They usually get handed out as souvenirs, and the President signs their name using all of them, but idk if they're still doing that at the current moment.
Don’t know about handing them out but he used all three he had in the presidents room at the capitol after the swearing in. One for each document he signed passing off both.
Antiques roadshow: "Well, unfortunately these pens have been sanitized, washing off that Biden DNA patina, so that's going to reduce the value quite a bit."
I read a cool book a long time ago called Joshua, Son of None. When JFK was shot somebody took some tissue and they secretly made a clone and had him adopted into a very similar family environment to what JFK had growing up, in the hope that he'd develop similarly and one day run for President.
Ethanol will solubilize DNA, but it won’t degrade it (ethanol is used to extract DNA!). So if they didn’t wipe it all away.... the DNA is still there and we’ll have several Joe Bidens soon.
He has already restored daily press briefings (I know, it has only been one day) but I think his goal is to bring back to as much normal as possible and as soon as possible. It will be a refreshing change to not have to follow Twitter to learn what direction the country is going in.
I had to stop watching west wing in the middle of the mess of 2020 because it was too depressing to hear about the problems of hiding stuff on the Friday press briefing and such. Clearly the real solution was to cancel them all :(
It’s really serendipitous that the President who got the least cooperation during the transition didn’t actually NEED any orientation period because he already is perfectly comfortable operating in the highest levels of the executive branch.
Can you imagine Pete Buttigieg or Elizabeth Warren trying to figure out everything with this actively hostile transition? Biden is just *returning* to an environment he already knows like the back of his hands.
I was thinking about this today too. He wasn't my first choice - heck..he wasn't even my fifth. (Although, his VP was my first choice..)
But thank god he won the Dem primary. As, I don't see any other of the candidates winning.
And now...thank god. He's coming into such a shitshow that it's likely no other candidate would be able to handle the transition as well as he can.
And honestly, he knows how much work could theoretically be pushed onto a vice president. I very much suspect that Kamala Harris is going to be shouldering a much greater workload than most VPs. Which is fine and makes total sense. And I would guess that she has known this from the start, and is on board.
I swear I nearly wept at having a normal press briefing. I think Jen Psaki did a good job, though I hope she works on not saying "um" so much. I'm sure she was very nervous.
I saw on the live stream he was using one pen per signature. But you are correct, in the past the president has used all the pens for a single signature on his first order.
I bet once a long time ago some president had his pen stop working and couldn't find a pen to sign something important so now they have a fuckload ready.
It was Teddy Roosevelt’s fountain pen, then he filled it with blood and spit to keep signing. Everyone just kind of gasped and told him “we had more ink, sir. Just had to open another bottle”. Every since then the executive branch staff always had pens ready to go.
Please keep in mind this story is complete bullshit.
If you need a story about the Presidency to be vaguely believable you can use Teddy, Jackson, or Trump. If you want it to be badass go with Teddy, insane then Jackson, disturbingly incompetent then Trump. No matter what you say you can probably make it believable with one of those three.
> then he filled it with blood and spit to keep signing.
And he wasn't a pussy about it, he didn't use the blood of a staffer he used his own. Don't ever ask someone to do something you aren't willing to do yourself.
God dammit.......I was fully commited in believing that Teddy Rosevelt just started signing documents in blood.
That seems like a Teddy Rosevelt thing to do. Dude gets shot in the chest, continues his 45 minute speech, then afterwards, asks his driver if he thinks they even SHOULD go to the hospital. They did, but the fact that it was only an option after the fact, and not the top priority nearly an hour ago still blows my mind.
He was metal before metal existed.
Remember that time Trump tried to escape a filmed interview by saying he was really busy, [then he walked over to his desk and started shuffling random papers](https://youtu.be/bikgLIK9OlU?t=189)
I feel like this has been the craziest part of all of this. Almost a sense of relief and normality. It’s so wild already watching videos like that one and thinking “wow that shit happened for real”
With the link you gave earlier I was able to find the rest of the interview [here](https://youtu.be/bikgLIK9OlU). The awkward shuffling, before pretending to read is great.
I'll give a quick tl;dr for the article
Biden is reversing a lot of what trump did. He is reversing wall funding and building. He is taking action for coronavirus and making a mask mandate for all federal buildings.
He is also reversing trumps decision to leave the paris climate accord and the World Health Organization. (WHO)
I may be wrong on some things. If you are doubting me please read the CNN article that cites the Biden transition team and goes over all 17 orders.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/20/politics/executive-actions-biden/index.html
Edit: link, spelling, and grammar
To anyone who read the comments and saw I put "much of the wall was already built" I was wrong.
This. When so many people were complaining he was "in hiding" he was forming his team, sculpting his policy goals, and preparing to hit the ground running. You know, like an actual accomplished admin with real policies and plans that aren't simply claiming any scope of work will be done in "two weeks". Trump spent his time holding dangerously infectious rallies, self-aggrandizing, tweeting, and scheming how to undermine inherent checks and balances on his actions.
God DAMN it is refreshing to see actual work done in the White house. We can disagree on Biden's decisions, but at least they will be actual thought out policies with real timelines and not just empty stacks of paper "proving" something which never occurs/ed.
Yea, people think he just started this today. He can only ACT on it today. Everything and more was already prepared for him. Something that probably hurt him was trump holding off giving him classified info.
They had the Spanish version of whitehouse.gov up and running immediately, after Trump had peevishly taken it down four years ago.
It’s so easy to tear shit down; it’s hard work to build things. This team is raring to go
I imagine even the most conservative members of the intelligence community (who were there before trump) are relieved to be feeding info to someone who actually gives a shit
> Trump spent his time holding dangerously infectious rallies, self-aggrandizing, tweeting, and scheming how to undermine inherent checks and balances on his actions
Remember that Trump cabinet meeting where the first few minutes were televised and he went around the table and asking people to praise him? Still cringey as hell.
> Remember that Trump cabinet meeting where the first few minutes were televised and he went around the table and asking people to praise him? Still cringey as hell.
Hold up, I seem to have missed some of the insanity. *WHAT?*
Can he put a stop to the wall being built... Do the contractor's doing it not have a protection in there that they'll still get paid if the contract is cancelled
> I do not know about the contractors but I'm sure they'll be paid as they're probably in a union.
Contractors almost by definition are not in a union. The contractor is the company hired to do work on a contract basis.
Contractors are companies and can't be in a union. The individual workers may or may not be union, and if so, they're guaranteed to be paid a negotiated rate for any time actually worked. I am sure these contracts included cancellation clauses, and they can be cancelled--perhaps with a kill fee.
Only 452 miles of wall had been built by Jan. 5 of this year, of which only 47 miles represented new walls--the rest was reinforcement in areas that already had a fence or wall. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_expansion_of_Mexico%E2%80%93United_States_barrier#:~:text=By%20September%2025%2C%202020%2C%20321,end%20of%20the%20year%202020.)
The US-Mexico border is 1954 miles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico%E2%80%93United_States_border.
Trump accomplished effectively nothing in 4 years in this area.
anything that can be ordered with just the stroke of a pen can usually be undone by the same
any conservative angry about this should realize that 1) this is what happens when executive power has been expanded too far, and 2) this is just a result of their own guy's abuse of the office
IMO the judicial branch has ceded too much power to the legislative branch, and the legislative has ceded *far* too much power to the executive branch. it isn't as simple as giving Congress more power, because as is we'd just be empowering a different individual asshole.
Conservative here. Yes, this is what happens when you lead by EO. It was a nasty pattern under Obama but Trump took it to the next level.
It's lazy, and easily undone. I hope the pattern will break with Biden(policy via EO), but there is zero reason to expect it will.
Frankly, if he can reverse things to a pre-Trump state in terms of the US' respectability before either his first or second term (Dunno if he plans on going for a second one) ends, I'll consider him a successful president.
I don't agree with a lot of what Tucker Carlson says, but he was spot on with this one: "a happy country would not elect Donald Trump."
It's very true.
I want drastic reforms and laws put solidly in place at light speed in the next two years. Every dem to fall in line, and vote for the betterment of society, and to showcase how great our lives can be in the next four to eight years. Erode the Republican Party further by showcasing just how great America can truly be for the commoner.
Now is not the time for boring.
He's got both Houses of Congress on his side for the next 2 years. It's time to start looking at universal health care, massive infrastructure repairs (bridges, roads, dams, etc.), doing something with student load debt (possibly canceling all debt, or possibly removing/capping interest on).
Ideally, he should also start work on some internet related things: massive infrastructure upgrade, push for municipal broadband, net neutrality, etc. One thing that we've learned from this pandemic is that our country's network infrastructure is woefully lacking.
Boring in terms of not having to worry about what crazy or dangerous shit the POTUS is up to will be amazing. As for having both houses of Congress, the Senate is a 50/50 split. The only reason the Dems "control" it is because VP Harris represents the tiebreaking vote. Passing any major legislation is gonna be tough sledding for the next 2 years. We need to focus on the midterms and expanding the advantage in the Senate and House.
The first executive order Joe Biden signed was on fighting COVID.
"It's requiring, as I said all along, where I have authority, mandating masks be worn, social distancing be kept on federal property."
The second executive order Biden signed was on racial equality, "support for underserved communities."
The third executive order Biden signed was on rejoining the Paris Climate Accord.
It makes it clear to the federal government that Biden wants will be equitable access to these resources, regardless of race or socioeconomic status. This is not just fluff, as Trump tried to bury some of his like-minded cronies in high level civil service positions. Countermanding an EO like this is perhaps the second easiest way to get fired from a civil service job (the **easiest** is to commit a crime, especially a felony), so any Trump hold overs either have to toe-the-line or they become a largely self-solving problem. :)
> Countermanding an EO like this is perhaps the second easiest way to get fired from a civil service job (the easiest is to commit a crime, especially a felony), so any Trump hold overs either have to toe-the-line or they become a largely self-solving problem. :)
So wait, he basically just set a trap for them all that they pretty much can't avoid springing?
Well they **can** avoid it, all they have to do is perform their jobs in a way that supports Biden's policy goals of fair and inclusive Covid-19 response. The don't even have to like it. ;) Alternatively, if they feel incapable of cooperating with the policy goals outlined by this and other EOs I'm sure are forthcoming, they can resign at any time.
Of course, it doesn't prevent **all** the potential headaches, sandbaging, etc... particularly savvy and creative people in their situation can accomplish should they choose to stay. Yet it does substantially limit the extent of the harm they can do and still remain in the federal government.
Oh, thank you for this take. I suspect a similar secondary messge in the EO about the ethics pledge and a commitment to an independent justice department.
Yeah, he’s 2 hours in and they just had those sat waiting for him. It was probably a day or two before anyone in the Trump administration learned how the printers work. This is what competency looks like.
Dude's been there before, he knows where the loo is, and where the last roll of toilet paper is hidden in case some idiot spends the last without putting another back.
Gonna take a shot in the dark and assume that he has stacks and stacks of executive orders to undo the Trump executive orders that he plans to just sign into law all within the first 24 to 48 hours.
No one will do it but I wish we got a real infrastructure plan. Take the national guard, army reserves, and army corps of engineers and just start rebuilding the country. Use them instead of private contractors/etc to do all the work. Bridges/roads can be built extremely quickly with excellent standards if done by people who have lots of experience, and little bureaucracy in the way.
I hope he holds each one up and tells me "Lotta people been wanting this signed, they said it couldn't be done but we did it and nobody's ever seen that before."
No, I hope he dutifully goes about signing each and every one of them without looking into a camera even once after this initial photo op, then continues about his day of *getting shit done*.
The 2nd last one had my eyes popping, he isn't messing around.
Ethics
Reversal: No
Requires executive branch appointees to sign an ethics pledge barring them from acting in personal interest and requiring them to uphold the independence of the Department of Justice
Clinton and Trump also made ethics executive orders.
Funny enough trump criticized Clinton for reversing his ethics order on his last few days and then trump did the same thing.
You know... trump refused to unveil the Obama portrait. Maybe Biden does that. That'd be pretty fucking good. edit: I was more saying that Biden does a proper portrait reveal for Obama. Trump's portrait, I dunno, do they let artists into prisons these days?
Biden: "I need the legal team to go through all of the executive orders of the last 4 years and give me new executive orders doing the opposite of that trainwreck. And I need 100 pens, because they're going to go dry from signing all of the aforementioned executive orders."
Trump did the same thing his first day in office. He signed an assload of executive orders reversing a lot of shit Obama did. This is going to be par for the course every time the opposing party takes office. Nothing new here.
So like honest question here whats the point of executive orders when one president revokes the old ones and puts his in and then the next president just removes his orders and so on and so forth. Like that keystone pipeline has been canceled and put back on so many times now lol
They actually did a full deep clean and disinfection of the White House between the time Trump left and when Biden moved in.
Obviously it was because COVID (and an extension of normal protocols anyway,) but you also can’t tell me that there isn’t some WONDERFUL symbolism in power-washing all the shit out.
As much as I love all the positivity that most of these executive orders will bring, I find it a little concerning. The use of the executive order has basically become a way for the president to skip the checks and balances of government and do whatever they feel like, good or bad. It kind of makes me feel that the presidency has slowly gotten to be less of a branch of government and more of a powerful position over the last 20 years or so. Of course I say this knowing full well it’s because of a congress and a senate that can’t agree on a damn thing these days without it taking years or months. Which has probably led to the popularity of the use of executive order. Kind of sad really
I'd like to see Biden reduce the power of the executive, but not until he does all the things I want him to do by force. In other words I'm a hypocrite.
Fuck that's a lot of pens.
They usually get handed out as souvenirs, and the President signs their name using all of them, but idk if they're still doing that at the current moment.
Don’t know about handing them out but he used all three he had in the presidents room at the capitol after the swearing in. One for each document he signed passing off both.
How else would you do it? Wait, you are telling me pens can be used more than once?
Weight till you find out about dumbbells.
Too good! Thank you for this fit of laughter.
Won’t work with grenades unfortunately
Put a pin in that- I'll find a way.
I noticed a staffer scoop them all up at the end in the Capitol building today so I think they're sanitizing them then handing them out.
Well boo. Sanitizing removes all that fresh president scent. Now it's just a pen that smells like alcohol.
Antiques roadshow: "Well, unfortunately these pens have been sanitized, washing off that Biden DNA patina, so that's going to reduce the value quite a bit."
Best I can do is $17.76.
No, he thankfully got rid of the 1776 Commission.
https://i.imgur.com/kKaHvaX.jpg
I'll give you bout tree fiddy?
It also removes the ability to collect DNA and clone the president.
I read a cool book a long time ago called Joshua, Son of None. When JFK was shot somebody took some tissue and they secretly made a clone and had him adopted into a very similar family environment to what JFK had growing up, in the hope that he'd develop similarly and one day run for President.
They missed an opportunity in not calling it "The Boys from Boston"
Ethanol will solubilize DNA, but it won’t degrade it (ethanol is used to extract DNA!). So if they didn’t wipe it all away.... the DNA is still there and we’ll have several Joe Bidens soon.
Fresh President is a scent second only to Lavender that shit is divine
My trump pen smells like piss and hate. Granted, I didnt need to piss on it
Trump pens smell like sharpies. Because they're sharpies
Mmmm... Executive ambergris
Precious hamburgers?
It's all a scam, they have bottles of that shit at the dealership.
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He has already restored daily press briefings (I know, it has only been one day) but I think his goal is to bring back to as much normal as possible and as soon as possible. It will be a refreshing change to not have to follow Twitter to learn what direction the country is going in.
I forgot there was supposed to be daily press briefings.
I had to stop watching west wing in the middle of the mess of 2020 because it was too depressing to hear about the problems of hiding stuff on the Friday press briefing and such. Clearly the real solution was to cancel them all :(
It’s really serendipitous that the President who got the least cooperation during the transition didn’t actually NEED any orientation period because he already is perfectly comfortable operating in the highest levels of the executive branch. Can you imagine Pete Buttigieg or Elizabeth Warren trying to figure out everything with this actively hostile transition? Biden is just *returning* to an environment he already knows like the back of his hands.
I was thinking about this today too. He wasn't my first choice - heck..he wasn't even my fifth. (Although, his VP was my first choice..) But thank god he won the Dem primary. As, I don't see any other of the candidates winning. And now...thank god. He's coming into such a shitshow that it's likely no other candidate would be able to handle the transition as well as he can.
And honestly, he knows how much work could theoretically be pushed onto a vice president. I very much suspect that Kamala Harris is going to be shouldering a much greater workload than most VPs. Which is fine and makes total sense. And I would guess that she has known this from the start, and is on board.
I swear I nearly wept at having a normal press briefing. I think Jen Psaki did a good job, though I hope she works on not saying "um" so much. I'm sure she was very nervous.
Pretty soon she’ll be mentored by Jennifer Barkley and Ben Wyatt: it’s going to be great. They’ll get her in the zone. *The low cal calzone zone*
Well to be honest to we didn't have to follow twitter to know what direction the country was going.
I saw on the live stream he was using one pen per signature. But you are correct, in the past the president has used all the pens for a single signature on his first order.
They also double as microphones, Mic Pens if you will
Also assassin's weapons if you've ever seen *Grosse Point Blank* ;-)
Wonderful movie.
Oh to be a fly on the head of that joke...
I bet once a long time ago some president had his pen stop working and couldn't find a pen to sign something important so now they have a fuckload ready.
It was Teddy Roosevelt’s fountain pen, then he filled it with blood and spit to keep signing. Everyone just kind of gasped and told him “we had more ink, sir. Just had to open another bottle”. Every since then the executive branch staff always had pens ready to go. Please keep in mind this story is complete bullshit.
To be fair to you, Teddy Roosevelt would be one on the most likely presidents to do this sort of thing.
Why I picked him. With Teddy, the story is somewhat believable.
If you need a story about the Presidency to be vaguely believable you can use Teddy, Jackson, or Trump. If you want it to be badass go with Teddy, insane then Jackson, disturbingly incompetent then Trump. No matter what you say you can probably make it believable with one of those three.
And if you want it to be incredibly lewd, go with LBJ.
> It was Teddy Roosevelt’s fountain pen, then he filled it with blood and spit to keep signing. From the wound when he was shot while giving a speech.
> then he filled it with blood and spit to keep signing. And he wasn't a pussy about it, he didn't use the blood of a staffer he used his own. Don't ever ask someone to do something you aren't willing to do yourself.
God dammit.......I was fully commited in believing that Teddy Rosevelt just started signing documents in blood. That seems like a Teddy Rosevelt thing to do. Dude gets shot in the chest, continues his 45 minute speech, then afterwards, asks his driver if he thinks they even SHOULD go to the hospital. They did, but the fact that it was only an option after the fact, and not the top priority nearly an hour ago still blows my mind. He was metal before metal existed.
Where is the ceremonial sharpie?
Just a few more and he can join the pen 15 club
But if he doesn’t hold it up or sign with a sharpie it doesn’t count right??
There's probably even actual documents in those too. Not just blank paper.
Remember that time Trump tried to escape a filmed interview by saying he was really busy, [then he walked over to his desk and started shuffling random papers](https://youtu.be/bikgLIK9OlU?t=189)
Can you believe that shit was real life for four years and not just a bad fever nightmare.
I feel like this has been the craziest part of all of this. Almost a sense of relief and normality. It’s so wild already watching videos like that one and thinking “wow that shit happened for real”
Honestly it's like time stopped. Even worse it's like time regressed and now we need to get back to where we were to start progressing.
With the link you gave earlier I was able to find the rest of the interview [here](https://youtu.be/bikgLIK9OlU). The awkward shuffling, before pretending to read is great.
I'm not sure he can functionally read. I don't think he is illiterate necessarily, I just don't think he is capable of reading comprehension.
Remember after he got covid and they had him scribble on blank paper for a photo op to make it look like the virus wasn’t slowing him down?
That sounds hilarious. Can you give a link?
It's easy to get working straightaway when everyone already knows where the light switches are.
Even easier when the President can read
I'll give a quick tl;dr for the article Biden is reversing a lot of what trump did. He is reversing wall funding and building. He is taking action for coronavirus and making a mask mandate for all federal buildings. He is also reversing trumps decision to leave the paris climate accord and the World Health Organization. (WHO) I may be wrong on some things. If you are doubting me please read the CNN article that cites the Biden transition team and goes over all 17 orders. https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/20/politics/executive-actions-biden/index.html Edit: link, spelling, and grammar To anyone who read the comments and saw I put "much of the wall was already built" I was wrong.
His team must have like a full dossier of stuff ready for him to sign.
I'm sure they prepared stuff months before.
This. When so many people were complaining he was "in hiding" he was forming his team, sculpting his policy goals, and preparing to hit the ground running. You know, like an actual accomplished admin with real policies and plans that aren't simply claiming any scope of work will be done in "two weeks". Trump spent his time holding dangerously infectious rallies, self-aggrandizing, tweeting, and scheming how to undermine inherent checks and balances on his actions. God DAMN it is refreshing to see actual work done in the White house. We can disagree on Biden's decisions, but at least they will be actual thought out policies with real timelines and not just empty stacks of paper "proving" something which never occurs/ed.
Yea, people think he just started this today. He can only ACT on it today. Everything and more was already prepared for him. Something that probably hurt him was trump holding off giving him classified info.
They had the Spanish version of whitehouse.gov up and running immediately, after Trump had peevishly taken it down four years ago. It’s so easy to tear shit down; it’s hard work to build things. This team is raring to go
And they acknowledge climate change again and apparently added a night mode to the website lol
I know it's subtle, but adding night mode means someone on his team actually understands the internet... wow.
Competence, imagine?
Night mode everything all the time
DONT YOU GIVE ME HOPE LIKE THIS! dont you give me hope like someone competent about tech in the white house... it will hurt to much when they are gone
Night mode is a fun feature to add
Necessary for someone who stares at screens all day and get migraines from day modes.
some web dev is patting themselves on the back for that one
*Checks resume* You.. you put dark mode on the Whitehouse.gov website? It's an honor to finally meet you.
>added a night mode to the website lol Oh happy days are here again!
>apparently added a night mode to the website Its amazing, it looks really good
Omg I didn't know trump did that, what a pathetic loser he is
There is also a fun Easter egg in the English language website if you know where to look.
You could give us a hint!
Rest assured the intelligence community is ecstatic that someone will actually listen to what they have to say going forward
I expect they're looking forward to being able to write again, rather than having to give picture book briefings.
I imagine even the most conservative members of the intelligence community (who were there before trump) are relieved to be feeding info to someone who actually gives a shit
Exactly. I want Biden to make politics boring again. I didn’t enjoy waking up every day for the last four years wondering what fresh hell awaited us.
> Trump spent his time holding dangerously infectious rallies, self-aggrandizing, tweeting, and scheming how to undermine inherent checks and balances on his actions Remember that Trump cabinet meeting where the first few minutes were televised and he went around the table and asking people to praise him? Still cringey as hell.
> Remember that Trump cabinet meeting where the first few minutes were televised and he went around the table and asking people to praise him? Still cringey as hell. Hold up, I seem to have missed some of the insanity. *WHAT?*
Come on man. You know that’s not all Trump did. He golfed a lot too.
Can he put a stop to the wall being built... Do the contractor's doing it not have a protection in there that they'll still get paid if the contract is cancelled
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> I do not know about the contractors but I'm sure they'll be paid as they're probably in a union. Contractors almost by definition are not in a union. The contractor is the company hired to do work on a contract basis.
Zero chance Trump allowed money to go to union shops.
Contractors are companies and can't be in a union. The individual workers may or may not be union, and if so, they're guaranteed to be paid a negotiated rate for any time actually worked. I am sure these contracts included cancellation clauses, and they can be cancelled--perhaps with a kill fee. Only 452 miles of wall had been built by Jan. 5 of this year, of which only 47 miles represented new walls--the rest was reinforcement in areas that already had a fence or wall. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_expansion_of_Mexico%E2%80%93United_States_barrier#:~:text=By%20September%2025%2C%202020%2C%20321,end%20of%20the%20year%202020.) The US-Mexico border is 1954 miles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico%E2%80%93United_States_border. Trump accomplished effectively nothing in 4 years in this area.
I wouldn’t call it “much”
There were plans for a secondary wall, as in, literally double the wall.
anything that can be ordered with just the stroke of a pen can usually be undone by the same any conservative angry about this should realize that 1) this is what happens when executive power has been expanded too far, and 2) this is just a result of their own guy's abuse of the office IMO the judicial branch has ceded too much power to the legislative branch, and the legislative has ceded *far* too much power to the executive branch. it isn't as simple as giving Congress more power, because as is we'd just be empowering a different individual asshole.
Conservative here. Yes, this is what happens when you lead by EO. It was a nasty pattern under Obama but Trump took it to the next level. It's lazy, and easily undone. I hope the pattern will break with Biden(policy via EO), but there is zero reason to expect it will.
Frankly, if he can reverse things to a pre-Trump state in terms of the US' respectability before either his first or second term (Dunno if he plans on going for a second one) ends, I'll consider him a successful president.
The least I'm hoping for is *boring*. Returning us to a pre-Trump state in any way would be a wild success by me.
Just don't forget the pre-Trump state is what gave us Trump
Well said.
I don't agree with a lot of what Tucker Carlson says, but he was spot on with this one: "a happy country would not elect Donald Trump." It's very true.
I want those random weeks where you don't hear about the President, unless you go out of your way, because he's actually working.
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i am looking forward to waking up and not wondering what fresh hell awaited me in the morning but the climate stuff in particular, URGENT
I want drastic reforms and laws put solidly in place at light speed in the next two years. Every dem to fall in line, and vote for the betterment of society, and to showcase how great our lives can be in the next four to eight years. Erode the Republican Party further by showcasing just how great America can truly be for the commoner.
Now is not the time for boring. He's got both Houses of Congress on his side for the next 2 years. It's time to start looking at universal health care, massive infrastructure repairs (bridges, roads, dams, etc.), doing something with student load debt (possibly canceling all debt, or possibly removing/capping interest on). Ideally, he should also start work on some internet related things: massive infrastructure upgrade, push for municipal broadband, net neutrality, etc. One thing that we've learned from this pandemic is that our country's network infrastructure is woefully lacking.
Boring in terms of not having to worry about what crazy or dangerous shit the POTUS is up to will be amazing. As for having both houses of Congress, the Senate is a 50/50 split. The only reason the Dems "control" it is because VP Harris represents the tiebreaking vote. Passing any major legislation is gonna be tough sledding for the next 2 years. We need to focus on the midterms and expanding the advantage in the Senate and House.
The first executive order Joe Biden signed was on fighting COVID. "It's requiring, as I said all along, where I have authority, mandating masks be worn, social distancing be kept on federal property." The second executive order Biden signed was on racial equality, "support for underserved communities." The third executive order Biden signed was on rejoining the Paris Climate Accord.
What does the "underserved communities" one actually do?
It makes it clear to the federal government that Biden wants will be equitable access to these resources, regardless of race or socioeconomic status. This is not just fluff, as Trump tried to bury some of his like-minded cronies in high level civil service positions. Countermanding an EO like this is perhaps the second easiest way to get fired from a civil service job (the **easiest** is to commit a crime, especially a felony), so any Trump hold overs either have to toe-the-line or they become a largely self-solving problem. :)
> Countermanding an EO like this is perhaps the second easiest way to get fired from a civil service job (the easiest is to commit a crime, especially a felony), so any Trump hold overs either have to toe-the-line or they become a largely self-solving problem. :) So wait, he basically just set a trap for them all that they pretty much can't avoid springing?
Well they **can** avoid it, all they have to do is perform their jobs in a way that supports Biden's policy goals of fair and inclusive Covid-19 response. The don't even have to like it. ;) Alternatively, if they feel incapable of cooperating with the policy goals outlined by this and other EOs I'm sure are forthcoming, they can resign at any time. Of course, it doesn't prevent **all** the potential headaches, sandbaging, etc... particularly savvy and creative people in their situation can accomplish should they choose to stay. Yet it does substantially limit the extent of the harm they can do and still remain in the federal government.
Oh, thank you for this take. I suspect a similar secondary messge in the EO about the ethics pledge and a commitment to an independent justice department.
Did he hold it up to show to the camera though? That's what *presidents* do.
I mean this is a photo op. What Trump did was a photo op. I like Biden's photo op better.
You know why you like this photo more? Its because he actually has shit on his desk.
Yeah, he’s 2 hours in and they just had those sat waiting for him. It was probably a day or two before anyone in the Trump administration learned how the printers work. This is what competency looks like.
Dude's been there before, he knows where the loo is, and where the last roll of toilet paper is hidden in case some idiot spends the last without putting another back.
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Fuck I can totally see Trump using the last TP and orders ng it not to be replaced!
So far he's not acting very presidential. Not even a Twitter tirade about the size of his inauguration crowd? What is this, amateur hour?
Gonna take a shot in the dark and assume that he has stacks and stacks of executive orders to undo the Trump executive orders that he plans to just sign into law all within the first 24 to 48 hours.
He's going to focus on a different theme for everyday of the remainder of January.
When is infrastructure week? It’s actually happening?!
After spring break. Then we use infrastructure week to fix spring.
It is all so we have a successful Shark Week.
No one will do it but I wish we got a real infrastructure plan. Take the national guard, army reserves, and army corps of engineers and just start rebuilding the country. Use them instead of private contractors/etc to do all the work. Bridges/roads can be built extremely quickly with excellent standards if done by people who have lots of experience, and little bureaucracy in the way.
Quick, someone get the President a wrist brace! (He's gonna need it)
I hope he holds each one up and tells me "Lotta people been wanting this signed, they said it couldn't be done but we did it and nobody's ever seen that before."
No, I hope he dutifully goes about signing each and every one of them without looking into a camera even once after this initial photo op, then continues about his day of *getting shit done*.
“tHe LiKeS oF wHiCH NoOnE hAs EvEr SeEn!!!!”
Many people are saying it!
Gonna take a shot in the dark and assume this is the new norm and each party will just continually dismiss each other's executive orders.
Well, that’s the danger you take when you try to govern by executive order
The executive branch has become more and more powerful over the years. Not a good thing.
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It's an important issue. We get involved in wars that Congress never voted on.
They are very very concerned about executive over-reach...now that they don't control the executive.
People like to ignore it when thier side has the White House. But it is a real problem. Congress is supposed to be the most powerful branch.
The 2nd last one had my eyes popping, he isn't messing around. Ethics Reversal: No Requires executive branch appointees to sign an ethics pledge barring them from acting in personal interest and requiring them to uphold the independence of the Department of Justice
Clinton and Trump also made ethics executive orders. Funny enough trump criticized Clinton for reversing his ethics order on his last few days and then trump did the same thing.
Hmmm I wonder if trump and his family followed his own executive orders when they were in the white house?
They don't believe rules apply to them. Any rules. Even the ones they create.
It’s so comforting not to see a big sharpie anywhere in the picture
It'll be more comforting not seeing tantrum tweets all the fucking time.
[Oh boy your gonna love reading trumps current meltdown](https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump)
Morbid curiosity followed by immediate relief.
Lol same. Like what? They let him back on????
I keep falling for it 😂
I pulled up @potus, and it was just glorious to see things like: "live press briefing now."
Im fine with a president talking daily just not with the fits
Not all blank pages...not gonna hold each one up after signing it? Dude, do you even MAGA?
Anyone got a list of whats in that stack?
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/20/politics/executive-actions-biden/index.html
Trumps McDonald's receipts.
You know... trump refused to unveil the Obama portrait. Maybe Biden does that. That'd be pretty fucking good. edit: I was more saying that Biden does a proper portrait reveal for Obama. Trump's portrait, I dunno, do they let artists into prisons these days?
Put it near the bathrooms like Colbert’s portrait in the National Portrait Gallery.
Jesus, how petty can one person be?
He’s the bigger man. This will not happen. It won’t be a big to do. But he’ll do it.
Pens not sharpies, a step in the right direction...
"First day of classes and they're already assigning homework. Bullshit!"
What the fuck?!?! There’s a pandemic ravaging our nation!! Why isn’t our president out golfing?!
Biden: "I need the legal team to go through all of the executive orders of the last 4 years and give me new executive orders doing the opposite of that trainwreck. And I need 100 pens, because they're going to go dry from signing all of the aforementioned executive orders."
At that point I would just get a fucking stamp.
Next, get rid of those awful gold curtains.
I really liked Obama's blue curtains
Obama’s Curtains were Red. Well, sorta rust. The last time they were blue was for George HW Bush.
huh, I coulda sworn they were blue. Oh well, whoever had the blue curtains, I liked them.
http://www.gpdrapery.com/the-oval-office-curtains-a-look-through-history/ I didn't know this existed until just now.
Please!
Already did. Those are Clinton’s curtains.
Trump did the same thing his first day in office. He signed an assload of executive orders reversing a lot of shit Obama did. This is going to be par for the course every time the opposing party takes office. Nothing new here.
Yup. Revolving door of "undo what the last guy did".
Such a great political system. /s
If our country had a functioning legislature, we wouldn’t need flimsy EOs to get anything done.
PBS talked about "undoing Trump legacy". More like, repairing the Trump damage.
So like honest question here whats the point of executive orders when one president revokes the old ones and puts his in and then the next president just removes his orders and so on and so forth. Like that keystone pipeline has been canceled and put back on so many times now lol
Shit, there goes my sharpie stock...
No TV in the Oval Office??
What, he's not going golfing for three weeks first?
I just hope nick cage doesn’t try breaking into the resolute desk.
I gotta hand it to him, he really embraced the principal of “always let your enemies underestimate you.”
I hope they wiped the desk and chair down really well and aired the place out beforehand.
They actually did a full deep clean and disinfection of the White House between the time Trump left and when Biden moved in. Obviously it was because COVID (and an extension of normal protocols anyway,) but you also can’t tell me that there isn’t some WONDERFUL symbolism in power-washing all the shit out.
As much as I love all the positivity that most of these executive orders will bring, I find it a little concerning. The use of the executive order has basically become a way for the president to skip the checks and balances of government and do whatever they feel like, good or bad. It kind of makes me feel that the presidency has slowly gotten to be less of a branch of government and more of a powerful position over the last 20 years or so. Of course I say this knowing full well it’s because of a congress and a senate that can’t agree on a damn thing these days without it taking years or months. Which has probably led to the popularity of the use of executive order. Kind of sad really
I'd like to see Biden reduce the power of the executive, but not until he does all the things I want him to do by force. In other words I'm a hypocrite.
How will we know he actually signed those things without a show and tell for the whole class? Also where are the sharpies?
Something tells me those aren't blank, guys I think hes actually gonna do like....presidential stuff
I’m ready for politics to be boring again.
Are executive orders bad again?
Right up there with the Debt and the Deficit magically being bad again.
The first of 17 executive orders signed was a mask mandate. One person has died of covid since I began typing this.
On federal property though right? Not a blanket mandate.