Moving on.... it's Biden/Harris Administration time (#124)

[Roussette]

Previous thread...

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4141906-For-there-is-always-light-Thread-123-is-belong-to-President-Biden?watched=1&msgid=103967923#103967923

pmk

Placemarking with snow pic from this morning.
Thanks again Rousetteand all. Thanks Perking for your manifesto.

Great title @Roussette glad to hear many on here getting their vaccines.

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This is our local park, someone was up early making this little fella!

Thanks for the new thread! Just carrying over my links from the last page (I rarely post, so it’s typical that I finally do it in the dusty wasteland of the old thread!

A couple more positives from the first few days of this administration:

New Defence secretary demands probe into sexual assaults and harassment in the military:

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/24/defense-secretary-lloyd-austin-us-military-sexual-assault-reports

Biden ends U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Yemen, which in Blinken’s words had “contributed to … the worst humanitarian situation anywhere in the world.”

nymag.com/intelligencer/article/biden-stop-support-saudi-war-crimes-yemen.html

I like the sound of the New Defence Secretary TaxTheRatFarms.
He's keeping his word about dealing with these very serious issues, which is good to read.
He's no shrinking violet, looking at his background.

www.carnegie.org/about/trustees-and-staff/general-lloyd-j-austin-iii-us-army-ret/

Relieved, also, to see that there is positive movement on Yemen. I wonder what the Saudis response will be?

Thanks for the new thread @Roussette

I can't read a lot at the moment, but this is great way to keep up.

Ah, I really hope that's good news for Yemen at last. I don't know how the ins and outs will work – it's certainly not going to suddenly become a nice place to live.

But I really, really hope this is a step in the right direction. They're suffering so appallingly.

Nice work LQ filling up the last thread

Thank you for the new thread Roussette.

Thanks also to Perking for re-posting your assessment.

No snow here. I do like a snow day.

www.huffpost.com/entry/us-25-million-covid-19-cases_n_600da3dec5b6f401aea55dc5

www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/biden-russia-house-foreign-affairs-navalny-putin

'The top Democrat and the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee are urging President Biden to investigate the poisoning of Russian political activist Alexei Navalny, to provide U.S. findings to Congress, and to hold the Kremlin accountable if it is found responsible, as other countries and investigators have concluded.'

Can anyone answer my question of how Bernie Sanders, from his position of further to the left than Joe Biden, temper the position on women's rights (or any other far left policy for that matter)?

This was alluded to earlier in the conversation and I'm struggling with understanding the point?

lifeturnsonadime I don't think he can, but this issue was discussed on the previous thread and the conclusion appeared to be that the EO wasn't going to 'erase women' just like that - the courts would have an influence and it was likely to be moderated.

Personally I would like to see a pragmatic approach to the Trans issue with a lot of the heat taken out of it. In terms of toilets and changing facilities, it would take a lot of investment in infrastructure, but spaces with full floor to ceiling cubicles could work. Prisons are more difficult though, and we need a solution that would work in sports - I don't have the expertise to think of one.

I do wish that the focus would shift a little towards the aspects of the EO which are about protection from discrimination for LGBT people, which is a good thing - that's getting drowned out.

Good balanced post, pointy.

I'm sorry I'm not trying to drown anything out I just was interested in the specific point of Bernie Sanders and where he stood politically. I thought he was further left than Joe Biden but thought I might have misunderstood. Obviously I hadn't.

I think dismissing Joe Biden on a single issue is premature too.

@lifeturnsonadime

Can anyone answer my question of how Bernie Sanders, from his position of further to the left than Joe Biden, temper the position on women's rights (or any other far left policy for that matter)?

This was alluded to earlier in the conversation and I'm struggling with understanding the point?

I would hope that he sticks to his promises listed here.
And that women's existing rights, are not eroded. berniesanders.com/issues/womens-rights/

Thanks @NotARealLawyer

You are welcome lifeturnsonadime.

MAGA Party?

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-republican-split/2021/01/23/d7dc253e-5cbc-11eb-8bcf-3877871c819d_story.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=wp_main

PMK

Is there also some confusion caused by the difference between things being left/right economically, and all the other issues which, for reasons I don't fully understand, get labelled left/right?

I've always thought it most peculiar that, eg supporting human rights, gets described as leftwing! If I were rightwing economically, I'd be horrified and insulted that anyone thought that meant I didn't support human rights.

And such complete dichotomy doesn't really match what I saw from the staunch Tory-voters I grew up among, either. Although mind you, those old Tory-voters might find themselves being considered socialist from a current US perspective.

Meanwhile, where on earth would a libertarian, vegan, social-media personality QAnon conspiracy theorist and Trump-cultist sit along a left-right axis?

So I think it's a mistake to lazily label things "left" / "right". It often muddies rather than illuminating.

BTW, I'm sure I'm as guilty as anyone of sometimes using the terms as a shorthand, for want of a better quick reference. I am trying harder to be more specific about what I'm talking about each time.

But I also think sometimes there's deliberate muddying and elision by people trying to recruit to "their team" (however they choose to define that). I'm really not a fan of the "teams" model of political discourse, so this does not impress...

Biden's first executive order on becoming President effectively means no safe spaces for women, males will compete in female sports at all ages. Any educational institution that receives federal funding must admit biologically-male athletes to women's teams, women's scholarships, etc. RIP women's sports. Males will be placed in female prisons.

Are you happy the gains made by woman over the past fifty years have been stripped away?

Looking ahead to next week:

edition.cnn.com/2021/01/20/politics/executive-actions-biden/index.html

“The themes next week will be "Buy American," with a Monday executive order beefing up requirements for government purchases of goods and services from US companies; equity on Tuesday, coupled with a push to eliminate private prisons; climate on Wednesday with an executive order kicking off regulatory actions reestablishing the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and combating climate change; health care on Thursday, a day on which Biden will rescind the so-called Mexico City Policy blocking federal funding for non-governmental organizations that provide abortion services and immigration on Friday, when Biden plans to sign executive orders focused on border processing and refugee policies and establish a family reunification task force.”

More on the Mexico City policy here. Definitely good news that this is being rescinded. The wording in the article above is a bit clumsy, but it’s the Mexico City policy that blocks federal funding for NGOs that provide abortion services. Biden’s administration will rescind this, so that NGOs providing abortion services will be able to access federal funding, and improve family planning care.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico_City_policy

The Family Reunification task force creation is also very good news.