The Biden Administration

[dyqik]

Transition stuff includes basic governance things that the Federal government pays up to $10m for, but also the political stuff like events, speeches, inauguration parties, work between advisors in Congress and the new administration, etc.

That latter part needs funding, and the $10m may not cover all the first part anyway.

[Bird on a Fire]

I keep making the mistake of thinking that the USA is supposed to function in a vaguely sensible way. My bad.

[sTeamTraen]

Am I alone among ageing computer scientists to hope that, following the nomination of Mr Blinken, Biden will be able to find a Mr Lichten to complete the team?

You are not alone. I hear that they are hoping for lots of Lookenpeepers at the inauguration too. But they are worried that Trump might schnappen der Springenwerk in the Oval Office before he leaves. Government is nicht für gewerken bei Dummkopfen.

Meanwhile, Little Marco is complaining that Biden is hiring competent people.

[FlammableFlower]

He's getting his arse handed to him. Particularly with his claim that Biden's team are elitist Ivy League grads, as opposed to Trump's team who are/were... erm... oh look: rich, elitist Ivy League grads...

[plebian]

Am I alone among ageing computer scientists to hope that, following the nomination of Mr Blinken, Biden will be able to find a Mr Lichten to complete the team?

He's "A. Blinken, say it out loud and think presidents.

[plebian]

So who had 22nd November 2020 down for the “First Liberal Whinge About the Biden Administration” sweepstake?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... erful-post

Something something something may as well have let Trump win.

I didn't really view that as a criticism on Biden specifically, so much as the culture of partisan funding for government transition:

Such pleading erodes the distinction between campaigning and governance. It provides partisan funding for what is part of the state. At a time when America is so polarised, such funding makes it more difficult to be a “president for all Americans”. It further privatises governance, leverages the power of lobbyists and special interests and undermines the authority of the president-elect: the most powerful figure in the world begging for your loose change.

Trump’s refusal to accept the election result and the farcical conspiracy theories peddled by his lawyers are undermining US democracy, but in the long term there is something deeply corrosive about turning transition into a crowd-funded partisan process.

Seems to lay the ultimate blame at Trump's feet, so "may as well have elected Trump" is a total strawman there.

It's hardly an original observation that the amount of private money in US politics leads to wide-open vulnerabilities to corruption, so it's right to be concerned about a development that increases that. Maybe Biden had no choice because he and the Democratic Party have spent all their funds on the election and don't have $10m left.

If that's the case, the federal government needs to ensure this can't happen again, and I'm sure Biden's already working on a plan to fix it. For instance, maybe the GSA shouldn't need presidential approval to release funding?

It was my impression from the news that the president doesn't approve this, the administrator said plainly that she had received no instruction or pressure from the executive.

[bolo]

She also said, quite reasonably, that it's absurd that the GSA Adminstrator is the person legally responsible for determining when to release transition funds. And that she received death threats. I actually have a certain amount of sympathy for her.

[EACLucifer]

She also said, quite reasonably, that it's absurd that the GSA Adminstrator is the person legally responsible for determining when to release transition funds. And that she received death threats. I actually have a certain amount of sympathy for her.

I don't.

She had a job to do, and she refused to do it, threatening America's national security and COVID response. Those funds should have been released the moment the networks called Pennsylvania, and the only time they haven't been released that promptly before was 2000, where the margin was tiny and in a single state and under legitimate question.

She's a coward at best and a partisan saboteur at worst, and she has no right to sympathy when all she had to do was do her f.cking job.

ETA: As for death threats, a lot of people have received those, notably those Republicans who actually did their jobs, like Secretary Raffensperger, and her refusal to do her f.cking job as she is meant to do that directly contributed to the environment that saw Raffensperger and his family threatened, as well as others like Van Langeveld in Michigan.

[sTeamTraen]

And that she received death threats.

Threats of death if she didn't release the funds, or if she did? Seems to me like there's one side here with a lot more AR-15s than the other.

Also, death threats are awful, but perhaps we're going to have to get used to them in the age of everyone having a social media account --- perhaps we are going to need some threshold for credibility. Otherwise it becomes a kind of universal get-out-of-jail-free card. "Sorry, miss, haven't done my homework, I got death threats".

[bolo]

And that she received death threats.

Threats of death if she didn't release the funds, or if she did? Seems to me like there's one side here with a lot more AR-15s than the other.

If she didn't, I believe, but perhaps both.

[malbui]

And that she received death threats.

Threats of death if she didn't release the funds, or if she did? Seems to me like there's one side here with a lot more AR-15s than the other.

There are so many death threats being levelled at decent Trump loyalists just refusing to do their jobs. I'd be interested to know how many of these have been reported to the appropriate authorities. You'd think the Feds would get involved.

[malbui]

Am I alone among ageing computer scientists to hope that, following the nomination of Mr Blinken, Biden will be able to find a Mr Lichten to complete the team?

You are not alone. I hear that they are hoping for lots of Lookenpeepers at the inauguration too. But they are worried that Trump might schnappen der Springenwerk in the Oval Office before he leaves. Government is nicht für gewerken bei Dummkopfen.

I'm glad someone picked up on that. Sometimes I think my my little jokes are routed straight to /dev/null.

[sTeamTraen]

I'm glad someone picked up on that. Sometimes I think my my little jokes are routed straight to /dev/null.

... which in the non-U*x world used to be known as the Bit Bucket. I worked on a system once (could have been a PL/M development system) that had a null device called BB: for exactly that reason. In The Devil's DP Dictionary, "bit bucket" was described as rhyming slang.

[Martin Y]

Those funds should have been released the moment the networks called Pennsylvania

Wait a minute. Is she in a position equivalent to a solicitor settling an estate? If my job made me legally responsible for the disbursement of ten million dollars, I'm not going to just give it away to whoever TV news reckon is going to win it.

[bolo]

And that she received death threats.

Threats of death if she didn't release the funds, or if she did? Seems to me like there's one side here with a lot more AR-15s than the other.

If she didn't, I believe, but perhaps both.

Also, while it's true that the Republican party is nuttier about gun control/rights, and it's true that Republicans are more likely to own guns, still about one in four Democrats own a gun or live in a household with someone who owns a gun.

https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/06 ... ownership/

[dyqik]

And it was House Republicans that someone shot at most recently (at the national level of politics).

[EACLucifer]

Those funds should have been released the moment the networks called Pennsylvania

Wait a minute. Is she in a position equivalent to a solicitor settling an estate? If my job made me legally responsible for the disbursement of ten million dollars, I'm not going to just give it away to whoever TV news reckon is going to win it.

That really fails to understand what a TV decision desk is and what it does. Last time one of them called a state wrong was twenty years ago, and by the time they called Pennsylvania, Biden was ahead there with a lead bigger than the remaining number of votes to count. The same was true of Georgia, and it wasn't long after that that it was true of Arizona. She was quite capable of contacting secretaries of state if she wanted to check the numbers. Biden was ahead with a two state cushion and the votes more or less entirely counted in those states weeks ago, and even the closest of those required a recount to change the margin by five times the amount a recount has moved the margin in living memory.

She was required to ascertain the apparent winner, and she refused to do so. What she did was unprecedented, political, and undermined continuity of government. She then spent most of the letter whining and still refusing to admit she really was ascertaining the apparent winner, in a break with a tradition that goes back to when the current system was set up in the sixties, during which we have had multiple elections closer than this one.

In short, she's a coward afraid of Trump's tweets at best and a traitor at worst, a Republican hack refusing to do a job America entrusted to her. If that was too much for her, she could stop claiming the salary for it and f.cking resign.

ETA: Oh, and the money isn't the big deal. It's the access to government information, President's Daily Briefing, etc. £10m is small change in terms of American government spending, and ascertaining the apparent winner would not prejudice any legal action etc.

[Martin Y]

That really fails to understand what a TV decision desk is and what it does.

Does it offer her a $10M indemnity that it isn't wrong?

[dyqik]

That really fails to understand what a TV decision desk is and what it does.

Does it offer her a $10M indemnity that it isn't wrong?

Why would it do that? And why would anyone need to do that?

[Bird on a Fire]

No matter how historically accurate they've been, it is a teensy-weensy bit silly to expect government officials to rely on private media networks as an integral part of the presidential transition.

This seems to be yet another case whereby the system as it stands only really worked because everyone collectively willed it to, but it's not robust to chaos from bad actors.

[dyqik]

Those funds should have been released the moment the networks called Pennsylvania

Wait a minute. Is she in a position equivalent to a solicitor settling an estate? If my job made me legally responsible for the disbursement of ten million dollars, I'm not going to just give it away to whoever TV news reckon is going to win it.

No.

She's a Federal bureaucrat charged with providing access to Federal accounts for costs to be charged to. She's not handing over a check to be used as the recipient sees fit, but doing a small piece of government accounting for the functions of government to be carried out.

[EACLucifer]

No matter how historically accurate they've been, it is a teensy-weensy bit silly to expect government officials to rely on private media networks as an integral part of the presidential transition.

FFS. Decision desks are 1) Non Partisan and 2) Base everything on what secretaries of state say. That can be double checked by pretty much anyone, I mean, it's how the media get it in the first place. By the time Pennsylvania was called by most networks, anyone could just get in touch with secretaries of state and confirm that Biden was leading by more votes than remained to be counted in enough swing states. Her job was to ascertain the apparent winner, she refused to do it.

This seems to be yet another case whereby the system as it stands only really worked because everyone collectively willed it to, but it's not robust to chaos from bad actors.

True. Emily Murphy being the blatant and extreme bad actor in this case.

[Bird on a Fire]

Surely the secretaries of state are a higher authority than the TV channels? Why isn't it their job to say "ay yo release these funds already"?

It seems that there ought to be a single internal government process for determining who's going to be the next president, which should be triggered in time for transition funds to be released, and that's either happened or it hasn't. Requiring a bunch of random civil servants to call the election themselves is a bit daft, for exactly the reason we're seeing now.

[Martin Y]

That really fails to understand what a TV decision desk is and what it does.

Does it offer her a $10M indemnity that it isn't wrong?

Why would it do that? And why would anyone need to do that?

For clarity I'm not defending whatever she actually did, I'm just asking about what EACL said she should have done, which was give Biden's people access to the funds she controlled when the TV decision desk said so. If she has responsibility for that money, and if something unexpected happens, can she stand up in court and offload liability by saying "Yes I gave those guys the money but those other guys told me it was okay"?

I may have quite the wrong end of the procedural stick, but it doesn't sound like a very satisfactory system if I haven't.

[dyqik]

Does it offer her a $10M indemnity that it isn't wrong?

Why would it do that? And why would anyone need to do that?

For clarity I'm not defending whatever she actually did, I'm just asking about what EACL said she should have done, which was give Biden's people access to the funds she controlled when the TV decision desk said so. If she has responsibility for that money, and if something unexpected happens, can she stand up in court and offload liability by saying "Yes I gave those guys the money but those other guys told me it was okay"?

I may have quite the wrong end of the procedural stick, but it doesn't sound like a very satisfactory system if I haven't.

You've completely invented the idea that she would be personally liable for authorizing government spending that is required by law, from whole cloth.

Government does not work that way, and never has.