Joltin' Joe Biden

[Vrede too]

When the prohibitionist states lose the massive federal cash and in-kind support for pot enforcement I think most will reconsider their laws.

... BTW, when you see your first legal marijuana farm, it's a beautiful sight to behold.

... What's cool about pot farms?

He can't remember.

[O Really]

What's cool about pot farms?

That they exist.
If you recall yourself or someone you knew raising some crappy weed under a grow light in the back room, it's just a pleasure to bask in the difference.

[Whack9]

Maybe one day I'll be able to adorn my beautiful landscaping with some pot.

[Vrede too]

Maybe one day I'll be able to adorn my beautiful landscaping with some pot.

By that time outdoor pot will basically be hemp due to all the crap pollen floating around. Do you have space for a greenhouse with air filtration?

[Vrede too]

President Biden signing over a dozen executive orders

In one of his first official acts in the Oval Office, President Biden is signing a number of executive orders, rolling back some Trump policies and instituting some of his own. Among the orders:

* The termination of Trump’s ban on visitors from majority Muslim countries.

* Rejoining the Paris Climate Accords.

* Extending a federal eviction moratorium through the end of March.

* Revoke Trump administration’s order to not count noncitizens in the census tally.

* Continuing the freeze on federal student loan payments through the end of September.

* Fortify protections for “Dreamers,” undocumented immigrants who were brought into the country as children.

* Re-engage with the World Health Organization.

* A nationwide mask and social-distancing mandate on federal lands, in federal buildings, and for federal employees and contractors.

* Stopping construction of the border wall.

* Revoking the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline.

Wow. "Embrace the calm!"



I didn't know this:



Something that no one would have ever predicted:

Lady Gaga performs national anthem (with bigoted VP-unelect Q-tip forced to watch and listen from just a few feet away)

[GoCubsGo]

I never would've thought Q-tip head would see Lady Gaga perform before I did.

[GoCubsGo]

It's a new day.

[GoCubsGo]

[Vrede too]

I thought it was notable that ancient Joe chose to walk a distance that former PINO can't handle without a golf cart, then I saw Jill's heels.



Striking display:


Flags decorate the “Field of Flags” at the National Mall near the U.S. Capitol.

More inauguration pics.

[Vrede too]

President Joe Biden's Oval Office: A bust of Cesar Chavez, painting of Roosevelt and more

... A bronze bust of Mexican-American civil rights activist and labor leader César Chávez stood out from behind the Resolute Desk as Biden signed the executive orders....

Biden selected Julie Chávez Rodriguez, Chávez’s granddaughter who worked in the Obama administration and in Biden’s campaign, as his director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.

The Chávez bust is just one of several American leaders and icons that now fill the Oval Office. There are also busts of civil rights activists Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

A massive portrait of President Franklin D. Roosevelt also hangs across from the Resolute Desk.

Gone is the controversial painting of President Andrew Jackson that Trump had hung in the Oval Office. Biden replaced it with a portrait of Benjamin Franklin "to represent Biden’s interest in following science," according to The Washington Post….

Nice.

[O Really]

When the prohibitionist states lose the massive federal cash and in-kind support for pot enforcement I think most will reconsider their laws.

Well, maybe, but enforcement on small quantities of pot are pretty lax already, I think - at least for white people. And look how long it took (and is still taking in some places) to get legal booze, long after the end of federal prohibition.

Clearly the sky has not fallen and God has not smote the tokers in states with legal weed; however, it hasn't been the ultimate cure for illegal weed or its black market due in large part to states' greed. In California, for example, the high tax rate and the cost of permitting, licensing, etc. makes it hard to make much profit at a price competitive with the outlaw stuff - much of which is grown in fields that look just like and may be close to the legal farms. So there's still an illegal weed market and whatever related crime it may create.

Possibly a federal legalization with national guidance could fix some of that, though, establishing caps on tax levels and having uniform licensing process. Likelihood of that happening is about equal to pigs not only flying, but flying their own private jets.

[neoplacebo]

Meanwhile I will daydream about pigs flying private jets and making changes to flight plans.

[Vrede too]

... Possibly a federal legalization with national guidance could fix some of that, though, establishing caps on tax levels and having uniform licensing process. Likelihood of that happening is about equal to pigs not only flying, but flying their own private jets.

I thought that narcs already do that.

[Vrede too]

Prior to signing a book deal last year Joe was long one of the least rich Senators.

... In 2013, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) leased the property for 60 years to a consortium headed by "DJT Holdings LLC", a holding company that Donald Trump owns through a revocable trust. Trump developed the property into a luxury hotel, the Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C., which opened in September 2016....

TV pundit: "Biden is now Trump's landlord."

[Vrede too]

Bold move:

Biden picks transgender woman as assistant health secretary

She is more than qualified, but this is also a signal to the hateful fundies and their appeasers.

I'm sure Tucker Carlson will have an outrage fit on this one. I bet he's working on it now.

Legislator mocks trans Biden nominee on Facebook, apologizes

A Pennsylvania legislator shared on Facebook an image mocking the appearance of the state’s recently departed health secretary, Dr. Rachel Levine, a transgender woman who has been nominated to serve in the Biden administration, and then offered a general apology Saturday.

State Rep. Jeff Pyle, a Republican from Armstrong and Indiana counties in western Pennsylvania, said on Facebook that he “had no idea" the post mocking Levine “would be ... received as poorly as it was" but that “tens of thousands of heated emails assured me it was."

... “From this situation I have learned to not poke fun at people different than me and to hold my tongue. Be a bigger man," he wrote.

Pyle wrote he would leave Facebook “soon" but was not resigning and would focus on a Butler Community College project and the economic revitalization of Pennsylvania amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“tens of thousands of heated emails"

Hey Jeff Pyle, ever hear of google?

Rachel Levine

Rachel L. Levine (/ləˈviːn/; born Richard L. Levine; October 28, 1957) is an American pediatrician who has served as the Pennsylvania Secretary of Health since 2017. She is a Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at the Penn State College of Medicine, and previously served as the Pennsylvania Physician General from 2015 to 2017....

Levine had a fellowship at New York City's Mount Sinai Hospital from 1988 to 1993 where she trained in pediatrics. After moving from Manhattan to central Pennsylvania in 1993, she joined the staff at Penn State Hershey Medical Center. During her tenure there, she created Penn State Hershey Medical Center's adolescent medicine division and eating disorders clinic. She was in charge of the latter when she was nominated for the position of Pennsylvania Physician General in 2015....

[Vrede too]

Today is "Racial & Social Justice" EO day. His brief introductory comments cited George Floyd by name right off the bat. Later, he called the 1/6 traitors "white supremacists". Worth watching. Included:

"Ultimately" ending federal contracts with private prisons.
Addressing Native American needs.
Fighting xenophobia, especially against Asian-Americans.
Housing improvement.
Others.



Laws to follow, hopefully.

[neoplacebo]

Private prisons are sinister and an invitation for bad juju.

[Vrede too]

Private prisons are sinister and an invitation for bad juju.

That's one way to bring the fundies onboard.

Here are all the executive orders President Joe Biden has signed so far

Dayyum, Joe's first month is looking a lot like Obama's last year. Maybe he learned that patience and caution just look like weakness.

[O Really]

I think he's handling it all very well. We used to have a couple of guys in our firm specializing in "crisis management." Their followed the view, which I don't think was original, that if the news is good, spread it out; if the news is bad, get it over quickly. So while we would consider Biden's actions "good news" there are controversial parts that Repugs and some Dems might quibble over if they got the chance. Do it - rip that wax strip of trumpshit off and move on. Then spend more time getting popular stuff done.

[neoplacebo]

I agree. When you take over from a four year shit rain it's no use looking for blame. Get shit done. Jettison mass quantities of shit.