The Biden Administration

[Bact PhD]

NPR did up a pretty decent summary of the "Who's Who" in the upcoming Biden Administration.

As Biden begins to act on some of his early promises, he is naming close advisers and aides to work with him in the White House — people who will run operations and brief him on top matters of national security, the economy and other key issues. Most of these officials do not need U.S. Senate confirmation. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and soon-to-be first lady Jill Biden also are naming their top aides.

(I'm trying to get some of the more robust topics migrated over here, also toying with features.)

[Bact PhD]

Today is the day!
And one in which the incoming President will have not a single confirmed Cabinet member.
And the most unusual inauguration ceremony in the memories of most of us.

[Deleted]

It has been hard to breath watching America's insane governance over the last 4 years and I don't know how any of you kept it together having to live through and with it. I'm glad for you all that it's finally over - Joe Biden is a decent man and it was truly a joy to watch his and Kamala Harris' inauguration. The US of A along with the rest of the world can breath easy again

[LFC]

Biden continues to keep his foot on the gas pedal. (Not bad for somebody with advanced dementia, at least according to any number of right-wingnuts.)

Biden administration officials on Sunday reiterated the President’s hope for bipartisan support for his infrastructure proposal amid Republican senators signaling their opposition to the plan, which they argue doesn’t focus enough on traditional infrastructure.

In announcing his infrastructure proposal last week, Biden said that the package would focus on rebuilding roads, bridges and airports; expanding broadband access; and boosting electric vehicle use and updating the country’s electric grid to fight climate change. Biden’s infrastructure proposal would also increase the corporate tax rate to 28% to offset spending.

And as he seems to be doing with each popular initiative that the majority of Americans support he has openly invited the Republicans to be involved. Of course that's now how Moscow Mitch works. In fact judging from his legislative record he doesn't actually work i.e. do the actual job of a U.S. Senator at all. As predicted MM is now suddenly worried about debt. Notice I said "debt" because this would add debt as compared to deficit which adds debt annually like the Republican Tax Cut and Jobs Act, the "gift that keeps on giving taking."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) expressed his opposition to the President’s $2 trillion infrastructure proposal by characterizing it as a “Trojan horse” that will lead to “more borrowed money and massive tax increases on all the productive parts of our economy.”

Sens. Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Roger Wicker (R-MS) reinforced McConnell’s opposition on Sunday by insisting that Biden’s infrastructure proposal veers off the beaten path.

And of course one of their primary causes of concern is any increase in taxes to a point of what has been normalcy until recent history.

“How could the President expect to have bipartisanship when his proposal is a repeal of one of our signature issues in 2017, where we cut the tax rate and made the United States finally more competitive when it comes to the way we treat job creators?” Wicker said. “He reverses all that.”

Oh, oh, oh! I can answer that! BECAUSE IT DIDN'T DO WHAT YOU F***ING GUARANTEED US IT WOULD DO YOU DIPSHIT!

[LFC]

James Carville on why the Republican can't seem to land punches against Biden.

Speaking of delusional movements, the Republican Party is at a bit of a loss these days. They can’t seem to figure out how to get in the way of Joe Biden’s agenda—or even to throw an effective counterpunch against the guy.

“The Republicans don’t how to push back. The most effective pushback of Biden’s whole infrastructure relief plan has been from [Obama’s former national economic council chief] Larry Summers,” James Carville, the veteran Democratic strategist, tells Jong-Fast. “Intellectually, they’ve just lost their footing.”

Carville adds, “I think the most significant 24 hours in American politics was from 8 p.m. Eastern on the fifth of January to 8 p.m. Eastern on the sixth. And that time you had the two Georgia wins and you had the insurrection, and those events taken in tandem have been very, very underappreciated by contemporary commentators. They were just a different party on the night of Jan. 6. Everything changed in a 24-hour period. And you know, they’re still off-balance.”

“And while they are balancing, I think the Biden people are just staying focused and running as much through as they possibly can. But [the Republicans] don’t have a coherent pushback. It’s all CBS: cancel culture, the border, and senility. That’s all they do,” Carville adds.

“They just completely reinvented a coalition and their messaging overnight have gone from an Episcopalian, Presbyterian, white party [to] rural and non-college... They don’t want to talk about free trade or anything like that,” he continues. “And Biden is not this polarizing figure. I mean, you can’t gin it up. I mean Obama, for obvious reasons, he could get them all ginned up. They try to get a charge out of Biden, but it just doesn’t work that well… They’ll get it back. But right now they’re having a hard time.”

Part of it is that their message is stale but Republicans really don't have anything other than culture wars to push. Despite all of the right-wing meltdown over Biden he just doesn't seem interested in coming to take away everybody's guns, bring in millions of immigrants to take all the red state jobs, and lock up religious people. Huh. Who could have seen that coming?

[LFC]

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Embarrassingly Stupid) just whined that Joe Biden doesn't tweet enough and when he does it's not very colorful. I shit thee not. I guess Republicans really do want to be ruled by an emotionally stunted man-child.

Is this really happening?

On Monday morning, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) tweeted this excerpt from a Politico article on President Joe Biden’s modest media presence:

“The president is not doing cable news interviews. Tweets from his account are limited and, when they come, unimaginably conventional. The public comments are largely scripted. Biden has opted for fewer sit down interviews with mainstream outlets and reporters.”

Then, without any hint of irony whatsoever, Cornyn suggested in his follow-up tweet that this restraint on Twitter usage is A Problem, Actually.

“Invites the question: is he really in charge?” the Texas Republican wondered.

[pnwguy]

Apr 12, 2021 21:25:52 GMT LFC said:

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Embarrassingly Stupid) just whined that Joe Biden doesn't tweet enough and when he does it's not very colorful. I shit thee not. I guess Republicans really do want to be ruled by an emotionally stunted man-child.

Is this really happening?

On Monday morning, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) tweeted this excerpt from a Politico article on President Joe Biden’s modest media presence:

Then, without any hint of irony whatsoever, Cornyn suggested in his follow-up tweet that this restraint on Twitter usage is A Problem, Actually.

“Invites the question: is he really in charge?” the Texas Republican wondered.

Up next?  "Biden's only complaints about unwanted sexual advances is hair kissing.  We need a president with REAL LEADERSHIP in sexual scandals and adulterous behavior"

[goldenvalley]

Apr 12, 2021 21:25:52 GMT LFC said:

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Embarrassingly Stupid) just whined that Joe Biden doesn't tweet enough and when he does it's not very colorful. I shit thee not. I guess Republicans really do want to be ruled by an emotionally stunted man-child.

McConnell isn't able to keep bills out of the Senate anymore so get off the phone, Senator, turn off the tv, and act like a senator.  Read the bills; pay attention at committee hearings. Playtime is over.

[LFC]

Apr 13, 2021 14:58:26 GMT goldenvalley said:

Apr 12, 2021 21:25:52 GMT LFC said:

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Embarrassingly Stupid) just whined that Joe Biden doesn't tweet enough and when he does it's not very colorful. I shit thee not. I guess Republicans really do want to be ruled by an emotionally stunted man-child.

Read the bills; pay attention at committee hearings. Playtime is over.

Not for Republicans. In fact playtime is all they have left.

[Bact PhD]

Apr 13, 2021 15:10:34 GMT LFC said:

Apr 13, 2021 14:58:26 GMT goldenvalley said:

Read the bills; pay attention at committee hearings. Playtime is over.

Not for Republicans. In fact playtime performing for the media is all they have left.

FIFY

[LFC]

Biden moves to undo another racist Trump maneuver.

Housing Secretary Marcia Fudge on Tuesday moved to restore fair housing rules that were strengthened during the Obama administration only to be later gutted by President Donald Trump.

The effort, first reported by the Washington Post, comes after President Joe Biden signed a flurry of executive orders aimed at racial equity. They included efforts to examine and reverse actions taken by the Trump administration that undermined fair housing principles.

The Post flagged notices by the Office of Management and Budget indicating that the rules have been accepted for review, signaling an effort by the Biden administration reinstate a 2013 rule meant to stop lenders, landlords and insurers from discriminating and plans and to restore a 2015 rule requiring communities to identify and undo obstacles to racial integration or risk losing federal funds.

While the notices posted Tuesday do not provide much information about how the Biden administration will go about making the changes, the two rules are integral to the enforcement of a fair housing law aimed at preventing discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status and disability.

During his bid for a second term last year, former President Trump had touted his administration’s efforts to tear down fair housing laws in a failed appeal to the “Suburban Housewives of America.”

[LFC]

What's good for the goose...

According to a report from Punchbowl News, President Joe Biden's administration is taking a page out of Donald Trump's playbook and filling high-ranking spots in the government with officials who have a history of opposing positions taken by his predecessor in much the same way Trump appointed critics of former President Barack Obama.

Seeking to undo the damage done during the Trump years, the report notes that Democrats now hold the upper hand with control of the Senate, making it difficult if not impossible for Republicans to block the nominees.

As Punchbowl reports, "If you want to be nominated by President Joe Biden, it doesn't hurt to have been a vocal critic of Donald Trump or his policies. And even better if you wrote an op-ed in the New York Times bashing Trump," before adding, ".... the overall point here is that Biden is truly pushing the envelope when it comes to his sub-Cabinet picks. The Biden White House has made very clear it'll be aggressive in its personnel choices, and in fact may be looking for a partisan fight on some of these picks as a way to put pressure on Senate GOP moderates. As long as the White House can keep Senate Democrats in line, it doesn't matter what Republicans say or do."

That falls in line with reports during Trump's four years when Democrats found themselves powerless to stop the ex-president to pack the courts while at the same time skirting Congress and filling other jobs.

Pointing out that "Cabinet officers get the most headlines, but agency heads and deputy secretaries have an enormous impact on their own," Punchbowl noted that it would be hard for Republicans to block nominees based on the previous comments about the just-ended Trump administration.

"I don't like it," Sen John Cornyn (R-TX) lamented, "but under the First Amendment, there's not a lot I can do about it."

I approve if only because it pisses off Cornyn.

[LFC]

Kristen Clarke is Biden’s nominee to lead the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. She's going through her hearing today. The usual Republicans are going through their usual performative outrage dances as the "ask" questions they don't want her to answer and are often based on flat out lies. Here's a few examples. There are more.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) trotted out misleading claims about Clarke that have been pushed by conservative activists about an op-ed she wrote as a college student at Harvard. Cornyn at first suggested with a straight face that in the op-ed Clarke was arguing that African-Americans were genetically superior to Caucasians.

Clarke explained that that part of the op-ed was written as satire, to critique the racist book that had been published by a Harvard professor at the time about supposed genetic IQ differences among people of different ethnicities.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), as he is wont to do, is really trying to be the star of this hearing. He has spent his questions so far aggressively trying to paint Clarke as an extremist on defunding the police. He wasn’t really breaking new ground — almost every Republican has brought up the same op-ed so far.

He got into a spat with Chairman Durbin after repeatedly cutting off Clarke and accusing her of filibustering.

In reality, Clarke’s position is fairly innocuous, focused on diverting some police department funding to social workers and mental health resources.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) is playing the hits from Republicans’ antipathy towards Obama-era DOJ moves.

He brought up specifically the DOJ’s decision in 2009 to drop several charges it had brought against two New Black Panthers activists who were accused of voter intimidation after they were video taped wielding clubs outside of a Philadelphia polling place.

He grilled Clarke about communications she supposedly had, then as a lawyer at the NAACP-LDF, with a Justice Department official.

Clarke said she didn’t recall the specific conversation he referenced, but asserted she did not engage in any advocacy around that case.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) battered Clarke with a series of questions about whether she believed various high-profile police killings of Black men were justified.

He, like Cruz, quickly cut off her attempts to answer, rushing to his thesis that law enforcement should be “terrified” by her nomination.

When Durbin intervened to let Clarke answer, Cotton snapped at him, snippily “thanking him for his input.”

[goldenvalley]

Thanks for the report on the hearing LFC. As long as they run this way a "hearing" on a nomination should be called "platform for bullies to bully nominees and to grandstand."  

[jackd]

They are terrified that she might actually do the job.

[AnBr]

The Rachel Maddow Show
Yesterday at 6:20 PM ·

Donald Trump spent much of his term saying he had a 95% approval rating among voters in his own party.

It wasn't true at the time, but with President Joe Biden, it's true now.

www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/why-biden-s-overwhelming-support-dem-voters-matters-n1264190

[LFC]

Despite near unanimous Republican votes against the female, Indian, civil rights advocate with massive support from police organizations in the end Vanita Gupta was confirmed as associate attorney general. Before you read the quote below you might want to try to guess who the only Republican vote for her was. Hint: It wasn't Romney. He fell in line like a good German.

The Senate made history Wednesday by confirming Vanita Gupta as associate attorney general, making her the first woman of color to be confirmed to the number three role at the Justice Department.

Gupta, who has done extensive work for civil rights organizations, previously served in the Justice Department at the end of the Obama presidency, leading its civil rights division.

Her nomination by President Biden to associate attorney general was a chief target of Senate Republicans, who — backed by conservative activist groups — attempted to paint her as an anti-cop radical and accused her of misleading the Senate Judiciary Committee about her stance on drug decriminalization.

Despite the GOP narrative, Gupta has the broad support of the law enforcement community and was endorsed by other prominent figures on the right, such as Grover Norquist.

Nonetheless, her final Senate approval vote Wednesday was 51-49, with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) the only Republican to join Democrats to confirm her.

[goldenvalley]

We'll see what happens to Kristin Clarke, nominated to head the civil rights division of DOJ. I wonder if Gupta and Clarke were still of color but male, would the Republican Senators still uniformly vote against them?

[jackd]

Joe Biden gave a great speech last night.

However, it's difficult to imagine that he will be able to accomplish much, if any, of it given the alignment of votes in the Senate.

As James Carville recently remarked, Biden can do what Manchin will vote for.  He could have mentioned Systema as well and selected

other Democrats on particular topics proposals.  That problem could be the basis for rallying the electorate in the midterms or, of course,

for the change of control of both houses due to voter disappointment with lack of meaningful action.  

[LFC]

Josh Marshall's (paywalled) take on Biden's speech. In summation he played to his strengths and it worked.

I didn’t have great expectations for tonight’s speech because political events seldom turn on speeches. Nor is speechifying Biden’s forte. He’s workmanlike, solid. But he’s no great orator. That’s Barak Obama.

But I saw an extraordinarily effective speech. Like so much with Biden he managed to find in the historical moment things that play to his strengths. I’ve been watching State of the Union addresses for forty-plus years and I have never seen one like this. Biden delivered it with a tremendous informality. Biden is no Obama when it comes to oratory. But Obama couldn’t have delivered this speech. It would not play to his skills which are heroic and oratorical rather than empathic and conversational.

I’m curious how many times Biden departed from the prepared text. Because the delivery at least was deeply conversational. It frequently read like he was having a conversation with the people in the chamber and then, metaphorically at least, with the country at large. Perhaps it was just written to fall easily into Biden’s conversational style. But it had an informality and conversational tone that I haven’t seen any other President even attempt. It worked.

Biden continues to be blessed by the fact that late in life he rendezvoused with a political moment in which his personality and style, at other times a curiosities or even an obstacles, were uniquely suited to the moment.

One thing that made that possible or at least accentuated it was the sparse crowd. The stripped down State of the Union had an uncanny informality to it, almost as though a congressional skeleton crew had decided to do it late one evening with no one watching. That unique dynamic made the speech much more like a conversation because with so few people it almost was one.

Of course, SOTU theater criticism only matters so much. I spend some time on it here because it’s part of an on-going pattern of Biden matching his personal qualities to the moment.

The other point that stood out to me was Biden’s focus on great power competition – largely between the US and China – as a leverage against domestic polarization. There was nothing there of xenophobia or bellicosity. It was different from that. He was widening the zero-sum dialogue of domestic polarization.

One of the conceits of early 20th century American political culture is the idea that we are so far out of head of the rest of the world, so dominant that we can indulge our internal squabbles, try to wait out our domestic adversaries with no consequence. That’s clearly not true. Our shockingly derelict response to COVID – made far worse by President Trump but not only by him – just underscored that fact. Biden presented this as threat and opportunity. He introduced a third player into this dialogue – the fact that the US isn’t alone in the world. It is shrewd politics to leverage that in the context of domestic polarization. He managed to pull that together the challenge of the future, our crumbling infrastructure and the crisis of democracy which is at the center of domestic politics and global politics as well.

Altogether, it was a powerful speech, potent in many ways because it was so understated, casual and conversational. Biden continues to bet big and in the strange alchemy of the moment, where essential elements of his public character seem to match the trauma of the moment, it seems to be working.

[LFC]

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) was tasked with making the rebuttal. I saw some pieces and it was pathetic from the little rhyme about "government schemes and socialist dreams" on investing in America to pulling the white victim card (apparently trying to reverse the outcome of racism is racist) to trying to pin divisiveness in America on Biden. If this guy is supposed to be an up and coming start in the GOP all I can say is that in the second time I've seen him speak he serves up some pretty weak gruel. Per Josh:

Tim Scott had a tough job following Biden and it showed. His speech seemed premised on Biden delivering a confrontational and aggressive speech that he didn’t give. Scott seemed to argue that Biden had brought to an end some glorious era of national unity. This is absurd. I don’t think it was effective.

Vice President Kamala Harris responded to Scott. She ate him for lunch.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday morning pushed back against the way in which Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) had framed the challenge of addressing systemic racism in his rebuttal speech to President Joe Biden’s address to Congress the night before.

Harris, who is the first Black person to serve as vice president, told “Good Morning America” anchor George Stephanopoulos that she agreed with Scott, who is also Black, that America is “not a racist country.”

“But we also do have to speak truth about the history of racism in our country and its existence today,” she added.

The vice president said that the intelligence community’s warnings that white supremacist violence has become one of the country’s biggest national security threats is an issue “that we must confront.”

“It doesn’t help to heal our country, to unify us as a people, to ignore the realities of that,” Harris said.

And so “the idea is that we want to unify the country, but not without speaking truth and requiring accountability as appropriate,” she told Stephanopoulos.

During his speech on Wednesday night, Scott claimed that “people are making money and gaining power by pretending we haven’t made any progress at all, by doubling down on the divisions we’ve worked so hard to heal.”

“Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country,” he said. “It’s backwards to fight discrimination with different types of discrimination. And it’s wrong to try to use our painful past to dishonestly shut down debates in the present.”

Shorter Tim Scott: "Wah-wah-wah! I can't hear anything about racism!" Plenty of ignoring his own side's words and actions, of course. But when it comes to racism the GOP's only defense is to claim it doesn't exist, try to take credit for any progress which they fought, and refuse to talk about it.

[LFC]

There's a nice summary of Biden's speech and policies at TPM entitled The Quietly Transformational Biden Presidency.

[LFC]

Concern for civil rights is BACK, baby!

After four years at the margins of Donald Trump’s Justice Department, the Civil Rights Division is showing early signs of reasserting itself in Joe Biden’s first months in office.

The division, tasked among other things with pursuing federal hate crimes violations and reigning in abusive police forces, saw its powers limited by Trump administration attorneys general. But in the course of a few days, the Civil Rights Division has announced loudly that it is back.

Last week, soon after former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty in the murder of George Floyd, the DOJ announced a so-called “pattern-or-practice” civil rights probe into the Minneapolis Police Department. The Justice Department soon announced a separate pattern-or-practice probe in the Louisville Metro Police Department, whose officers killed Breonna Taylor last year during a n0-knock raid.

As the world waited for Chauvin’s verdict, the feds were reportedly preparing their own federal civil rights charges against him and the three other officers involved in Floyd’s death.

Then, on Wednesday, the Justice Department announced that a federal grand jury had indicted three white men in Georgia on hate crimes charges in the 2020 killing of Ahmaud Arbery.

“What you’ve seen is a commitment that comes all the way from the President — and we heard it last night during his speech — that we need to address racial justice,” Jonathan Smith, executive director of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, told TPM. Smith served as chief of the Civil Rights Division’s Special Litigation Section between 2010 and 2015.

“You saw in the Trump administration a real retreat from all civil rights enforcement, particularly related to law enforcement,” Smith said separately. “Across the board, you saw the department just really abandon the work that had been ongoing.”

[LFC]

Humanity has returned to the White House. Unfortunately it's a YUUUUUGGGEEE lift. Trump and Miller saw to that.

Nearly three years to the day after the Trump administration first forcibly separated thousands of undocumented parents from their children in order to discourage others from seeking asylum, the Department of Homeland Security has begun reunifying families torn apart by the policy.

Four families, to be exact, with a few dozen more expected in the coming weeks.

The slow pace of undoing the damage caused by the Trump administration to an estimated 5,500 families has frustrated those who have been working to reunify families since “zero tolerance” first began. Advocates warn that it may take years to reunite parents and children separated by the policy—and could add to the rising crush of undocumented people seeking to enter the United States via other means.

The Biden administration announced in February that it was creating a task force in charge of reuniting families separated under “zero tolerance” and other Trump-era initiatives intended to discourage migrants from coming to the United States. On Monday, the administration announced that the first four families would be reunited on American soil later this week—out of more than 1,000 who still remain separated.

“The Family Reunification Task Force has been working day and night, across the federal government and with counsel for the families and our foreign partners, to address the prior administration’s cruel separation of children from their parents,” Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, chair of the task force, said on Monday. “Today is just the beginning. We are reuniting the first group of families, many more will follow, and we recognize the importance of providing these families with the stability and resources they need to heal.”

[LFC]

I'm lovin' Joe more and more. Here he brushes aside Moscow Mitch's obstruction threat and then drives forward his vision of how his policies help America compete in the future. Republicans have nothing to offer in response ... except more tax cuts.

President Joe Biden signaled on Wednesday that he wasn’t shaken by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) fervid pledge to fully dedicate himself to obstructing the administration’s agenda.

Biden pointed out during a Q&A with reporters that, as former President Barack Obama can attest, McConnell’s promise to go scorched-earth isn’t exactly brand new.

“Look, he said that in our last administration [with] Barack, [that] he was going to stop everything,” the President said. “And I was able to get a lot done with him.”

Biden also pushed back against McConnell and other Republicans’ complaint that his agenda, including the sweeping infrastructure plan, is too expensive.

“Look, everything I’m proposing that be done to generate economic growth, employment, and put us in a position where we can out-compete any other country in the world with research and development, and moving ahead, I pay for,” he said.

Earlier that day, McConnell told reporters that “one hundred percent of my focus is on stopping this new administration.”

So Moscow Mitch just said nothing is different since 2009. Clearly it's expected making his threat fall as flat as a two day old beer. He's went scorched earth over a decade ago. Nobody expects anything different.