https://www.reuters.com/technology/bytedance-prefers-tiktok-shutdown-us-if-legal-options-fail-sources-say-2024-04-25/

  • Pentacat [he/him]
    ·
    2 months ago

    Outside of presiding over massive inflation, the loss of women’s right to choose, genocide of the Palestinians, the arming of Nazis in a proxy war, increasing terror at the US border, increasing warrantless surveillance on Americans who aren’t in Congress, increasing police budgets everywhere, killing free speech, and making criticism of Israel a hate crime, what mistakes can you point to that Biden has made? We’re actually lucky if you think of all the bad stuff throughout history that he hasn’t presided over.

    • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 months ago

      don't forget abandoning covid guidelines and caving to the rightwing's policies and stiffing us on our promised stimulus checks and debt forgiveness.

      Oh yeah, and betraying the BLM bloc you just coopted by saying "defund the police is a rightwing idea"

        • SacredExcrement [any, comrade/them]
          ·
          edit-2
          2 months ago

          If you have student loans, he owes you more cause he had that as a plank of his platform

          He fucked so many things it's actually kind of remarkable

          • NewLeaf
            ·
            edit-2
            2 months ago

            Where's that cure for cancer?

            Let me guess, he was speaking metaphorically

            • SacredExcrement [any, comrade/them]
              ·
              edit-2
              2 months ago

              I think they asserted he was speaking about funding research more

              Which is definitely what everyone thinks of when they hear "we're gonna cure cancer"

              • NewLeaf
                ·
                2 months ago

                Let me guess. That hasn't even happened.

                • SacredExcrement [any, comrade/them]
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  2 months ago

                  I think it has, but NCI (the national cancer institute) has been getting funding increases in some form or another since 2013 (which is still good)

                  It's also currently at around 7 billion total though, so...not exactly big dollar relative to govt spending, and increases under Biden are just likely nominal increases that would've happened anyway lol

                  Ed: I think I am right (in that neither Trump or Biden actually gave a shit), but lmao funding under Trump increased by more than Biden

                  Funding for NCI as of 2015: 5.215 billion

                  Funding as of 2020: 6.245 billion, increase of a little over a billion from 2016

                  Funding as of 2024: 7.22 billion, increase of less than a billion from 2020

                  It's close, but when you say "we're gonna cure cancer", have everyone kiss your ass saying you actually meant "we're going to ratchet up spending for cancer research", and then fund it less than your predecessor...

                  • NewLeaf
                    ·
                    2 months ago

                    Great post! But just as I suspected. The Biden administration is yet again using the cover of a former super Republican presidency to not restore things to their previous trajectory

    • TrashGoblin [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      2 months ago

      Good comment. Even if you argue, as Democratic partisans will, that few of these were things that Biden had any control over (e.g. inflation and Dobbs), the fact is that he was the sitting president while they happened. That will make him unpopular, even if that's "not fair". And people will vote against him (or not vote) because he's unpopular, even if "the alternative is worse". If you specifically argue that he didn't have any control over these things, he looks weak, and that makes the problem worse. And no amount of lecturing people about how they're wrong to react in natural, perfectly predictable ways is going to change that.

      • buckykat [none/use name]
        ·
        2 months ago

        I remember early in his term he appointed a special committee to tell him whether to pack the courts and they decided no