Today marks the hundredth day of the Biden-Harris administration. In many ways, the hundred-day mark is arbitrary, a holdover from the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who worked with Congress to pass 76 new laws by the end of his first 100 days, setting a high bar for a consequential presidency. A hundred days is not an entirely useless metric, though, because by that time, a modern president has generally set the tone of the administration. Crucial to the success of that tone is having scored a major win. That, in turn, sets the tone for public reaction to a presidency, which then feeds the administration’s momentum.
Thank you Heather. For sticking with us. We need your help, your careful understanding/writing about the history and the current issues.
Please do whatever keeps you healthy. Take time off, hang out w loved ones, always be good to yourself. You are my first living national treasure! Possibly President Biden will become one in a few years.
Your gift makes complex political and societal issues understandable. You bring me and many many others hope for a future for our families. Thank you again dear woman.
TROLLS from FSB MOSCOW: A Brief Counterintelligence Study in Open Forum
When I told my wife what I was up to this morning, conversing with Russian trolls, she discouraged me in no uncertain terms from continuing to engage. Her quote, which she coined from her days in political activism, “If you roll around in the mud with pigs, you get dirty, and the pigs love it.”
"Don’t engage” is her message. A victory, in their view, is any engagement, that's the other part of the message.
However since Substack is my 1st SM forum, I am getting initiated here and hence this investigation.
During my round trip to the clinic and back home, getting my 2nd vaccine, I was reflecting on our “disinformatsiya” friends who are living and working in Moscow. Curious juxtaposition, to be sure, vaccination and FSB. What I am learning:
(1) Today’s (April 29, the HCR 4/28 Comments section) troll group is from the FSB in Moscow and is actually associated with the Kremlin. Curiously, he/they volunteered that information. Sometimes I can recognize when someone is telling me the truth even though they pretend to be contemptuous and mocking. It has a very distinct feel to it.
(2) They insist on attempting to hide their identity, even when their Russian govt. agency status is obvious. (Not too bright.)
(3) When pressed, they begin to tell the truth, couching it as “ridiculous” or “hillarious.”
(4) They have a rapacious appetite for engagement: clearly what they are paid to do.
(5) The purpose of engagement is to spread propaganda and to gather information for their propaganda-generating machine. We on HCR are being stereotyped here as “Liberals” (capitalization is theirs, we must be a designated category in their official propaganda system) and they are engaging in order to infiltrate and influence. (Good luck with that, chumps)
(6) They change the subject because they are not paying attention to the discussion topic. I think they probably live in their email, like a fisherman with several lines in the water, waiting for someone to post a reply and then pouncing. Because they are multitasking, impossible to carry a discussion or even a coherent argument.
(7) One particular troll is an actual human being, the one from an early HCR April 28 post from Friday morning, soon after TPJ's Troll Patrol post. He was hurt and insulted when I said he was not acting human, a ploy possibly, but I sensed an actual owie. I think he interpreted my statement as saying that he was inhuman, and perhaps that is what I was implying. Since then, I have seen fake attempts at appearing hurt, but at least one of the accusations of not being human landed. (It helps when a real human is confronting a phony internet handle.)
(8) Reading TJ’s excellent piece, which I am re-posting here, my suspicion is confirmed that multiple FSB employees operate through the fake handle.
(9) These guys are robots in human form. Somewhere in there, in all that phony bullshit, lurks a real Russian with a heart and a soul. It is to that Russian I direct my comments.
(10) Being transparent about my low opinion of their intelligence and their humanity, btw, is producing dividends. They might still be the GRU, but who cares. My consistent mention of GRU squeezed the words “FSB” out of them, so perhaps there is some interagency rivalry at play here. **An opportunity for a counterintelligence operative, yes that means you, you are now being recruited as a member of the Mission Impossible team, to inflict a little needling and teasing.
To engage, or not to engage. That is the question. Well, they are still humans after all, even if they are woefully lost in crazy-land. Obviously the “Not Engage” camp has a super strong argument.
So if you choose to engage, have a clear purpose. Up until now, my purpose has been to do what one guy in the Leon mask referred to when he said “thank you for the olive branch.” Remember, opportunities in Russia are severely limited. The country has prosperity issues, big ones. Maybe one of these guys dreams of having a job where he can be a real human, instead of a robotic apparatchik spouting drivel. At least one of these guys may well start admiring America by virtue of what he sees and hears on HCR. Compassion shown is never wasted, imo. This FSB handle (fake identity) is my only direct link to Russia. We can have a reverse influence which can insidiously trickle back to them, call it Mission Impossible or the Counterintelligence of Love Dept. Who knows what effect these conversations are producing in the actual Russian puppets working for the FSB. Underneath the day job still lies a human.
In every aspect of life, the objective is to establish and maintain a position, an attitude, which agrees with your principles. In other words, to face the new object from a place of integrity.
Not Engage: Excellent choice.
Engage: Do so cautiously, with clear intent, and remain firmly in your power. Targeted posts. Continual engagement not recommended, unless we operate as a tag team, like they do.
Now a repost of TJ from a few hours ago.
P.S. On my drive home from the clinic, I got a clear hit that this is a rapacious larger operation, not a sole operator. I continue to see images of streets and buildings in Moscow, and once in awhile, I am reading one of their posts and I am actually seeing the Russian perspective pretending to be non-Russian. Anyway, mounting quantities of visual intuitive evidence.
[begin TJ post]
TJ:
Not to beat a dead troll or anything, but after watching this little Mr. Leon drama unfold for some time now I vacillate between two possibilities. On the one hand I can’t shake the feeling that this specific figure “Leon” might well be who he claims to be which makes him a kind of accidental troll who has just consumed too much right wing media in Canada or the US and now he is unwittingly parroting Putin’s talking points. In my limited reading about the Russian troll farms I understand that they have different teams assigned to target different groups using entirely different playbooks for each. With the MAGA-nation the goal might be to feed the hate, but with groups such as the literate and generally progressive readers of this blog the strategy is different—infiltrate slowly, develop a brand and bonds, foster loyalty before sowing seeds of dissension and doubt. The Russians are masterful propagandists. We should never underestimate their sophistication. Which leads me to my second speculation. I did notice that some of the linguistic peculiarities “Leon” demonstrated in earlier replies seem to have suddenly vanished in later comments. The aggression/latent sadism was suddenly dialed up and grammar and mechanics improved. Even the idiom is a bit different later on. Perhaps this is a second shift Leon or a floor supervisor stepping in to distract from the concerted efforts of those attempting to out foreign influence. I have zero interest in feeding trolls, neither the ones working for the ruble nor their sad North American dupes working for free, but I do find the discussion of the problem in general incredibly important and worthwhile because once again our openness and gullibility is being exploited. I really appreciate those of you patrolling for the trolls because you help us to remain aware that we are absolutely under attack by a foreign nation savvy enough to exploit the unhealed wounds of a civil war. It is important not to engage them too deeply though because once it’s clear they are not open to genuine dialogue further engagement just allows them to repeat their talking points.
Oh my gosh, this, this is heartwarming - and I donated to both Ossoff and Warnock even though I am not a Georgia resident. Never doubt that together en masse we can accomplish great things! Thanks, Dr Heather, for another summary of current events with your historical perspective.
"One thing, though, about what sure seems to be a very strong start from the Biden administration…. Never forget that what made the American Rescue Plan possible was the election of Democratic Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in Georgia. Had the Democrats not held 50 seats in the Senate, enabling them to enact the American Rescue Plan through reconciliation, Biden would be able to maneuver only through executive orders, since Republicans in the Senate would have stopped all legislation."
Well, I say "So far, so good." Unfortunately there is a limit to what can be accomplished through reconciliation in the Senate. It appears the GOP will not support any of Mr. Biden's legislative proposals, that at least 2 Democratic Senators are not on board (yet), and that the weight of new GOP-supported state-level anti-voting legislation and the Trump-packed SCOTUS may be more than any of us can bear. The risk that Joe Biden will become (de facto) the lamest of ducks after the midterm elections is real and represents yet another existential threat to our nation (and world), as if pandemics, climate change and nuclear arms were not enough of a threat already.
I figure that unless our law enforcement and legal system can manage to jail the organizers of the Jan 6th insurrection and follow all the trails of illegality leading to and emanating from the Trump administration (and family), and do it within the next year, our future prospects are not good.
I do not know what should be done to get the Biden program passed and operative enough that the many Americans who did not vote for Biden will feel the benefits and vote for Democratic legislators in 2022. But that is what needs to happen.
What a great recap. It is and maybe always will be impossible to overstate the importance of the Georgia runoffs, and the women organizers who created and nurtured the GOTV campaigns.
Truly an inspiration. So I guess I feel better than last night, when I had little hope for democracy. :)
Heather opens today's Letter marking the end of the first 100 days of the Biden - Harris administration. 'A hundred days is not an entirely useless metric, though, because by that time, a modern president has generally set the tone of the administration.' (Today's Letter) With that in mind, I would like to call our attention to a couple of the most prominent people in the Biden - Harris administration.
Last night, Ron Klain, the President's Chief of Staff, was interviewed on Lawrence O'Donell's, The Last Word (MSNBC). He's been on with Lawrence many times and on other shows as well. It seems natural to call him Ron because he is so affable, calm, clear and easy - a warm and welcoming man. It doesn't end there; Ron Klain was raised in Indianapolis, Indiana and graduated from North Central High School, Harvard University, Georgetown University and Harvard Law School. He was the first member of his family to finish college, graduating summa cum laude from Harvard in 1983. Ron was named associate general counsel and Vice President Al Gore's chief of staff in the Bill Clinton administration, and was Vice President Joe Biden's top aide and the "Ebola czar" under President Barack Obama. Ron attended fine schools and has served in high positions, yet the man is as down to earth as Biden and without a whiff of arrogance
Jen Psaki is familiar to many of us because she is the President's Press Secretary. She previously served in the Obama administration as the White House deputy press secretary (2009); the White House deputy communications director (2009–2011); the spokesperson for the United States Department of State (2013–2015); and the White House communications director (2015–2017). Psaki was a political contributor for CNN from 2017 to 2020.[6]. Born in Stamford, Connecticut, she graduated from Greenwich High School and from the College of William & Mary. (Wikipedia)
I've watched many press secretaries and Jen is the most appealing to me. She is warm, professional and seems to keep a good balance of accommodation and information. Without impatience, she ably signals when enough is enough. I cannot leave Jen Psaki without noting her lovely smile, that wins points as well.
These two outstanding public servants match Joe and Jill's appeal. They are real people without fuss or showiness. They are polite, respectful, communicative, friendly, experienced, devoted to their work and to Joe Biden. Along with him, they set a perfectly welcome tone for the Biden-Harris administration.
Because of trump and his minions I became and remain more politically active than I have been since the McGovern campaign. I donated to Ossoff, Warnock, and Kelly even though I do not reside in those states. I usually try not to interfere in another state's political landscape (here in OH we have a few of our own problems think Jim Jordan, Bill Johnson), but the situation was dire enough that I contributed to out of state candidates. The pace at which Biden/Harris have started getting things turned around is truly breath taking and I am happy every day instead of getting up worrying about what new insult emerged over night from the WH.
Thanks so much for this wonderful recounting of what’s been so positive these
last 100 days. It’s so easy to get sucked into all the negativity from the right - so seductive to wallow in the true insanity of it all. Meanwhile, Biden and his team just move steadily forward doing the work of good government. A huge blessing!
This makes me as happy as I was the day I got my second vaccine. I am grateful to have a real public servant at the helm of our country, surrounded by the most diverse cabinet ever. I am grateful for Dr Richardson's letters flushing out the news of the day. And finally, so grateful that, for the first time ever, I worked on and donated to elections in a state on the opposite side of the country from me and, the right people won. 🙏🏼
I have friends and family who subscribe to the alternative narrative - the one that, whether they know it or not, is advocating for a whole new confederate conflict that would, if it could, institute a one party system and authoritarianism, bringing to an end our Great Experiment. I used to find these rebellious efforts to be fringy and pathetic. Now…
Heather, thank you for your good efforts in connecting the dots, showing US where we are and how we got here. May they be of some measurable help in winning hearts and minds, and uniting US - or at least enough of US to stand our ground in defending our Constitution.
President Biden seems focused not only on new legislation to help working folks, but he seems to be trying to help citizens realize that they do have efficacy to change how government operates, making a special effort to point out the success of the Georgia elections. We citizens may finally have the president we deserve -- someone who really takes our democratic experiment seriously, and not a cynical mind solely focused on its will to power.
"As Sheriff, Rep Nehls implemented HVAC and welding programs for non-violent inmates at the county jail," Gribble said. "He had wild success reducing the 2 year re-arrest rate with participating inmates. He’d like to see similar programs available in County jails across the country and is working on legislation that will make that possible.”
Thank you Heather. For sticking with us. We need your help, your careful understanding/writing about the history and the current issues.
Please do whatever keeps you healthy. Take time off, hang out w loved ones, always be good to yourself. You are my first living national treasure! Possibly President Biden will become one in a few years.
Your gift makes complex political and societal issues understandable. You bring me and many many others hope for a future for our families. Thank you again dear woman.
TROLLS from FSB MOSCOW: A Brief Counterintelligence Study in Open Forum
When I told my wife what I was up to this morning, conversing with Russian trolls, she discouraged me in no uncertain terms from continuing to engage. Her quote, which she coined from her days in political activism, “If you roll around in the mud with pigs, you get dirty, and the pigs love it.”
"Don’t engage” is her message. A victory, in their view, is any engagement, that's the other part of the message.
However since Substack is my 1st SM forum, I am getting initiated here and hence this investigation.
During my round trip to the clinic and back home, getting my 2nd vaccine, I was reflecting on our “disinformatsiya” friends who are living and working in Moscow. Curious juxtaposition, to be sure, vaccination and FSB. What I am learning:
(1) Today’s (April 29, the HCR 4/28 Comments section) troll group is from the FSB in Moscow and is actually associated with the Kremlin. Curiously, he/they volunteered that information. Sometimes I can recognize when someone is telling me the truth even though they pretend to be contemptuous and mocking. It has a very distinct feel to it.
(2) They insist on attempting to hide their identity, even when their Russian govt. agency status is obvious. (Not too bright.)
(3) When pressed, they begin to tell the truth, couching it as “ridiculous” or “hillarious.”
(4) They have a rapacious appetite for engagement: clearly what they are paid to do.
(5) The purpose of engagement is to spread propaganda and to gather information for their propaganda-generating machine. We on HCR are being stereotyped here as “Liberals” (capitalization is theirs, we must be a designated category in their official propaganda system) and they are engaging in order to infiltrate and influence. (Good luck with that, chumps)
(6) They change the subject because they are not paying attention to the discussion topic. I think they probably live in their email, like a fisherman with several lines in the water, waiting for someone to post a reply and then pouncing. Because they are multitasking, impossible to carry a discussion or even a coherent argument.
(7) One particular troll is an actual human being, the one from an early HCR April 28 post from Friday morning, soon after TPJ's Troll Patrol post. He was hurt and insulted when I said he was not acting human, a ploy possibly, but I sensed an actual owie. I think he interpreted my statement as saying that he was inhuman, and perhaps that is what I was implying. Since then, I have seen fake attempts at appearing hurt, but at least one of the accusations of not being human landed. (It helps when a real human is confronting a phony internet handle.)
(8) Reading TJ’s excellent piece, which I am re-posting here, my suspicion is confirmed that multiple FSB employees operate through the fake handle.
(9) These guys are robots in human form. Somewhere in there, in all that phony bullshit, lurks a real Russian with a heart and a soul. It is to that Russian I direct my comments.
(10) Being transparent about my low opinion of their intelligence and their humanity, btw, is producing dividends. They might still be the GRU, but who cares. My consistent mention of GRU squeezed the words “FSB” out of them, so perhaps there is some interagency rivalry at play here. **An opportunity for a counterintelligence operative, yes that means you, you are now being recruited as a member of the Mission Impossible team, to inflict a little needling and teasing.
To engage, or not to engage. That is the question. Well, they are still humans after all, even if they are woefully lost in crazy-land. Obviously the “Not Engage” camp has a super strong argument.
So if you choose to engage, have a clear purpose. Up until now, my purpose has been to do what one guy in the Leon mask referred to when he said “thank you for the olive branch.” Remember, opportunities in Russia are severely limited. The country has prosperity issues, big ones. Maybe one of these guys dreams of having a job where he can be a real human, instead of a robotic apparatchik spouting drivel. At least one of these guys may well start admiring America by virtue of what he sees and hears on HCR. Compassion shown is never wasted, imo. This FSB handle (fake identity) is my only direct link to Russia. We can have a reverse influence which can insidiously trickle back to them, call it Mission Impossible or the Counterintelligence of Love Dept. Who knows what effect these conversations are producing in the actual Russian puppets working for the FSB. Underneath the day job still lies a human.
In every aspect of life, the objective is to establish and maintain a position, an attitude, which agrees with your principles. In other words, to face the new object from a place of integrity.
Not Engage: Excellent choice.
Engage: Do so cautiously, with clear intent, and remain firmly in your power. Targeted posts. Continual engagement not recommended, unless we operate as a tag team, like they do.
Now a repost of TJ from a few hours ago.
P.S. On my drive home from the clinic, I got a clear hit that this is a rapacious larger operation, not a sole operator. I continue to see images of streets and buildings in Moscow, and once in awhile, I am reading one of their posts and I am actually seeing the Russian perspective pretending to be non-Russian. Anyway, mounting quantities of visual intuitive evidence.
[begin TJ post]
TJ:
Not to beat a dead troll or anything, but after watching this little Mr. Leon drama unfold for some time now I vacillate between two possibilities. On the one hand I can’t shake the feeling that this specific figure “Leon” might well be who he claims to be which makes him a kind of accidental troll who has just consumed too much right wing media in Canada or the US and now he is unwittingly parroting Putin’s talking points. In my limited reading about the Russian troll farms I understand that they have different teams assigned to target different groups using entirely different playbooks for each. With the MAGA-nation the goal might be to feed the hate, but with groups such as the literate and generally progressive readers of this blog the strategy is different—infiltrate slowly, develop a brand and bonds, foster loyalty before sowing seeds of dissension and doubt. The Russians are masterful propagandists. We should never underestimate their sophistication. Which leads me to my second speculation. I did notice that some of the linguistic peculiarities “Leon” demonstrated in earlier replies seem to have suddenly vanished in later comments. The aggression/latent sadism was suddenly dialed up and grammar and mechanics improved. Even the idiom is a bit different later on. Perhaps this is a second shift Leon or a floor supervisor stepping in to distract from the concerted efforts of those attempting to out foreign influence. I have zero interest in feeding trolls, neither the ones working for the ruble nor their sad North American dupes working for free, but I do find the discussion of the problem in general incredibly important and worthwhile because once again our openness and gullibility is being exploited. I really appreciate those of you patrolling for the trolls because you help us to remain aware that we are absolutely under attack by a foreign nation savvy enough to exploit the unhealed wounds of a civil war. It is important not to engage them too deeply though because once it’s clear they are not open to genuine dialogue further engagement just allows them to repeat their talking points.
[end TJ post]
Oh my gosh, this, this is heartwarming - and I donated to both Ossoff and Warnock even though I am not a Georgia resident. Never doubt that together en masse we can accomplish great things! Thanks, Dr Heather, for another summary of current events with your historical perspective.
"One thing, though, about what sure seems to be a very strong start from the Biden administration…. Never forget that what made the American Rescue Plan possible was the election of Democratic Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in Georgia. Had the Democrats not held 50 seats in the Senate, enabling them to enact the American Rescue Plan through reconciliation, Biden would be able to maneuver only through executive orders, since Republicans in the Senate would have stopped all legislation."
Well, I say "So far, so good." Unfortunately there is a limit to what can be accomplished through reconciliation in the Senate. It appears the GOP will not support any of Mr. Biden's legislative proposals, that at least 2 Democratic Senators are not on board (yet), and that the weight of new GOP-supported state-level anti-voting legislation and the Trump-packed SCOTUS may be more than any of us can bear. The risk that Joe Biden will become (de facto) the lamest of ducks after the midterm elections is real and represents yet another existential threat to our nation (and world), as if pandemics, climate change and nuclear arms were not enough of a threat already.
I figure that unless our law enforcement and legal system can manage to jail the organizers of the Jan 6th insurrection and follow all the trails of illegality leading to and emanating from the Trump administration (and family), and do it within the next year, our future prospects are not good.
I do not know what should be done to get the Biden program passed and operative enough that the many Americans who did not vote for Biden will feel the benefits and vote for Democratic legislators in 2022. But that is what needs to happen.
It is way too early for celebration.
What a great recap. It is and maybe always will be impossible to overstate the importance of the Georgia runoffs, and the women organizers who created and nurtured the GOTV campaigns.
Truly an inspiration. So I guess I feel better than last night, when I had little hope for democracy. :)
Heather opens today's Letter marking the end of the first 100 days of the Biden - Harris administration. 'A hundred days is not an entirely useless metric, though, because by that time, a modern president has generally set the tone of the administration.' (Today's Letter) With that in mind, I would like to call our attention to a couple of the most prominent people in the Biden - Harris administration.
Last night, Ron Klain, the President's Chief of Staff, was interviewed on Lawrence O'Donell's, The Last Word (MSNBC). He's been on with Lawrence many times and on other shows as well. It seems natural to call him Ron because he is so affable, calm, clear and easy - a warm and welcoming man. It doesn't end there; Ron Klain was raised in Indianapolis, Indiana and graduated from North Central High School, Harvard University, Georgetown University and Harvard Law School. He was the first member of his family to finish college, graduating summa cum laude from Harvard in 1983. Ron was named associate general counsel and Vice President Al Gore's chief of staff in the Bill Clinton administration, and was Vice President Joe Biden's top aide and the "Ebola czar" under President Barack Obama. Ron attended fine schools and has served in high positions, yet the man is as down to earth as Biden and without a whiff of arrogance
Jen Psaki is familiar to many of us because she is the President's Press Secretary. She previously served in the Obama administration as the White House deputy press secretary (2009); the White House deputy communications director (2009–2011); the spokesperson for the United States Department of State (2013–2015); and the White House communications director (2015–2017). Psaki was a political contributor for CNN from 2017 to 2020.[6]. Born in Stamford, Connecticut, she graduated from Greenwich High School and from the College of William & Mary. (Wikipedia)
I've watched many press secretaries and Jen is the most appealing to me. She is warm, professional and seems to keep a good balance of accommodation and information. Without impatience, she ably signals when enough is enough. I cannot leave Jen Psaki without noting her lovely smile, that wins points as well.
These two outstanding public servants match Joe and Jill's appeal. They are real people without fuss or showiness. They are polite, respectful, communicative, friendly, experienced, devoted to their work and to Joe Biden. Along with him, they set a perfectly welcome tone for the Biden-Harris administration.
Because of trump and his minions I became and remain more politically active than I have been since the McGovern campaign. I donated to Ossoff, Warnock, and Kelly even though I do not reside in those states. I usually try not to interfere in another state's political landscape (here in OH we have a few of our own problems think Jim Jordan, Bill Johnson), but the situation was dire enough that I contributed to out of state candidates. The pace at which Biden/Harris have started getting things turned around is truly breath taking and I am happy every day instead of getting up worrying about what new insult emerged over night from the WH.
Thanks so much for this wonderful recounting of what’s been so positive these
last 100 days. It’s so easy to get sucked into all the negativity from the right - so seductive to wallow in the true insanity of it all. Meanwhile, Biden and his team just move steadily forward doing the work of good government. A huge blessing!
Plain speak. Compassion. Common sense. Science. Moral Leadership. How far can we go? How much can we accomplish?
This makes me as happy as I was the day I got my second vaccine. I am grateful to have a real public servant at the helm of our country, surrounded by the most diverse cabinet ever. I am grateful for Dr Richardson's letters flushing out the news of the day. And finally, so grateful that, for the first time ever, I worked on and donated to elections in a state on the opposite side of the country from me and, the right people won. 🙏🏼
It wasn’t just Georgia.
In Colorado, Democrat Hickenlooper unseated Republican Gardner.
Without that win, McConnell would still be the majority leader.
I have friends and family who subscribe to the alternative narrative - the one that, whether they know it or not, is advocating for a whole new confederate conflict that would, if it could, institute a one party system and authoritarianism, bringing to an end our Great Experiment. I used to find these rebellious efforts to be fringy and pathetic. Now…
Heather, thank you for your good efforts in connecting the dots, showing US where we are and how we got here. May they be of some measurable help in winning hearts and minds, and uniting US - or at least enough of US to stand our ground in defending our Constitution.
🎼He’s simply the best, better than all the rest....👏 and hail Georgia❣️
and I give thanks to Stacy Abrams for all her tireless work on getting out the VOTE in Georgia . May she won the Nobel Peace Prize .
President Biden seems focused not only on new legislation to help working folks, but he seems to be trying to help citizens realize that they do have efficacy to change how government operates, making a special effort to point out the success of the Georgia elections. We citizens may finally have the president we deserve -- someone who really takes our democratic experiment seriously, and not a cynical mind solely focused on its will to power.
Some Republican cracks to watch…
Republican Accountability Project (Lincoln Project-ish and a good resource to Remember Their Names in upcoming elections):
https://accountability.gop/report-card/
Yesterday [4/28/2021] Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) identified himself as a sheriff and told Biden that he wants to work on law enforcement reform.
https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1387753240989769729?s=21
"As Sheriff, Rep Nehls implemented HVAC and welding programs for non-violent inmates at the county jail," Gribble said. "He had wild success reducing the 2 year re-arrest rate with participating inmates. He’d like to see similar programs available in County jails across the country and is working on legislation that will make that possible.”
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/04/29/tory-nehls-joe-biden/
But don’t get too excited. His website has what you’d expect with neo-conservative comments and a picture of him sidling up to Cruz.