Both sides

 

Democrats' regrets

President Joe Biden’s national security adviser [Jake Sullivan], said in a post-election interview: “The president has been operating on a time horizon measured in decades, while the political cycle is measured in four years.”

[...]

There is no way to cleave the policy of the next decade from the outcome of the next election. If you lose power, your carefully constructed set of bills and international alliances can be turned to cinder by your successor. If it is true that Biden believed he was choosing the politics of posterity over the policies Americans would feel before the election, then he chose wrong.

[...]

The 2021 infrastructure law was supposed to pump hundreds of billions into roads, bridges, rural broadband, electric vehicle chargers. By 2024, few of its projects were finished or installed. [...]Many members of Biden’s staff now bitterly regret it. That includes Sullivan, who described his experience as “profoundly radicalizing.”

[...]

"“Part of it is laws and regulations. Part of it is the self-deterrence of caution. Part of it is litigation. Part of it is complacency. Part of it is bureaucracy. But what I encountered in my four years as national security adviser was a constant and growing set of obstacles to getting anything done fast. It was a huge frustration. Huge.”

[...]

Our environmental laws use reviews and lawsuits to force the federal government to slow down and thoroughly consider all the possible consequences of its actions; our regulatory processes use notice-and-comment periods and create space for challenges to make sure voices can be heard; our local governments create space and time for residents to challenge the construction of housing in their communities until it conforms to their standards; Congress builds in complex planning procedures and review requirements to ensure taxpayer money is not lost to waste or fraud or abuse.

  NYT

And Trump/Musk take a chainsaw to government and worry about it later. Or not at all.

President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Medicare program into law on July 30, 1965; it began covering seniors a year later, on July 1, 1966. Compare that with the Biden administration’s Medicare reforms. In 2022, as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration gave Medicare the authority to bargain down prices on 10 drugs; those prices won’t go into effect until … 2026. As Mike Konczal, a former economic adviser to President Biden, noted, that is “just in time for President Trump to take credit for them going into the midterms.”

[...]

Speed connects voters with the consequences of their votes. To survive, liberal democracy does not just need to deliver; it needs to deliver fast enough that voters know who to thank — or blame — for what they’re getting.

[...]

he reasoning Republicans gave for those complex requirements was that they feared waste and overspending. This is a common way Republicans gum up the government: by making it waste dollars and time in lengthy paperwork processes in which it tries to prove it will not waste dollars or time.

[...]

Representative Josh Harder, a California Democrat, told me [...] “We see this with costs. All of these projects are just going to cost way more money. But politically it has a huge cost as well. It breeds the cynicism and apathy that, to me, really characterizes our politics today. Getting something done quickly that addresses at least a little bit of the problem is better than spending years designing the perfect solution that never actually happens.”

[...]

“We had too much legacy and too little immediacy in our policy approach,” [Bharat Ramamurti, who served as deputy director of the National Economic Council under Biden,] told me. “Look at everything after the American Rescue Plan — infrastructure, CHIPS, I.R.A. — all of it was long-term focused. The most off-the-charts popular thing we did was cap out-of-pocket costs on Medicare prescription drugs. We passed that in 2022, and it went into effect in 2025!"

[...]

This came to a particular head in the Biden administration because it, much more so than the Obama or first Trump administration, was trying to build real things in the real world — infrastructure, solar and wind farms, battery manufacturing plants, semiconductor fabs, and much more. As hard as it is to change Medicare rules, it is far harder to build interstate transmission lines.

[...]

But it’s not as if the Biden administration tried to change [obstructive] laws and failed. It never tried. Biden never gave a speech saying what his top staff members now say to me so freely. His administration never released a proposal for how to rewrite the laws and rebuild the state to accomplish its goals. Maybe the next Democratic administration will.

If we get one. Also, I doubt it. Democrats are plodders. Unless we get AOC or Chris Murphy in positions of power.

Since Trump was defeated...

The labor market added 353,000 new jobs in January, blowing away expectations and marking the 36th straight month of job gains under Biden. The stock market has hit a series of record highs, and workers’ wages are once again beginning to outpace the rate of inflation.

  Politico

Also...

Thanks, Biden.  

Hope that helps.

How will MAGA cope?

Narrowly averted threat

I've changed my mind about whether the government would shoot something down without knowing what it was.

Probably.  And what did it cost to scramble TWO F-22s and fire a fucking AIM-9X Sidewinder missile at it?

A military spokesperson tells NPR it's their understanding that the FBI has spoken to the hobbyist group in question — the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade, based just north of Chicago — in an apparent attempt to determine whether their small ["pico" balloon, similar to a Mylar party balloon,] might have inadvertently caused a big ruckus.

  NPR

Oh sure. Blame the hobbyists. Not the knee-jerk, politically coward government that freaked out after Republicans started squealing about incompetence for not immediately shooting down a Chinese spy balloon that they knew was a Chinese spy balloon.

[The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade] say their balloon launches follow all federal regulations.

[...]

K9YO-15 was launched last fall by members of the Bottlecap Balloon club — the group takes its name from the Pixar movie Up, which prominently features both balloons and a bottle cap.

Its journey began with a launch from Libertyville, Ill., on Oct. 10, 2022. Before it disappeared, it was one of the club's longest-flying balloons; in its 123 days aloft, it had circumnavigated the Earth nearly seven times.

[...]

The Biden administration said on Friday that it cannot confirm any reports potentially identifying the objects that were shot down, citing ongoing investigations.

Shoot first. Identify later.

In the days since, speculation has grown over the possibility that the U.S. Air Force shot down the 32-inch silver Mylar balloon. On Friday, the NIBBB posted a statement saying there is presently no connection between its balloon and the unidentified object shot down by the F-22 last weekend.

Well, shit. I wouldn't expect anything left to BE recovered after shooting down a mylar balloon with a Sidewinder!

Balloons like K9YO-15 are inexpensive — when asked for a cost estimate, Bowen replied, "I don't think you'd break $100."

"Some of them are the same silver balloons you buy in the grocery store," he said, "and I mean from the same manufacturer of the same model."

[...]

"These balloons are pressurized just below the point of popping," Bowen said. "So if you can hit them with [aircraft] turbulence, they'll pop. If they get hit with a sonic boom from nearby, absolutely going to pop. Those are the easiest ways to pop them."

Or you could use a Sidewinder missile.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 09:40 am:

Your tax dollars at work.

The story behind Musk's Twitter crusade

The Hunter Biden laptop scandal.

Warning: This is a Jonathan Turley article.

As many of us have long suspected, there were back channels between Twitter and the Biden 2020 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to ban critics or remove negative stories.

[...]

Obviously, bias in the media is nothing new to Washington; newspapers and networks have long run interference for favored politicians or parties. However, this was not a case of a media company spiking its own story to protect a pal. It was a social media company that supplies a platform for people to communicate with each other on political, social and personal views. Social media is now more popular as a form of communications than the telephone.

Censoring communications on Twitter is more akin to the telephone company agreeing to cut the connection of any caller using disfavored terms. And at the apparent request of the 2020 Biden campaign and the DNC, Twitter seems to have routinely stopped others from discussing or hearing opposing views.

[...]

Musk’s dumped Twitter documents not only confirm the worst expectations of some of us but feature many of the usual suspects for Twitter critics. The documents do not show a clear role or knowledge by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Instead, the censor in chief appears to be Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s former chief legal officer who has been criticized as a leading anti-free speech figure in social media.

[...]

[T]he New York Post was suspended from Twitter for reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop scandal. Twitter even blocked users from sharing the Post’s story by using a tool designed for child pornography. Even Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany was suspended for linking to the scandal.

[...]

Some Twitter executives expressed unease with censoring the story, including former global communications VP Brandon Borrman, who asked, “Can we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?” [FBI general counsel James] Baker jumped in to support censorship and said, “It’s reasonable for us to assume that they may have been [hacked] and that caution is warranted.”

[...]

These documents show a back channel existed with President Biden’s campaign officials, but those same back channels appear to have continued to be used by Biden administration officials. If so, that would be when Twitter may have gone from a campaign ally to a surrogate for state censorship.

[...]

The incoming Republican House majority has pledged to investigate.

  The Hill

And this is why Trump wants to suspend the Constitution.

“So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION?,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, the Twitter alternative that he founded.

“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” he added. “Our great ‘Founder’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections.”

  MSN

Which this clearly was not.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

UPDATE:

thread

UPDATE:

Because it puts fuel on the base fire.

UPDATE:

And none of this is news.

Twitter’s former CEO Jack Dorsey admitted that [its ban on the laptop story] was a mistake over a year ago.

  Bulwark

UPDATE:  When you're MAGA and you've lost Sebastian Gorka...

UPDATE:

UPDATE:

This is definitely not a good look for the Biden administration

What a surprise: another Democratic administration letting down black folks.

Get out or get fired

President Biden has asked Republican Senate candidates Herschel Walker and Mehmet Oz to quit their positions on a presidential council or be removed.

[...]

A letter from the administration was shown in a video Oz released on the situation. The letter states Oz needs to resign or he will be ousted at 6 p.m. on Wednesday.

“It’s sad that he would politicize such an important issue like health. The doctor he should ask to resign is Dr. Fauci, for a multitude of obvious reasons,” Oz said in the caption of the video.

[...]

A White House official said it is the administration’s policy not to let those running for federal office be on presidential boards.

The two candidates were nominated to the council under former President Trump in 2018.

  The Hill

That's pretty obvious.

According to CNN, individuals on the Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition are considered special government employees who are barred from partisan elections under the Hatch Act.

[...]

“Clearly, Joe Biden can’t be around anyone who doesn’t completely fall in line with his fear-mongering authoritarian one-size-fits-all COVID handling. I am proud of my service and will not resign,” Oz said in his video.

...hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Pathetic

The Republicans, of course, get the lion's share of blame for the country going authoritarian, but I also blame the voters and the Dems.

Senate Democrats failed to advance two voting rights bills last night after Republicans blocked a floor vote and Democrats couldn't manage to unite in a push to change Senate rules to sidestep the opposition.

Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona joined all Senate Republicans to preserve the filibuster by a vote of 52-48.

[...]

With voting rights stalled, congressional Democrats are now looking to revive President Biden's domestic policy and spending plan, also known as Build Back Better.

The $1.7 trillion package stalled in December after Manchin said that he couldn't back it. Biden conceded at yesterday's press conference that "we're going to have to probably break it up" and pass pieces of the bill in smaller "chunks."

  NPR

Not sure why they didn't start out that way. It would have been much better for them to do it piecemeal and claim a win every time something passed. Also, something might have passed.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

We had hoped we were through with Trumpian BS in the White House

But no. The Biden administration is sending asylum seekers back to wait in Mexico (which they say was court ordered), selling arms to Saudi Arabia (which Senate Democrats approved), and now whining about bad press.

Administration officials are increasingly pointing the finger at the press, saying news organizations are unfairly covering the White House and contributing to Biden’s tenuous public standing nearly a year into his presidency.

Multiple White House officials recently shared a Washington Post column published with the headline: “The media treats Biden as badly as — or worse than — Trump. Here’s proof.”

[...]

On Thursday, more than five dozen liberal groups sent a letter to key media stakeholders urging more balanced coverage of the 46th president. In it, organizations condemned what they consider the “pervasive pattern of under-reporting and negative bias toward the actions and agenda of this administration.”

[...]

The momentary frustration carried over to some in the White House, who were angry that Biden’s health dominated that afternoon’s press conference. During the briefing, several reporters asked about the president’s cold and his testing regimen for COVID-19. The jobs report went largely ignored.

  The Hill

What the hell did the administration think the press would be interested in?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

What gives?

The Biden administration has been trying to get Neera Tanden a position since the beginning.  What does she have on whom?

Neera Tanden will become the White House staff secretary, a White House official confirmed on Friday, meaning she will assume a central role that involves managing the flow of paper to President Biden and among senior officials.

The position is not one that requires Senate confirmation.

  

And that's good for her, because she might not get it.

Tanden was Biden’s first choice to lead the Office of Management and Budget but assumed a role as a White House senior adviser instead after she hit serious roadblocks in her confirmation process.

Republicans angered over her political tweets during her years leading the Center for American Progress blocked her nomination, and the White House could not secure 50 Senate Democrats to back her.

[...]

Biden has yet to select a new nominee for OMB director, a position that Shalanda Young has held in an acting capacity for several months.

Perhaps another reason the Republicans didn't like her...

Tanden is a longtime adviser to former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

Here's why I don't like her:


And there's this.  And that email to John Podesta about Hillary, for whom she worked.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Corruption in government is here to stay

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Kudos

More than half of the roughly 1,500 political appointees in the Biden administration are women and nearly one-third are naturalized or children of immigrants, according to data released Thursday by the White House.

[...]

Fifty-eight percent of Biden's appointees are women, 18 percent identify as Black, 15 percent identify as Latino or Hispanic and 15 percent identify as Asian American or Pacific Islander, according to the Office of Presidential Personnel. Fourteen percent identify as LGBTQ, 15 percent were the first in their families to attend college, and 32 percent of appointees are naturalized citizens or children of immigrants.

[...]

The White House Office of Presidential Personnel issued a diversity report on Biden's 100th day in office to tout the administration's commitment to filling the administration with women and people of color. Biden has tapped roughly 1,500 appointees to various agencies so far.

  The Hill

CIA director and deputy secretary of State confirmed

Sen. Ted Cruz lifted his holds on two of President Joe Biden’s top nominees on Thursday after the State Department indicated it would punish entities involved in the construction of a controversial Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline.

In a statement Thursday, the Texas Republican said he would no longer delay Senate confirmation of William Burns, Biden’s nominee for CIA director, and Brian McKeon, Biden’s choice for deputy secretary of State for management and resources. The Senate confirmed both nominations unanimously later Thursday.

[...]

“As the president has said, Nord Stream 2 is a bad deal — for Germany, for Ukraine, and for our Central and Eastern European allies and partners,” [Secretary of State Antony] Blinken said in a statement Thursday. “The [State] Department reiterates its warning that any entity involved in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline risks U.S. sanctions and should immediately abandon work on the pipeline.” Blinken added that the Biden administration “is committed to complying” with legislation pushed by Cruz and top lawmakers from both parties that imposes mandatory sanctions.

[...]

Cruz said he would maintain his hold on Biden’s nominee to be deputy secretary of state, Wendy Sherman, “until the full sanctions mandated by Congress are in fact broadly imposed against the ships and companies critical to completing the pipeline.” Sherman has drawn scorn from Republicans over her role in crafting the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal.

  Politico

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Biden administration diversity continues

Cabinet members and key advisers.  Click that link and scroll through the list.  

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Biden's trend toward a diverse cabinet continues

Kudos to Biden for selecting so many women and non-whites, including our new Secretary of the Interior, native American (Laguna Pueblo) Deb Haaland.

UPDATE:

Graham?  That surprises me.

Gina Raimondo - Commerce Secretary

The Senate confirmed Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo on Tuesday as the next secretary of the U.S. Commerce Department.

With a 84-15 confirmation vote that was delayed by a procedural move in February by Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Raimondo is set to lead one of the federal government's most eclectic departments, which includes the Census Bureau, close to two months after President Biden announced the Democratic governor's nomination.

  NPR

Did it take that long to wake Wilbur Ross and get him out of the office?

As secretary, Raimondo is set to take on a portfolio of agencies that also includes the Minority Business Development Agency, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

[...]

Among Raimondo's most urgent agenda items in the coming weeks is overseeing the processing and release of the first results of the 2020 census, which are now more than two months overdue because of delays stemming from COVID-19 and last-minute schedule changes by the Trump administration.

In an attempt to further depress democracy and keep Republicans in power.

Unlike the previous administration, Raimondo is expected to defer to the expertise of the Census Bureau. In January, bureau officials said they expect to finish running delayed quality checks on the new state population counts used to determine representation in Congress and the Electoral College by the end of April.

"I commit to taking the politics out of [the] census, relying on expertise and doing everything I can to rebuild people's trust in the census," Raimondo told lawmakers during the Senate hearing. "It needs to be accurate."

Still, Raimondo is set to inherit ongoing court challenges against the Commerce Department and Census Bureau, including a lawsuit by the state of Ohio over the bureau's decision to also push back the release of the redistricting data needed to redraw voting maps by about six months to allow for more quality checks.

 [...] 

Those redistricting data, which cannot be produced until after the bureau finishes processing the apportionment counts, are now expected by Sept. 30. But the office of Ohio State Attorney General Dave Yost is asking U.S. District Judge Thomas Rose to order the bureau to deliver the data to the states by March 31. That date is the current legal deadline that may be extended through legislation a bipartisan group of U.S. senators say they plan to introduce soon.

A court hearing for Ohio's lawsuit is tentatively scheduled for March 19.

Ohio (and other "red" states) do not want quality checks to be made. They don't want non-citizens counted.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations confirmed

Ducklo update

White House Deputy Press Secretary TJ Ducklo resigned on Saturday after a report emerged that he verbally threatened a reporter who was pursuing a story about his romantic relationship with another reporter.

Ducklo, who had been serving a week-long suspension without pay for the incident, posted a statement on Twitter confirming his resignation.

"No words can express my regret, my embarrassment, and my disgust for my behavior. I used language that no woman should ever have to hear from anyone, especially in a situation where she was just trying to do her job. It was language that was abhorrent, disrespectful, and unacceptable," he said.

"I am devastated to have embarrassed and disappointed my White House colleagues and President Biden, and after discussion with White House communications leadership tonight, I resigned my position and will not be returning from administrative leave."

He further said that he is determined to earn back the trust of everyone he let down due to his "intolerable actions."

  NPR

Good. Perhaps Joe Biden got wind of Ducklo's suspension and informed him he could resign or be fire. I like to think that's what happened.

On Friday, Vanity Fair published a report that described Ducklo lashing out at Politico reporter Tara Palmeri. Ducklo reportedly made derogatory and misogynistic comments toward Palmeri, vowing to "destroy" her if she published a piece about his romantic relationship with Axios political reporter Alexi McCammond.

Psaki subsequently suspended Ducklo for one week without pay.

She later had to defend her decision after reporters asked whether her suspension of Ducklo fell short of President Joe Biden's message to his political appointees on Inauguration Day. Biden told staffers that he would fire them "on the spot" if they "treat another colleague with disrespect."

Ask and ye shall receive

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a confirmation hearing in two weeks for President Joe Biden’s pick to lead the Justice Department, Merrick Garland.

The hearing, scheduled for Feb. 22 and 23, sets Garland up for a March 1 vote out of committee and comes after Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) reached an agreement for the schedule.

  Politico

I wasn't aware Durbin needed an agreement to set the schedule.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.