The Biden Presidency

[pgwenthold]

Besides, the only reason we didn't know the results the day after the election is because states like Georgia, Michigan, Arizona and Pennsylvania had laws to prevent anyone from counting mail-in ballots before the day of the election.

Pretty much every state allowed mail-in ballots, and the mail-in turnout was heavy in them, but because they were allowed to count the votes before election day, we didn't need to wait to hear the results.

If Michigan had counted their mail-in ballots before election day, what we would have learned on election day is that Biden won the vote by 125K, and everyone would have said, wow, he won it pretty handily. Instead, we ended up with countless pointless lawsuits in that state, with people insisting that there was "controversy."

That controversy was completely manufactured, and had no basis in reality.

Remember: Biden was never behind in the election in those states. He ALWAYS had more votes than Trump. That's why comparisons to "well, the score at halftime was different from the end." That's not it at all. In the election, the final points were already scored on election day (exception - those places that allowed mail-in votes to arrive after election day, but those were not the bulk of it). The points were scored, they just weren't tallied.

 

[abaddon]

Nikki Haley Former U.S. Ambassador to the UN. 116th Governor of South Carolina tweets

@NikkiHaley
Biden spending more money protecting the Capitol from Americans than he is protecting the borders from illegal immigrants. #438Million #TaxpayerDollarsAtWork

And why does Biden need to do that? Because of people like Nickers Haley.

 

[Stacyhs]

Shades of this old SNL parody ad:

https://vimeo.com/396256226

 

[trustbutverify]

Well, sure! The last president said that the main reason not to have mail-in ballots was that on the morning after the election we wouldn't know who got elected. And sure enough, we didn't know who won for, what? Four whole days?

So what? There were special circumstances, and those issues were dealt with in an intelligent way. Four days isn't that big a deal considering the lethal situation.

Added: didn't realize you were being sarcastic. Apologies.

 

[Spektator]

So what? There were special circumstances, and those issues were dealt with in an intelligent way. Four days isn't that big a deal considering the lethal situation.

Added: didn't realize you were being sarcastic. Apologies.

(SARCASM>Yeah, I'll just bet you didn't.

(NOT SARCASM> Thanks, that's kind. I was trying to point out that Trump had stoked the instant-gratification expectations of his base, who now say they expect Biden to clean up the last four years' mess yesterday.

Is that better?

 

[wareyin]

So what? There were special circumstances, and those issues were dealt with in an intelligent way. Four days isn't that big a deal considering the lethal situation.

Added: didn't realize you were being sarcastic. Apologies.

(SARCASM>Yeah, I'll just bet you didn't.

(NOT SARCASM> Thanks, that's kind. I was trying to point out that Trump had stoked the instant-gratification expectations of his base, who now say they expect Biden to clean up the last four years' mess yesterday.

Is that better?

AHEM: I demand trial by combat.



that is all

 

[SezMe]

Coal is dying fast. 30 years from now Petroleum fuels are like to only be used for niche products.

Well, I think that's a bit optimistic. Petroleum is a basic feed-stock for countless thousands of products such as packaging, plastics, numerous aspects of farming, lubricants,l etc. Its use for transportation will certainly fall but the other uses are here to stay.

 

[smartcooky]

I liked Lucy Lawless's reply to another recent bit of utter nonsense from him.


‘Xena’ Star Lucy Lawless Smacks Down Kevin Sorbo’s Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory
She went full “Warrior Princess” on her former co-star.




And yeah, Sorbo's been an idiotic nut for quite a while.

Idiots like Sorbo are incapable of thinking beyond the next stupid thing that comes out of their mouths. He retweets a message claiming the attackers were "leftist agitators,, adding a comment: "They don’t look like patriots to me..."

I wonder of any of these morons stopped to think why "leftist agitators" would want to smash their way into the Capitol to stop the Congress from carrying out the formal process of confirming their guy as president?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Idiots like Sorbo are incapable of thinking beyond the next stupid thing that comes out of their mouths. He retweets a message claiming the attackers were "leftist agitators,, adding a comment: "They don’t look like patriots to me..."

I wonder of any of these morons stopped to think why "leftist agitators" would want to smash their way into the Capitol to stop the Congress from carrying out the formal process of confirming their guy as president?

"False Flag" is the go-to. It's to make the right-wing look bad.

 

[Stacyhs]

"False Flag" is the go-to. It's to make the right-wing look bad.

Like the real right-wing needs any help. They do a bang up job all by themselves. Never murder someone who is committing suicide.

 

[Darat]

"False Flag" is the go-to. It's to make the right-wing look bad.

It seems to pop up when they know what “they” are doing looks bad. It’s a form of cognitive dissonance, they aren’t bad, therefore if they are being shown to be bad it can’t be real.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Rudy W. Giuliani tweets

@RudyGiuliani
President Biden is intending to deny President Trump security briefings.

A real act designed to unite?

Also how does a former partner of high level Chinese Communists who got millions from the CCP get any
kind of clearance?

Hypocrite? Compromised? Corrupt?

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Democrats are going to means-test their way out of delivering on a politically popular promise.

Much conversation about greatly limiting who gets the $2000 $1400 covid stimulus checks, which was a promise that Democrats explicitly ran hard on in the pivotal Georgia Senate elections.

There's talk of means testing it to those that made less than 50,000 in 2019. Obvious problem is that there are many people who were doing fine in 2019 and no longer have reliable income in 2020 because... the pandemic. You know, the whole point of the stimulus. That's kinda the whole problem, people who otherwise had good incomes and stable jobs became unemployed overnight. 2019 income is irrelevant.

The 50k threshold also seems largely arbitrary, and 50k salary is not a comfortable salary in many high cost of living parts of the country.

Just give people the money. The Democrats promised they would, they should just do it.

If the means testing Democrats get their way, lots of struggling working people may actually find that they received more direct assistance from the Trump administration than they did from a Democratic one. This is how you shoot yourself in the foot going into the next election cycle, but screwing over large swaths of working people with tedious means testing and penny pinching after making explicit promises to help.

 

[wareyin]

Democrats are going to means-test their way out of delivering on a politically popular promise.

Much conversation about greatly limiting who gets the $2000 $1400 covid stimulus checks, which was a promise that Democrats explicitly ran hard on in the pivotal Georgia Senate elections.

There's talk of means testing it to those that made less than 50,000 in 2019. Obvious problem is that there are many people who were doing fine in 2019 and no longer have reliable income in 2020 because... the pandemic. You know, the whole point of the stimulus. That's kinda the whole problem, people who otherwise had good incomes and stable jobs became unemployed overnight. 2019 income is irrelevant.

The 50k threshold also seems largely arbitrary, and 50k salary is not a comfortable salary in many high cost of living parts of the country.

Just give people the money. The Democrats promised they would, they should just do it.

If the means testing Democrats get their way, lots of struggling working people may actually find that they received more direct assistance from the Trump administration than they did from a Democratic one. This is how you shoot yourself in the foot going into the next election cycle, but screwing over large swaths of working people with tedious means testing and penny pinching after making explicit promises to help.

Everything I'm seeing says it will be based on your 2020 income. Where do you see the 2019 figure?

 

[Fast Eddie B]

Democrats are going to means-test their way out of delivering on a politically popular promise.

Never underestimate the ability of Democrats to blow an opportunity.

That said, means testing does make some sense. Get the money to people who need it. That would allow the logic: not giving $1,400 to Jeff Bezos, et al, would permit us double the size of the payments to everyone earning under a certain threshold.

We live in retirement in a largely rural area where the cost of living is relatively modest. We did not need the stimulus payments and would not squawk if we were means tested out of future checks. Making the cutoff at $100,000/yr in income would keep the checks coming to us. But $100k annually in rural TN is very different from $100k in San Francisco or Manhattan.

Who the stimulus checks go to does make a difference in their desired stimulus effects. Probably most efficient is to folks who will spend the checks on goods and services. But even just putting it in the bank or using it to pay down debt or to buy stocks has some stimulating effect on the economy. Plus, in most states additional dollars spent means additional sales tax revenues for infrastructure spending and the like. Still, it would be hard to make the case that giving Jeff Bezos a stimulus check checks all the right boxes for what they’re supposed to be for.

 

[acbytesla]

Well, I think that's a bit optimistic. Petroleum is a basic feed-stock for countless thousands of products such as packaging, plastics, numerous aspects of farming, lubricants,l etc. Its use for transportation will certainly fall but the other uses are here to stay.

It was easy to miss, but I said Petroleum fuels. I fully expect Petroleum to continue to have those others uses. 30 years also might be overly optimistic. A couple of years ago I would have said 30 years would also be impossible. But I think we're rapidly approaching a tipping point where dramatic changes will take place.

 

[Delvo]

And this is all over payments that, at their best, would have been only a fraction of what was deemed necessary in countries with sane governments that aren't hellbent on making the poor poorer. A few hundred once and a couple thousand several months later is a cruel twisted joke. At best the total might approximate roughly one month's expenses for a lot of people who've had no income for up to ten or eleven months now. The amounts they're talking about and looking for ways to avoid paying even once should be the amounts they were already paying per month all along. And yes, that means without means-testing at first (early last year) just to keep it simple & get everything moving fast, but then, go ahead and use the time that bought to come up with an accurate means-testing method to cut out people like me who are fine without it. But they not only didn't do a monthly system, but haven't ever even discussed it, thus leaving this financial pantomime as the "best" option for people to be "positive" about.

Overall, the pattern with Biden so far is that he's doing fine on issues that look primarily aimed at boosting his own reputation with minimal immediate effect on Americans' lives (international relations, environmental policies, just generally acting like a grown-up and hiring grown-ups) but, on things that would improve Americans' lives (and thus bring in more votes next time), he (along with a lot of other Democrats) is still set just as solidly against us as he always has been before and kept telling us he still is throughout his campaign.

 

[Delvo]

It was easy to miss, but I said Petroleum fuels. I fully expect Petroleum to continue to have those others uses.

The range issue for cars is caused by the "energy density" factor: "how much energy can you get out of this system per pound, and/or per cubic inch, of energy source you need to carry around?". The answer is still much lower for batteries and capacitors/supercapacitors than for carbon compounds, and likely to stay that way. And, even if we adapt and get used to the range issue in cars, it's much more crucial for aircraft. They're just not going to really work at all with a power source that's heavier and delivers less total output between refuelings/rechargings/replacements.

Then there's also the fact that batteries (along with LCD panels) call for some nasty mining processes to get at rare elements that only exist in a few (mostly foreign) places in the world and will run out in roughly the same time frame that fossil fuels will, and the fact that so many of those who are pushing for alternative energy sources think that one major energy source we'll definitely need to rely on is the work of the Devil, and the agricultural depletion of soil and diminishing groundwater supplies everywhere along with the loss of concrete-suitable sand... the loss of the resource that we make plastics and road tar out of could very well be the least of our problems over the next hundred years or so.

 

[acbytesla]

And this is all over payments that, at their best, would have been only a fraction of what was deemed necessary in countries with sane governments that aren't hellbent on making the poor poorer. A few hundred once and a couple thousand several months later is a cruel twisted joke. At best the total might approximate roughly one month's expenses for a lot of people who've had no income for up to ten or eleven months now. The amounts they're talking about and looking for ways to avoid paying even once should be the amounts they were already paying per month all along. And yes, that means without means-testing at first (early last year) just to keep it simple & get everything moving fast, but then, go ahead and use the time that bought to come up with an accurate means-testing method to cut out people like me who are fine without it. But they not only didn't do a monthly system, but haven't ever even discussed it, thus leaving this financial pantomime as the "best" option for people to be "positive" about.

Overall, the pattern with Biden so far is that he's doing fine on issues that look primarily aimed at boosting his own reputation with minimal immediate effect on Americans' lives (international relations, environmental policies, just generally acting like a grown-up and hiring grown-ups) but, on things that would improve Americans' lives (and thus bring in more votes next time), he (along with a lot of other Democrats) is still set just as solidly against us as he always has been before and kept telling us he still is throughout his campaign.

What the hell are you talking about? Such as? Be specific.

Otherwise, this is just bs with no basis in reality.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Everything I'm seeing says it will be based on your 2020 income. Where do you see the 2019 figure?

People haven't completed their 2020 taxes yet. Seems unlikely that the US government has this info on hand as of yet.

Edit: AOC seems to be under the impression that some proposals cite 2019 income

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1358214660634406912

The pandemic hit in 2020. We should not use 2019 income to determine relief eligibility.