Inauguration Day in America

Avatar

Andrew Donaldson

Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has since lived and traveled around the world several times over. Though frequently writing about politics out of a sense of duty and love of country, most of the time he would prefer discussions on history, culture, occasionally nerding on aviation, and his amateur foodie tendencies. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter @four4thefire and his writing website Yonderandhome.com

Related Post Roulette

47 Responses

  1. Avatar Philip H
    Ignored
    says:

    Keeping to his word, the snake slithered off to Florida. No marital law declaration. No pardoning himself or his kids. No executions of pedophile Democrats . . . Though he did leave a Huge deficit and debt increase. The Hugest ever. More huge the any other president.Report

  2. Avatar Jaybird
    Ignored
    says:

    I was at work checking my morning headlines when I saw that Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize.

    I immediately barked out a laugh, confirmed that it was real, then stood up and ran over to a Team Blue No Matter What co-worker’s cube. “Did you hear that Obama got the Peace Prize?”, I asked him.

    He looked at me and sighed. “What’s the punchline?”

    “Check CNN.”

    And I wandered back to my cube.

    Later that day, in the lab, he tried to defend the idea of what was going on with that sort of thing. Like, he agreed that Obama didn’t deserve it *YET*, but the Nobel Peace People wanted to reward the idea of what Obama was and he supported the idea of Obama, even if the reality of Obama hadn’t yet had an opportunity to catch up to Obama’s Idea.

    Anyway, thought of that when I saw this:

    Report

    • Avatar InMD in reply to Jaybird
      Ignored
      says:

      Do you think anyone looks at these things before they go out with even the slightest inkling of perspective? I don’t necessarily even mean skepticism, just a little voice that says ‘Am I 100% sure this is as obviously true as I think it is?’

      Edit, maybe even ‘Am I 100% sure this will not appear to confirm all of the worst things my critics say about me?’Report

      • Avatar Oscar Gordon in reply to InMD
        Ignored
        says:

        Ummmmmm…. nope.Report

      • Avatar Jaybird in reply to InMD
        Ignored
        says:

        One thing I asked myself over the summer was “do these guys have a theory of mind?” when it came to the various instances of police brutality that we saw during the mostly peaceful protests against police brutality.

        The only conclusion that I was able to reach was “no, no they do not”.Report

      • Avatar Kazzy in reply to InMD
        Ignored
        says:

        “Edit, maybe even ‘Am I 100% sure this will not appear to confirm all of the worst things my critics say about me?’”

        I think this is the better question.

        Maybe I’m being too generous, but I think this may be part of the modern trend of just declaring everything the best/worst/whatever-est ever. It’s stupid and annoying when people do it on social media. It’s worse when supposedly real journalists do it. Do they actually mean that Biden is one of the best? Or do they simply think he’s good and saying someone is “one of the best” is how we convey “I think they’re good” now? Doesn’t matter… whoever wrote it wrote it and now it’s out there, looking really dumb.Report

      • Avatar Mike Schilling in reply to InMD
        Ignored
        says:

        It doesn’t come close to the worst things people say about Jennifer Rubin.Report

    • Avatar North in reply to Jaybird
      Ignored
      says:

      Well that’s Rubin, there ain’t no passionate advocate like a convert.Report

  3. Avatar Jaybird
    Ignored
    says:

    Well, now that we don’t have to think about politics anymore, let’s check out the schedule for Turner Classic Movies for January 20th, 2021.

    Ah, starting at 6AM, Ode To Billy Joe (1976). Okay. Nice.
    Then Polo Joe (1936) at 8AM
    Then The Fabulous Joe (1947) at 10AM
    The Story of G. I. Joe (1945) at 10:45
    Joe Smith, American (1942) at 12:45 (HEY I’M STARTING TO SEE A THEME)
    A Guy Named Joe (1943) at 2
    Pal Joey (1957) at 4:15 (ah, Frank Sinatra…)
    Mighty Joe Young (1949) at 6:15.

    All of the Joe movies in the catalogue, I guess. Nice. Then what’s on?

    Murder She Said (1961) at 8.
    Murder at the Gallop (1963) at 10.
    Murder Most Foul (1964) at midnight.

    I’m sure that that wasn’t a deliberate choice.Report

  4. Avatar Kazzy
    Ignored
    says:

    Maybe a dumb question, but does Harris getting sworn in first mean that she is VP and Trump is President for a few minutes?Report

    • Avatar Jaybird in reply to Saul Degraw
      Ignored
      says:

      Report

      • Avatar Brent F in reply to Jaybird
        Ignored
        says:

        Blocking Keystone XL by a day one EO is causing some consternation north of the border.Report

        • Avatar Brent F in reply to Brent F
          Ignored
          says:

          My Premier is now losing his stuff on live TV about it. Calling for a trade war against the United States in retaliation.

          The context being he rather foolish bought a 1.5 billion dollar stake in the project despite the strong likelihood that this would happen, in order to one up the Prime Minister he hates that bought a pipeline that’s going to get built and now he looks like a twit.Report

  5. Avatar Saul Degraw
    Ignored
    says:

    “Democracy has prevailed” and Trump is no longer President. This was not as peaceful a transition of power as it should have been by a long shot. But we remained firm and he is gone.Report

  6. Avatar greginak
    Ignored
    says:

    As i understand it Biden just proclaimed Atheism the law of the land and Gosh is dead. Took him long enough. Welp at least religion is illegal now suckers.Report

  7. Avatar North
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m feelin pretty good about all my predictions last year. *sighs* Counterbalances how ludicrously wrong I was in ’16.Report

  8. Avatar Damon
    Ignored
    says:

    All hail soon to be president Harris!Report

  9. Avatar LeeEsq
    Ignored
    says:

    I am very happy. For the past four years, I’ve had to look at the faces of Trump, Pence, Sessions, Barr, and whoever else when I walked into an immigration court or USCIS office. Now, I don’t have to do that. I get to look upon pictures of Biden, Harris, and Garland. Biden’s immigration legislation seeks to recognize that the United States is a nation of immigrants by changing the word alien to non-citizen. This might seem like a small thing but it is very big. Alien implies something or somebody who really shouldn’t be in a place. It is a hostile, awful word. Non-citizen has no such negative implications.Report

  10. Avatar Oscar Gordon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hey, look, Trump can buy this place and pretend to be POTUS!
    https://www.instagram.com/p/CKRdyBxALbg/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_linkReport

    • Avatar Kolohe in reply to Oscar Gordon
      Ignored
      says:

      There’s like four or five people that have built replica Oval Offices in their private homes (I.e not Presidential libraries or movie sets) including, I think, Dick MorrisReport

      • Avatar JS in reply to Kolohe
        Ignored
        says:

        That’s so weird.

        I can see having an oval office inspired office — take some of the architectural cues and build around that. Nothing wrong with saying “I’ve always liked the look of X or style Y”, but to replicate it all? Seals and furniture and whatnot? Weird.Report

  11. Avatar Saul Degraw
    Ignored
    says:

    Looks like Iran is interested in coming back to the peace table: https://twitter.com/farnazfassihi/status/1352003756133646345?s=20Report

  12. Avatar Saul Degraw
    Ignored
    says:

    Politico has an article on the burrowing of Trump officials into civil service positions. This happens every admin but Tump might have taken it to new extremes. A big issue is that some of it seems to be self-owns by Trump’s lackeys. Biden can revoke the security clearance of someone like Ellis (general counsel for the NSA and former Nunes’ pal) easily and make him associate counsel for traffic tickets easily.

    https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/19/trump-loyalists-burrowing-biden-460238Report

  13. Avatar Jaybird
    Ignored
    says:

    If you’re wondering how Portland is doing:

    Eh, it’s something to do. Gets you out of the house, I guess.Report

    • Avatar InMD in reply to Jaybird
      Ignored
      says:

      Let’s be fair. As long as it stays there it doesn’t really mean anything. If the local authorities and tax payers want to tolerate that then it’s up to them. What will be interesting is what happens in other places once the weather gets nice again, especially if vaccination is still moving at a snail’s pace.Report

    • Avatar Saul Degraw in reply to Jaybird
      Ignored
      says:

      How many bad faith takes can we expect to see in this next four years? A poll….

      Jaybird, Black bloc and their supporters at Jacobin are about the least relevant political bodies you can imagine in the United States. Yet you seem to think they are super relevant.Report

      • Avatar Jaybird in reply to Saul Degraw
        Ignored
        says:

        I’m actively interested in seeing what happens with enthusiastic mass gatherings in the coming months, Saul.

        Others, apparently, are as well.

        (I wonder if Marc would describe Biden’s response as “Muscular”.)Report

        • Avatar Jaybird in reply to Jaybird
          Ignored
          says:

          For the record: I see this as an *OPPORTUNITY* for Biden.

          Seriously: This is something that he could totally hit out of the park.

          Every now and again, we start talking about the theoretical “gotcha” question and a good one to mention would be the Death Penalty question asked of Mike Dukakis in 1988. What makes the question so frustrating is that there are plenty of answers that you or I could come up with a great answer for Dukakis to give.

          Heck, it’s practically a softball question. “You bet I’d want the sonovabitch to die! I’d want to do it with my bare hands! But you know what? If it turned out that they found the wrong guy? I’d have killed the wrong guy because I was overcome with emotion instead of doing what I know is right. We, as a society, should oppose the death penalty… even if it feels like it’s the right thing, it’s not the right thing.”

          You know, something like that.

          This is an opportunity for Biden. I’m interested in seeing how this gets handled in the coming days.Report

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *