The challenges ahead (Biden's America)

[RoseMorninStar]

I think, wisely, if Biden intends not to run again, he will wait as long as possible on any announcement to prevent opposition attacks on the potential successor.

[N.E. Brigand]

That OG funk, that's what it is.

A Fox News reporter made the same dumb mistake.

[N.E. Brigand]

Yesterday, the official Twitter account of the Republican party posted this image:



To which they appended this message: "Wait until the coastal elites find out that this is where their food comes from!"

Many others quickly noted that lots of food is grown in coastal states, and California in fact leads the nation in agricultural production.

But even more notably, as various people have noted, that is picture shows farmland in California.

Specifically, the photo is a view to the north from the point where the Stanislaus River (on the right) flows into the San Joaquin River, about eight miles south of Manteca, California. Everything in the photo south of the Stanislaus River (i.e., toward the viewer) is Stanislaus County. Everything in the photo north of that, i.e., most of what's shown in the image, is San Joaquin County.

In the 2020 election, Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in Stanislaus County by a half-point (49.2%-48.6%).

And Biden defeated Trump in San Joaquin County by nearly 14 points (55.6%-42.8%).

[RoseMorninStar]

Education matters.

[N.E. Brigand]

Update: that very spot is in fact represented in Congress by a Democrat, Rep. Josh Harder, as he himself has noted here.

[N.E. Brigand]

Marty Walsh has been confirmed as labor secretary. So all Cabinet departments have now been confirmed.

The final list:

93-2 Lloyd Austin, Defense -- confirmed Jan. 22, 2021
92-7 Tom Vilsack, Agriculture -- Feb. 23, 2021
87-7 Denis McDonough, Veterans' Affairs -- Feb. 8, 2021
87-13 Pete Buttigieg, Transportation -- Feb. 2, 2021
84-15 Janet Yellen, Treasury -- Jan. 25, 2021
84-15 Gina Raimondo, Commerce -- Mar. 1, 2021
78-22 Antony Blinken, State -- Jan. 26, 2021
70-30 Merrick Garland, Attorney General -- Mar. 10, 2021
68-29 Marty Walsh, Labor -- Mar. 23, 2021
66-34 Marcia Fudge, Housing and Urban Development -- Mar. 10, 2021
64-35 Jennifer Granholm, Energy -- Feb. 25, 2021
64-33 Miguel Cardona, Education -- Mar. 1, 2021
56-43 Alejandro Mayorkas, Homeland Security -- Feb. 2, 2021
51-40 Deb Haaland, Interior -- Mar. 15, 2021
50-49 Xavier Becerra, Health and Human Services -- Mar. 18, 2021

Again, that's setting aside other Cabinet-level positions.

Within that group, Joe Biden achieved what Barack Obama and Donald Trump did not: all his initial nominees for these positions were confirmed. Obama's first and second choices for Commerce Secretary, Bill Richardson and Judd Gregg, were withdrawn, as was Tom Daschle, his first choice for Health and Human Services Secretary. And Trump withdrew his first choice for Labor Secretary, Andrew Pudzer. The average number of votes in favor of Biden's department heads was 73, slightly ahead of the average of 70 for Trump's department heads and far behind the average of 91 for Obama's department heads (that counts the many voice votes for Obama's choices as 100, though). I include the votes for Obama's first confirmed Commerce and HHS secretaries and Trump's first confirmed Labor secretary in those averages. The fewest number of votes received for an original Obama department head was 60 for Tim Geithner at Treasury. For an original Trump department head that number is 51 for Betsy Devos, which includes the tie-breaking vote cast by Vice President Mike Pence.

Last in, first out! It's being reported that Labor Secretary Marty Walsh will depart the Biden administration as soon as tomorrow to become a union leader, albeit a union with fairly few members: he'll be the Executive Director of the National Hockey League Players’ Association. His annual salary will increase from $226,000 to about $3,000,000. When he officially steps down, I'll update the original post accordingly.

[N.E. Brigand]

Here's a short but interesting story from the Financial Times about Chinese balloons floating over the U.S. over the past several years, beginning with this:

General Glen VanHerck, the head of North American Aerospace Defense Command, made a stark admission on Monday by revealing that the US had not detected previous flights by Chinese spy balloons over its airspace.

The Air Force officer said the US military had a “domain awareness gap”, in a blunt statement about its failure to detect surveillance balloons that most Americans learned about for the first time last week when an F-22 fighter jet shot one down off the coast of South Carolina.

“We did not detect those threats,” the former fighter pilot said.

The article discusses possible reasons that China would want a balloon over the U.S. when they already have plenty of satellites.

[N.E. Brigand]

I only saw a few clips of President Biden's annual state-of-the-union address -- which apparently went well when he wasn't being heckled by a Disney villain -- but I saw most of the official Republican response delivered by the new Arkansas governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and I'm surprised more people aren't talking about this bit from near the beginning of her remarks: "We are under attack in a left-wing cultural war we didn't start and never wanted to fight. Every day we are told we must partake in the ritual, salute their flags, and worship their false idols."

It was softly delivered, but it sounded like the ranting of an insane person. I have no idea what she's talking about. I'm certainly not taking part in any rituals, saluting any flags, or worshiping any idols. If she believes what she was saying, then she needs psychiatric help.

[RoseMorninStar]

It would be my guess those are dog whistles/coded political language aimed at a particular audience, my guess would be evangelicals. I imagine the flag reference is aimed at the rainbow flag for LGBTQ, although I don't know anyone who salutes it. Speaking of false idols.. (ahem) Donald Trump anyone?

As one comment I saw stated, "Her folks think wildfires in California are caused by lasers in space, chinese spy balloons are spreading COVID and a dead Venezuelan autocrat is manipulating elections but yeah, the crazies"

[Sunsilver]

Rainbow flags? Here's Trump campaigning in 2015, trying to pretend he likes gays... Anything for a vote, Donald, right?

Rose, I remember the golden Trump statue from one of the Republican events! I found it hard to believe that people claiming to be Christian would not see the Bibical symbolism projected by such a statute (golden calf in the O.T., a false god which the Israelites were severely punished for erecting and worshipping.) The irony just chokes me!

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... SKBN2AQ1GZ

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[N.E. Brigand]

CNN had some interesting reporting today about the Chinese balloon, including this:

A recovery operation to secure debris from the balloon is ongoing with analysis continuing at an FBI laboratory in Virginia, but the officials’ remarks suggest the US has already established the balloon was operating with electronic surveillance technology.

However, the US has said it has been able to prevent the balloon from intercepting US communications.

“The high-altitude balloons’ equipment was clearly for intelligence surveillance and inconsistent with the equipment onboard weather balloons. It had multiple antennas to include an array likely capable of collecting and geo-locating communications. It was equipped with solar panels large enough to produce the requisite power to operate multiple active intelligence collection sensors,” the official added.

“We could track the exact path of the balloon and ensure no activities or sensitive unencrypted comms would be conducted in its vicinity,” a senior administration official said this week. “The US military took immediate steps to protect against the balloon’s collection of sensitive information, mitigating any intelligence value to the PRC.”

[RoseMorninStar]

I think it's pretty bold for the Chinese government tell the US they want the balloon back because it doesn't belong to the US. China claims the US is 'dishonest' if they do not return the material claiming it's dishonest to not return something found on the street. Is it 'dishonest' to question what/how such an item was found inside your home?

[Inanna]

Reminds me of US’ drone gettin shot down in Iran and Obama asking them to give it back. In his lovely deadpan way.

[RoseMorninStar]

Well, one can ask (for a return), but to claim it's stealing is another thing entirely.

[N.E. Brigand]

I missed this story the other day:

"How search for UFOs helped lead US government to Chinese spy balloons" (ABC).

[N.E. Brigand]

In the week following the downing of the Chinese spy-balloon off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday, February 4, the U.S. has shot down three unidentified flying objects, one per day on Friday-Sunday, February 10-12: one over the Beaufort Sea near Deadhorse, Alaska (i.e., very far north), one over the Yukon Territory (in cooperation with the Canadian air force on orders from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau), and most recently this afternoon over Lake Huron, on the Michigan side -- and the airspace over Lake Michigan (which is west of Lake Huron) had previously been closed, so my guess is that something that was over Lake Michigan then crossed the lower peninsula of Michigan and then flew over Lake Huron. An unidentified Congressional staffer has said that this object was octagon-shaped. Coincidentally, I've been listening this afternoon to radio from Parry Sound, Ontario, which is on Lake Huron, and the DJ seems to be live, but they haven't reported anything. Additionally, jets were scrambled last night over Montana, but no shootdown there has been reported; that said, something yesterday over the Big Sky state could perhaps have blown to the Great Lakes region today.

[N.E. Brigand]

In the week following the downing of the Chinese spy-balloon off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday, February 4, the U.S. has shot down three unidentified flying objects, one per day on Friday-Sunday, February 10-12: one over the Beaufort Sea near Deadhorse, Alaska (i.e., very far north), one over the Yukon Territory (in cooperation with the Canadian air force on orders from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau), and most recently this afternoon over Lake Huron, on the Michigan side -- and the airspace over Lake Michigan (which is west of Lake Huron) had previously been closed, so my guess is that something that was over Lake Michigan then crossed the lower peninsula of Michigan and then flew over Lake Huron. An unidentified Congressional staffer has said that this object was octagon-shaped. Coincidentally, I've been listening this afternoon to radio from Parry Sound, Ontario, which is on Lake Huron, and the DJ seems to be live, but they haven't reported anything. Additionally, jets were scrambled last night over Montana, but no shootdown there has been reported; that said, something yesterday over the Big Sky state could perhaps have blown to the Great Lakes region today.

That proved to be correct: the U.S. Dept. of Defense says of the object they shot down over Lake Huron that based "on its flight path and data we can reasonably connect this object to the radar signal picked up over Montana". This object was flying much lower, just 20,000 ft., than the big spy balloon shot down last week.

[N.E. Brigand]

Sen. John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, actually says something useful for once (in this case about the apparent recent spate of flying objects):

[N.E. Brigand]

"White House physician says Biden remains 'fit for duty' after routine medical exam" (NBC).

The article notes that Joe Biden was 78 during his last physical in November 2021 and that he's 80 now (his birthday is Nov. 20).

Biden was older at the start of his presidency in 2021 than Ronald Reagan, the next oldest president, was at the end of his presidency in 1989. Donald Trump was the second oldest president and is now the third oldest president. Jimmy Carter is the oldest ex-president ever (he's now 98 years old, four years older than George H.W. Bush was at his death in 2018) and also the one who lived longest after leaving office (42 years so far, eleven years longer than Herbert Hoover lived post-presidency).

William Henry Harrison is the fourth-oldest president at the start of his presidency: he was 68. But he's the ninth-oldest president at the end of hsi presidency, because he died just 31 days after his inauguration in 1841.