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Three years ago, I wrote an article titled "Marijuana Legalization Has Passed The Tipping Point." Now, we seem to be at the moment after the tipping point where momentum starts to quickly build, until the whole effort is speeding downhill and nothing can stop it at all.
Starting today, any American age 16 or older should be able to schedule an appointment to get their first COVID-19 vaccine shot. President Joe Biden originally set a goal of the first of May for this milestone, but was able to move it up a few weeks due to the overwhelming success of his vaccination program so far. Biden's first 100 days won't be up until next week, but he has already met or is on track to meet every pandemic-response goal he set for his administration -- including getting an astounding 200 million shots into people's arms in his first 100 days. This was actually a doubling of Biden's original stated goal, but he'll still hit the increased target he set for himself. It seems probable, at this point, that Biden's first year in office will largely be judged on the overall success America ultimately sees in the fight against the deadly disease. And up until this point, Biden's been doing a pretty stellar job.
Some Republicans have apparently decided that political dog whistles are just no longer even necessary. After the bombast of Donald Trump, they're now quite comfortable just openly saying exactly what they mean -- no matter how racist it might be.
We refer to the formation of a new congressional caucus: the "America First Caucus." Normally, this wouldn't be all that big a deal -- just some group of extra-Trumpy GOP members getting together to figure out what their Dear Leader would want them to do in Congress. But their founding document was leaked, and it goes a wee bit further in laying out the founding principles of the new caucus. Here are their first few paragraphs on immigration, for instance:
Democrats in both the House and Senate just unveiled bills to increase the size of the Supreme Court from its current nine members up to 13. The motivation behind this is obvious: Democrats see two out of the three Supreme Court justices Donald Trump got to appoint as being totally illegitimate. First, Barack Obama was denied a pick because Mitch McConnell got all sanctimonious about a brand-new "tradition" he made up out of whole cloth: "the voters should have a say" in such decisions. This cuts completely against what the United States Constitution actually says, but whatever. Second, when Ruth Bader Ginsberg died, McConnell suddenly developed a great passion for denying the voters a chance to be heard in the decision, and hustled through a Trump pick in record time, just before the election. Because two seats flipped from liberal to conservative, the court's makeup is now 6-3 conservative, whereas it would have wound up 5-4 the other way if liberals had had their way. So, to rectify this, Democrats are proposing to hand Joe Biden four new picks, which would leave the balance at 7-6 liberal, in a new 13-member court.
Nothing illuminates the difference between the current United States president and the former one as much as how they respond to a misstatement. President Joe Biden, speaking recently about his dreams for American infrastructure improvements, said the following:
To be clear, that title is pugilistic in nature, not legalistic. Not a courtroom lawsuit, in other words, but a boxing match. Because corporate America and the Republican Party seem to be at least preparing to trade some major blows. So far, it's all been just shadow boxing, but that could be about to change. This is a fairly major development, considering the long and close history between the two. Whether it becomes a full-blown punching match or not is going to depend on how far both sides are willing to go and what price they're willing to pay.
The irony in Washington is so thick on the ground right now, you could slice it up and sell it to the tourists as souvenirs. Seriously -- the hypocrisy currently emanating from the Republican Party is just stunning, since to believe any of it you would have to erase your mind of pretty much everything the party has ever said on the subject previously. And even then it would still be hypocritical and ironic.
So, let's see... Joe Biden has been in office for over two months, and the only scandal to emerge from the White House so far has been from First Dog Major Biden. While over in Republicanland, Representative Matt Gaetz reportedly not only had sex with a 17-year-old minor while using the illegal drug ecstasy, but he also paid her online (possibly through a setup on a "sugar daddy" dating site); and not only took nude photos of all his conquests (which apparently included a naked hula-hooping video), but actively shared them with other congressmen on the floor of the House of Representatives. He's now under federal investigation for possible sex trafficking. But he has retained his seat on all his House committees, since Republicans are now noticeably more in favor of "due process" than they are whenever Democrats are in trouble. So could someone please remind us, once again, exactly which party is supposed to be the "party of family values"? After all, they used to brag about it so loudly....
Joe Biden will be giving his first press conference tomorrow. The political press is already annoyed at him, for making them wait so long (longer than any other modern president) for this first formal press conference. The American people aren't as obsessive about this sort of thing, but what it means is that the journalists will all (as usual) be playing to the cameras even more than the president, trying to create the ultimate and defining "gotcha" moment for the glory of their network (and for themselves). That's how this game is played, or at least how it is played now. The only way to change this rather silly dynamic would be to ban television cameras and just release a typed transcript afterwards -- but that's never going to happen.
Joe Biden has been president for over two months now. And, so far, the most momentous development in his presidency has been the result of something which happened a few weeks before he even took the oath. Because, throughout his entire term in office so far, Biden has been able to completely and utterly ignore Donald Trump. His absence from Twitter and Facebook and all the rest of the social media universe has rendered Trump completely irrelevant to the day-to-day political conversation. Which has allowed Biden the elbow room he needs to get his job done. And, from what one Trump spokesman just said, it looks like this period of lying low is going to continue for at least two or three more months.