US President Biden inauguration, Weds 20th Jan 2021 - news, build-up and protests

[Lord Camomile]

I have been a bit befuddled at just how viral that particular meme has been, but I guess it is just a particularly good visual for photoshopping into other contexts.

 

[Dom Traynor]

My aunt who is a real estate agent in the states apparently stuck a Bernie in one of the photosets for one of her sales. I've asked my cousin to furnish evidence.

 

[Orang Utan]

this seems pretty major - Biden is not renewing any private prison contracts:

Biden Takes Executive Action To Limit Private Prisons

The move is part of a package by President Biden to roll back policies of Donald Trump and promote racial justice reforms.

www.huffpost.com

 

[8ball]

I have been a bit befuddled at just how viral that particular meme has been, but I guess it is just a particularly good visual for photoshopping into other contexts.

Yeah, I don't really understand it*, but a lot of the applications of it have tickled me.

* - well maybe I understand it a little more having read back a little

 

[two sheds]

this seems pretty major - Biden is not renewing any private prison contracts:

Biden Takes Executive Action To Limit Private Prisons

The move is part of a package by President Biden to roll back policies of Donald Trump and promote racial justice reforms.

www.huffpost.com

He's been reversing quite a few of the right Trump policies I've thought.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

this seems pretty major - Biden is not renewing any private prison contracts:

Biden Takes Executive Action To Limit Private Prisons

The move is part of a package by President Biden to roll back policies of Donald Trump and promote racial justice reforms.

www.huffpost.com

It looks like he's started the process of backing off supporting the Saudi's war in Yemen. I believe he killed a scheduled arms trade to Saudi Arabia and then he rescinded some sanctions on the Houthis group there.

Biden administration suspends some sanctions on Yemen rebels - ABC News (go.com)

It was one of his campaign promises.

 

[two sheds]

Biden Administration Restores Aid To Palestinians, Reversing Trump Policy

The acting U.S. ambassador to the U.N. announced a renewed commitment to the two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a resumption of U.S. contact with Palestinian leaders.

www.npr.org

Just six days after taking office, the Biden administration took a sharp turn in U.S. policy in the Middle East, announcing it will resume contact with Palestinian leaders and restore U.S. contributions to the U.N. agency which provides aid to Palestinians.

They're going to need it for a start to buy covid vaccines if Israel isn't going to provide them

 

[brogdale]

A cracker!

 

[two sheds]

Biden Will Repeal One Of Trump's Major Anti-Abortion Policies

Biden just signed an executive order rescinding Trump's "global gag rule," which bans organizations from providing, or even discussing abortion, if they receive federal funding.

www.buzzfeednews.com

 

[Johnny Vodka]

Was a bit sceptical about Biden but he seems to be doing okay so far. The environmental stuff looks promising too on the surface. Guess we have to see how it all actually pans out.

 

[two sheds]

The first tranche was pretty clear though - reverse everything you can that Trump has done.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

Watching a wee bit of this start before I start work.

 

[Dogsauce]

The first tranche was pretty clear though - reverse everything you can that Trump has done.

you do the contentious stuff early, so that by the time the next election comes round all the glassy-eyed anti-abortion/anti-gun control freaks have forgotten about it and make less of a fuss.

 

[two sheds]

Denouncing 'Handouts to Big Oil,' Biden Calls on Congress to End $40 Billion in Taxpayer Subsidies for Fossil Fuels | Common Dreams

"Biden campaigned on eliminating fossil fuel giveaways, and voters agree by a huge margin," said one climate activist.

www.commondreams.org

More Biden madness

 

[hitmouse]

Not totally sure which of the various US threads this should go in, but might as well go here: To See the Danger of a Domestic “War on Terror,” Look No Further Than This Florida Case Florida Man facing heavy charges for making some silly social media posts about resisting any potential far-right presence on the 20th. Does include one classic typo from Jacobin:

As the FBI’s criminal complaint lays out, Baker stands accused of “threatening the use of violence in the United States” and “using social media to recruit and train like-minded individuals in furtherance of his Ant-Government or Anti-Authority Violent Extremist Ideology.”

It certainly sounds alarming. Such language suggests a left-wing version of this month’s thwarted violence in Washington, DC, and all manner of frightful scenarios: a plot to bomb the state capitol, to assassinate state lawmakers, or perhaps even to massacre the police officers he’d spent the previous year demonstrating against.

But in fact, the FBI has neither presented evidence, nor accused Baker, of anything of the sort. Instead, the government’s case against Baker centers exclusively on his constitutionally protected speech — “extremist rhetoric,” in the FBI’s words. Namely, this refers to a series of social media posts targeting, as the complaint outlines, “those he claims are white supremacists, fascists, United States persons with different ideologies than his, and allies of the United States.”

 

[Streathamite]

By fuck he's a dull orator.

dull, right now, is a blessed relief after the past four years.
Dull = sane.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

dull, right now, is a blessed relief after the past four years.
Dull = sane.

Its even a little entertaining to watch Trump supporters freak out over Biden's proposed policies.

 

[Streathamite]

Its even a little entertaining to watch Trump supporters freak out over Biden's proposed policies.

yup!

 

[Streathamite]

I've worked with some clever, well-informed Americans in Europe. Most of my clients were American. One was Michael Dell, another was Larry Ellison, both megabrains. But in Miami I met a senior partner in a big law firm who informed me that French culture had been "destroyed by the Muslims". He'd never been to France. I told him I'd been at least 50 times and that he could drive around France for a month and never see a single mosque. He didn't believe a word. I explained that we have a train from London to Paris that does 185 mph and gets there in a couple of hours and a lot of us go to France for holidays twice a year and the two countries are 15 miles apart. Just looked at me blankly. Then his friend, who claimed to be an international communications consultant, backed him up by explaining that the Hilton in Paris looks Islamic because it has lots of mirrors and gold in it.

In South Carolina I went to a party and met all sorts of big shots at a house on a gated estate which had its own airstrip - very commonplace, everybody seemed to have a plane. (Some of the gated estates in Florida had a private airstrip and a private marina. You parked your plane out the front and your boat out the back.) I got talking to a woman who was apparently a consultant who advised US companies how to set up a European operation. I was hoping for an interesting conversation. But I saw her to her car, a Ford Excursion, pretty much the biggest mass production SUV ever built. She said that gas mileage is irrelevant because "the earth just keeps making more oil from rocks". She was getting at the theory that oil isn't made of fossilised fish etc, but comes from carbon/rocks in the earth's mantle.

I really don't know what point you're trying to make, but if it happens to be that Americans, as a body of people, are more stupid, ignorant and gullible than Europeans, then you are dead wrong.
However, it is certainly true that they tend to have less first-hand experience of countries outiside of North America. There is a endency to think they don't need to travel overseas, as all of their needs can be met from within that vast, diverse and bountiful continent

 

[MrSpikey]

Does include one classic typo from Jacobin:

Are we sure it's a typo, in this post-truth society?

Spoiler: Ants