What has the Biden administration done that's so awful?

Politics & Elections
61

Personally, I have no objection to having a black woman on the court but I do think that the importance of the job would demand that you treat the role as being exclusive to the tippity-top candidates in the country - genius, wunderkinds that blow away all others in some way.

At the foundation of responsibility for Supreme Court justices is the need to recreate the founders of the nation and the framers of the Constitution, and that means being able to summon the spirits of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Locke, etc. into your mind and have them duke it out to fill in a gap or boot legislation where it conflicts with the basic ideology of our creation.

The role doesn’t call for some functionary who can recite prior court decisions, it’s for a person who is a historian, enlightenment era philosopher, pragmatist, and patriot with those second and third elements being often overlooked keys that really reduce down your viable options.

Arguably, the people at the top of the Judicial system are the least likely to be satisfying options for the role since your duty there is to obey the Supreme Court and preserve precedent - never to question it - not to dive into the weeds on the foundation of it all.

I have no particular reason to think that there isn’t a black woman who would be the ideal candidate but I do expect that we’re not going to get someone worthy of the role, because the goal will be to find a top level judge who subscribes to something like “living document” theology, and not to find a philosopher that looks at the laws with skepticism.

I don’t believe, for example, that a person with an eye on the underlying motivations of the country would rule in favor of gerrymandering or laws that force electors to vote in a certain way. These make no sense for a government that is meant to be the chosen of the people rather than a government that chooses its people, and when the historic purpose of the electoral college is expressly to avoid the popular will and to empower a more reasoned and skeptical body to choose the most powerful person in the country.

I don’t think we’re going to get that with Biden’s pick. I don’t know that I fault him for that, though, as I wouldn’t really expect that from any pick by any President who is in vogue with the parties.

62

I don’t know if we can fairly lay that at Biden’s feet for anything he did. I mean, we had something like 500 troops in Afghanistan for several months without issue. Certainly not enough to actually slow the Taliban down had they done anything.

The real issue is that when we announced the pullout, and the Taliban launched an offensive, the ANA folded like a cheap suit, leaving pretty much all the pullout plans null and void, as I’m certain they were expecting not to have a hostile army breathing down their neck while they tried to pull out, and the inevitable tidal wave of people fleeing said hostile army.

I would agree that if there was a realistic expectation that the ANA would collapse so utterly and be so ineffectual, that pulling out when and like we did was foolish. But all signs point toward the US military and government thinking they’d put up a credible enough fight against the Taliban, who weren’t exactly known to be particularly resolute or skilled fighters either.

I sort of think the news coverage didn’t help things either; they heavily implied that all the chaos was caused by the US leaving, not because the ANA had collapsed and left the place wide open for the Taliban to waltz right in.

63

The Biden Administration’s continued prosecution of Julian Assange, with groups such as HRW and Amnesty International calling it an attack on press freedoms and expression:

Amnesty International link

Human Rights Watch Coalition Letter

64

The President’s job is to protect classified materials.

As a citizen, for example, I might support a particular leak that helps to reveal misdeeds by the government. But, once I’m running to become President or serving as the President, I’m duty bound to abide by the laws of the nation - which would include ensuring that foreign entities aren’t able to access our secrets and distribute them. I’m trying to keep people in war zones and on enemy turf alive. Their deaths are a result of my failures as a President to keep the ship leak-proof.

Obama might not have been particularly opposed to Mexican labor in the country but he still worked to round up and deport people illegally in the country, because that’s the law and he swore an oath to execute the law. Reagan was virulently opposed to anything Socialistical but he kept Medicare and Medicaid floating around, operating. It was the law.

If you think we shouldn’t have top secret and classified materials then, by all means, you’re free to write to your senator but I’m pretty sure that you’re going to stay out-voted.

65

Nothing.

But he disappointed some Democrats relative to expectations. He has passed important legislation but struggled to get other things passed. As a compromise candidate for some progressives he has failed to make progress, even with regards to a filibuster. A decent man, he does not deserve all the blame. Covid, inflation and foreign policy decisions will rankle. Judges have been appointed, ambassadors gave not.

As for the Republicans, it would take extraordinary charisma and political skill to overcome the degree of obstructionism at a time of political polarization. This has not yet been achieved. It is unclear how many genuinely believe he did not win a fair election.

66

I’m honestly at the point where I think what he needs is just massive, over-the-top bribery. So many of the people opposing him seem to be motivated by something other than serving their constituents, that it has to be they’ve been bought out.

So, add “Pay these fuckers” clauses to every bill he wants to pass. Get their votes, pay them off, and be done with it.

And don’t even try to hide it. Make it plain that these people are only moved to act when they’ve been paid off.

67

It wasn’t about slowing the Taliban down, it was about setting up security for the people who needed to get out, including our own, and getting them out in a secure and orderly manner. There was zero planning down for the contingency of a rapid decline in the Afghan government and rapid takeover. We should have deployed troops to provide a screen and protection and enable us to get not just our own people out but all of those who would be at risk when the Taliban took over. We didn’t do that. I would expect this level of cluster fuck from the previous idiot in charge but was dismayed that the current batch fucked it up so badly.

68

I think that it’s a common expectation that when you’re withdrawing, that you’re leaving a sturdy enough government such that you won’t have to deal with tens of thousands of last-minute refugees, etc… Otherwise, why would you be withdrawing in the first place?

That’s just it though; the Afghan government and army were entirely worthless, and a lot of people who had otherwise planned to stay in Afghanistan suddenly decided that it was time to leave. Had the ANA put up anything approaching a fight, the withdrawal probably would have been considerably different. Just a few more weeks of relative calm and security would have worked wonders.

69

Generally, that’s true enough. But you don’t rely on that or count on it. You make contingency plans and plan for worst-case scenarios. Especially after you see things are going badly, which we did. The problem was, we not only didn’t plan on what happened, but we didn’t react well either and do what needed to be done to secure our withdrawal…and the withdrawal of dependents and endangered populations.

We can get into a whole thread on this, but it wasn’t that the Afghan government and army were worthless so much as they were gutted by the Taliban. But even if you are correct, that’s no excuse for our own actions or plans. Sorry, it cuts no mustard with me even if what you say is 100% correct, as you still plan contingencies and still react to what’s going on.

It’s fine if you don’t agree that this was Biden et al’s fault. To me, it was completely his fault and I blame him the same way I’d have blamed Trump et al if they had done it. It’s something I actually would expect Trump and his admin to drop the ball on…and something I’m disappointed Biden and his administration did drop the ball on.

70

The problem with that was, it would have meant sending more troops into Afghanistan, which was sort of the opposite of what we were trying to do. And, AUIU, would have violated the treaty we’d signed with the Taliban to withdraw. Which quite possibly would have caused them to break the cease fire and start attacking our troops directly again, leading to a much high body count.

71

Much the same way there’s a distinction between border enforcement and family separations/kids in cages, there’s a distinction between charges of computer intrusion (during the Obama administration) and the 17 charges relating to the Espionage Act invoked by the Trump administration and continued by Biden. All three presidents could be considered as conducting their duty to patch leaks, but Trump/Biden’s methods have been criticized as overkill and dangerous by human rights organizations and media outlets, as well as the tacit conclusions of the Obama administration, which decided against using the Espionage Act in regards to Assange after consideration.

I’d say overall that Biden’s worst moments tend to come out of continuation of Trump era policies, which categorizes matters such as family separations at the border, Iran Nuclear Deal, Afghanistan withdrawl, Assange (imo), and others. How much of that makes the Biden admin “so bad” or not is subjective (it’s no worse than Trump by definition) but I’m not the first in the chat to note the continuation of Trump policy as bad and/or of note.

72

Let’s say you are Biden. You are taking over the presidency from Trump. Trump put some policies in place to greatly expand his power, and was criticized for it at the time. As the president, those policies now benefit you. Do you revoke those policies, because it was wrong to create them in the first place? Or do you use your expanded powers to get some important things done, enjoying the benefit without the criticism (since you can always shrug and say, “Don’t blame me, I didn’t write them”)?

I can see an argument for either side. And by the way, I am being very generalized here, I’m not talking about any specific policies, just the basic philosophical dilemma that someone might be faced with if they inherit such things.

73

That’s not really a problem, at least IMHO. We should have sent in sufficient forces to do the withdrawal in an orderly fashion, and Biden et al could have, rightfully, pointed out that it was Trump who did the draw down to below levels that could support a successful operation. He’s have been vindicated, too, as we know in hindsight, as the Taliban DID topple the Afghan government and military and we DID need to do these things so it wasn’t a total cluster fuck. My WAG is the military even advised him and his administration to deploy more forces to the extraction sites for security, but for the reasons you list here he didn’t. And that’s on him.

I don’t think there would have been a bigger body count, but if there was there was. It would have allowed us to extract all those who needed to be extracted in an orderly fashion, and, basically, many of the folks who supported us have gotten the chop because of how we screwed this up. And that body count is, again, on him and his administration. But my guess is if we’d deployed forces in a defensive fashion for the types of security I’m talking about it wouldn’t have been more US bodies, as the Taliban didn’t want to risk pissing us off and having us turn around and kick their asses again. They wanted us to leave, and would have basically left us alone to get our people out. But YMMV. In either case, IMHO of course, that’s what we should have done, and I blame Biden and his administration for the screw up…it’s the only ‘awful’ thing that he’s done, IMHO of course.

74

At the most charitable, the job of a Supreme Court justice isn’t especially different from other judge positions, especially roles like state Supreme Courts. The consequences are greater but the role is not fundamentally different.

At the least charitable, the role of a modern Supreme Court judge is:

  1. Reliably rule in favor of your chosen team on wedge issues
  2. Write impassioned dissents that look good excerpted onto an Op-Ed page when you inevitably lose
  3. Don’t die
75

Sure, so the conservatives are absolutely justified in calling this behavior out.

Ronald Reagan
As the press has accurately pointed out, during my campaign for the Presidency I made a commitment that one of my first appointments to the Supreme Court vacancy would be the most qualified woman that I could possibly find.

Donald Trump
I will be putting forth a nominee next week. It will be a woman

So we have:
Ronald Reagan: I’ll pick a woman.
Conservatives: Hurray!

Donald Trump: I’ll pick a woman.
Conservatives: Hurray!

Joe Biden: I’ll pick a black woman.
Conservatives: That’s offensive, un-American, and illegal.

Golly, but the three statements are so similar. I wonder why it’s different this time.

76

Only part of it is racism. The other part is that Biden’s a Democrat.

77

And that’s the bigger part. The Republicans would object to Biden nominating Jesus Christ to the Supreme Court.

He’s not a citizen, long hair, questionable circumstances of birth, rebels against legitimate government, moonshiner (producing alcoholic beverages without a license), runs with a bad crowd, probably a hippie and a closet Democrat, etc., etc.

78

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with picking a black woman. What I’m saying is that it’s a poor political decision to announce it ahead of time. There’s little benefit from that- he/they could easily make that decision, work behind the scenes to make it happen, and then nominate the first black woman.

But announcing it ahead of time fires up the racists, and explicitly ties the nomination as much to the color of someone’s skin and their gender, as much as it does the legal expertise, intelligence and whatever else is in their head.

Virtue signaling like that doesn’t necessarily go over well with everyone who’s not a far-right Trumper, which is what I’m getting at. It also heavily implies that someone’s skin and gender is more important in the choice, than the other factors, which is where I am not wild about it.

79

Don’t forget, he’s a brown middle-easterner.

80

MIddle-easterner, sure… but brown :scream: NEVER! Say it isn’t so!

Okay…maybe from the sun. Like he got a good Florida tan, amirite?