Joe Biden begins his first full day as the 46th president of the United States today with as daunting a list of foreign-policy challenges as almost any of his predecessors. After four years of Donald Trump, the new administration must overcome skepticism about America’s ability to deal with the great tests facing the world, including the rise of China as a 21st-century superpower, the spread of nuclear weapons, and the onslaught of man-made climate change.
Night Owls is a themed open thread appearing at Daily Kos seven days a week.
At Mother Jones, David Corn writes—Joe Biden’s Inaugural Address Was a Plea for “Unity.” But Healing the Nation’s “Soul” Won’t Be Easy. Can he both implement his policies and unify a bitterly divided country?
[…] Addressing the nation as president, Biden recognized that the fight for unity is largely a fight for truth.
I would like to preface this by saying I like Sen. Bernie Sanders. I voted for him in two primaries. This story is not about mocking Bernie Sanders but about enjoying how absolutely Bernie Sanders Bernie Sanders is. He is the most Bernie Sanders of anyone in the world. His political convictions are clear, and the package it comes in is also clear. I was born and raised on the east coast, and Sanders reminds me of many folks I knew growing up.
Congressional Republicans have kicked into high gear over the past week to minimize the fallout for the Republican Party caused by Donald Trump and the murderous mob he sicced on the lawmakers at the Capitol. On the one hand, Senate Leader Mitch McConnell finally directly blamed Trump for inciting the riot by feeding his cultists a steady diet of disinformation and baseless lies about the election.
So apparently not satisfied with egging on the attack on the U.S. Capitol this month, Republican U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley blocked the quick confirmation of Alejandro Mayorkas, President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The Trump administration has signed agreements with Arizona, Louisiana, Indiana, and one lone sheriff’s office in North Carolina that state any future immigration changes made by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) first have to be run by the localities before the federal government can act, BuzzFeed News reports. If that sounds like a bunch of bull to you, you’re not wrong.
The era of Scotch-taped ties and generally upsetting aesthetics is OVER.
“Rebuilding trust with the American people will be central,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.
Everyone knows that Joe Biden’s presidential aesthetic is purposefully boring: He’s promising a national nap time after Donald Trump’s violent four-year kegger. “Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire,” the new president said during his inauguration address today, speaking where insurrectionists had recently carried Molotov cocktails.
The Biden team’s handwringing has left an agency central to the pandemic fight without a permanent leader.
Delaware journalist Patricia Talorico captured the emotional photo just as President Joe Biden was delivering his first speech after being sworn in.
One person told the former White House adviser point-blank: “You lost. Decency won. Go away.
Donald Trump’s presidency concluded not with mutiny in state capitals or an attempted attack on his successor, but with a calm, conventional ceremony in an otherwise quiet city.Walking through Washington, D.C., today, the silence in the streets was the sound of a country not quite ready to exhale. It was a fitting end to the noisiest era of American politics that many Americans can remember.
More states are running low on the Covid-19 vaccine just as they’re getting administering shots faster and expanding eligibility.
Every weekday evening, our editors guide you through the biggest stories of the day, help you discover new ideas, and surprise you with moments of delight. Subscribe to get this delivered to your inbox.Today’s presidential inauguration was mostly remarkable for how unremarkable it was. My colleague Annie Lowrey described today’s scene at the Capitol as “patriotic normcore.
The anchor also made a pointed comment about the president’s words on “lies that are told for power and … for profit.
At dawn this morning, workers loaded couches and tables into a moving truck parked outside the West Wing. Men wearing white coveralls and carrying roller brushes and paint cans walked across the north driveway. Inside the White House, pictures of the 45th president had been removed from the walls. Only the hooks remained, ready for a new set of portraits of the 46th.
A look inside QAnon’s virtual inauguration watch party, which went horribly wrong.
Jerome Adams played a leading communications role in President Donald Trump’s pandemic response.
We look at the path forward for the Biden-Harris administration and the role of social movements with political strategist Waleed Shahid and author and analyst Michael Eric Dyson. Shahid, spokesperson for the progressive political action committee Justice Democrats, says Biden could be “one of the most transformative presidents” in U.S. history if he acts boldly.
As Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are inaugurated and the Trump presidency comes to an end, we look back at his regime with author and analyst Michael Eric Dyson. “The Trump presidency has been an unmitigated disaster,” Dyson says. His “direct assault” on democratic processes resulted in a “neofascist presidency that attempted to undermine the very legitimacy of the democracy that he was put in office to uphold.
Avril Haines, Biden’s nominee for director of national intelligence, began her confirmation hearing Tuesday. She was President Obama’s top lawyer on the National Security Council from 2010 to 2013 and CIA deputy director from 2013 to 2015, where she authorized using drone strikes to carry out targeted extrajudicial assassinations.
With less than 12 hours before the end of his presidency, Donald Trump issued 143 pardons and commutations, including a pardon for Steve Bannon, his former chief strategist and campaign manager. Trump, who has pardoned other associates and allies during his single term, has so far rejected calls to pardon prominent whistleblowers including WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and NSA whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Reality Winner.
How do I communicate how hurt I am without ending these friendships?
Parenting advice on affair revelations, angry fathers, and expensive avatars.
Biden’s plan to encourage better masking, social distancing, testing and contact tracing could gain traction with governors whose states are overwhelmed.
He can’t possibly expect the GOP to go along with this—but that might be a good thing.
Or his ability to help Americans will be doomed from the start.
What was the point of Fortress D.C.
