The challenges ahead (Biden's America)

[N.E. Brigand]

One news network last night felt that Biden falling on the stairs of Air Force One the other day was more important than what happened in Boulder:



(Images captured at 9:00 p.m. EDT last night by Oliver Darcy of CNN.)

[N.E. Brigand]

Of all the things that we needed constitutional amendments for, pardon power is very far down on the list.
IMNSHO.

In light of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announcing a whole bunch of cuts to postal services Wednesday, something that Biden might prioritize over fixing the pardon power (where I admit my opinion probably was affect too much by Remo Williams), although it wouldn't take a Constitutional amendment, is firing the USPS board of directors. That can only be done for cause. As someone pointed out yesterday, hiring Louis DeJoy seems like a perfectly reasonable cause to fire someone.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Yes, DeJoy needs to go.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Within that group, Joe Biden achieved what Barack Obama and Donald Trump did not: all his initial nominees for these positions were confirmed. Obama's first and second choices for Commerce Secretary, Bill Richardson and Judd Gregg, were withdrawn, as was Tom Daschle, his first choice for Health and Human Services Secretary. And Trump withdrew his first choice for Labor Secretary, Andrew Pudzer.

Biden did, however, have to back off on the nomination of Neera Tandem for Director of OMB, a cabinet-level position. And today the White House withdrew the nomination of Elizabeth Klein to become the Interior Department’s deputy secretary, after facing push back from Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Senators Duckworth and Hirono have announced that they will block all nominees until Biden nominates more Asian-American candidates.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/23/politics ... index.html

[Voronwë the Faithful]

This is America.

[RoseMorninStar]

What is happening in this country is truly heartbreaking. There is no shock or National outrage or horror. No coming together, no action. It has become expected, and sadly almost routine. It's unfathomable. I had considered starting a post but what is the point? Nothing is going to change because people love their guns and their 'rights' more than one another. There is no common sense. It's just so awful and pathetic.

[Maria]

Of all the things that we needed constitutional amendments for, pardon power is very far down on the list.
IMNSHO.

In light of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announcing a whole bunch of cuts to postal services Wednesday, something that Biden might prioritize over fixing the pardon power (where I admit my opinion probably was affect too much by Remo Williams), although it wouldn't take a Constitutional amendment, is firing the USPS board of directors. That can only be done for cause. As someone pointed out yesterday, hiring Louis DeJoy seems like a perfectly reasonable cause to fire someone.

Wait... what? Remo Williams? Fictional assassin? Are you advocating assassination?

[N.E. Brigand]

Of all the things that we needed constitutional amendments for, pardon power is very far down on the list.
IMNSHO.

In light of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announcing a whole bunch of cuts to postal services Wednesday, something that Biden might prioritize over fixing the pardon power (where I admit my opinion probably was affect too much by Remo Williams), although it wouldn't take a Constitutional amendment, is firing the USPS board of directors. That can only be done for cause. As someone pointed out yesterday, hiring Louis DeJoy seems like a perfectly reasonable cause to fire someone.

Wait... what? Remo Williams? Fictional assassin? Are you advocating assassination?

Definitely not. I saw the movie as a kid and just remember the line about the eleventh commandment: "Thou shalt not get away with it." If someone buys a pardon, then that pardon needs to be revoked. That's all I'm saying.

- - - - - - - - - - -
On a completely different note, I realized today that I posted the following to the wrong thread yesterday, so I'm moving it here:

I had no idea before today that the word "filibuster" derives (via a Spanish intermediary) from a Dutch word meaning pirate or thief and was originally used in English to describe American and European militia leaders in the early 19th century who led mercenary armies in attempts to establish new countries in Latin America. Perhaps the best-known example is William Walker, who was (sort of) portrayed on film by Marlon Brando in 1969 and Ed Harris in 1987. While the motives of individual filibusters varied, in general they were associated with ideas of manifest destiny and the expansion of slavery -- and some of their military campaigns provided experience for later Confederate soldiers. The term was only applied to intransigent Senate debaters starting in the 1850s.

By 1940, filibusters had become so associated with stopping civil rights legislation that when an amendment to the Hatch Act (which was not a civil rights law) was thus being held up, the New York Times described it to readers as being "comparable in many respects ... to the impasse always reached over the Anti-Lynching Bill".

[N.E. Brigand]

This is America.

Someday, I hope, the people who enabled all this killing, like Antonin Scalia, will have their names scrubbed away just as is happening now with those who led the Confederacy.

[N.E. Brigand]

Rep. Dan Crenshaw, Republican of Texas, speaking In January on Fox News:

"If the Biden administration wants to impress us... double the goal. Say 200 million vaccines in a hundred days. I will be impressed."

A few hours ago, President Biden announced that he was doubling his previously announced goal of 100 million vaccine shots administered in his first hundred days to 200 million vaccine shots administered in his first hundred days.

Rep. Crenshaw has since commented about other things that President Biden said today, but not that.

(source)

- - - - - - - - -
Speaking of Texas, and speaking of doubling, today officials in that state said that the number of people killed due to the winter storm and associate power blackouts last month was 111, more than twice as many as they previously reported.

You'll remember how during that event, Crenshaw's fellow Republican, Sen. Ted Cruz, left the country to vacation in Mexico before media reports about his journey compelled him to return.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

This is America (Part II)
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/26/politics ... index.html

[N.E. Brigand]

Thanks to gerrymandering in Michigan, Republicans have controlled the state legislature for a decade, despite having received fewer votes than Democrats overall in 2012, 2018, and 2020.

That Republican-controlled state legislature is working on bills that would seriously curtain voting in that state.

Michigan's governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, naturally would veto all such bills.

Republicans don't have enough votes to override her, but Michigan's constitution gives them a quirky way around that.

If they can get 340,000 people to sign a petition in support of the law, Whitmer can't override it.

In 2018, Whitmer was elected with 53.3% of the vote vs. 43.8% for her Republican opponent (there were some third party candidates whose share totaled about 3%).

She had 2.27 million votes total, with a lead of 410,000 over her opponent.

But with just 340,000 signatures, Republican legislators can prevent her from using her veto power on their bill.

Democrats can't counter with their own petition, because these petitions have to be written into the bill in the first place.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/ ... 010417002/

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That's nuts!

And yet it still seems passingly unlikely that there will be enough support to reform the filibuster sufficiently to be able to pass the For the People Act. I submitted a polite request to Sen. Manchin's office through the contact form on his website (there does not seem to be an email that I could find), something I very rarely do, but I don't hold out much hope that it will make much difference.

[N.E. Brigand]

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/pl ... ent-492264

Uh, why would the Secret Service, which hadn't been assigned to protect Joe Biden or his family for nearly two years in October 2018, have at that time "attempted to take possession of paperwork related to Hunter Biden's purchase of a firearm from a Delaware gun shop"?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Thanks to gerrymandering in Michigan, Republicans have controlled the state legislature for a decade, despite having received fewer votes than Democrats overall in 2012, 2018, and 2020.

That Republican-controlled state legislature is working on bills that would seriously curtain voting in that state.

Michigan's governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, naturally would veto all such bills.

Republicans don't have enough votes to override her, but Michigan's constitution gives them a quirky way around that.

If they can get 340,000 people to sign a petition in support of the law, Whitmer can't override it.

In 2018, Whitmer was elected with 53.3% of the vote vs. 43.8% for her Republican opponent (there were some third party candidates whose share totaled about 3%).

She had 2.27 million votes total, with a lead of 410,000 over her opponent.

But with just 340,000 signatures, Republican legislators can prevent her from using her veto power on their bill.

Democrats can't counter with their own petition, because these petitions have to be written into the bill in the first place.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/ ... 010417002/

That article doesn't say this, but I believe that the 340,000 signatures would not be to actually pass the legislation, but rather, to get it on the ballot as an initiative.

https://ballotpedia.org/Laws_governing_ ... n_Michigan

[N.E. Brigand]

Thanks to gerrymandering in Michigan, Republicans have controlled the state legislature for a decade, despite having received fewer votes than Democrats overall in 2012, 2018, and 2020.
That Republican-controlled state legislature is working on bills that would seriously curtain voting in that state.
Michigan's governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, naturally would veto all such bills.
Republicans don't have enough votes to override her, but Michigan's constitution gives them a quirky way around that.
If they can get 340,000 people to sign a petition in support of the law, Whitmer can't override it.
In 2018, Whitmer was elected with 53.3% of the vote vs. 43.8% for her Republican opponent (there were some third party candidates whose share totaled about 3%).
She had 2.27 million votes total, with a lead of 410,000 over her opponent.
But with just 340,000 signatures, Republican legislators can prevent her from using her veto power on their bill.
Democrats can't counter with their own petition, because these petitions have to be written into the bill in the first place.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/ ... 010417002/

That article doesn't say this, but I believe that the 340,000 signatures would not be to actually pass the legislation, but rather, to get it on the ballot as an initiative.

https://ballotpedia.org/Laws_governing_ ... n_Michigan

Well, that would clearly make a huge difference. Thanks for digging into that.

[N.E. Brigand]

Many members of the media for weeks had been noting that President Biden had yet to hold a press conference.

Then yesterday when he at last held a press conference, while his preliminary remarks did address the most important global issue, the Covid-19 pandemic, he wasn't asked a single question about that subject.

Zeynep Tufekci, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina who has been one of the leading writers on the pandemic, offers ten questions about Covid the press might have asked him, including:

6. Will there be a blue-ribbon committee to investigate what went wrong with the United States pandemic response?

7. Will there be an infrastructure overhaul of our buildings—especially our schools—to address ventilation, which the pandemic has revealed as an essential mitigation and indeed potentially a way to improve health and well-being of students?

8. Is there a plan to finally produce, approve and distribute rapid tests as part of ongoing efforts to detect and target outbreaks?

But reporters did ask Biden whether he planned to run for reelection in 2024. Really a dereliction of duty.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I wouldn't say that they reporters "asked" him that. I would say they hounded him until he answered. And then the media was full of headlines like "Biden says he will run for reelection in 2024" as if he was the one to make the point of saying so.

(I hope I am correct about the Michigan issue. I have not been able to verify that I am, but it seems to make more sense to me.)

[N.E. Brigand]

This is America (Part II)
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/26/politics ... index.html

Today the CEOs of two Georgia companies, Delta and Coca-Cola, referred to Georgia's new voting law as "unacceptable," which is upsetting both Republicans, who are discussing ways to punish Delta (the news about Coke's CEO just broke), and Democrats, who point out that it would have been much more useful for these CEOs to have spoken before the bill was passed and signed into law.