Biden said he didn’t think the moratorium was Constitutional, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise. The Supremes kicked it back to Congress.
Biden plans to withdraw the nomination of David Chipman to lead the ATF due to “bipartisan pushback” (i.e. 50 Republicans + Joe Manchin). Chipman, who spent 25 years at the ATF, apparently committed the unforgivable crime of daring to work for Gabrielle Gifford’s gun control advocacy organization after he left the ATF.
Good. I wouldn’t want an ex-NRA head running it either. Someone without prior partisan baggage would be better for what should essentially be a technical/managerial role.
ATF directors shouldn’t make policy or be biased heavily for/against a political position that might conflict with the fair undertaking of the job. Of courae, that’s rarely the case with any government appointee, but it should be.
Yeah, we’re about due for another pre-school shooting, and I’d just hate to think we might have an ATF head, after having the position vacant for how many years(?), to throw off that schedule. Republicans have their Thoughts & Prayers stored up in anticipation. 
From Biden’s Senate days. A friend just sent me this:
Senator Biden - True Story
Thought I would share this after the confrontations in America The story I'm about to share with you about Joe Biden is special in fact, I'm fairly certain I'm the only living person left who actually witnessed it first-hand. It was about 16 years ago, and I was a young rabbi, brand-new to Delaware, on my way to lead a shiva minyan a worship service following the death of a Jewish person. I was from California. Back then, I didn't know Claymont, Delaware from Scranton, Pennsylvania. A quick bit of background: When someone passes away in the Jewish faith, we observe seven days of mourning, called shiva. We gather a group of ten Jewish adults together a minyan to say the Mourners Kaddish.It usually happens in a person's home somewhere intimate. In this case, the deceased individual her name was Mrs. Greenhouse, of blessed memory had not been a person of means. She had lived in rent-controlled senior housing in a tall high-rise building off of Namaans Road. Her apartment had been too small to fit everyone into, so we conducted our worship service in the building's communal laundry room, in the basement of the high-rise. We assembled the ten elders together, and it was in this most humble of places that I began to lead the kaddish.Toward the end of the service, a door at the back of the laundry room opened, and who walks in but Senator Joe Biden, his head lowered, all by himself.I nearly dropped my prayer book in shock.Senator Biden stood quietly in the back of the room for the duration of the service. At the close of the kaddish, I walked over to him and asked the same question that must have been on everyone else's mind: Senator Biden what are you doing here? And he said to me: Listen, back in 1972, when I first ran for Senate, Mrs. Greenhouse gave $18 to my first campaign. Because that's what she could afford. And every six years, when I'd run for reelection, she'd give another $18. She did it her whole life. I'm here to show my respect and gratitude. Now, the number 18 is significant in the Jewish faith its numbers spell out the Hebrew word chai, as in to life, to life, l chayim! But it's also a humble amount. Joe Biden knew that. And he respected that.There were no news outlets at our service that day no Jewish reporters or important dignitaries.Just a few elderly mourners in a basement laundry room.Joe Biden didn't come to that service for political gain. He came to that service because he has character. He came to that service because he's a mensch. And if we need anything right now when it comes to the leadership of our country we need a mensch.I know this is such a simple, small story. But I tell it to as many people as will listen to me. Because I think that, in their heart of hearts, when people are trying to think about the decision they'll make this year this is the kind of story that matters. Joe Biden is a mensch. We need a mensch. Thanks for reading. Rabbi Michael Beals of Delaware
No date on it. I haven’t researched it. It was sent to me by a close friend.
According to snopes, it is true.
Looking ahead to the midterms, I think it’s possible that the CA blueprint Newsom used to win the recall might be the way to go for Democrats for the forseeable future – run against Trump. Newsom didn’t just win, he dominated, with turnout close to presidential-election levels. And he ran by portraying the opposition as Trump in all but name.
The reason I think this might work is that Trump himself can’t give up his position as the center of attention in Republican politics. Every Republican still has to bend the knee to him or else they’re likely toast in their next primary. So it’s pretty easy to portray nearly every GOP politician as a Trump crony, barring the very few who’ve gone out of their way to separate themselves (Kinzinger, Cheney, Romney, etc.), and thus every election as a choice between Trump and not-Trump.
It makes messaging simple, and a simple message is almost always going to be more effective than a complicated one. “Vote D or else get a return to Trump” is a pretty simple (and, IMO, mostly factually accurate) slogan.
A news analysis in The New York Times agrees with you.
I like it! And the real genius is that it puts GOP candidates in the position of either …
- Distancing themselves from Trump and being labeled a RINO
- Embracing the Trump label and reinforcing the Dems’ message
Going to put this here because it’s probably not worth it’s own thread.
The latest on infrastructure is insane. Sinema now saying that she’ll block the reconciliation bill unless the bipartisan bill is passed before October. The reconciliation sunset is October 1.
It is unbelievable how painful this process is. I’ve lost count of how many months it’s been on what should really be extremely uncontroversial legislation.
And there’s going to be a debt ceiling showdown in October as well.
And yet, we spent something like six trillion on the Afghan and Iraq wars over the past two decades with hardly any debate or discussion. Imagine if that had been spent at home, on things like infrastructure, healthcare and education. How much better off might we be?
And the most important elements of these bills address climate which is a threat orders of magnitude greater than Al Qaeda or the Taliban.
“how are you going to pay for this?”
“By using the Afghanistan peace dividend”
Republicans wake up and work toward one goal: chaos. That is what they want. They don’t just want keep Biden from succeeding; they want him to fail so badly that the country is crippled. They’re signaling that they’re perfectly willing to injure the US credit rating. And as @DeadTreasSecretaries alluded to, climate change is real and I think we’re very close to reaching some real tipping points.
Those of us old enough to remember know that this logic doesn’t work, as we learned from the “Peace Dividend” when the Viet Nam war ended. Instead of re-directing all that money to worthwhile domestic projects (as was promised), or maybe simply to help pay down the national debt, Republicans insisted on simply not budgeting that money for anything, but cutting taxes instead.
I don’t understand how Democrats can’t nudge ‘moderates’ and centrists during a devastating pandemic. I don’t understand why they can’t convince Manchin and Sinema that they need to support a bolder agenda, especially when their next elections are three years from now. They’re going to lose elections not by being moderate but by convincing progressive voters that not much is going to change when they’re in power. It’s hard to keep winning elections on the “But at least we’re not Trump” platform.
The stupid thing is that people like Manchin and Sinema appear to believe that as long as they don’t fully support the Democratic agenda they’ll keep their conservative supporters, not realizing that their conservative supporters don’t care and they’re alienating moderates and progressives. I mean, ask Ben Nelson of Nebraska how well stonewalling on PPACA worked to keep him in office at the next election.
They’d be better off with a more proactive agenda and selling how what they’re doing helps their constituents directly. “I dragged my feet - for you!” is not a compelling campaign slogan.
Running on a platform of restrained spending plays right into Republican hands. I could definitely see the challenge facing moderates in 2009 when they had to decide whether to make major changes to healthcare law - that was an economic and political gamble because that’s something that would impact voters directly one way or another. But “We allowed the libs to spend only $1 trillion over 10 years instead of $2.5 trillion is not a winner.” Progressives will begin to wonder what’s the point of voting, which is exactly what Republicans want them to think
I strongly suspect Nelson’s hobbling of the healthcare legislation had less to do with the views of voters and more to do with the views of the major health insurance providers whose corporate headquarters are based in Omaha.