Biden's Covid czar sucked, as I have mentioned. Honestly curious about the student loan outcomes. I can't be the only person here who's held off on paying the whole balance off on the off-chance that it might be forgiven? (Balance is quite small, four figures, just sitting there in limbo.)

1. Yes. Fire that asshole. Why the hell is some McKinsey type shitheel being left in charge of this rather than a public health/epidemiology expert?

Also the Biden administration is inexplicably defending Trump/Miller's reprehensible immigration policies in court. There was a big story about this recently (this is it). This enrages me.

Again, the inexplicable, to me, failure to reenter the JCPOA immediately, at least before the last election in Iran where the hardliners came to power.

I'll commend him on pulling out of Afghanistan. It wasn't his fault Ghani cut tail and ran which led to the far faster collapse of the Afghan government than anticipated.

And so far he seems to be handling the Ukraine/Russia situation well but we'll see.

My sense matches up with the OP; Biden hasn't been perfect, but has been better than I expected and his struggles seem to be generally due to the state of the world rather than shooting himself in the foot.

I do think the biggest drag on his poll numbers is COVID, and I think that's mostly been out of his control. While I'd be happy to see Zients fired I'd note (a) that the administration was significantly ahead of the CDC in pushing booster shots and (b) European countries that have readily available rapid tests haven't done much better in the Omicron wave.

I think the administrations plan made sense -- that they believed COVID was in retreat last year and wanted to focus on passing legislation that would help rebuild the economy early enough that it would allow them to go into the midterms with a tailwind -- made sense.

Give Biden credit for rapidly appointing judges.

Oh yeah, 2.2 is correct. This would be another example of something that is arguably good politics and also rock-bottom immorality.

And a fucking campaign promise too!

(See also cancelling student debt).

I definitely give him credit for appointing judges. When people say that things couldn't be worse than Manchin and Sinema, I do think to myself that at least those two are still appointing judges. Also, props for leaving Afghanistan.

I'm really bummed about not cancelling student debt and not legalizing pot. Those would be popular. I assume he's just not doing those because of his old-person morality and I hate the gerontocracy all over again.

I still don't want him to run again.

I think he's been fine. Better than expected on foreign policy, and hasn't done much that's too terrible. I think he's been meh on covid, but it's hard.

I genuinely don't understand what's up with BBB and Manchin, and why some deal hasn't been worked out. (Maybe it is all Manchin's fault, but it does seem like he's asking for specific things some of which are reasonable and I don't understand why a deal hasn't been worked out.)

I saw a tweet that speculates that Manchin plans to run again and figures that Democrat-blocker is popular with his constituents. That's plausible to me.

The big things that are weighing him down (inflation, omicron, maybe the forthcoming war in Ukraine?) aren't really his fault, but the communications team has been miserable, and there's been a general unwillingness to plan for non-optimal outcomes with COVID. (They went all-in on vaccines, with tests being destroyed--destroyed!--last fall, no willingness to use the Defense Production Act, a good but late decision to distribute tests via USPS, etc. Whether failure to plan for non-optimal outcomes is a broader issue, given Manchin and Sinema, is yet to be determined, but I have a suspicion.) I 100% give him credit for leaving Afghanistan, against an appalling degree of pushback and at real cost to the administration (and, I fear, democracy), and there's been less reflexive cowering in the face of inflation than I expected given that once again there's been a general, vocal consensus in the national press that it's 1978 all over again. Did you know that milk is expensive now for the everyday family of 12?

(The pot thing is baffling, especially because I expect Republicans to do this at some point when they're in charge and can do it in such a way as to dole out money to their supporters and punish African-Americans somehow.)

I mean 9 is plausible, but there's other plausible explanations, and I have literally no way to know which is true since I'm not in meetings with Manchin.

That he lives on an actual yacht probably is one of them.

He's not very rich *for a senator*. You don't see Warner, Blumenthal, Rockefeller, Feinstein, etc. joining up for yacht reasons.

New money is always worser.

No, because sometimes the new money is played by Carrie Coon, who can do no wrong and who I would follow into the depths of hell!

Oh. Here's an update of that good link that Minivet posted the first time, calculating that COVID deaths aren't going to make a difference in the midterms:

https://acasignups.net/22/01/21/yes-someone-did-math-trump-actually-several-people-did

I keep hoping for a different answer, but he's fairly convincing that the differentials just aren't that high.

16: I don't even own a tv.

I really, really do not want to live in a world where the death rates are high enough to affect election results. Just... call it a gut feeling.

There's a hidden downside to mass death?

I have incoherent thoughts about Biden. He was initially far better than I feared. Then, after getting off to a pretty strong start, he was about as good (or bad) as I hoped. I now don't have a good way to judge, because he's facing so many headwinds that it's hard to know what's his fault. I will say this, it's such an INCREDIBLE relief to wake up without a sense of pervasive dread looming over me, knowing that I should check one or another news source to learn what genuinely monstrous thing the president has done. Biden mostly isn't a monster! Low bar though that may be, he clears it almost every time! And for that, I'm genuinely grateful.

Yes. That's my thing.

Now I only go to sleep with a sense of pervasive dread. I wake up cheerful.

I recognize that not wanting to engage with electoral politics all the time is a mark of privilege. That's fair enough. And that's one of the many ways I should be a better person and citizen. But in the end, spending too much time thinking about politics isn't, it turns out, good for my mental health and my ability to be a good person and citizen in other ways--not least because there's very little I can do personally to effect change, and I find feelings of helplessness depressing. Having a basically competent chief executive allows me to disengage a fair amount of the time, and that's nice.

My impression of Biden's first year is of a guy who finds himself surrounded by drowning enemies and going "what do I do with all these anchors?"

Yeah, I think the failure to pass a second reconciliation bill is all on Manchin and Sinema.

Biden has been unreasonably slow with GTMO. On the one hand, the PRB process seems to be working again. One the other, it's creating a backlog of men cleared to leave, but the Admin has to make spots available for the prisoners to go to.

He seems not to be panicked about Russia which is good.

My guess is that he's stayed out of the details of immigration enforcement, and is letting DOJ/the agencies play out their hands. Folks might remember a Ninth Circuit argument soon after Obama came in where the judges were quite surprised that the new administration wasn't changing positions. Might have been on state secrets? Trump was the exception thinking it was his job to call for specific prosecutions: I expect that Biden told Garland when he was recruiting him that Biden would be hands off, and let Garland's primary loyalty be to the law.

Yeah, I think the failure to pass a second reconciliation bill is all on Manchin and Sinema.

Biden has been unreasonably slow with GTMO. On the one hand, the PRB process seems to be working again. One the other, it's creating a backlog of men cleared to leave, but the Admin has to make spots available for the prisoners to go to.

He seems not to be panicked about Russia which is good.

My guess is that he's stayed out of the details of immigration enforcement, and is letting DOJ/the agencies play out their hands. Folks might remember a Ninth Circuit argument soon after Obama came in where the judges were quite surprised that the new administration wasn't changing positions. Might have been on state secrets? Trump was the exception thinking it was his job to call for specific prosecutions: I expect that Biden told Garland when he was recruiting him that Biden would be hands off, and let Garland's primary loyalty be to the law.

I'm mostly with von wafer on 20. Pretty flabbergasted by some of the COVID messaging and policy decisions, bummed about student loan forgiveness (and hoping for a last-minute push), and pissed about immigration enforcement decisions even though I recognize that it's much easier and quicker to make things worse than to improve in that area. Garland has not exactly been blowing me away at DOJ.

Some combination of the pandemic, post-Trump fatigue, and teaching in a different field has meant that, for the first time since I was in fourth or fifth grade, I now mainly skim headlines rather than reading the (virtual) paper cover to cover.

Like von wafer and others, I'm relieved that we have competent government. I'm pleasantly surprised that he's pushed so many progressive priorities, disappointed that he didn't push enough of them, and .... well, yeah, it's pretty tough when the Senate is balanced on a pin, and Cinemansion are clearly unwilling to let progressive priorities advance. Gravediggers of the Republic, those two, ah well. I'm not an adherent of The Green Lantern school of politics: don't think there's much Biden can do to budge these two assholes. So that's all good.

As for "let Garland's primary loyalty be to the law", I gotta say, CharleyCarp, that I disagree vehemently. The statute of limitations for the evident crimes TFG committed that are detailed in the Mueller report has either lapsed, or is about to lapse. Great work, Merrick, really, great work. It seems pretty clear to me that none of the ringleaders are going to receive punishment commensurate with their crimes -- none.

And so, for a day-to-day adminstration in normal times, Biden gets great marks. Sure, he can't do everything, esp. with such a meager legislative majority. He doesn't *actually* control the Senate after all. But he's doing well, and I expect him to continue to do so.

But from my point-of-view, he knows that in 2025 the game is up, as does the leadership of the Democratic Party. He knows that there's little he can do to save the Republic, that it's up to the voters (in the face of ever-increasing ratfucking from the GrOPers).

Garland especially has been a disappointment. But then I'm reminded that "he prosecuted McVeigh" really means "he prosecuted McVeigh in such a manner as to ensure that the white nationalist networks on which McVeigh relied for support, were never investigated". So, maybe par for the course.

Too bad about that Republic, it was fine, shiny thing, wasn't it?

I should have added: it's a fine thing to talk about how Federal cases take time to assemble and all that. But that Federal case (the Mueller Report) had a thorough investigation with investigators, lawyers, etc available for debriefing and many of them still employed by DOJ, and it was allowed to lapse after five years ran out. It doesn't give me much confidence that they'll do better this time.

As a great philosopher once said: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice .... you don't get fooled again."

AG independence is good, but Garland sucks when we could have had Doug Jones. Replacing Garland on the DC court with someone much younger is a big win, but it's a shame he had to become AG to make it work.

Chetan, I didn't mean to imply that I thought this was all to the good. Only that I think this is what happened. Biden got a guy to give up life tenure, and I'm guessing that expectations were set that Garland wasn't going to be at the beck and call. I'm disappointed in Garland too.

On the pot thing, does Biden have that much latitude? My sense from the Obama years is that literal legalization would require legislative action or heavy-handed bureaucratic intervention*, and that the president is mostly limited to telling federal prosecutors not to prosecute.

Anyway, I think that "legalizing pot would be an electoral win" is in the same pile with "when Dems turn out, Dems win" and "just give people free money" as ideas that were very appealing win-wins, then they got tested, and they don't help at all. I'm fine with advocating for these things, but I really, really need people to stop pretending that their preferred policies will win elections.

*of the "POTUS wants you to change this classification" type that we wouldn't accept as a general principle.

Anyway, I keep hoping that this is the low point: omicron has crested, inflation appears to be retreating, GDP growth is great. It's possible that spring/summer will feel like all that shit is behind us, and people will actually feel positive about things in time for the midterms.

One piece of non-fantasy good news is that it looks like redistricting is not going to hand the House to Rs--they'll have to actually win it, not just rely on bullshit maps. Indeed, PA's state house may be put into play for the first time in decades based on some early maps by the nonpartisan commission. That commission doesn't have any express power, but with a split between Rs in the leg and a D governor, and a SCOPA that threw out previous R-leaning maps, they kind of set the baseline.

Biden got a guy to give up life tenure, and I'm guessing that expectations were set that Garland wasn't going to be at the beck and call.

I hadn't thought about the Garland nomination that way, but it makes perfect sense and I think you're probably right. Biden has been very good on appointing judges (unsurprising given his history as chair of Senate Judiciary), and appointing Garland to open up his seat to groom someone for SCOTUS is a logical plan strategically even if it means giving up some progressive goals for DOJ.

I understand and agree with the critiques of Biden, Garland, et al, but I haven't got the heart for this sort of criticism any more. If Biden thinks that conciliatory politics is the way to go, that's not stupid, even if I think it's a mistake. When your media is actively indifferent to the demise of democracy, you're in a tough spot as president.

Donald Trump the other day basically promised to pardon the Capitol invaders. That promise was made 18 months or so after he first publicly threatened violence, and a year after he followed through on that threat. If Americans won't rise up in outrage against that, then what can Biden do?

Well, I think there are things he can do. But Biden doesn't think so, and in the end, I don't think the failures that we attribute to him are all that important in the big picture. The guy's in a tough spot. All paths likely lead over a cliff, and the only feeling I can muster about Biden is sympathy.

The 14th amendment allows Congress to disqualify someone from holding federal office by simple majority. I don't know if the decision can be reversed by a subsequent majority? Also is it subject to filibuster?

CharleyCarp @ 32: I think we're on the same page when it comes to Garland. It's really a question of expectations. We all know that if any of these MAGAt coup foot soldiers were caught with an ounce of heroin on their persons, they'd be instantly in jail with drug charges so fast their heads would spin. But somehow, when it comes to sedition, when it comes to destroying our Republic, Garland is taking his time and letting major chargeable offenses just lapse.

So: "Garland's primary loyalty be to the law" ? I think not. Any definition of "loyalty to the law" ought to regard the attempt to destroy the rule of law as the most important offense. You'd think that they'd basically shut down all drug prosecutions and investigations in order to put all these traitors (yes, not by the Constitution, but certainly by any civilian's definition) behind bars.

Yertle is the gravedigger of democracy. Garland ? He was asleep at the guard-post, is all. Just asleep at the guard-post.

Biden has been a pleasant surprise on some issues. He seems to be the rare Democratic elected who actually learned lessons about foreign policy in the 2000s, and getting out of Afghanistan was praiseworthy. On many issues he's predictably disappointing, student loans for instance. All things considered he's the wrong guy for the moment. He seems disinclined to really fight on the big, difficult issues. And he's too old and mumbly to communicate a clear, persuasive vision. Obviously he can't fix everything single-handedly, and maybe we're so fucked in so many ways that not even the best and most progressive politician could accomplish much during this presidential term. But Biden is not pushing the upper limits of progressive governance, nor is he acting with energy commensurate to the crises of our moment.

I was typing something and had to step away.

I do think he should have pushed for a small amount of student debt cancellation even if he didn't want to adopt Warren's plans.

On COVID, I'm pretty mad about his vaccine-only strategy. On a pure medical level, I think he should have pushed for warp speed 2.0 to develop antivirals. Maintaining testing capacity - PCR and antigen - for COVID and other respiratory illnesses should have been done. That's public health, and the market can't support it, because demand will be inconsistent. Also, not pushing NPIs and the CDC not pushing for airborne protections in medical settings. COVID is an occupational hazard, and there should, be OSHA regulations. The vaccine mandate is likely to fail - especially because it on,y applied to companies of a certain size and the degree to which vaccination protects others at work (as opposed to the health system) is unclear; BUT I think that employers should be required to take reasonable steps to protect staff from COVID at work.

I fully endorse 39.

Pfizer's drug is pretty much the fastest you could ever hope to develop an antiviral. I doubt warp speed 2.0 would have accelerated it but maybe there would be a couple others coming along faster since there's a concern about resistance coming along pretty quickly.

Just in case any of you have missed it, his administration is fixing the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program to be as generous as possible, including retroactively. (Not if your loan is fully closed.) I guess it was as strict as possible before and now they're re-evaluating old decisions about what payments are eligible and stuff. Looks like I'll get a lot of debt forgiven. If the PSLF ever fucked you over before, try again before October.

This is not what the thread's about but it was for a moment so: it looks like Carrie Coon can do nothing to rescue The Gilded Age which has taken a number of fine actors of stage and screen and saddled them with ridiculous dialog and a plot that is simultaneously far-fetched and pretty boring. That said, I'm probably about to watch e2 if it's out because I'm told by someone with press screeners that it descends into camp with a No Wire Hangers moment for Coon, and I am here for that.

There's a Reddit thread where people are talking about reconsiderations resulting in tens of thousands being canceled after DeVos fucked people. Elections matter.

Yeah. There's a PSLF sub-reddit as well.

COVID is an occupational hazard, and there should, be OSHA regulations. The vaccine mandate is likely to fail

SCOTUS says Covid can't be regulated as an occupational hazard and that Biden can't enforce a vaccine mandate.

Maybe Biden needs to just tell the court to go fuck itself. But if you want presidential nullification, you're going to have to wait for Trump's next term.

43: Yes, I'm trying to go through the process now. Basically, any payments made while you worked for a qualifying employer (government or nonprofit) now count even if the loans were not the type that traditionally qualifies for PSLF, provided you consolidate them into a new loan before next October. They have a pretty nifty online tool to fill out the form, but then you have to get it physically signed by all your previous employers which is the step I'm trying to figure out. The program is clearly designed with only your current employer in mind, and since the policy change is so new there isn't much guidance yet on how this retroactive part is supposed to work. Still, pretty nice opportunity for the small number of people like me and Megan who are in this position.

OSHA already withdrew the emergency rule and asked the circuit court to drop the case as moot. The "centrist" position is now to forget about COVID mandates and just agree to maintain school requirements for measles etc. I expect those will fall in some redder states.

Maybe I should check out that subreddit.

I'm not sure it is a small number. I saw some statement that 550,000 people now qualify (if not for full forgiveness, for getting some old payments added toward the ten-year time period). Only 16,000 people had successfully used the program before.

Anyway, maybe this'll ease the administration into loan forgiveness.

42: it's more that I think we need more in the pipeline in addition to Pfizer's. I agree that Pfizer's was fast. I'm also not optimistic about it getting to low and middle-income countries.

49: They had one for healthcare workers that was kind of lame. Biden campaigned on protecting meatpackers too. So, I'm saying that's lame.

43, 46, and 48: PSLF threads on reddit are great. This does not apply to teo or Megan, but if there are any MA commenters or lurkers dealing with PSLF or Teach Grants or any other issue with FedLoan Servicing, Maura Healey sued them and settled with them. Part of the settlement means that her office has a specific point of contact with FedLoan. They can solve problems quickly. Ed Markey's office put in a request with the Department of Education, and nothing happened. They so bed my issue in a day. Wonderful to see the balance disappear. So, contact the,, because they are fantastic. Dept of Ed basically outsourced their ombudsman responsibilities to the external servicers which just sucked.

47: David Michaels, a former OSHA Director under Obama, said he thought that a broader regulation as opposed to a vaccine mandate might fly. It's worth trying to push for ventilation standards, employer-provided N95s etc.

I do sometimes wonder whether we need nullification through court packing. I mean, I could see this Supreme Court overturning Chevron completely and declaring OSHA unconstitutional. At a certain point, maybe you have to push back.

Bostoniangirl: "I do sometimes wonder whether we need nullification through court packing."

100% agree with you, and if we had Cinemansion onside, we could do it. As it stands, it's just a nice wish, like wanting a pony. Sigh.

I don't understand why Biden hasn't taken student loan forgiveness and shoved it up Cinemansion's asses: make them wake up and face that if they don't start acting to save our democracy, he'll fuck up their shit. Sigh. OK, I know why: b/c Biden tries to work within the system, and sadly he doesn't do that sort of shit. Ugh.

I agree with Von Wafer in 21 it's good to have somebody who's not so monstrous.

I also have to give props on Afghanistan I was the right decision I'm really I think there was done as well as it possibly could have been.

He could be doing a lot more. He can unilaterally eliminate student debt. He could pardon everybody convicted on marijuana charges. He could investigate Manchin and his daughter and use regulatory hurdles on his business.

All of those would get a lot of pushback. The Manchin one might prevent cooperation on judges.

Overall I think he's keeping his major campaign promise. That fundamentally nothing is going to change and people got what they voted for. So I have a hard time understanding why people are complaining now.

He could investigate Manchin and his daughter and use regulatory hurdles on his business.

"If I were the president, I would simply commit crimes."

That would be a grotesque abuse of power. He would deserve to be impeached.

Except that his business is owning a coal mine and his daughter's is selling $0.35 of epinephrine for $300. General regulations for whole industries that are needed would hurt them.

57: that would be even less politically useful: you'd irreversibly piss off Manchin without being able to point proudly at how you wounded the Near Enemy.

Yes. I'm just pointing out there's no question of justice.

I also have no doubts that anyone who replaces Manchin will be worse. And not just a little worse.

56: Yeah, defenders of democracy and the rule of law aren't well-positioned to win in the US, but that's still the side I'm on.

60: I'm a single-issue voter regarding Congress, and the issue is: Which party will you caucus with? I'm a yellow-dog Democrat, as defined by a Southern friend of mine: "If my sainted grandmother was running as a Republican against an ol' yaller dog, I'd vote for the dog."

I thought the dog was blue.

Maybe it's like that dress?

"Vote for the crook; it's important"

The blue dogs were (are? I don't know if any are left) Democrats from the South who resisted the Republican tide of the 1970s and 1980s. They remained within the Democratic Party but often insisted they weren't like "those" Democrats.

They chose the moniker in direct oppositon to the yellow dogs, whose ethos PF describes above. They chose blue in reference to the art of George Rodrigue, who was from Louisiana. The infallible Wiki tells me that the name came from Louisiana representatives Billy Tauzin and Jimmy Hayes, both of whom later became Republicans, who had Rodrigu paintings in their DC offices.

Thanks.

60: Well and that's Manchin's security. He offers a great deal of value over replacement and everyone knows it. So we're stuck (unless we can get to 51 Dem senators). Not true of Sinema, who is much more mystifying.

OP: Unless I'm forgetting something, he hasn't made any major missteps, as far as I can tell.

Ha! You are certainly not the political media then. I think Afghanistan is the place where our assessment and the press differ by the greatest amount (as I said at the time one of the most crazed press wildings for those 2 weeks). In general they ascribe the general malaise in the country to Biden--they often do that, and at some level fair enough, but they do it relentlessly. A recent egregious example was a vapid NYT piece about how Republicans were trying to use Biden's "troubles" against him. Those troubles were mostly Covid and inflation and Afghanistan per the article. Not one hint that Republicans were also part of the government of this country at any level. IN particular (and htis has been the biggest massive ongoing fail of the media) no hint that to a large extent the Republican party has been all in on not addressing Covid and are clearly hoping it stays bad to hurt Biden.

The Republican party deliberately undermined public health during a pandemic for political advantage. If they weren't actively trying to overturn electoral democracy, it would be what I'm most livid about.

The Manchin behavior I don't get is why he's stinging people along on things he'll oppose in the end. He makes demands to look principled and then won't take yes for an answer which makes it apparent he was just playing a game. I understand if he has to be more conservative or be the democrat who stopped the democrats to win in WV. But there's no reason for him to pretend to negotiate- it's too inside baseball for anyone in WV to think he's great because he not only stopped Biden's communist agenda he also wasted everyone's time. Someone pointed out that he's probably wasted tens of thousands of hours of effort by congressional staffers who keep revising things based on his statements when he was never actually going to support the things he asked for.

Stringing not stinging

The other alternative people have proposed is that he's really dumb regarding actual policymaking. When he says he wants something without thinking about it, and then sees what that policy actually looks like in terms of a bill, he doesn't understand it's giving him what he wanted or that what he said he wanted wasn't what he actually had in his head.

69: Yep. The electoral stuff has gotten some play, but the specific attempt to undermine public health has been rarely addressed in most of the media (or framed that way even one little bit).

He's deliberately running out the clock on things.

I need to apply for PSLF and keep putting it off. Should also probably finish my syllabi before classes start next week.

70: Isn't that just more owning the libs? Sure only the motivated pay attention, but the ones who do probably enjoy watching us flail about and be pointlessly frustrated.

Imagine how many nightly new stories Manchin can get in WV for 'will he or won't he' stories, when the funny part is that we all know that he won't. Delicious suspence, Dem hopes dashed? This is a great story line for people who don't want Dems to succeed. 'Today, Joe Manchin made the Dems all do the hokey-pokey on the Senate floor for six hours!' If you hate Dems but still inexplicably vote for Manchin, this is great stuff.

He probably understands validation from chummy donors. Supposedly he timed a lot of his cold-water-throwing moments with donor meetings/speeches.

Imagine how many nightly new stories Manchin can get in WV for 'will he or won't he' stories, when the funny part is that we all know that he won't. Delicious suspence, Dem hopes dashed?

I think it's very unlikely any of this stuff ever makes the local news in West Virginia.

I understand if he has to be more conservative or be the democrat who stopped the democrats to win in WV

He's been getting a lot of attention, and perhaps more benefit than I would have guessed. In the recent Jane Coaston interview with Frank Luntz* there as a clip from his focus group of swing voters in which somebody praised Manchin and Luntz asked, if you had to pick between Joe Biden, Joe Manchin, and Donald Trump for president who would you support in 2024 and the room was split equally between the three choices.

* Why!?!?!

the room was split equally between the three choices

The way I've come to understand this kind of thing is that some proportion of the population (I don't know what, but not trivial) evaluates politicians based on the self-presentation of those politicians. Call yourself a moderate, and the naive moderate-lovers will support you; say you're for family values, and etc. There's no sense of what those politicians are actually doing, or which interests they actually support.

75: Have you been getting everything certified by year? Because I did that, and it was still a huge hassle. I as work dit would take months. It took several weeks. Luckily, there was the pandemic payment suspension, but otherwise I would have kept paying while they reviewed the application. People have been know to have previously credited payments removed.

So, apparently the bus that survived the bridge collapse is still driveable. At least, it was able to be driven briefly.

Moby @ 74 got it right: https://politicalwire.com/2022/02/01/manchin-says-build-back-better-act-is-dead/

When Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) was asked about the Build Back Better Act, he responded: "What Build Back Better bill? I don't know what you guys are talking about."

When asked if he's had any talks on the matter since December, he added: "No, no, no, no. It's dead."

It wasn't enough to merely kill it; he had to salt the ground to make sure nothing would grow there. And for all that, he *still* has us by the balls.

Thing is, he actually does have us by the balls.

Not helping my castration anxiety.

This is quite good, and I think a fair indictment of the President. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/03/biden-afghanistan-exit-american-allies-abandoned/621307/

Folks will recall that I've been working with an Afghan family on getting an SIV for several years, and then to get them out via the Kabul airport this summer. That didn't work, but just in the last few days they've managed to get to Pakistan, where our struggle with the US bureaucracy can continue.

It's worth remembering that there are large numbers of voters whose political goal or indication of political success is that certain groups are unhappy. For many voters in rural PA, the one who must be made unhappy are basically me. I mean, not at the top of the list, but definitely on it. By "me", I mean educated, liberal, and not suffering for it. I kind of doubt West Virginia is much different from rural PA on that.

68, 69: NYT continuing to double down on not even mentioning Fox/Republicans. Today they had a nive feature showing US much higher in Omicron death rates, but could not find a way to go beyonfd vague generalities about why our vaccine rate is lower.

88: The NYT tells us who is driving this failure. It's "the country" and "the government."

it has laid bare weaknesses in the country's response ... the country has failed to vaccinate as many people as other large, wealthy nations ... Chief among the reasons is the country's faltering effort to vaccinate its most vulnerable people ... "the best way for the government to protect its citizens is to convince its citizens to protect themselves."

What a mystery. Their intrepid reporters must not have been able to crack it.

More Americans have also come to express distrust -- of the government, and of each other -- in recent decades, making them less inclined to follow public health precautions like getting vaccinated or reducing their contacts during surges, said Thomas Bollyky, director of the global health program at the Council on Foreign Relations.

A study published in the scientific journal The Lancet on Tuesday by Mr. Bollyky and Dr. Dieleman of the University of Washington found that a given country's level of distrust had strong associations with its coronavirus infection rate.

We can accurately point to Fox and the Republicans as sowing doubt, but there is another entity the NYT fails to mention that is complicit in feeding distrust in "the country" and "the government."

90: Cletus safari time! Investigative journalism at its finest. A shame Nicholas Kristoff is busy at the moment . . .

I have always been somewhat sympathetic to the Cletus safaris, especially when the reporter tries to confront the question: What the fuck is wrong with these people?

But the indispensable Froomkin makes a point that somehow hadn't occurred to me before: "Where are the interviews with regular Americans terrified for our democracy?"

What about talking to non-racist parents who worry their children will be taught propaganda at school? Or people in Black or brown communities who worry about barriers to voting, increased poverty and more militant policing? Or people in immigrant communities who don't want to see their neighbors deported? Or trans people, who would have reason to be scared for their lives? Or government employees who would be asked to do things they consider abhorrent?

Or hang out at a Unitarian Church, or a reconstructionist synagogue, or a mosque, or a Common Cause meeting? Or, hell, just talk to people in a blue-state diner, if that's easier? (Maybe make that a deli.)

New reporting is that the BBB screwup is all Chuck Schumer's fault: https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/02/politics/chuck-schumer-interview-democrats-agenda/index.html

94: That piece is incoherent. Schumer 1) made a binding compromise with Manchin 2) failed to make a binding compromise with Manchin 3) failed to disclose to Biden and Pelosi what Manchin told the media. 4) Failed to force progressives to accept the compromise from Manchin.

It doesn't actually elucidate any plan by which Schumer could have done any better, and doesn't directly discuss the seemingly relevant detail that Manchin refuses honor his binding or non-binding deal.

It's lazy, stupid work. It doesn't matter to the reporters if the explanation makes no sense, because we know in advance that the conclusion is correct: It's Schumer's fault.

Since this is kind of the foreign policy thread, a lurker supports me in email sending an article related to Ukraine. I'm not sure what to think about the best way to forestall a Russian invasion, but I hadn't thought of the effects outside of Europe before.

Those people aren't Real Americans. It's off to the camps for them (and us.)

That was meant to be a response to 93.

96 is very interesting!