Mapping 46 - what should/will Biden do?

[Innula Zenovka]

This point, I think, requires attention

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

This point, I think, requires attention

Let’s push it back to the start point and see it it happens again. -Software Man

 

[Veritable Quandry]

Will those cleanups be good for four years or eight? Will Foreignlanders be able to do any planning involving the USA?

The biggest problem is the loss of trust that will take decades to rebuild if we make a dedicated effort. Biden can start building good but it will take several administrations to do it. Putin took American influence and broke it. That is the main thing he wanted from Trump.

 

[Free]

Former Senate CIA Investigator Warns Biden Against Picks Tainted By Torture, ‘Cover-Up’

The chief investigator for the Senate Intelligence Committee’s 2014 torture report is urging President-elect Joe Biden not to include anyone...

talkingpointsmemo.com

The chief investigator for the Senate Intelligence Committee’s 2014 torture report is urging President-elect Joe Biden not to include anyone in his administration who was complicit in torture, or who otherwise frustrated efforts to investigate and hold people responsible for it.

In an article and Twitter thread Monday, former Intelligence Committee staffer Daniel J. Jones argued that anyone “complicit in torture or who frustrated oversight and accountability for torture” doesn’t deserve a job in the Biden administration. For the former Senate staffer, that includes CIA officials during the Obama administration who failed to hold personnel accountable for destroying records, or for interfering with the Senate’s mammoth investigation of the torture program.

On that front, Jones told TPM Biden had erred in his pick of Avril Haines to be nominated as director of national intelligence.

“This is about the continuing cover-up of the torture program, the long legacy of that,” Jones told TPM. “And I wish I could say Haines wasn’t a part of that, but she was.”

 

[Jolene Benoir]

To me, the absolute biggest thing is winning those two Georgia seats. Though Biden CAN still do a lot by Executive Order, there are some appointments that need the Senate and anything he does by Executive Order can just be undone by the next person, worst case scenario the mad man, again.

 

[Beebo Brink]

The biggest problem is the loss of trust that will take decades to rebuild if we make a dedicated effort. Biden can start building good but it will take several administrations to do it. Putin took American influence and broke it. That is the main thing he wanted from Trump.

We're on probation, and it's going to be a long process if we stay on track (much shorter if we don't). I would imagine it would take at least two or three administration transitions -- including to another GOP president -- before the rest of the world would feel comfortable taking us at our word.

If a Republican wins in 2024 or 2028 or 2032, the entire world will be watching to see whether they are another Trump clone. We don't pass muster as a world leader until BOTH parties are capable of producing a president that acts with reasonable integrity and consistency.

Now I could easily see a Republican win by at least 2028. Will we have a completely reformed Republican Party by then? If you have any doubts about that outcome, guess what, so does the rest of the world.

 

[danielravennest]

To me, the absolute biggest thing is winning those two Georgia seats. Though Biden CAN still do a lot by Executive Order, there are some appointments that need the Senate and anything he does by Executive Order can just be undone by the next person, worst case scenario the mad man, again.

Well, at this point everyone in Georgia knows about the runoff. I'm an active Democratic Party volunteer, and I've still gotten half a dozen text messages from different places and four pieces of mail about it. My Nextdoor feed has had a bunch of posts about it (a couple from me about Perdue and Loeffler pointing to articles about their corruption). So mainly it will come down to turnout. Absentee ballot requests are high so far, so that's a good sign. I'm hoping the Qanon crazies peel off some votes with their "punish the Republican Party for caving" rants. Abrams and her various support groups are trying to register young voters who will turn 18 by Jan 5th.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

Well, at this point everyone in Georgia knows about the runoff. I'm an active Democratic Party volunteer, and I've still gotten half a dozen text messages from different places and four pieces of mail about it. My Nextdoor feed has had a bunch of posts about it (a couple from me about Perdue and Loeffler pointing to articles about their corruption). So mainly it will come down to turnout. Absentee ballot requests are high so far, so that's a good sign. I'm hoping the Qanon crazies peel off some votes with their "punish the Republican Party for caving" rants. Abrams and her various support groups are trying to register young voters who will turn 18 by Jan 5th.

My mom threatened to move down here until right before the election, and to turn off her landline and TV services..... they are driving her crazy with calls.

 

[danielravennest]

My mom threatened to move down here until right before the election, and to turn off her landline and TV services..... they are driving her crazy with calls.

I stopped answering calls that are not on my contacts list years ago. If it's important they can leave a message.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

I stopped answering calls that are not on my contacts list years ago. If it's important they can leave a message.

I've mentioned this to her....a few times.

 

[Free]

 

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[Free]

This hot garbage was posted in the fucking Washington Post.

Giving Trump Credit for the Vaccine Is the Best Way for Biden to Unite the Country

If Biden truly wants to unite the country, he should give credit where credit is due — and pledge to continue Operation Warp Speed.

www.aei.org

Here's the way this would work, Thiessen: After Trump comes clean and admits his claims of voter fraud are nothing but lies, after he congratulates Biden and Harris on their historic win, after he's made public pleas for his followers to break from the lunacy and accept the reality of his loss, and after he apologizes for his behavior and actions, then maybe possibly a Biden underling can pass along to Trump some small acknowledgement for his lethargic figureheading of a process he had no actual hand in.

How's that for unity?!

 

[Jolene Benoir]

This hot garbage was posted in the fucking New York Times.

Giving Trump Credit for the Vaccine Is the Best Way for Biden to Unite the Country

If Biden truly wants to unite the country, he should give credit where credit is due — and pledge to continue Operation Warp Speed.

www.aei.org

Here's the way this would work, Thiessen: After Trump comes clean and admits his claims of voter fraud are nothing but lies, after he congratulates Biden and Harris on their historic win, after he's made public pleas for his followers to break from the lunacy and accept the reality of his loss, and after he apologizes for his behavior and actions, then maybe possibly a Biden underling can pass along to Trump some small acknowledgement for his lethargic figureheading of a process he had no actual hand in.

How's that for unity?!

Fucking American Enterprise Institute. No, we won't change history for you or for Trump.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

This hot garbage was posted in the fucking New York Times.

Giving Trump Credit for the Vaccine Is the Best Way for Biden to Unite the Country

If Biden truly wants to unite the country, he should give credit where credit is due — and pledge to continue Operation Warp Speed.

www.aei.org

Here's the way this would work, Thiessen: After Trump comes clean and admits his claims of voter fraud are nothing but lies, after he congratulates Biden and Harris on their historic win, after he's made public pleas for his followers to break from the lunacy and accept the reality of his loss, and after he apologizes for his behavior and actions, then maybe possibly a Biden underling can pass along to Trump some small acknowledgement for his lethargic figureheading of a process he had no actual hand in.

How's that for unity?!

And don't forget to congratulate him on this

The White House turned down 100m extra Pfizer vaccine doses | First Thing

Trump administration refused an offer of millions of additional doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus jab. Plus, Giuliani is ‘doing well’ but his condition is kept quiet

www.theguardian.com

(Thiessen's article appears in the Washington Post, I think, not the NYT).

 

[Free]

(Thiessen's article appears in the Washington Post, I think, not the NYT).

I was so pissed off any mainstream paper would carry it, I mistyped.

 

[Free]

The Santa Claus plan.

Joe Biden should do everything at once

How to succeed in hyperpolarized politics: run a blitz.

www.vox.com

 

[Free]

I think Biden's first thing to do as President should be to sign kill orders for the last President.

*I'm keeding!*

‘A real mess’: Trump is leaving behind crises and undermining Biden before he takes office

Raw Story version of story:

Trump leaving behind a ‘real mess’ for Biden — on purpose: report

President Donald Trump is leaving behind a "real mess" for Joe Biden, and that seems to be intentional, according to a new report.The president-elect must deal with the worsening coronavirus pandemic, a shaky economy, racial turmoil and now a massive cyberattack, but the outgoing president has...

www.rawstory.com

President Donald Trump is leaving behind a "real mess" for Joe Biden, and that seems to be intentional, according to a new report.

The president-elect must deal with the worsening coronavirus pandemic, a shaky economy, racial turmoil and now a massive cyberattack, but the outgoing president has made a series of moves apparently aimed at hampering the Biden administration before it even begins, reported the Washington Post.

"He'd do almost anything to complicate the life of Joe Biden," said one former senior administration official.

Trump has not personally participated in transition activities, and he has told advisers not to share information with the Biden team that could be used against him, said a senior administration official.

"In ordinary times and in the best of times, transitions are incredibly hard," said Max Stier, president and chief executive of the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service. "We live in a system where there's one president [at a time]. President Trump is still president. There are ways in which he's not making it easier, but he's making it harder."

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Biden wants to convene an international 'Summit for Democracy'. He shouldn't | David Adler and Stephen Wertheim

To undo the damage that Trump has wrought at home and abroad, the US must move beyond outdated foreign policy ideas

www.theguardian.com

President-elect Joe Biden has proposed to convene a Summit for Democracy. His campaign presents the summit as an opportunity to “renew the spirit and shared purpose of the nations of the Free World”. With the US placing itself once again “at the head of the table”, other nations can find their seats, and the task of beating back democracy’s adversaries can begin.

But the summit will not succeed. It is at once too blunt and too thin an instrument. Although the summit might serve as a useful forum for coordinating policy on such areas as financial oversight and election security, it is liable to drive US foreign policy even further down a failed course that divides the world into hostile camps, prioritizing confrontation over cooperation.

The article suggests that solution to the world's most pressing problems -- the climate crisis and Covid-19 -- rely on cooperation between, rather than confrontation with, non-democratic countries, that the "Free World" is, rather, the "more or less free-ish world" if it includes, for example, NATO allies like Poland, Hungary and Turkey, and US allies against China like India and the Philippines, and that, whatever we call it, the US is hardly in any position to lead it right now.

 

[Free]

Instead of a "democracy summit," how about we throw a get re-acquainted social with a buffet?