Senate The US Politics 2.0 Discussion Thread

Gives the GOP nutters in the Senate ammunition to fight impeachment sadly enough.

On a happier note: The first Doggies have moved in!

 

I think Psaki is extremely competent at her job and talented - I’m a fan. I also think we’re all a bit smitten by the contrast between her any of Trump’s press secretaries. Psaki provided one of the most immediate and direct life preservers that we were being rescued from the Trump era. The rumor of her leaving already - even a year from now - is sort of triggering for a return to what we endured the last four years.

That is one of the hardest jobs in any administration. It’s telling that the last Press Secretary to stay on for two full terms was during the dawn of the television era. TV wasn’t that widely available until the second term. Presidential debates weren’t even televised yet.

Let’s enjoy this time period. And whoever is next might not be as good as Jen Psaki, but they’ll be much closer to her in competency than to Sean Spicer.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/25/us/emoluments-trump-supreme-court.html

Supreme Court dismisses the emoluments cases against Trump, one of the most swampy aspects of the Trump presidency to go unpunished.

 

Don't worry, we'll see him in prison and/or totally broke.

 

I'm holding out for "and" but will take what I can get.

 

what’s with all the cupcakes?

 

I don't know. I just do what I'm told.

 

I just assumed a cupcake died recently.

 

Cupcaraambe...

 

I'd forgotten how long an actual White House press briefing could be.

 

You mean a serious one? For adults?

 

Or where the Press Secretary doesn’t like a question and fains outrage over insulting nature of a reporter and storm off from the podium - press conference over.

 

It does kind of feel off, like there's a specific reason it's going on for so long. That would be awesome for Jen if that becomes her staple and she sets the standard for press secretaries going forward.

 

It's nice for an administration to actually speak to the press, but I don't see what's so great about non-adversarial briefings. We have a big problem with the Fourth Estate being cozy with the state and being their willing parrots. The government hasn't stopped distorting facts and lying-- Biden said there's no changing the trajectory of the pandemic for months, which isn't true and is callously condemning over 100,000 Americans to death. The lies are just being presented the normal way again with the pretense of politeness and competence and education.

 

just for the record, blueberry muffins are better than any cupcake

 

I think the fact that press briefings under the previous administration were often adversarial (when they actually had them), is what making them feel so great, right now. Give it time for the relative novelty to wear off.

 

This was an interesting fly-on-the-wall documentary of Obama's communications team in 2016, Jen Psaki was briefly profiled in it. It was basically a fluff piece, but the context is kind of fascinating to me in that they were not expecting Trump to win. It feels weird how the clock is kind of being turned back to that time, but not really.

 

Guy has a point. Didn't Biden say something like the number of deaths will inevitably get close or even cross 600K? Now there are about 420K deaths reported, if I had to give a naive, incompetent personal impression, foreseeing 600K at this point feels like giving up and blaming the former administration even for future deaths.
That said, to me it's unclear to what extent they can really have the situation under control in a short time, and the number of cases is increasing everywhere, not just in US.

 

The number of daily cases in the U.S. is back to pre-Thanksgiving levels and trending down quickly, with the lagging death toll following and also being chipped away at slowly but surely with nursing care/retirement home vaccinations. Is the doom and gloom scenario the idea that the new more transmissible variant, what we like to call the Britbug, is going to wash over the country and reverse the current trend?

 

What Biden can do is issue a national mask mandate (he's only issued one for federal buildings), national stay-at-home order, severely restrict air travel, declare a national emergency, release the patents on the publicly developed vaccine(s) and lobby to do that worldwide, invoke the Defense Production Act as he promised he would do and use it for vaccines and PPE, mobilize the military and federalize the National Guard if it will help with vaccine distribution. This is the time to stretch the powers of the Presidency because it can save lives. Now is not the time to be... Joe ****ing Biden.

 

The son of a cur is from Dallas, Texas, no less. I wish AOC had security of some kind. But she's a brave person and an inspiration to go to that strike on Inauguration Day.

https://truthout.org/articles/aoc-s...-GafPmUnxfDABpt8iaWp2BXCbn0TRua661c7m51roOg4k

 

The GOP @Juliet316 in the senate was going to acquit him on the second impeachment no matter what. The SC rulings today had really no impact on it. Only way Trump gets convicted if others follows Rand Paul's idea and just boycotts everything. If they are not counted as part of it (which they shouldn't) they could convict since it's only 2/3 of those who are in the senate at that time. Interesting side note on the Impeachment Trial 2.0 but Senator Leahy will reside over it. The MAGA idiots are all saying it's because Justice Roberts thinks it has no merit but because he is out of office, the rules state the President Pro Tempe oversees it.

And unnovelty/novelty of having a press conference will wear off in March or so. By then the GOP will blame Biden for everything that goes around even though unless his staff has worked there before are still figuring out where the bathrooms are and coffee machines. They already but the press won't start doing that until March.

Meanwhile Senator Portman said he is retiring basically because politics "has gotten too hard'. Jimmy Dugan would like have a word with you buddy:



They are basically all blaming Trump for poisoning the well and taking no responsibility for their own actions. Get used to it I guess.

And Twitter finally does something they should done like ten years ago:

https://twitter.com/search?q=Birdwatch&src=typed_query

I hope this includes discrimination on top of disinformation as well.

 

Biden already implemented the Defense production act

 

I missed that. That's good, at least.

 

At least that’s what his press Secretary said and I am assuming she isn’t lying