Biden / Harris Focused Discussion

[Breccia]

Jen Psaki regularly tells Biden not to take impromptu questions from reporters.

Is this hypocrisy or just projection? I'm sure FOX News knows full well Trump stopped taking questions when he realized he couldn't answer them.

[Kellhound]

im not sure saying 'these damn city slickers' in an old timey voice is a deep political view

My understanding that the Urban-Rural divide is such that neither side gives a rat's hind-end about the other isn't a political view.

[pathora44]

https://www.foxnews.com/media/jen-ps...id-axelrod-cnn

FOX GOT THE BIG SCOOP! Jen Psaki regularly tells Biden not to take impromptu questions from reporters. How scandalous!

Protip: This is painfully commonplace in communications. If you're a publicist for someone (the press secretary kinda is), you usually tell them not to speak with press in uncontrolled environments and without your communications team there. This is common, usually good advice.

In a breaking Fox News report we have just learned in a shocking reveal that Water is WET! Yes I know shocking folks that everything we have been led to believe for our entire lives has been shattered. That this could happen only goes to show...(whispers)...What...(more whispers)...Is this confirmed?...(even more whispers)

Ladies and Gentlemen what I have just been handed is a report that will rock you to your core. If there are any young children or those faint of heart I ask that you leave the room. What I have just been handed will change the very foundation of this country till the end of time. We have just learned that the sun...that the sun...God, give me strength. That the sun rises... in the EAST!

[Felya]

The fact Trump was brought up here, as though his position matters, just shows the hold he still has on the Republican side. Everyone knows it has less than zero to do with Afghanistan, and is 100% to do with loyalty to Trump.

It’s absurd, considering Trump isn’t president and troops are set to withdraw in September. I’m sure infrastructure is also a Trumpism... so is the the stimulus... and that middle class tax cut he championed... if only Trump were president, to implement the Trumpism, that Biden is implementing...

Edit: God damn it... I just realized it’s rebranding populism, as Trumpism... :/

[Blur4stuff]

I'm looking forward to 4+ years of republicans jumping from one absurd manufactured scandal to the next.

Just imagine if all these people used that effort for improving the country.

[ghotihook]

I love how we now have two threads to shit on Republicans. Most of the stuff here isn't even talking about Biden.
The amount of circle jerking here is incredible.

[shimerra]

The absolute state of Republicans must warrant two threads to get through it all.

Feel free to create one to shit on Democrats?

I personally think we need another one of his drive by posts telling people that free healthcare isn't technically free like people with a brain didn't know that and not realizing the only people needing that helpful hot take were too stupid to discuss the matter anyway.

[Elenos]

https://www.politico.eu/article/bide...-the-bad-guys/

At first glance, transatlantic relations look rosier since Donald Trump left the White House. In public, there's no longer a U.S. president who attacks German cars and accuses Angela Merkel of not paying her NATO bills.

But look closer, and it turns out that on everything from trade and taxes to coronavirus vaccines, U.S. President Joe Biden is transpiring to be every inch as much of a pain in Brussels' bureaucratic backside as his predecessor — hitting the EU exactly where it hurts, while robbing it of the moral high ground it loves to occupy.

Biden's bombshell proposal to waive intellectual property rights on coronavirus vaccines is a perfect case in point, as the EU is now floundering in the PR war, all too conscious that it has suddenly been turned into a cartoon villain, advocating the rights of Big Pharma against poor nations.

"The real change is that the Biden administration, to our biggest astonishment also including mine, is really changing the overall narrative on these issues, which we didn't think he would," said Kathleen Van Brempt, a Belgian member of the European Parliament and the Socialist group's point person on trade.

America's vaccine gambit is not a one-off. In only a few months, Biden has exposed both the folly in the EU's trade policy toward China and Europe's lack of ambition in plans to tax digital multinationals.

Infuriatingly for the Europeans, while the superficial political optics have improved, Biden's turning out to be just as hard as Trump on issues the EU really cares about, like Germany's plans to buy gas from Russia through the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

While Biden has moved to defuse a long-standing tariff clash over subsidies for Airbus and Boeing, the new president has also left much of Trump's trade policy untouched, including tariffs on steel and a blockade of the World Trade Organization's court system. On some fronts, he's actually pushing Europe harder than Trump did. Biden's drive for a "Buy American" policy, favoring U.S. companies in major public tenders, is even drawing countermeasures from the EU camp.

A hundred days into the new administration, the Europeans are starting to sense that they are being offered pretty tough love from their ally.

I have to give Biden enormous credit here for what he's doing here. Europe is such a stagnant beast that's got way too comfortable with the status quo: Under Obama they got a free pass since he was too concerned with being their best friend, especially with Merkel, under Trump they played the whole "he's a monster" card when he was calling them out on their BS ( Trump being a cunt didn't help his situation ) and plenty of other political candidates would never do this.

Why? Because there's a lot of think tanks and interest groups who feel the US should give the EU a pass in the name of the transatlantic relationship, the Atlantic Council ran many pieces last year arguing that European nations should get a pass on not spending 2% on defense. This would have been a MAJOR gift to Germany, where they argued there's no political will or coalition to make it happen so leave them be.

Yeah screw that. Many people here in Europe genuinely believe the notion that we here are morally and intellectually superior to the Americans who are all portrayed like redneck idiots who have no culture or intelligence. It's all a massive lie to hide the fact Europe is in a really bad state and has been for quite a few years. While Biden is pushing 6 trillion in spending we're barely going to spend over 1/10th of that on a EU level for COVID recovery ( assuming we even manage that since we currently haven't decided how to pay for it ).

[Kryctos]

I personally think we need another one of his drive by posts telling people that free healthcare isn't technically free like people with a brain didn't know that and not realizing the only people needing that helpful hot take were too stupid to discuss the matter anyway.

Those arguments about free healthcare are stupid because nothing is truly free. When you use a coupon to get free meal at fast food restaurant that meal was not free to the restaurant. The point is that is free to the person receiving the service / product.

[Edge-]

Those arguments about free healthcare are stupid because nothing is truly free. When you use a coupon to get free meal at fast food restaurant that meal was not free to the restaurant. The point is that is free to the person receiving the service / product.

It's not though. Getting everything covered through taxes, so you don't need to pay additional co-pays, premiums, deductibles etc. The health care you provide is covered by the government through those taxes, so the care itself is "free" in that regard.

This isn't rocket surgery. We understand that the payment has to come from somewhere, it's differentiating between the current system where we still pay at the point of care for quite a bit (depending on your health insurance policy) and one where the financial aspect of care isn't a regular part of the picture for patients.

[Theodarzna]

Those arguments about free healthcare are stupid because nothing is truly free. When you use a coupon to get free meal at fast food restaurant that meal was not free to the restaurant. The point is that is free to the person receiving the service / product.

Well, everyone and their mother knows free healthcare means free at the point of service, and that its covered by tax money. Now if only a political candidate or party existed or exists to support a National Health Service in the United States sometime while I'm still alive.

[Felya]

Those arguments about free healthcare are stupid because nothing is truly free. When you use a coupon to get free meal at fast food restaurant that meal was not free to the restaurant. The point is that is free to the person receiving the service / product.

It’s worry free... it’s free of worrying if you can afford it...

[masterhorus8]

It’s worry free... it’s free of worrying if you can afford it...

Not to mention, their entire argument is bullshit semantics, because the entire point of universal healthcare is that it's still cheaper. "BUT IT'S NOT FREE!" is fucking asinine to keep it from costing less.

[Breccia]

Biden closes a loophole that let Trump send COVID money for non-COVID reasons.

It's not as bad as it sounds, but I'm still glad it's gone.

The loan program of the Defense Production Act, or DPA, was announced last May via an executive order by then-President Donald Trump, allowing companies supporting the pandemic response to apply for money through the Cold War-era law. President Joe Biden’s administration says the program has received a large amount of loan applications from companies that are not directly battling Covid-19.

Even more, hundreds of millions of dollars appropriated from the act last year for Covid-19 response did not go to manufacturing personal protective equipment (PPE) or for securing the raw materials needed to produce the vaccine, but instead went to defense projects such as ship building, aviation engineering and body armor manufacturing.

I lied. It is as bad as it sounds.

[postman1782]

I love how we now have two threads to shit on Republicans. Most of the stuff here isn't even talking about Biden.
The amount of circle jerking here is incredible.

Considering there isn't much to actually talk shit about with Biden, is fine. But whining about bashing Republicans is kinda sad, considering all of the damage they have done to this country since Reagan.

[Breccia]

Biden's DoJ floats the idea of requiring gun assembly kits to have mandatory background checks and serial numbers.

I mean...they didn't? Like, someone could just order a box of gun pieces and instructions and, somehow, it wouldn't count as a gun? The fuck?

[cubby]

I love how we now have two threads to shit on Republicans. Most of the stuff here isn't even talking about Biden.
The amount of circle jerking here is incredible.

The only circle jerk going on is in your head. If Biden does anything to criticize, post it here - that's precisely what it's for. But in case you've had your head buried in the sand the last five years, the Republican Party is continuing to walk down the Fascist road, lock stock and barrel.

Shout if you have questions - or haven't bothered to read the threads here. Remember, ignorance isn't bliss, it's just the prerequisite for GOP membership.

[postman1782]

The only circle jerk going on is in your head. If Biden does anything to criticize, post it here - that's precisely what it's for. But in case you've had your head buried in the sand the last five years, the Republican Party is continuing to walk down the Fascist road, lock stock and barrel.

Shout if you have questions - or haven't bothered to read the threads here. Remember, ignorance isn't bliss, it's just the prerequisite for GOP membership.

Absolutely, if he were to do something I don't agree with, like wasting money on building a wall, or promoting a religion as superior over another and trying to ban another one, or saying a bunch or racist bullshit while being used by white Christian terrorists as a reason for their attacks on minorities, then I would have a problem. All of those things happened under Trump, with Trump's rhetoric or policies.

[cubby]

Absolutely, if he were to do something I don't agree with, like wasting money on building a wall, or promoting a religion as superior over another and trying to ban another one, or saying a bunch or racist bullshit while being used by white Christian terrorists as a reason for their attacks on minorities, then I would have a problem. All of those things happened under Trump, with Trump's rhetoric or policies.

And those issues keep coming up here because Biden is righting the ship, so to speak, and so those issues are relevant to the Biden/Harris thread.

[postman1782]

And those issues keep coming up here because Biden is righting the ship, so to speak, and so those issues are relevant to the Biden/Harris thread.

Yep. It is so sad, that every time a Republican gets elected, we have to spend a lot of the next Democratic administration fixing their fuckups.