How will Joe Biden GOVERN? General Biden Administration F**kery Thread

[thatrapsfan]

@thatrapsfan

I saw you were excited about this one on Twitter

Found it interesting. I rmb her visiting Mogadishu during the Obama second term, so seems to have a background in Horn affairs.

Ethiopian war could be the first crisis they deal with at a high level.

 

[hjnm]

This dude and Issa is going to be in congress

"Moved a mile from the White House" his daughter was in high school! Of course Obama people would support Harris, she was one of the first people to endorse him back in the day.

 

[ADevilYouKhow]

Sarcasm is all your idiotic post deserves.

But yeah, we should all take your stanning of the vacuous, uncritical politician-as-celebrity bullshyt that brought us Trump in the first place seriously.

Political memory of a goldfish.

irony abounds

totally normal supporting Trump for four years to astroturfing as a progressive

you’re projecting

 

[mastermind]

Neo-cons and liberal interventionist are pretty much the same. They both want to maintain the American empire. Even Trumps "isolationism" was still about maintaining it. With Biden we will go back to the Obama-lite foreign policy days except Biden is not gungho on foreign intervention. He was against intervening in Syria and Libya. He proposed a realist idea of breaking up Iraq because its a sectarian mess. I would bet he will support only the Syrian Kurds not the sunni rebels. The reality on the grounds is the rebels lost. Turkey supports their proxies to maintain a buffer state not defeating Assad. Europe doesn't want to se new fighting as that would mean more refugees. Probably back Ukraine against Russia. Return to the Iran nuclear deal and end the policy of confrontation with Iran since they have abided by the deal. I don't see Biden launching a military intervention into Venezuela. Probably sanctions and thats it. He will likely continue the Obama policy on focusing on China.

Its the same revolving door. Just a "liberal" face on American imperialism.

These dudes only believe in American exceptionalism, but don’t understand that’s not for minorities and non wealthy people.

 

[King Kreole]

irony abounds

totally normal supporting Trump for four years to astroturfing as a progressive

you’re projecting

Yeah you got me dude, big MAGA supporter for the past 4 years. Loved the forced hysterectomies at the border concentration camps, the increase of governmental grift and institutional rot, the widespread incompetence and promotion of genuinely evil people, the continued hollowing out of the middle class, the increasingly fascist promotion of state-sanctioned white supremacist terror. I've definitely been cheering that along this whole time. Oh, but don't bother looking for those posts of mine, you won't be able to find any because uhh I've paid the mods to have them wiped. They definitely existed though. My hundreds of posts supporting Elizabeth Warren, AOC and policies like universal healthcare, anti-imperalist foreign policy, and anti-monopolization over the past years? Oh, those have all been a charade designed to uhh...trick you! But you have shown me the error of my ways, Daddy Biden knows best. I will drop all pretenses of principle and will no longer take a critical eye towards Democratic leadership. Like a pig. In a cage. On antibiotics.

 

[ZoeGod]

Its the same revolving door. Just a "liberal" face on American imperialism.

These dudes only believe in American exceptionalism, but don’t understand that’s not for minorities and non wealthy people.

Yeah they are both pretty much the same. The biggest reason why you see populism being popular in both the left and right is that globalism only benefitted the elite class. Cheap credit and free trade benefits corporations and the wealthy. Meanwhile the middle class is being crushed by rising living standards, low wages, loss of jobs, etc. History has shown this movie over and over again. When you have rising inequality this tends to lead populism as centrist are seen part of the problem that led to inequality.

 

[MoneyTron]

What do you think "how to better interface" entails? I'm a guy with the most powerful people in government on speed dial. Do you think my clients are paying me millions of dollars to read them a powerpoint? This is like when people claimed Hillary was getting paid millions by Goldman Sachs other Wall St. firms to just show up a give a speech. How long must we continue this charade of naivete?

Its not a charade.

The government does business just like the private sector. The government contracting sector is specifically built to do that. Why would any government employee with experience and connections not move to that space post-government career? My dad will be retiring from ~30 years of government work in 2-3 years and will probably consult for a few years after.

As for the speeches, don’t see what makes Hillary different from any other celebrity big companies pay to appear at their conferences. I’m sure Oprah pulls a comparable amount. If Hillary had a board seat at GS however, you could make a stronger case.

 

[wire28]

@thatrapsfan

I saw you were excited about this one on Twitter

Time to bash this black woman next

 

[King Kreole]

Its not a charade.

The government does business just like the private sector. The government contracting sector is specifically built to do that. Why would any government employee with experience and connections not move to that space post-government career? My dad will be retiring from ~30 years of government work in 2-3 years and will probably consult for a few years after.

As for the speeches, don’t see what makes Hillary different from any other celebrity big companies pay to appear at their conferences. I’m sure Oprah pulls a comparable amount. If Hillary had a board seat at GS however, you could make a stronger case.

What you're describing is corruption, dude. The government should not be a waystation on the path to wealth. Read this.

Breaking the Political Influence of Market-Dominant Companies | Elizabeth Warren
Elizabeth Warren’s first priority as president: ending government corruption

 

[King Kreole]

Time to bash this black woman next

What's your issue with Linda Thomas Greenfield? Seems highly qualified to me...

 

[FAH1223]

Time to bash this black woman next

Why would you want to bash her with your sarcasm?

 

[MoneyTron]

What you're describing is corruption, dude. The government should not be a waystation on the path to wealth. Read this.

I don't think I am. None of the points in Liz's bill would prevent government employees from consulting private sector companies and/or starting government contracting companies.

The government does business. There will be companies to serve that market and make profit.

EDIT:

If Liz wants a 4 year non-compete for senior officials, that's fine. That's common practice in the private sector as well. Don't think it would make any meaningful difference.

 

[King Kreole]

I don't think I am. None of the points in Liz's bill would prevent government employees from consulting private sector companies and/or starting government contracting companies.

There's a difference between lobbying and consulting.

The government does business. There will be companies to serve that market and make profit.

There really isn't a major difference between lobbying and consulting in this instance. If you think Blinken and Flournoy - two of the most high-ranking, powerful, and connected people in Washington when it comes to the defense and diplomacy areas of government - were being paid millions of dollars by defense contracting and weapons manufacturing firms to NOT open up their Rolodex...I must say you're asking us to engage in incredible naivete. If they were just some low-level paper pushers who had no real power to influence government policy and just spent a couple of years working at the State/Defense Department until deciding to use that experience to consult, I could see an argument. But for the former Deputy Secretary of State and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy who was the primary advisor to SecDefs Panetta and Gates? Come on.

There are countless examples like this in the Trump Administration, but it’s a widespread problem in official Washington — and it goes far beyond obvious and egregious quid-pro-quo bribery. When someone serves in government with plans to immediately turn around and work in the industry they’ve been overseeing, that individual faces obvious incentives to advance the interests of their future employer. And when someone moves immediately from a regulated company to a job regulating that company, the public is right to worry about the risk that such individuals will prioritize the interests of their old bosses.

Government must be able to benefit from tapping private sector expertise, and public servants who leave government should be able to find post-government employment. Similarly, volunteer and part-time government positions, which make sense in certain situations, necessarily assume some level of outside work. But there is a difference between expertise and graft.

It isn’t simply a matter of replacing Trump with an honest President. We’ve seen the issue of industry lobbyists and top execs spinning freely through the revolving door to and from important government positions in both Democratic and Republican administrations. Fixing the underlying problem requires us to tighten up the rules to ensure that when government officials are making decisions, they are considering only the public interest — and not their own personal interests or the interests of their friends and future employers.

...

Restrict the ability of companies to buy up former federal officials to rig the game for themselves. Under my plan, companies would be banned from immediately hiring former senior government officials whose agency or office the company has lobbied in the past two years. And because the biggest and most market-dominant corporations in America also exercise outsized political power, my plan blocks them from using personnel hires to rig the game by banning giant companies, banks, and monopolies from hiring former senior government officials for at least four years.
...

Expand the definition of lobbyists to include everyone who is paid to influence lawmakers. Because of our weak laws, only individuals who meet directly with politicians or spend more than 20% of their time lobbying are required to register as lobbyists. That means law firms, consultancies, and even self-described lobbying firms that hire individuals for the express purpose of influencing government may be able to avoid these registration requirements — allowing powerful interests to influence policy without any public accountability. This practice, endemic on both sides of the aisle, must end.

Also Flournoy is on the board of Booz Allen Hamilton, which would violate Warren's proposed ban on senior administration officials sitting on for-profit corporate boards.

 

[FAH1223]

Washington is exhausted. Washington is optimistic. Washington is desperate for change.

The aristocracy of this city is ready to move on, daring to hope that the last four years was a fever that finally broke and life can get back to normal. Normal, as in a respect for experience and expertise. Normal, as in civility and bipartisan cooperation. Normal, as in not wanting to punch someone in the face.


At the center of this hope is President-elect Biden, moderate by nature, attuned to the rhythms of the town, eager to bring people back together.

The Bidens “know how to get around Washington, how to be a part of the establishment, how to make it work for them in their everyday lives,” says an influential Republican hostess who, like many of the city’s social leaders, spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly without retribution. “People who have always enjoyed the Washington scene are yearning to get back to that, have some semblance of what they enjoyed so much before. There are a lot of Republicans who sat out the Trump years and bit their tongues for four years who are thrilled to have Biden.”

At the heart of this optimism is the belief that politicians on both sides of the aisle get more accomplished when they like each other. And the other business of Washington — the cultural institutions, the diplomatic corps,the gala fundraisers, thehundreds of historical traditions — need bipartisanship to really thrive. They struggled during the Trump administration, when everything became a test of loyalty and the notion that good people could disagree without being disagreeable was laughable.

Sure, not everybody is going to kiss and make up overnight. But Washington’s elite social world can pivot faster than a prima ballerina. With the promise of a coronavirus vaccine and a call for comity, it’s ready, willing and able to press the reset button and start fresh.


"The tone is set from the top," says Anita McBride, former chief of staff to first lady Laura Bush.

For the last four years, the tone from the White House was contemptuous of Washington, dismissing the permanent establishment — the longtime politicians and former administration officials who call it home — as the “swamp” or “deep state.” The social arbiters, traditionally respectful of a new administration, quickly found themselves between a Trump and a hard place: To invite or not to invite?

“The attendance of the president or vice president is important to the cultural and historic life of this city,” explains McBride. Trump went to a handful of galas but his attendance — even the prospect of it — often brought controversy and protests. Kennedy Center honorees threatened to boycott the event if he came.

Without Trump, the White House correspondents’ dinner — typically a night of mutual good will between the administration and the press that covers it — became an awkward defense of the First Amendment, sometimes tense (when comedian Michelle Wolf eviscerated Sarah Sanders), sometimes lackluster (when Ron Chernow was recruited to speak the following year).


Back to normal will mean more state dinners, a prestigious and glamorous way of reestablishing global ties. And it means that Washington events traditionally attended by the president and first lady for the better part of five decades — the Honors, the Alfalfa dinner, the Gridiron, Ford’s Theatre gala and the correspondents’ dinner — will likely return to their former glory.

The Bidens are not what anyone would call party people — they support causes dear to them, but have never been regulars on Washington’s social map. “These are people who go to things because they think it’s their responsibility to show up, not because they’re looking to be seen,” says a former ambassador.

But Joe Biden’s 47 years in Washington will be a huge plus.“The President-elect has a great number of friends who are Republicans that he served with,” says Ambassador Capricia Marshall, a veteran of the Clinton and Obama administrations and author of “Protocol: The Power of Diplomacy and How to Make It Work for You.” “And he will be inviting them into the White House because that’s how you get work done: creating those relationships in these social atmospheres, making people feel invited and welcomed.”

And that bipartisanship — or even just the veneer — is critical to the other business of Washington: fundraising. What passes as a social event is usually a benefit for one of the thousands of nonprofits who use the nation’s capital as the primary source of funding. The quickest way to attract money is to have support from both sides of aisle: a Republican and a Democrat prominently displayed at the head table, with the corporate support and underwriting that greases all those wheels.

The events industry, already on eggshells during the Trump years, has been devastated by the coronavirus and sees a Biden administration as a way to recover. The inauguration cannot celebrate the new president with the traditional excess and festivities. But the spirit is there and, God willing, the parties will come back in the future.

“The inaugural, the Kennedy Center Honors, a lot of these things in town really showcase the best of who we are as a country,” says Philip Dufour, one of the city’s top event planners. “This idea that we are a democracy, we disagree on a lot, but we come together around certain moments. You may not be happy with who wins, but you understand and recognize the power of it.”

When President Trump first moved into the White House, there were the traditional overtures extended to him and his administration to attend exclusive private dinners. Washington has always had a soft spot for titles, if not the man. Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner were expected to be the middlemen in this deal, bringing together her bombastic father and the city's social elite in a gesture of civility.

The hosts wanted to be gracious, but the Trumps wanted loyalty — whatever that was supposed to mean — and made even longtime Republicans uncomfortable. The invitations soon dried up; Trump’s Washington’s social life revolved around his golf games and his acolytes at the Trump hotel.

A number of GOP insiders stopped entertaining altogether, fearing even an offhand criticism by anyone at the party would get back to Trump and result in the kind of withering tweetstorms directed at senators John McCain and Mitt Romney.

“A lot of people didn’t want to take that on and have their reputation destroyed because they said, ‘Trump is wrong about this’ or ‘I disagree with the president,’ ” says one prominent hostess. “It didn’t take much to be considered disloyal. A lot of people who sat back now probably feel a little guilty, but it was a form of self-preservation.”

Much will be written about the silence of Republicans during the Trump years, but suffice to say: Washington gets self-preservation. Everyone is officially thrilled when their party is in power, and bipartisan when it’s not.

And yes, the classic friendly-rivals dinner party will be back, likely bigger than ever, with VIP guests from the Biden administration, a few formers from the Obama crowd, a senator or two seated next to a Supreme Court justice. Washington has a front-row seat to history in the making; one of the pleasures is watching politicians tell war stories and debate in an informal setting.

“I fondly remember Senator [Daniel] Inouye and Senator McCain all getting into these wonderful debates about various issues on the environment and on the economy,” says Marshall. “It was very entertaining to watch. And in the end, they would lift their glass, give each other a toast, a smile, a great laugh and carry on.”

The election of Kamala Harris, the first female, Black and Asian American vice president, could inject a new, more inclusive element into the social scene. Harris had ties to the city even before becoming senator, as a graduate of Howard University and the historic Black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha, and will bring those institutions new attention. Their celebrations of her inauguration are already in the planning, says Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, and events honoring Harris are likely to continue in a variety of forms.


The jury is out on whether any of the Trump officials will make the leap to Washington's permanent A-list. "The question is do or will they care about being accepted by Establishment Washington?" asks McBride.

Most won’t; a few might. The president and his family will not be welcomed back, many insiders say privately, nor will most of his team. “I think that all of those people who stuck with him and were his apologists to the end and his enablers are going to be treated with extreme negative prejudice,” says a former George W. Bush appointee. Senior staffers in Trump’s White House are already making calls, asking for help in landing new jobs — and they’re not getting those calls returned. Someone like senior adviser Stephen Miller will probably still get booed in public; no one in elite social circles wants anything to do with him.

Pragmatism almost always wins the day: Trump loyalists (Pence, Cruz, et al.) hoping to run for president in 2024 will still want to curry favor with well-connected former officials, and the city’s conservatives won’t want to freeze out their access to a future White House. Money always sands the rough edges, as it does with multimillionaire commerce secretary Wilbur Ross and his wife, Hilary Geary Ross.

“The Rosses were the only people in the Trump administration who not only supported local causes but socialized the old-fashioned way by welcoming a mix of guests that included diplomats, members of the press and even a few Democrats like Senator Amy Klobuchar,” says Washington Life senior editor Kevin Chaffee. “They are experienced hosts who entertain beautifully with superb food and wine. And, of course, there is Wilbur’s impressive collection of Magritte paintings to marvel at. If they remain here — and I’ve heard they might — they will continue to be warmly received.”

And what to make of Kellyanne Conway, the most visible Trump official to court Washington’s social elite?

Even before making history as the first woman to run a winning presidential campaign, she was a regular in conservative social circles. Afterward, she was everywhere — the Gridiron Club dinner, the British and French embassies, A-list parties. She charmed many people who expected to hate her. But she also defended the president’s most controversial policies.

“She has worked hard to develop personal relationships with people that frankly, somehow or other, have a view of her as a person and another view of her role,” says a former ambassador. “Certainly, the more partisan people are going to have strong feelings about her. But I think she’s made enough efforts and inroads with people that, you know, she has a brand.” If that brand segues into a prominent media role, she has a place in a city that (for better or worse) puts political pundits on most guests lists. And that, too, is normal.

So it goes, as it has always gone. Washington never forgets, sometimes forgives, and carries on.

Seeing Trump officials at galas and events around town was always funny.

 

[the next guy]

Susan Rice got jobbed.