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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
I think it should also be said that after the election, Biden is just another member of the Democrat party. His statement in the debate "I am the Democrat Party" is true only until the votes are counted.
After that, the game has shifted. Don't like the filibuster? Pressure Schumer, not Biden. (Or pressure Biden to pressure Schumer) Want to see more action on climate change? Let's put the pressure on Pelosi to get a bill through the House.
The mistake in general is putting too much emphasis on the power of the presidency to move things forward. The role of the executive is to carry out the decisions of the legislative.
To that end I am curious as to who Biden will pick for his cabinet. We know that the grift in the Trump Administration was wide and deep - it's hard to think of any cabinet member who isn't lining their pockets somehow. So on a basic level there is a lot of institutional damage to fix just to get these executive offices back up to speed. After that, we can judge appointees on their priorities. Like AG: do you want someone whose going to focus on dealing with police brutality (a Sisyphean task if ever there was one) or someone whose going to go after Trump in an effort to expose all the corruption and the damage that man has done.
I think the argument for Biden being the most progressive presidential candidate (that has a chance of winning natch, fuck off Greens) we've ever seen in America is a pretty strong one. The (sensible) counter-argument still tends to be, "that might not be progressive enough for the planet, or for the millions of people still not covered by health care" - but neither is that an excuse to let the perfect become the enemy of the good.
"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."![]()
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Yes, it's customary for the incoming President to appoint completely new people (that would be true even if the Trump hadn't picked unqualified hacks). What I'm worried about is, a lot of institutional knowledge has been lost during the Trump era due to the regular rank-and-file career people leaving government due to the administration's incompetence. There's gonna be a lot of hiring necessary at all levels.
Edited by nova92 on Oct 10th 2020 at 7:44:38 AM
NC Sen. Thom Tillis at a debate: [1]
This seems a questionable strategy, considering that he's running behind Trump in polls. Also, who's gonna buy this after 4 years?
Presidents always pick their own cabinet members, confirmed by the Senate. Occasionally you have odd cases like Obama asking Bush's Sec. of Defense to remain at his post, but I doubt Biden will be doing the same.
Reportedly Biden has been reaching out to career officials who Trump forced out or quit in protest to Trump's policies and is asking them to come back of he wins so that all that institutional knowledge will come back with them.
An observation I can't help but make is that while Biden was almost nobody's first choice, he is arguably the majority of peoples' second choice, third at worst.
Also, this got posted by ~Imca a few pages back
Regeneron board member and executive sell $1 million in stock after Trump touts treatment
“These are pre-established at a time when the executive/director is not aware of any material, nonpublic information about Regeneron," a spokesperson said.
Last Friday night, the White House announced that as part of Trump's treatment for coronavirus, he had received Regeneron’s experimental antibody cocktail that has not passed formal trials or been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
One day later, the president appeared in a video posted to his Twitter account about his treatment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
“They gave me Regeneron,” he said, saying the company name instead of the treatment’s name, REGN-COV2. “It was like, unbelievable. I felt good immediately. I felt as good three days ago as I do now.”
At another point in the video he said that the therapeutics he was given were “miracles...we have things happening that look like they’re miracles coming down from God.”
"I think this was a blessing from God that I caught [the virus], I think it was a blessing in disguise," Trump said in the video. "I caught it, I heard about this drug, I said, 'Let me take it' … and it was incredible the way it worked."
“I call that a cure,” he said. “It’s a cure.”
After the video posted, Regeneron’s stock jumped over 3 percent in after-hours trading.
On Monday, when markets opened, Regeneron stock prices surged from $564 to over $600 a share. That day, Joseph Goldstein, who sits on the company’s board of directors, and SVP and Head of Commercial Marion Mc Court exercised stock options that let them sell a total of 10,200 shares for a net profit of over $1 million. According to filings, that netted about $740,000 for Goldstein and $260,000 for Mc Court.
Company executives have been selling shares at the company on a regular basis, but insider sales activity jumped at the same time the coronavirus took hold in the United States, starting the second quarter of 2020, according to data collected by Market Beat. The year isn’t over and already $100 million more in stock has been sold compared to 2019 and 2018 — $248 million vs $142 million and $143 million, respectively — a 70 percent increase. The company's stock price has climbed from $400 to $600 a share from the beginning of the year, a 50 percent increase.
The SEC did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday evening.
Edited by sgamer82 on Oct 10th 2020 at 8:09:54 AM
I think Biden has the advantage of being very bland and unobtrusive, with nothing that really sticks out. This makes him a very safe choice against Trump.
It is rather telling that comedians are struggling to satirize Biden. The best Colbert can come up with is... sunglasses. I'm not even sure what that is supposed to caricature about Biden.
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesOn that note, Trump must have been very hard to satirize. If he insists that Denmark should sell him Greenland, there's nowhere for a comedian to go from there.
Somebody not watching where he's going, and slipping on a banana peel, is funny. But there's just nowhere to go from there, for a comedian.
Edited by MichaelKatsuro on Oct 10th 2020 at 5:18:59 PM
I meant on a basic level of satire: the voice, the mannerisms. Those parts have been very easy to satirize, because Trump has a very distinct mannerism and way of talking. Compare that to Biden, who is wholly unremarkable in that regard. He doesn't really have a strong mannerism you can magnify into satire. He has a mild stutter sometimes, but that is not nearly enough to identify him with.
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I think another thing to remember is that no one really believed in Biden winning until he started doing well in the primaries.
Edited by Redmess on Oct 10th 2020 at 5:24:48 PM
Hope shines brightest in the darkest times

It seems like all people care about is rhetorical flourishes, if you actually look at policy Biden is a pretty progressive candidate. This is the same problem Clinton had, where people based their whole perception of her off a “vibe” or what have you.
Edited by archonspeaks on Oct 10th 2020 at 7:35:07 AM
They should have sent a poet.