Month: March 2021
Biden Maintaining High Approval Rating
62%
A new Politico/Morning Consult poll finds President Joe Biden’s approval rate at 62%. The poll also finds 72% support the new pandemic relief law.
Trump FINALLY Recommends COVID Vaccination
“I would recommend it. And I would recommend it to a lot of people that don’t want to get it and a lot of those people voted for me, frankly. But again, we have our freedoms and we have to live by that and I agree with that also. But it is a great vaccine. It is a safe vaccine and it is something that works.”
— “Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday recommended Americans get vaccinated to help fight the Covid pandemic, engaging on the issue after months of relative silence,” Politico reports.
The Emerging Left
“On the left, we are now seeing the culmination of a number of movements and events that happened over the last decade: Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Sanders’s 2016 campaign, Donald Trump’s election, Trump’s presidency, the emergence of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and ‘The Squad,’ Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s and Sanders’s 2020 campaigns, and the protests after George Floyd’s death during a police arrest. These events and movements built on one another. For example, it is likely the protests over Floyd’s death were so large, in part, because many of the people attending them had become more passionate about fighting racism in America because of Trump’s presidency. … The result has been a big shift in public opinion on the left — many of the views I noted above were held by few people and even fewer major public figures like politicians as recently as five years ago.”
Perry Bacon Jr.
On Biden, Press Conferences and Cuomo
Joe Biden has been president for nearly two months, and it would seem his honeymoon with the media (if there is such a thing) has ended, with criticism coming from all quarters for his lack of press conferences and for his staying on the sidelines of the trainwreck that is Andrew Cuomo’s gubernatorial career.
First, the fact is Biden held two town halls since the election where the questions from regular people were thoughtful and meaningful — a refreshing contrast to the White House press corps’ attempts to illicit a gotcha. He also regularly responds to questions hollered at him by journalists as he passes from one place to another.
Finally, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki holds regular press conferences where she handles media queries with poise, skill and little prevaricating, if not some expected deflection. That’s a far cry from her predecessors in the same position in the Trump administration who, when they did give a rare press conference, mainly just repeated their boss’ lies and took questions only from friendly representatives of conservative media outlets.
On the Cuomo question, Biden and his team have been consistent in witholding judgement pending a complete investigation of the allegations against New York’s governor. The attempt to paint Biden into a corner as the only person who can prevent a damaging rift between the Democratic Party and Cuomo is ludicrous. Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand have already done that — with Gillibrand’s trigger finger being only slightly less itchy than when she called for Sen. Al Franken’s resignation BEFORE an investigation of sexual harrassment allegations. Cuomo is only hurting Cuomo, not the Democratic Party, and his political party is in no greater danger from his truculence and intractability than the Knights of Columbus are from his Italian lineage.
But think for a moment — what if Donald Trump were still president.
[…]
Where Credit Ain’t Due
They strove hard in House and Senate to defeat it,
But Republican hypocrisy has long been so pathetic.
They voted — to a man —
Against the American Recovery Plan,
And now they’re trying to shamelessly take credit.
