He has delivered the largest economic recovery plan since Roosevelt, the largest infrastructure plan since Eisenhower, the most judges confirmed since Kennedy, the second-largest healthcare bill since Johnson, and the largest climate change bill in history.
Given the congress he has to work with, one could argue he’s been a better President than Obama was.
He’s been a better president than Obama was.
It’s not particularly close in my opinion.
I’m hella biased, but the SAVE plan and not accruing interest on student loans as long as you make payments is a huge win.
There’s no reason they couldn’t have done this under Obama…
Edit: just wanted to mention that this restructuring for student loans had absolutely nothing to do with Congress
The SAVE plan and the rules around PSLF really do make medical school a lot more viable for people like me. Doctors get paid a pittance in residency, and the interest on medical school loans would add up really fast on the old income-driven repayment plans.
Trust me I fully understand.
I went to med school, finished back in 2018.
If I never step foot into a hospital again it’ll be too soon.
I work from home now as a cloud engineer for a large US-based mortgage company.
I’m very happy now. I’ve already made my piece that my $350,000 in loans can only be solved by making minimum payments for 20 years.
All that being said, a lot of people are in a different boat than myself.
Their loans are much more manageable and I’m really glad they’ll be able to pay them off because interest isn’t accruing.
Who knows? I make enough now that I’m actually going to have to sit down and calculate whether it’s worth it to pay the loans off myself or just make minimum payments for 20 years and have the rest forgiven.
The SAVE plan and interest no longer recruiting is the only reason these possibilities are there.
Otherwise I’d have to resign myself to making 20 years of minimum payments and hoping that forgiveness plan is still in place.
In terms of stuff leftists want, Obama overpromised and underdelivered, while Biden underpromised and overdelivered. I’m not sure he actually delivered all that much more than Obama did on an absolute scale, but when expectations ranged from “1994 crime bill guy” to “at least he’s not Trump,” pretty much any policy that manages to edge past mediocre is a pleasant surprise.
I agree too. Obama had charisma and was a great speaker, but policy wise Biden is much better.
If Obama was firmer many current problems would not exist today. But it is easier to say now.
Obama had charisma and was a great speaker,
And as we’re seeing now with Biden’s poll numbers, unfortunately, that’s all that matters. Doesn’t matter how many good things you do to help people, all that matters is whether you have charisma and a good media relations team.
People are so stupid. Maybe democracy was a mistake.
Maybe democracy was a mistake.
It probably works fine if the majority of your population doesn’t have either CTE from your sports programs, lead poisoning, or something above an 8th grade education.
Obama was generally pretty terrible. Obamacare was a disaster and about the only good policies he had were around car emissions, which were significant but still. If you factor in the amount of political capital he had in 2009 it’s sad really.
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Some things never chnage
Weird, I never see Record oil extraction on his list of accomplishments, I wonder why that is? 🤔
and none of it matters because the other side thinks the work of government is to do as little as possible for the people it fleeces.
And their propaganda has been so good for the last 60 years that even half the left believes it but think they’re immune to it. See motions to every thread in Lemmy
And yet the quality of life for Americans is still declining, while the wealth gap keeps growing.
I would argue the quality has been improving as if late. But kind of hard to blame him for the fact that the world was gripped and massively disrupted a by a pandemic and the financial moves by the fed to stave off an even worse financial melt down led to high inflation. But we’re going in the right direction, even if it isn’t fast enough for some people.
This has been a decades long problem that he has contributed to over his entire career.
Wages aren’t keeping up with inflation for most people. The wage increases reported are mostly driven by top earners. It isn’t moving at the bottom. Longer lines than ever at food pantries. I remember when Democrats used to at least pretend to give a shit about that stuff.
Yep, and a bunch of the things Biden supporters want to tout are making this problem worse, because his economic legislation and climate legislation and healthcare legislation and all the rest is almost entirely just throwing taxpayer money at businesses and hoping it trickles down to us somehow
Narrator - It didn’t.
If at first you don’t succeed, give businesses more money and try again.
He’s been ok. Way better than that last guy though!
I feel that he is mostly honest and wants to do the right thing but he doesn’t always get it right. At least he tries.
If he didn’t run a campaign against Bernie, I’d agree. Bernie could have done wonders for this country.
He’s got women and children’s blood on his hands from Palestine. He’s only ok by comparison to the other guy.
For a president of a war mongering country like the US he is ok. But he is still a president of the US so murdering brown people is a sport for him.
Obama did pretty okay, I think he saved more brown people than he harmed with his diplomacy and middle eastern border strengthening policies. He was also reported to be very very unfriendly with Netanyahu.
I can’t speak for Clinton, but the people on either end of his administration certainly were shit.
Obama was catastrophic in foreign policy. He was just a puppet that did whatever the CIA told him to do. Netanyahu didn’t like him because he was black that’s about it.
He started like three wars, left Libya in chaos by overthrowing Gadaffi who didn’t want to give him oil, didn’t close Guantanamo Bay (one of his main promises), proscecuted Edward Snowden for exposing US war crimes, and a whole slew more.
I could sit here and type a paragraph about how much worse the trump and bush admins were about middle eastern military conflicts, mentioning the USA hasn’t officially declared war since WWII, but that would detract from my previous argument that he was decent even without comparisons. The major policy change of his admin was respecting older mutually drawn borders that led to a lot of peace talks and diplomacy with his administration which frankly didn’t exist before. Obama was single-handedly responsible for multiple nuclear disarmament deals and treaties, notably Iran. When he tracked down and killed Osama Bin Laden with a strike team to minimize excess casualties, he received praise from Muslim religious leaders.
Gaddafi took power in 1969 via violent coup and US Ambassadors were recalled in 1972. He started revolutions and funded rebels in like 8 countries, including the perpetually unstable country of Chad. Sanctions briefly relaxed after 9/11 in return for nuclear disarmament. Blaming Obama for the Libyan Protests and Rebellion, as a result of the Arab Spring, is like blaming the single extra straw for breaking the camel’s back.
Did Obama live up to the expectations set by his 2009 speech in Cairo, Egypt? No. Did he sometimes side with monarchs and dictators? Yes. Did he do a good job? I think so, I can’t imagine doing anything differently.
EDIT: Replaced some pronouns with names for clarity.
Bush was indeed far worse than Obama. Yet Obama continued everything Bush started. Obama did not save the middle east, he ruined it even more by starting three extra wars. It’s two sides of the same coin on foreign policy.
The only time Trump went Obama tier full idiot on foreign policy was when he drone striked the Iranian general Suleimani, he claims israel had a role in that. Luckily this didn’t lead to major escalations in the region.
Aside from that Trump just continued drone striking Syria, a war that Obama started.
Many middle eastern leaders aren’t the friendliest dudes. Gadaffi certainly wasn’t. But the questions that every American forgets to ask is “if we kill this guy, will the next guy be better or worse”? If you look at the state that Iraq, Libya etc are in now, it was certainly many times better before America destroyed it.
Of course that is an irrelevant moral question. The only real reason America kills leaders in the middle east is when they stop abiding the rules of the American Oil Cartel.
2011/03/20: Western oil companies operating in Libya have privately warned that their operations in the country may be nationalised if Colonel Muammer Gaddafi’s regime prevails.
From wikipedia:
The killing of Muammar Gaddafi took place on 20 October 2011
Obama was pretty bad on the war front.
- Obama killed US citizens without a trial in foreign countries.
- Continued and escalated drone strikes.
- Violated the war powers act with respect to Libya.
- Egypt coup + Bengazi was a massive failure.
- Created power vacuum for isis to rise.
- conducted military operations in foreign countries without their knowledge or consent.
Last I checked, before 2012 Egypt used to be under control of the very hostile and brutal Muslim Brotherhood and massive protests rocked the country since before Obama was even in power. To give you an idea of how bad the Muslim Brotherhood is, they literally founded Hamas across the border. Idk why everybody in this thread attributes literally everything that happened during the Arab Spring to the Obama Administration. News flash, those countries existed before Obama was president.
You are pretty much entirely incorrect. Before 2011, Egypt was under the control of Hosni Mubarak, a brutal dictator with mostly friendly ties to the U.S. The Egyptian people eventually revolted, and they were not happy with the U.S. afterwards; they pelted then Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s motorcade with tomatoes and eggs when she came to visit after the uprising.
The Muslim Brotherhood won the majority of the Egyptian parliament afterwards, and elected Mohammed Morsi as President, but their rule lasted barely a year before the were also met with massive protests. The military forced Morsi out and basically established a military dictatorship in 2013. There were always rumblings that the U.S. was working behind the scenes with the Egyptian military to destabilize Muslim Brotherhoods civilian government, but there’s no evidence of that. The Egyptian Military government then blamed the Brotherhood for a terrorist attack, a claim the Brotherhood denied, and banned the Brotherhood.
The Muslim Brotherhood were repressive and definitely supported terrorism, but they did not rule Egypt before 2011. There were a small blip between U.S. backed dictators.
Obama bombed millions using drones.
He is also OK for being a president of the US.
Not so subtle reminder that YOU are not immune to propaganda.
Also propaganda doesn’t come exclusively from newspapers and magazines.
The best form of propaganda in the last couple of decades has been word of mouth.
Don’t trust anyone to tell you what to think. Look at the facts and only the facts.
Do yOuR owN ReSeARcH!!
Yeah but literally. Not “watch YouTube videos”. Look up a primary source - a statistic or a peer reviewed study.
The insidious part about the “do your own research” people is that they’ve managed to convince a generation of people to NOT do any research.
Those facts nobody tells you about?
Whether someone tells you or you stumble on it yourself.
Peer reviewed studies, direct statistics, etc
A poll is a primary source. That’s good.
An article telling you about a poll is a secondary source. Be skeptical.
And above all, be very skeptical of anything that makes you feel intense emotion. Someone might be trying to make you feel that way so you’ll be less critical.
What is this, the 1900’s?
The best propaganda tool is obviously the internet: anonymous, spreads far and wide, can be automated
I think the biggest risk is the Internet as a propaganda tool disguised as word of mouth ‘grassroots’ opinions.
“Word of mouth” imo includes direct person to person interaction on social media. Your Facebook friends, a sidebar on reddit or lemmy, a DM
That’s how I’ve always used the term.
Imagine being downvoted for telling people to seek the truth in what they’re told.
This is lemmy now.
Facts aren’t facts though.
Both sides of Covid had their facts, and after a few years, both sides had to admit they were wrong about certain things.
I think the other problem with only looking at facts is that it ignores the context.
Take 9/11 for example, the fact was terrorists attacked America, end of story.
But it misses the bigger picture; why did they attack America? There are no “facts” here. We can speculate, or we could take them at their word.
What an incredibly stupid take. There were hundreds of people trying to figure out why terrorists attacked America. There were books and scientific papers written about it. Just because you never looked into it doesn’t mean there’s no data.
You’re arguing against the concept of truth because you’re too lazy to pursue it.
You’re missing the point. I could explain it, but you’re acting like an asshole. There is nothing I said to warrant such an abrasive response.
It offends me when people argue against the concept of knowledge.
I did no such thing. In fact, what I was doing was marking a line and making it more distinct.
Epistemology is important to me, but there isn’t one epistemology, there are epistemologies. If you want to take it to the extreme, the only thing we can be certain of is that we are conscious. That is the only thing which cannot be an illusion.
Also, you claim your feelings were hurt because you thought someone had a different opinion about something.
The irony is that your actions are antithetical to gaining knowledge. Instead of being curious, you assumed you were right, got emotional, strawmanned my position and then acted like an asshole.
Your actions are also antithetical to sharing knowledge. If you were right, most people wouldn’t listen to what you were saying because you’ve just disrespected them.
Epistemic relativism is a black hole. It’s the graveyard of knowledge, and I will not abide it. It’s the ultimate of all cop-outs. Those who bring it up should be immediately excommunicated from all rational discussion.
It’s the parodox of tolerance for philosophy. Relativism is a thought-terminating argument that people like you use as an ICBM targeting intelligent takes on relevant issues.
It OFFENDS me.
You want to bring it up in a purely theoretical context, without any relation to previous topics, fine. But when it gets brought up in any context other than its own, the person speaking it should be run out of town.
Compared to another 4 years of Trump? Absolutely.
But I don’t have to be ecstatic to choose between a prehistoric career politician, and an embarrassing, felonious dinosaur
How dare you besmirch the good reputation of dinosaurs like that!
I mean, at least with dinosaurs the most I have to worry about is being eaten. With our government there’s being eaten AND homelessness!
Being eaten cures homelessness!
Background: I supported Bernie in the 2016 primaries; I ended up voting for Hillary. In 2020, Biden wasn’t even my 3rd pick in the Primaries (Warren, Sanders, maybe Buttigieg and even Steyer.). I still voted Biden, despite a clear lack of enthusiasm because I know how much easier it is to break and corrupt things than to simply maintain it or build upon a trillion-piece puzzle.
Overall, Biden has been a pretty great President if only for one simple fact: The genuine experience and expertise of his cabinet. When I think of Donnie, I think of Bill Barr, Richard Spencer, Mike Pompeo, and other scum of his cabinet. These people are psychopathic, smarter than Trump, and dangerous. While they’re incompetent in their actual roles, they leveraged their offices to incredibly nefarious ends.
The true stars of Biden’s administration has been his advisors and cabinet: Blinken, Yellen, Garland, Austin, Kirby, Bill Burns, Jake Sullivan, etc. These are the people that keep the machine running. Who actually take advice from reputable experts in respective fields, like Dr. Fauci.
So yes, given the bigger picture, Biden has been a great President; partly because of stability; partly because of contrast with chaos.
And folks, yes, it’s campaign season now. Expect a massive influx of ads and opinion pieces and a general attempt to drum up energy and awareness to a crucial election. Don’t shoot yourselves in the foot; the right has massive megaphones of propaganda they’re using every single fucking day to distort reality. Don’t be afraid to push back.
Don’t forget Betsy Devos, the education secretary who’s essentially never gone through public education, daughter of billionaire Edgar Prince.
A secretary of transportation Elaine Chao married to freakin Mitch McConnell of all people.
A Postmaster General Louis DeJoy with no experience at USPS who owns delivery companies that directly compete and contract with them who hasn’t been ousted yet…
People rag on Joe’s purported poor mental capabilities, but his power is from having effective, competent people in his cabinet who are not merely sycophantic conservative donors.
I knew I’d forget a bunch of terrible people… There were so many…
Don’t forget the blatant nepotism and incompetence from Ivanka and Kushner, etc.
In spite of myself, I kinda like Biden. Could be way worse
Underrated comment, absolutely spot on.
The subtle power of lowered expectations.
“everything is bad, nothing can ever actually be good”
Maintaining the status quo in the face of looming danger does not make you a great president.
The best thing about Biden is that he is not Trump.
Also we’re not only supporting a genocide, we’re footing the bill.
Word. We’re just in a situation that being a mediocre Democrat is “good”. The bar is in hell.
I’m 37 years old, the bar has been in hell for my entire existence and more than likely a handful of decades prior
Big facts. History is gonna treat Biden like it treated Coolidge. Hes good at the appearence of doing his job but will be blamed for lack of action preventing what comes after him. Be it this election cycle or 4 years from now. Hes letting the fascists have their dress rehersal at the southern border and it’s far from the first time hes refused to go hard on fascism. It’s becoming a matter of when, not if.
We’re Americans son, we’re built off of genocide and slavery. It’s the only way of life that we know.
I can’t wait for the day that climate change truly wrecks this country of mine, like gods fury on Sodom and Gomorrah.
I could go on citing the achievements of a president who actually cares about governing. All of these actions and numbers are important, but none matter as much as what Joe Biden has done to restore stability and decency to the presidency. One of the greatest gifts of a democratic civil society is the freedom not to think about government, to wake up and not worry about the mood of a leader. Joe Biden has made governing boring and predictable, both fundamental rights of the people in a healthy democracy.
As a Canadian this was one of the greatest benefits of the Biden Presidency. I can rest assured Biden won’t be contradicting the weather service, licking Putin’s boot or whatever stupid thing that’s going to end up on Canadian news five times a week.
This article is an archetypical “come on America!” fanfare to drum up patriotism and exceptionalism, it feels over the top to me as a non-american. However, I suppose we’ll have to try everything for Democrats to stop whimpering about Trump and sleep-walking towards his dictatorship.
Are all this “wow Biden was actually the greatest president ever but we didn’t notice” news that started floating around a part of his upcoming election campaign?
I was curious because of how unashamedly propagandist this article is. So I clicked on the author link. It seems this is the only article he’s ever written for this website (I hesitate to call it a news outlet). Also, it says he’s a former republican political consultant now working for the Lincoln Project. That’s apparently the name of a moderate republican PAC that is trying to fight Trumpism.
So why would a political news website outright publish propaganda from a PAC without any commentary? I’ve never heard of the new republic before, but they seem to be an otherwise unremarkable progressive political magazine. I couldn’t say whether the new republic is getting paid by the PAC to publish this, or whether they just took it because it generally aligns with their own stated political views. I will say that, although it is mentioned at the bottom that the author currently works for the Lincoln Project, I had to really look for that. it also wasn’t clear to me at first this was a PAC. So in my opinion, proper journalistic ethical standards are not being upheld here.
Given the article’s origins, it’s pretty safe to say none of this is genuine. These are moderate republicans who hate Trump, trying desperately to destroy Trumpism. If they truly believed their own article they’d be democrats. And if you’re here wondering if the article is worth reading, I’d say it is practically fully content-free. It’s all just hopium.
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Good to know, thanks. I’m not too familiar with the American news media, although I know there’s a lot of it around. I checked them briefly and they didn’t seem all too different from e.g. Huffington Post or other similar sites, which is why I called them unremarkable. It’s interesting to see they have a long history.
I don’t think this materially affects any of my conclusions on the article itself though.
Welcome to American media! Brand new dogshit media companies made to make profit mixed with century old names, bought and turned to shit to make profit!
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You know it! I’m just thinking what’s the point? I don’t like Biden, but I gotta vote for him anyway cause the alternative is way worse. I DO NOT want to go back to seeing 24/7 news feeds about Trump doing something worse each day or playing golf for the nth time.
You know one of the few things I liked about Biden was that I was able to go days or sometimes weeks without hearing anything about him. Campaign seasons suck.
Yes, the Biden presidency has been blissfully “boring”. I might have hoped for better, but I’ll settle for stagnant compared to 2016-2020.
Boring? We are involved in two major regional wars with constant threat of escalation, global economic chaos, and the highest inflation in a generation. Fallout from a pandemic, the feds have been raising interest rates to the point the whole economy is fundamentally changing.
We are living through historic times. I feel like the world hasn’t been normal or “boring” since Dec 2019
All reasons why we need solid leadership. I’d take a 3rd candidate, but if its going to boil down to Trump v Biden, then its an easy Biden pick.
i think there’s no scenario where biden wins this upcoming election
the situation with israel/iran is gonna kill him. he enters the war in force, he loses election because he’s starting another war in the middle east. he does nothing, and he loses because he appears weak.
he just had a press conference because the special counsel released a report saying he was mishandling classified documents just like trump. the report stated one of the reasons he’s not getting prosecuted is “he’s a well intentioned old man with a bad memory”
i guarantee that’s going to be on attack ads all over come election time
look at the republican primary in nevada. trump got removed from the ballot - so he told his supporters not go out and vote because it didn’t matter.
so who won the primary? the options were nikki haley, tim scott, and mike pence. Haley got about 30%… but the winner with 63% was “none of the above”
even when trump isn’t on the ballot, even when he tells his supporters not go out and vote… he still dominates.
if you look at the polls- https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/
trump is winning nearly every general election poll vs biden
i feel like the democrats are sleepwalking into a trump victory by rallying behind biden
only chance is some sort of legal action taking trump out of the race (which i find unlikely at this point) OR trump has a stroke or something
There’s too much good fodder for attack ads. Remember how he said he wouldn’t seek reelection?
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Most important election of our lives, fighting for the sake of our democracy, literally everyone from Russia to China to Saudi Arabia is out to get us so we have to stick together, don’t you care about climate change, don’t you care about immigration reform, don’t you care about student debts and health care?!!!
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Actually, the last four years have been incredibly normal. What are you even complaining about?
Can’t believe it is both the Best of Times AND the Worst of Times. Crazy.
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You find genocide boring?
Eh, kinda.
Biden has been a fine president, but notably failed to do a number of things that are important to me such as legalizing marijuana, codifying into law RvW, ending Citizen’s United, increasing the minimum wage, etc. I like Joe Biden, and he’s way better than the other guy, but I wouldn’t say “great”.
.
And the things he could do unilaterally (student loan forgiveness), he absolutely tried to do , but was cockblocked.
.
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DMV has its own safe space now? How do I get in that
First, you have to go to the DMV. And why would you do such a silly thing?
Most Americans don’t know how many reps are in the Senate or House
I’m not talking about Lemmy either. I mean your average person on the streets, especially in Bumfuck, IA. It doesn’t affect them enough to care.
One of them is 100 and that’s the actually high class people. The other is like 500 and there’s a whole bunch of uggos and sub-7s in there.
For the sake of any wayward souls reading this its 100 and 435.
I don’t know, Jackson ignored the Supreme Court and I think Lincoln was planning on ignoring the courts decision on Dred Scott.
Lincoln imposed martial law and suspended habeas corpus, ignoring the Supreme Court is pretty minor in comparison.
Well the only thing stopping a president from doing something is the will of the civil service to do it and the will of Congress to impeach them. Trump proved that. Why are we still playing gentlemen’s rules?
Trump is hardly notable for just doing things. Monroe told Europe to fuck off in the Americas or else with zero approval or power to enforce it. Jackson proved that by forcibly removing Indians from their lands. Lincoln did lots of questionable things during the Civil War. FDR basically joined WWII without congressional approval. Reagan managed to have people commit treason and have congress grant them immunity. Bush created gtmo as a prison camp. Obama proved it with the gulf drilling moratorium.
So again with my question. Why is it suddenly so important for Biden?
Honestly?
He has been fine, on the balance.I don’t like that he’s gone around Congress to sell weapons to Israel. The Palestine genocide is horrible, and it’s disgusting that he’s not doing everything he can to put a stop to it.
Side note: I know. The U.S. is morally contorting itself to replenish Israel’s weapons stocks because the U.S. needs Israel to be a regional bully to keep Iran and its proxies/the major oil suppliers in check while the U.S. and its European allies decarbonize their economies to a point where U.S. oil can supply them without causing domestic oil prices to spike. The U.S. doesn’t want Russia supplying them, so supporting a genocidal regime is the only palatable option - and Israel knows this, so they’re forcing the U.S. to be complicit.
But Biden leads the state dept, no? Why are their diplomats blocking the U.N. from stepping in as a peacekeeping force? He has other options than to be a pawn.Anyway.
My real problem is the Democratic Party. Polling shows that the average voter supports way more liberal policies than political parties do. But politicians tend to vote with economic elites, rather than the average person. And in this cherry-picked example, you can see voter turnout massively increased when people think their values are being represented (2018: Marijuana legalization, 2022: Abortion Rights.)Democrats had a majority in 2021/2022. They had the trifecta. They controlled the legislative and the executive.
They could have strengthened the VRA. They could have fixed campaign finance. They could have expanded the Supreme Court. They could have tried to do something about gerrymandering. (I know, states rights. Blech.) They could have rebalanced the House of Representatives. They could have made the temporary tax cuts for low earners under TCJA permanent, and’s made the permanent tax cuts for high earners temporary. They could have codified abortion rights. They could have amended the ACA to make it better. They could have forgiven student loans before it became a political mess.Nah. They whined about Manchin and Sinema – candidates their national and local parties supported. Said that’s why they couldn’t get anything meaningful done. Then they lost the house and now it’s just clown shoes all over again.
It’s not all the Democrats fault. Under the current system, it’s significantly easier to court a few monied interests – corporations that can chuck unlimited donations, or wealthy patrons that can spin up a PAC and launder their personal funds to you. It is easier. More money means they can devote more effort to court voters, spin narratives of good vs evil and how this election is the most important one. ‘It may be the last if we don’t vote blue no matter who!’
They didn’t fully create this system, but they are benefiting from it. They cater to the wealthy, make excuses to the voters for why they don’t do anything, and try just hard enough that they don’t lose elections. It’s why they chase the thin margins in “the middle” rather than disaffected liberal voters. So they can preserve a decaying status quo, rather than change it.Biden is the most prominent Democrat right now. All things being equal, he owns the Democratic Party’s failure to lead. And that includes their lack of action in 2021/2022 His successes are marred by the party’s failures. A referendum on him is as much a referendum on the Democratic Party as it is anything else. At least in my opinion.
I assume most others, regardless of whether or not they blame Biden or the party, feel the same. It might be a bit hasty to assume civic illiteracy if someone doesn’t take the time to name the individual sources of their frustration.
Same with Marijauna, one of the first things he did was call for rescheduling by the DEA who have been too busy masturbating in corners. He did, however, pardon a ton of people over weed offences.
He did, however, pardon a ton of people over weed offences.
How many?
In Early October 2022 he pardoned all simple marijuana possession charges via executive order. All of them.
“More than 6,500 people were convicted of simple possession between 1992 and 2021 under federal law, and thousands more under D.C. code, the officials said.”
Got a link for that quote? I’d like to learn more.
Drug schedules are set by the FDA. The FDA is part of the Department of Health and Human Services. The Department of Health and Human Services is part of the executive branch of the US government. The executive branch is headed by Biden. Short of just waving his hand and magicking the drug classification away, there is still a lot he could do to make it legal.
If you cant hold him accountable for not getting minimum wage increase because he can’t do it unilaterally why give him credit for things he cant do unilaterally, like the infrastructure bill? Clearly he didn’t do that unilaterally either so why should he get credit? You can’t have it both ways.
The President can’t reschedule marijuana?
edit:
The Congressional Research Service seems to think he could:
It’s not enabling genocide, so he can make up procedural nonsense to avoid doing it.
“Reschedule? Ok, tomorrow evening it is.”
- Dark Brandon
Stop trying to make dark brandon work. Fetch has a better chance than that.
Proceedings to add, delete, or change the schedule of a drug or other substance may be initiated by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), or by petition from any interested party, including:
The manufacturer of a drug
A medical society or association
A pharmacy association
A public interest group concerned with drug abuse
A state or local government agency
An individual citizen
Not quite unilateral, but seems like he could lean a bit on Becerra and get the re/de-scheduling started. Congress handed that authority to the executive branch years ago.
That is happening, maybe slower than any of us want ( and honestly probably time a bit to help in the election), but the rescheduling process had begun.
Yes, they’ve said they’re looking into it like 3 times now.
The Railroad Union was all him. He can raise the minimum wage of federal workers, contractors, and sub contractors. He could have ended the Remain in Mexico program. He could have set the DOJ to monopoly breaking. He could have stopped supplying Israel. He could direct HUD to begin buying housing for direct rental programs…
The list goes on.
On top of Edward Teach’s comment, you also raised the issue of the railroad union. Guess what?
https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid
Biden did the right thing once again, and also managed to avoid a national logistics disaster. Please stop operating off of vibes.
Yeah that’s what everyone was afraid of, that people would just reference the Union’s own victory lap. The Unions called it a major victory but the actual union membership did not want that. They literally just wanted the ability to call in sick without being fired and to end the points system. Neither of which they got. The “short notice sick days” are scheduled a month in advance. And I sure hope they manage to schedule all of their sickness a month out, and within 7 days out of 365. None of Biden’s legislative promises appeared either because why keeping working on them after this victory lap?
The suits all got a pat on the back and the workers got fucked. Different day, Same America.
Also, it was never a national logistics disaster. We wouldn’t be the first country to have our logistics system go on strike. And we won’t be the last.
So just to be clear here, the union is taking a victory lap for getting what it wanted, but the union is also mad that it didn’t get what it wanted? Can you help me to understand where I can get more information about this pre-scheduled sick time?
I do also just want to note that my understanding is that the president does not make legislation, can you also point me to where he promised to do that?
The Union Leadership is taking a victory lap. The Union itself was and is furious about it. It’s not that complicated. And his promises are in the press release linked in the comment. As for how to find out about those sick days being a trap? You kind of have to ask the railroaders themselves. Nobody is covering the fact that the days still count against their points system, have to be scheduled, and that not all railroaders have them. The companies gave them mostly to people that don’t actually run the trains or do critical track work. So what most of us think of as a railroad worker, still doesn’t even have sick days. I hate to send people to reddit but r/railroading has been a good source through all this.
I get what you’re saying here but there must be SOMEONE reporting on this? I don’t know any railroaders so I can’t really ask them, you must understand though that it’s hard for me to agree with someone based on a “trust me bro”, especially on the internet. I also read the entire press release again for what it’s worth, they seem to have only stated that Biden was pressuring lawmakers to, well, make laws. Here’s the entirety of Biden’s thing:
I share workers’ concern about the inability to take leave to recover from illness or care for a sick family member,” Biden said. “I have pressed legislation and proposals to advance the cause of paid leave in my two years in office and will continue to do so.
Seems pretty reasonable? Idk, all that said I am in support of expanded workers rights and if this is indeed the case I hope it gets more attention soon and can be corrected, because 4 pre-scheduled sick days is pretty stupid lol. I promise I’m not being disingenuous, I’m just really not stoked about the idea of another Trump term and people seem to want to do nothing but yeet us off that cliff. Biden has been a better president than I expected and I’d like to keep democracy goin ya know?
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Oh, yeah paying attention. Like when he banned Asylum seekers at the border. Effectively forcing them to remain in Mexico or in another dangerous country. They can use the CBP One app to apply from their home country, however this requires them to stay in the dangerous country to do so. He effectively continued the program while officially ending it. Don’t believe me? check out this Dissent from the court currently hearing it.
The Biden administration’s “Pathways Rule” before us in this appeal is not meaningfully different from the prior administration’s rules that were backhanded by my two colleagues. This new rule looks like the Trump administration’s Port of Entry Rule and Transit Rule got together, had a baby, and then dolled it up in a stylish modern outfit, complete with a phone app.
-Van Dyke, Ninth Circuit Appeals; East Bay Sancuatry Covenent V. Biden
And that HUD link is about them giving developers money. I want HUD to buy the office building, convert it, and rent it out at cost. That’s how we’re going to put a hole in the rental market bubble. Not by asking to them to please charge less.
As far as the minimum wage thing, I missed that. but it is a torrent of information, that you’re not getting all of either.
Can’t he just sign executive action after executive action and ignore the court like Jackson did?
Don’t forget railroad buster Biden and Israel apologist Biden.
Still better than “million American deaths due to incompetence and pushing psuedo-science” trump though, don’t get me wrong.
Keep in mind, the Biden administration continued to negotiate on the unions behalf until the companies capitulated and gave sick days. The rail unions celebrated the victory and gave Biden credit.
The rail unions celebrated the victory and gave Biden credit.
There is a huge difference between union leaders and what they say on behalf of it’s members and the rank and file members themselves. Kneecapping rank and files power, their only power which is to withhold their labor, is not something that is celebrated.
Railroad Union buster… People might think he actually broke up the oligopoly on the rails.
The executive can’t make laws. Only congress can do that. And right now that means for those things to happen, Democrats have to control the House and 60+% of the Senate.
Or they have to be willing to use a simple majority to get rid of the filibuster.
They don’t have the guts because the 2024 senate election landscape doesn’t look great for Dems. Most of the purple seats that are up for reelection have democratic incumbents. Traditionally that would mean that Democrats will lose seats. They don’t want to hand republican candidates in these states the talking point of “authoritarian democrats” killing the filibuster with a 1 seat majority.
And what was the excuse in 2009 when they wouldn’t kill the filibuster for the public option? What was the excuse in 2021 when they wouldn’t kill the filibuster to codify Roe or pass the John Lewis voting rights act?
There is always, always some excuse from Democrats. You may be happy to be strung along forever with empty promises and flimsy excuses. I’m sick of it.
They should have in 2009. The map was also bad then but feasibly that was their last real chance to do it. Though if they had done so we almost certainly would not have the ACA now. If republicans hadn’t been stuck trying to dismantle it through budget reconciliation (to avoid the filibuster) it would have been trivially easy for them to kill it in 2014/2016.
It was never an option in 21. Dems technically had a majority (if the VP was in DC to cast a tie breaker) but Sinema and Manchin both public opposed killing the filabuster. It was DOA and bringing a DOA bill to the floor, in this case, would have been very bad. The first party to try to kill the filibuster HAS to make it stick. The first party to succeed will probably lose the the majority the next election, if they fail they will definitely lose it (while also de-stigmatizing it for the other party).
Everyone is sick if it. But if it comes down to tRump or Biden, it’s Biden all the way. This is not the year for a protest vote, at least not if you ever want to vote again. Also, traditionally, the second term of a Democrat president sees more getting done as they don’t have to care about getting reelected. They can take more politically risky moves that the elite and Republicans may not be fully onboard with or try to campaign against.
Bottom line is, we know both of the (presumed) candidates this year and I trust the current one far more than the previous one. Strategic voting is more important this year than any other time in history. Progress, even slower than we may like, is still progress.
Everyone is sick if it.
No centrist democrat is.
But if it comes down to tRump or Biden, it’s Biden all the way. This is not the year for a protest vote, at least not if you ever want to vote again.
And here we are again. I did not say people should not vote. I did not say people should vote for Trump. But the empty promises and the endless excuses need to stop, and they needed to stop decades ago.
Now Democrats are promising to stop fascism, and I see no reason to believe them because it’s a promise from Democrats.
None of those things are the responsibility of the President.
I was really really really hoping Gerrymandering would be a key issue for his administration.
He set Harris on that issue early on, which is basically code for “it’s not a priority, will probably fail, and I don’t want to be associated with failure”. Which was kind of self fulfilling, because the VP just doesn’t have the stature to strongarm anyone into a reform.
All those things have to be done through Congress. If he had the majority to do it and didn’t do it, that would be a good reason to hold it against him.
If we want Congress to act we need to make sure he has the House and the Senate, and best to do it is to vote in upcoming election and make your friends and family to do the same
We had a majority in congress. But that majority was Democrats, so they found the no votes to maintain the status quo.
They didn’t really, they had a majority in the House, and not in the Senate, in 2022 things reversed.
They had a majority in both chambers.
I get that no Democratic majority ever acts like one so it’s hard to tell.
I don’t “like” him at all, but I can acknowledge that he’s done a great job.
Then vote Democrat across the board. He needs a majority in both the House and Senate for some of those, and a super majority to go against the Supreme Court afaik.
Voting matters. If you want results, Biden needs the numbers.
Joe Biden is trapped in the White House. The Republicans refuse to let him out unless he pardons Donald Trump and let him be president. He needs your help but we can help him stop the Republicans from taking over the country.
All he needs is the 16 digits on the front of your mom’s credit card, as well as the 3 digits on the back but you must hurry, he doesn’t have much time.
You mean like all those other times Democrats had majorities and, checks notes, delivered milquetoast Republican bills?
You mean that one time for 3 months during Obamas term, where they were focused on trying to get Healthcare reform in? Because there’s no other time in recent history where the dems controlled both houses with a dem potus
Democrats had control of the senate, house of reps and presidency from jan 20th '21 to jan 3 23.
the current GOP control happened after the midterms in '22, at which point all progress stopped on, basically anything short of the most basic level of governance.
Yeah actually, because what we got was a repackaged healthcare bill that was written by none other than Obama’s presidential opponent Mitt Romney. It was a fucking godsend to insurance companies and hasn’t actually improved health outcomes for the average American. In fact if the current burnout working people in the Healthcare profession is anything to go by, this age of insurance is diametrically opposed to serving the public.
Or we could talk about Clinton’s pull yourself up by your boots straps impact on social safety nets and gutting of Wall Street and bank regulations maybe?
Even with its warts and all, the ACA is a godsend compared to what we had before, and even that barely passed.
“Actually you poors are having an amazing time and everything is great, you’re just too stupid to realize it.”
On average, wage growth has outstripped inflation in the last 2.5 years, so most people are better off, income-wise: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
Unemployment is near historic lows as well: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE
Stock market is currently insane, but that’s probably just an AI bubble.
On average, wage growth has outstripped inflation in the last 2.5 years
fair
so most people are better off, income-wise
This doesn’t necessarily follow. Is it possible to run inflation vs wage growth for the bottom 2/3 of earners? Top-heavy growth could distort the data.
That chart is median wages, so it’s more middle-heavy.
Looks like bottom 25% still saw real wage growth since pre-covid, but not as much. Says non-supervisory and production worker wages increased faster than the overall median in the last 12 months though: https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/the-purchasing-power-of-american-households
How many middle class people do you know with 2 jobs and no stock options?
I really only know lower-middle-class (family) and and upper-middle-class people (professional acquaintances). The lower-middle-class people I know do seem to be doing better since pre-covid (some had their unions negotiate decent wage increases, some got promotions into superivisory roles, some switched jobs with a big pay bump). The upper-middle-class people I know are doing much better, until maybe recently (some have been laid-off, but they may still come back on top).
I do not currently know anybody with 2 jobs. I know people who work lots of overtime to increase their income though. I’m not saying the poor and lower-middle-class shouldn’t be making more money, I’m just saying they’re doing a bit better, on average. Real wages have not been stagnating or declining like they have in many long periods in the past.
If you hopped jobs yea sure you get a pay bump. Not if you stay.
For liberals, maybe. For leftists, fuck no.
In Europe, he’d be on the right
Anywhere, he would be. Using location as a barometer for left vs right, rather than the actual mechanics proposed, is bourgeois methodology.
If you want to know where democrats fall, leftists are a bigger enemy to them than Republicans and Trump.
No they’re not. They just annoying. Like arguing with a child over which Marvell villain is the worst. It’s all made up, but you can’t tell them that.
He’s been a boring mediocre president, but it’ll take that any day over a Republican.
Boring has been great, honestly. I didn’t know how much I needed a president who just got things done and wasn’t making headlines every day.
I wouldn’t say he’s mediocre tho. Domestically he’s had a fantastic first term. I hope he brings some kind of CHIPS Act level stuff like an axe to the housing market yet, at least something to tease for his second term. International results have been a different story, Afghanistan was a disaster but also a call that needed to be made (and should have been made before him), and his handling of Israel so far is appalling. I’m sure it’s more complicated than we know but still - let’s hope he makes some tough demands there before too much longer.
In the end I agree with you, better than a GOPer and infinitely better than Trump in any of these situations.
Stop confusing democrats/liberals with leftists.
Democrats will probably almost universally agree that he’s been a good president. Tribalism is a hell of a drug.
It’s the leftists that won’t. And speaking as a leftist, he’s done a lot better than I thought he was going to. He ended up pushing for more progressive ideas than I thought he would. Good for him. He’s been stymied by the courts and his own party on some of them. And that why I, as a leftist, think the democratic party is still (less) trash. They had a majority for two years. Did some stuff. Could have done more. You can be all “but but Manchin/Sinema” all you want, but I’ll bet all the money in my pocket against all the money in your pocket, than if Manchin and Sinema were to announce that yes, they’d vote to abolish the filibuster, there would be two other democratic senators who would come out and say no. And that’s fine as it relates to their world view. They’re liberals. They’re not leftists.
Democrats will probably almost universally agree that he’s been a good president.
Looks like he’s slid into around 60/40 approval within his own party. Indies have him 30 pts lower than that.
And speaking as a leftist, he’s done a lot better than I thought he was going to.
Okay, but what about if you’re speaking as an unaligned voter in a swing state?
Then I’m saying “at least he’s not openly fascist but the democratic party still fuckin sucks.”
I mean, I wish. But Democrats threw tens of millions of dollars to a “Pro-Trump” Dem Senate candidate in Tennessee. Mayor Adams, up in NYC, has echoed a host of the Trump “immigrant invasion” talking points, when confronted with bus-loads of women and children kidnapped and displaced by governors’ Abbot and DeSantis.
Then you’ve got Sinema in Arizona and Manchin in West Virginia and even John Ossoff of Georgia demanding hundred of millions for bigger and more heavily armed police forces to clamp down on any kind of public dissent in their historically red states. Our AG is once again refusing to close the torture camp in Gitmo, while Anthony Blinken runs around the Middle East peddling advanced weapons systems to extremist governments in Saudi Arabia and Nigeria and India.
You can “Trump would be worse” all you like, but this shit is truly awful on a scale its hard to overstate.
Pretty sure “but the democratic party still fuckin sucks” covers all that.
How do you describe any of this as less than open fascism?
Dude blocked the strike, fucked the BBB and is supporting genocide.
Fuck Joe Biden.
Eh, I’m of two minds about the strike. On the one hand, he got the rail workers their sick days after the fact. On the other, he really pissed me off and threw labor under the bus by making it illegal (again) for them to strike. You can’t be a pro labor president and take away labors most powerful tool.
I don’t know anything about the BBB.
100% with you on Gaza.
the fact he made it illegal tells any leftist all we have to know
Your patriarchal assumptions of “he” are very telling
Is Biden not a “he”?
EDIT: Not trying to be a smartass I genuinely don’t understand what they’re trying to say here.
The person I was replying to originally said:
the fact he made it illegal tells any leftist all he has to know
They edited it after I commented without saying anything.
Ohhhhh ok. Appreciate the context thanks.
On the one hand, he got the rail workers their sick days after the fact.
They were fighting for 15 sick days. How many did each of the 12 unions get?
Tell me about your leftist policy beliefs.
And here comes “No TRUE leftist!”
The right has RINOs so I guess the left gets to have LINOS or something.
As a Republican media consultant, I made hundreds of ads about the high cost of prescription drugs.
Stuart Stevens, one of the people who brought us to the brink of fascism desperately wants us prevent the dystopian future he helped to create. Unfortunately, Stevens has no idea who the people on the left that he’s been demonizing over the years actually are. As a result, he assumes we might be authentic Republicans who call ourselves Democrats.
Maybe you’re a Democrat who actually cares about the federal deficit, unlike the Republicans who fake concern.
Maybe if Republicans had spent the last 55 years listening to what people on the left wanted instead of engaging in bad faith with the political process, he would actually be able to write this article with some certainty.
Regardless, Vote Blue! We can make fun of this person all we want if we aren’t killed in death camp in the following years.
Yeah he’s better than trump for sure
A blind and crippled hedgehog would be better than trump
He’s nowhere close to great. Hes run back much of his campaign promises and he’s funding a genocide. The best thing he could do is say he’s not running and throw his support behind someone actually progressive and actually not half senile
Doing so would guarantee a victory for Trump so he might as well throw his support behind him.
