Need a balancing act from the party. After four years of the Republicans brandishing in a cult around their leader and president, the Democrats have to show they’re above that and it’s good for Biden to take it in his stride as it’ll make him a better president. I think he’s been more ‘progressive’ than people expected which has bought him a lot more respect in these early days from the Bernie Sanders wing of the party and the so-called “border crisis” that the Republicans were fearmongering about has dissipated. I think the bills that are pending Senate voting (Infrastructure, American Families Plan, Protect the Right to Organize Act and the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act) are all broadly popular in opinion polling and certain individual items are overwhelmingly popular. If the senate wasn’t split as it is all of this would be done easily so it is a case of whether he can politically manoeuvre the votes, or eliminate the filibuster. Either way if he gets this done he’d probably be one of the best presidents in modern history.
Republicans are gearing up for the 2022 elections, but they have a problem. President Joe Biden as evil villain is not working out for their attack ad strategy. He’s drawing high marks for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and his policy proposals are popular; even lower-income Republican voters approved of the American Rescue Plan and of plans to raise taxes on people earning more than $400,000 a year.
…“Biden is not a good bad guy,” said one Republican strategist. “Obama was a haughty professor,” translation: Black man who was smarter than you and didn’t scramble to hide it, whereas the “Uncle Joe life story that he has—the tragedy, the losses, the obvious empathy the man has, I think that’s all legit. So, it’s hard to demonize him.”
Yeah, if he wasn’t a white guy, you’d find a way.
”Because [Biden] is so boring, he’s not as scandalous,” said another. But that’s okay, because “there are bigger bogeymen … We don’t need him as our No. 1 foil.”
Bigger bogeymen, like Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, if you get the drift. Sen. Bernie Sanders also makes the list, because you can try to demonize an old white guy if he’s a shouty Jewish socialist.
…
My bold.
Yeah, I knew that was Obama’s problem-- an uppity “boy” who didn’t keep in his place.
But that “sleepy Joe” label-- painting Biden as a doddering old bumbler who will just doze through his Presidency isn’t working out either. Dang!
Fortunately there are plenty of Democratic loud-mouthed women, Jews, and Black people who act like they can tell white dudes what to do— yeah! Now we’re talkin’!
That is pretty much the attitude of my father in-law. Yes, Trump was a bit rough around the edges, but at least he was honest about it. Biden on the other hand hides his evilness where people can’t see it and just puts on a act of being a nice guy. Of course no evidence is offered as to how he knows that Biden is evil, just that he’s a leftist and all of them are evil. 
So Trump is a good guy despite all the evidence to the contrary, and Biden is a bad guy despite all the evidence to the contrary. Got it.
The right thing to do:
Another routine procedure restored with no fanfare. 
Biden and his wife, Jill, a teacher, earned $607,336 last year while he was running for president. That is down from $985,223 in 2019, when they primarily earned money from book sales, speeches and positions at the University of Pennsylvania and Northern Virginia Community College. Those income opportunities diminished because of the campaign.
…
The Bidens donated $30,704 to 10 charities last year. The largest gift was $10,000 to the Beau Biden Foundation, a nonprofit focused on child abuse that is named after the president’s deceased son. The president separately released his financial holdings through the Office of Government Ethics and has assets worth between $1.2 million and $2.88 million.
Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Douglas Emhoff, also released their 2020 tax filings. They paid a rate of 36.7% on income of $1,695,225 and contributed $27,006 to charity. Harris was previously a U.S. senator representing California, while Emhoff was a Los Angeles-based entertainment lawyer. He now teaches law at Georgetown University.
Harris also made public her financial holdings through the Office of Government Ethics, showing her assets valued at between $1 million and $2.4 million. Harris also listed just under $359,000 in advance payments for her 2019 memoir, “The Truths We Hold.”
…
…It is the least personality-driven West Wing in decades.
Because of his longevity in politics and underdog personality, combined with the depth of the crises he is facing, President Biden is undoing a longstanding Washington tradition in which staff members enjoy their own refracted fame.
Gone are the days when a counselor to the president like Kellyanne Conway was so well-known that she needed her own security detail; when a White House press secretary like Sean Spicer was a recurring character on “Saturday Night Live”; when a policy adviser like Stephen Miller was not only recognized but booed out of a restaurant; and when a glamorous, drama-prone communications director like Hope Hicks was photographed regularly by the paparazzi as she left her home in workout clothes.
Proximity to power has a way of attracting interest regardless of whether it is coveted, and Mr. Biden’s aides may still end up more well known than they set out to be. But Biden staff members appear to be trying to set themselves apart from the drama of the Trump administration, which the former president ran like a reality show.
…
This is what it looks like when the grownups are in charge.
So is this excerpt from his keynote speech to Coast Guard cadets yesterday:
I want to thank you. I want to thank you, Cadet Steyller, excuse me, Seyller, for speaking on behalf of your class, and congratulations on earning the honor of being the class of ’21’s Distinguished Graduate. Most importantly, I want to thank your parents and families for everything, everything they have done to support you and all of you, and I’m going to, and those watching online as well, not all can be here. You’ve raised these cadets to be fierce Patriots, as well as young people of incredible courage and determination. You were the ones who first installed in them a sense of service, who helped them hear the calling of a higher duty, so it’s your day too. Cadets, stand up, turn around and salute your parents. Get up. Up, up, up.
The orange doofus would have been demanding he be thanked and saluted.
Oh my goodness-- that brought tears to my eyes. How incredibly classy.
Makes me proud.
The pedant in me wishes he’d said “instilled” instead of “installed” but it’s still a moving speech.
Oh Em Gee, he used the wrong word! He is obviously going senile, his brain is rotting on the spine! He should not be running the country! Aaaargh!
To be clear, I’m not saying that. Biden does trip over his tongue from time to time but it’s not a sign of mental deterioration.
to be clear, /s
Can someone explain why Biden is trimming $$ from his plan? It’s not like anything will get the Republicans on board. Tell me he’s not channeling Obama.
I think every time they object, he should tack on several million dollars’ worth of new shit. Just keep running up the tab.
When Sen. Mitch McConnell says he is “100 percent” focused “on stopping” any initiative from President Joe Biden, he should be believed. When he says that he’s got his entire conference behind him—“What we have in the United States Senate is totally unity from Susan Collins to Ted Cruz in opposition to what the new Biden administration is trying to do to this country”—believe that, too.
And when some anonymous Republican claims, “Republicans did increase their offer and have been working in good faith with the White House” on infrastructure, you can definitely know that they are lying. Because they won’t buck McConnell. From Collins to Cruz, they share a commitment to block Biden and block the Democrats from succeeding.
…
Biden trimming the amount is probably more about trying to get Manchin and Synema to support budget reconciliation to pass the bill. After what happened with the ARP earlier this year, Biden is not under any delusions that Republicans are serious about negotiating on anything that involves new spending.
When the Republicans countered during the ARP negotiations, Biden correctly said “sorry, I’ve seen this movie before.”
Ok. Makes sense. Thx.
This upcoming event is being met with mixed responses.
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/biden-host-george-floyds-family-233122890.html
I just posted the following in the Schadenfreude thread, but I decided it really fits better here:
Just noticed this tweet from yesterday (May 29) evening:
Has this been reported elsewhere in the news? I haven’t spotted it yet. Oh wait, here’s a report I just found:
Based on conflicting headlines I’m seeing, it’s unclear if these nominees have just been confirmed by the committee and remain to be confirmed by the entire Senate, or if they have been confirmed by the entire Senate, or if they have already been sworn in. In any case, things are progressing.
Looks the Senate itself has approved them:
And see: