not to be identified discussing private corporate matters. TSMC had said it started engineering wafer production in April with advanced 4-nanometer process technology.

Yield rate, or how many usable chips a company can produce during a single manufacturing process, is a key factor that impacts profitability. While TSMC doesn’t disclose its yield rate, investors are counting on the company’s ability to maintain steady margins. The company has said it can maintain gross margin rates at 53% or higher in the long run, and has kept its net profit steady at above 36% over the past four years.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Given that all of the changes would currently be made as of the date of implementation, the SAVE Act would absolutely cause chaos to the elections. I'm not sure that anyone would be able to vote without re-registering with a new document standard.

As usual the GOP isn't interested in making sure things work.

The government (and states) can't even get REAL ID implemented, so this should be a non-starter to anyone with common sense.

[Edward64]

Don't know the details (weapon systems, restrictions etc.) but assuming the details & restrictions can be worked out, I'm all for it. Probably something Joe should have started working on 1H of the year.

Trump said we've spent $250B on Ukraine so far. I've not seen any fact checking done on that (yet) but as far as I know, it's around $175B budgeted for the 2.5-3 years of war.

reuters.com

U.S. President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that his administration was "working that out now" when asked if the U.S. would lift restrictions on Ukraine's use of long range weapons in its war against Russia.

The U.S. has been reluctant to supply or sanction the use of weapons that could strike targets deep inside in Russia for fear it would escalate the conflict.

Kyiv's other allies have been supplying weapons, but with restrictions on how and when they can be used inside Russia, out of concern such strikes could prompt retaliation that draws NATO countries into the war or provokes a nuclear conflict.

Sources told Reuters last week that the U.S. was close to an agreement to give Ukraine such weapons, but that Kyiv would need to wait several months as the U.S. works through technical issues ahead of any shipment.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Don't know the details (weapon systems, restrictions etc.) but assuming the details & restrictions can be worked out, I'm all for it. Probably something Joe should have started working on 1H of the year.

Trump said we've spent $250B on Ukraine so far. I've not seen any fact checking done on that (yet) but as far as I know, it's around $175B budgeted for the 2.5-3 years of war.

reuters.com

I did see it on twitter at the time but can't find it now. Europe is actually out spending the US by a decent margin, and the number he gave was close to the total of both combined.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Forgot all about this. So much has happened since the last time. Sep 30 is the deadline.

Some weekend work for the GOP to come up with the CR

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/11/hous...collapses.html

House Speaker Mike Johnson canceled a planned vote Wednesday on a stopgap funding bill that could keep the government open for the next six months after more than a dozen of his fellow Republicans walked back their support for it.

“We’re going to work through the weekend on that,” said Johnson, R-La., less than five hours before the scheduled vote.

“No vote today because we’re in the consensus-building business here in Congress with small majorities,” he said.

I wonder if the 15 below are really against the SAVE addendum or are they playing politics to get some pork for their vote. Interesting because this is after Trump voiced support for it

Johnson and other Republican congressional leaders expected as many as 15 defections from the GOP caucus on the funding measure if the vote happened Wednesday, NBC News reported. On Monday, only two Republicans had pledged to vote against the bill.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Don't know the details (weapon systems, restrictions etc.) but assuming the details & restrictions can be worked out, I'm all for it. Probably something Joe should have started working on 1H of the year.

Trump said we've spent $250B on Ukraine so far. I've not seen any fact checking done on that (yet) but as far as I know, it's around $175B budgeted for the 2.5-3 years of war.

reuters.com

[JPhillips]

I wonder what happened in 2020 that led to a massive fiscal response in 2021?

[Brian Swartz]

Most definitely, but the fact that it's higher than pre-pandemic is also significant.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

Most definitely, but the fact that it's higher than pre-pandemic is also significant.

It's because the free school lunches that dems hand out has made the kids too lazy to work in the factories Republicans have made it legal for them to work in.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

Most definitely, but the fact that it's higher than pre-pandemic is also significant.

We know what the cause is, the child tax credit was killed and inflation plays a role. We could reestablish the CTC, but the GOP didn't want to give Dems a victory so they killed it in the Senate.

[RainMaker]

Dems have had control of the Senate since 2021.

[miked]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Dems have had control of the Senate since 2021.

What point is having control of the senate if it takes 60 votes to move anything through and is DOA in the house?

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by miked

What point is having control of the senate if it takes 60 votes to move anything through and is DOA in the house?

It doesn't take 60 votes. That's a self-imposed rule they don't actually have to abide by.

And regardless, you only need a simple majority if done through reconciliation which is how they would have done it.