Biden / Harris Focused Discussion

[Edge-]

https://www.wesh.com/article/preside...ency/43367435#

First veto has been issued. It's a weird bill I'm surprised even made it through the Senate, but I guess it wasn't worth whipping votes over or anything given the obvious expectation of the veto.

President Joe Biden on Monday issued the first veto of his presidency as he sought to block Republican-led efforts in Congress to overturn a Labor Department rule allowing retirement plans to consider environmental, social and governance factors when making investment decisions.

The Labor Department rule ended a Trump-era ban on managers of retirement plans considering factors such as climate change or pending lawsuits when making investment choices. Because suits and climate change have financial repercussions, administration officials argue that their predecessors were courting possible disaster.

Critics say ESG investments allocate money based on political agendas, such as a drive against climate change, rather than on earning the best returns for savers. Republicans in Congress who pushed the measure to overturn the Labor Department's action argue ESG is just the latest example of the world trying to get "woke."

Only two Democrats in the Senate voted for the measure, making it unlikely that backers of the effort in Congress could reach the two-thirds majority required in each chamber to override the veto.

Really, Republicans just hate people being able to freely invest or suggest where to invest money.

[Milchshake]

In the era of Gamestop shorts, Crypto, Zuck setting 36b on fire, Elon setting 44b on fire and SVB making bad bets...

Brandon about to close out the greatest macro trade of all time...

The US Department of Energy is preparing to start purchasing crude oil to partially refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) after it sold 180mn bl last year in response to the war in Ukraine.



Previous record holder might be Obama's bailout of GM.

[Flarelaine]

https://www.wesh.com/article/preside...ency/43367435#

First veto has been issued. It's a weird bill I'm surprised even made it through the Senate, but I guess it wasn't worth whipping votes over or anything given the obvious expectation of the veto.



Really, Republicans just hate people being able to freely invest or suggest where to invest money.

I wonder which two Democrats.

(googling)

Of course it's Manchin. And Tester, who is also not really a surprise given his position.

[Edge-]

Truly, I don't think the office can ever recover from this, much less this nation as a whole.

Crippling inequality resulting in extreme poverty? Crumbling infrastructure? No, these are not the signs that America is going to hell. It's that a few TV stars wore sneakers in the Oval Office.

In case anyone is wondering yes this is the idiot who use to co-host Hill Rising and I'm honestly surprised literally anyone takes anything from this man seriously. He's deeply, terrifyingly stupid and dishonest.

[draynay]

If only we could return to the white house glory days of McDonald's feasts.

[Edge-]

If only we could return to the white house glory days of McDonald's feasts.

Really, the biggest problem during the sinking of the Titanic was just that people couldn't be bothered to put on their best dinner jackets and dresses for the evacuation. Had people come respectfully dressed for the situation so much sadness and loss could have been avoided.

[Endus]

Truly, I don't think the office can ever recover from this, much less this nation as a whole.

Crippling inequality resulting in extreme poverty? Crumbling infrastructure? No, these are not the signs that America is going to hell. It's that a few TV stars wore sneakers in the Oval Office.

In case anyone is wondering yes this is the idiot who use to co-host Hill Rising and I'm honestly surprised literally anyone takes anything from this man seriously. He's deeply, terrifyingly stupid and dishonest.

Wherever are their powdered wigs? Even the President is sitting with pate exposed as if a common laborer! And there are even women present; the audacity!

Yeah, Enjeti, it's not 1954 any more. Times change, and you're a classist fucktwit.

[Edge-]

Wherever are their powdered wigs? Even the President is sitting with pate exposed as if a common laborer! And there are even women present; the audacity!

Yeah, Enjeti, it's not 1954 any more. Times change, and you're a classist fucktwit.

And they have a non-white person in the room as an equal. Truly, this country has forgotten its glorious roots and we need to return to the nation the Founders intended to build.

Sorry Saagar, that may mean you have to get the fuck out.

Real though, I'm glad he's still got some of the absolutely worst opinions since leaving Hill Rising and shit. I still struggle to believe that anyone actually ever watched that shit when he and Crystal Ball (fuckin rofl, again, struggle to believe that's a real god-damned name for a serious person) and took it seriously. Or watched it with any regularity. It was, and from the tidbits with the new hosts I've seen recently (including Bri Bri the idiot hilariously pwning that anti-woke lady) it's been one of the most dogshit tier pieces of political entertainment I've ever seen. Because it's not informative and never really has been.

[Malkiah]

this is totally unrelated to any discussion going on but it was one of those "thoughts that occurred to me in the shower" and now it's kind of haunting me and i don't really have anyone with the necessary cross-section of political views to discuss this IRL, so i'm putting it here.

thought i had:
has there been a president who was actually more progressive (or hell even just as progressive) as biden has been so far since.... fuck, how far back do you even have to go to find someone on the same level?

i'm using a rather wide scope here - rhetoric, mood and tone of the administration, statements and speeches, as well as of course executive orders and legislative agenda and such.
obviously, OBVIOUSLY biden isn't progressive or "left" in any real way insofar as politics in the grander scheme goes, i'm not a historical or political idiot who trying to say he's anything other than a solidly right conservative.

but even so, i've been shocked at his run so far in that he at least sometimes actually kind of sounds like a president who sometimes has some kind of a notion for how to move society forward and/or deal with problems.
which alone is more than you can say for any president since at least the late 60s, and is definitely far and away the most progressive we've seen from a US president in the modern era.

anyways it was just an idle thought. i'm not trying to cheer biden on, in fact i'm a little shocked and horrified at what i think is a bit of a realization.
anyone got any counter thoughts, or is this kind of depressingly self-evidently true?

[Flarelaine]

thought i had:
has there been a president who was actually more progressive (or hell even just as progressive) as biden has been so far since.... fuck, how far back do you even have to go to find someone on the same level?

I believe FDR at least was as progressive for his age. And I think there's a good argument to be made for LBJ.

[Shadowferal]

thought i had: has there been a president who was actually more progressive (or hell even just as progressive) as biden has been so far since.... fuck, how far back do you even have to go to find someone on the same level?

To add to Flarelaine's post...

For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace--business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me--and I welcome their hatred.

A generation later the GOP’s platform in 1956.

[Malkiah]

it's insane to look at biden at the run up to 2020... a career politician, a complete stooge for local money interests, a sopping piece of white bread that had done not one single thing in 40 years of politics except fear-monger against blacks and bolster a hate-based criminal justice system that would erode the fabric of minority society for decades.
he made VP in the storied tradition of "token boring straight white guy" and did absolutely fuck-all in his 8 years there.
his run in 2020 was IMO mostly just about the extent to which he wasn't sanders and he was a living symbol of how entrenched neoliberalism had become in US politics and in the democratic party. biden was a sign of the end times for politics as a means for addressing the issues faced by human civilization.

and while obviously the biden admin has still been wedged wholly into the modern day context, it's utterly shocking that there has been ANY displays of populism or grandstanding from the position of the government telling the country to stop being children and behave.
the more i keep thinking on this the more remarkable it seems that a single presidential run could do such a shift from what was expected at the outset to where it is now, it's kind of amazing.

[Breccia]

The Federal Reserve’s top banking regulator Barr, no relation, explains why SVB collapsed.

To begin, SVB’s failure is a textbook case of mismanagement. The bank waited too long to address its problems, and ironically, the overdue actions it finally took to strengthen its balance sheet sparked the uninsured depositor run that led to the bank’s failure.

I am committed to ensuring that the Federal Reserve fully accounts for any supervisory or regulatory failings, and that we fully address what went wrong.

Barr and other officials then "subtly" suggested that, ah fuck it here's the quotes:

The two bank failures also demonstrate the implications that banks with assets over $100 billion can have for financial stability. The prudential regulation of these institutions merits serious attention, particularly for capital, liquidity, and interest rate risk

-- FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg

We are evaluating whether application of more stringent standards would have prompted the bank to better manage the risks that led to its failure. We are also assessing whether SVB would have had higher levels of capital and liquidity under those standards, and whether such higher levels of capital and liquidity would have forestalled the bank’s failure or provided further resilience to the bank.

-- Barr again

There is more to that. The article goes on to explain what actions the Fed/FDIC/etc took when they saw SVB was a train wreck waiting to happen. They also explained that SVB was going off the rails, but other metaphorical trains were running normally and on time.

Any attempt to blame Biden for the collapse of SVB is going to have to directly refute what these two high-ranking experts said with evidence to the contrary. Along the lines of "SVB was breaking the law and Biden knew and did nothing".

[Rasulis]

If Biden decided to run in 2024, it looks like this will be a rematch between him and Trump. Early polls indicate that majority GOP still prefer Trump over Haley/DeSantis.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Truly, I don't think the office can ever recover from this, much less this nation as a whole.

Crippling inequality resulting in extreme poverty? Crumbling infrastructure? No, these are not the signs that America is going to hell. It's that a few TV stars wore sneakers in the Oval Office.

In case anyone is wondering yes this is the idiot who use to co-host Hill Rising and I'm honestly surprised literally anyone takes anything from this man seriously. He's deeply, terrifyingly stupid and dishonest.

This is tan-suit-gate all over again.

[fwc577]

This is tan-suit-gate all over again.

I mean, I think all bets were off when we let a Russian prostitute wander the grounds and redecorate. So. I don't get what these fuckers are so furious about.

[beanman12345]

How dare these libs not wearing ties, suit jackets etc etc. The oval office, the respect, the precious....

[The Stormbringer]

How dare these libs not wearing ties, suit jackets etc etc. The oval office, the respect, the precious....

Huh, I never thought I'd respect Reagan for anything after all the harm he's caused in our country (and the world at large), but I can at least somewhat respect a guy who says, "Fuck your normal social conventions, I wanna be comfortable dammit." Because damn if those outfits don't look more comfortable than the stuffy suit and tie approach.

[Lanrefni]

Huh, I never thought I'd respect Reagan for anything after all the harm he's caused in our country (and the world at large), but I can at least somewhat respect a guy who says, "Fuck your normal social conventions, I wanna be comfortable dammit." Because damn if those outfits don't look more comfortable than the stuffy suit and tie approach.

He was also in the late stages of Alzheimer's during his presidency,so easy to put on clothing may not have been his choice.

[Ihavewaffles]

They expected him to address the school shooting, but instead granpa starts rambling about ice cream