Here is a taste of Jill Lawrence’s and Gregg Zoroya’s piece at USA Today: Biden is ready to do big things, both to help America and to revive its reputation in the eyes of the world. He has already commenced to redefine “bipartisanship” as what most […]
Joe Biden
Biden Republicans
Are they similar to Reagan Democrats? Here is Will Weissert at the Associated Press: RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Jay Copan doesn’t hide his disregard for the modern Republican Party. A solid Republican voter for the past four decades, the 69-year-old […]
How Joe Biden is strengthening Obama’s legacy on health care
Last week on Current I drew some connections between Obama and Biden. Today John Harwood of CNN does the same. Here is a taste of his recent piece: With sweeping economic recovery plans, President Joe Biden seeks his own legacy […]
What happens when you watch “The West Wing” during the Biden era?
Damon Linker explains in his column at The Week: The West Wing is what you get if you take the outlook of the most committed Democrats during the two terms of Bill Clinton’s presidency, add an overlay of rhetorical grandiosity derived […]
Do GOP lawmakers REALLY want to vote against Biden’s infrastructure plan?
Ron Brownstein thinks it is a bad political move: With their opposition to President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan, Republicans are doubling down on a core bet they’ve made for his presidency: that the GOP can maintain support among its key […]
Biden sets-up a commission on Supreme Court reform
Here is Michael D. Shear and Carl Huse at The New York Times: President Biden on Friday ordered a 180-day study of adding seats to the Supreme Court, making good on a campaign-year promise to establish a bipartisan commission to […]
Why is “President Biden making such a sharp break with Joe Biden?”
Here is Ezra Klein at The New York Times: Joe Biden didn’t wake up one day and realize he’d been wrong for 30 years. I covered him in the Senate, in the Obama White House, in the Democratic Party’s post-Trump […]
Amtrak will expand routes if Biden’s American Jobs Plan passes
Joe Biden spent most of his senate career commuting to Wilmington, Delaware to Washington D.C. via Amtrak. His new infrastructure plan will give $80 billion to the rail line. Here is Joseph Spector and Joey Garrison at USA Today: How […]
Racism and interstate highways
Joe Biden’s new infrastructure plan singled out the Claiborne Expressway in New Orleans as a “racist highway. The plan sets aside $20 billion to “reconnect” neighborhoods that were racially divided by highway construction. Over at NPR, Noel King interviews New […]
Obama 2.0?
As my piece today at Current suggests, I see a lot of continuity between the Obama and Biden presidencies. Obama inherited the 2008 recession. Biden inherited COVID-19, an economic recession, racial tensions, and the Trump-induced threats to American democracy. Both […]
“The ‘only 5 percent’ counts as ‘real infrastructure’ talking point is utterly bogus”
I wrote last week: “The opponents of Joe Biden’s new bill think “infrastructure” is just roads and bridges.” Paul Waldman nails it: First, let’s be clear that the “only 5 percent” counts as “real infrastructure” talking point is utterly bogus. It defines infrastructure […]
What is infrastructure?
The opponents of Joe Biden’s new bill think “infrastructure” is just roads and bridges. Yes, infrastructure was focused largely on roads and bridges in the early 19th-century, but it also included new innovations like railroads and the telegraph. Today those […]
Biden chief of staff Ron Klain on the president’s new infrastructure bill: “The president was elected to do a job”
Politico’s Ryan Lizza interviewed Klain yesterday. Here is one of the takeaways: BIPARTISANSHIP IS NOT THE GOAL: On attracting Republican votes for the infrastructure bill, Klain’s rhetoric sounded similar to how the administration discussed the Covid relief bill:“ Let’s work together […]
The greatest threat to the Biden presidency
It took a lot of courage for the editors of Slate to publish today’s anonymous op-ed, but I appreciate the online magazine’s concern about our democracy and the sorry state of the current administration. Here is a taste of “I […]
The American Jobs Plan is here
Biden’s jobs and infrastructure plan is up at the White House website. The framing: While the American Rescue Plan is changing the course of the pandemic and delivering relief for working families, this is no time to build back to […]
Pro-Trumpers are upset that Biden used notecards at his recent press conference
Fox News is calling them “cheat sheets.” Sean Hannity is outraged! Actually, I am glad to have a president who is prepared. Biden can use all the note cards he needs. Trump, of course, did not “need” notecards: 🙂
Have you seen Dana Carvey’s Joe Biden impression?
It is good:
Biden holds a press conference and no one asks him about the pandemic
Watch: Here is Elahe Izadi and Paul Farhi at The Washington Post: Biden’s first formal news conference took placeon a day when hundreds of Americans died of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, as they have on every day […]
Joe Biden meets with American historians at the White House
The court historians? Those in attendance included Jon Meacham, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Michael Beschloss, Michael Eric Dyson, Joanne Freeman, Eddie Glaude Jr, Annette Gordon Reed, and Walter Isaacson. Mike Allen at Axios reports that everyone wore masks. The topics discussed […]
Is there really a “surge” at the border
According to the researchers at Washington Post‘s “Monkey Cage” column, the large number of immigrants at the southern border can be explained by a “usual seasonal bump” and people who “waited during the pandemic.” Here is a taste: Last week, […]