Happy Inauguration Day!

[lpm]

The next 48 hours are going to be great!

Timetable:

Today:
Mexico pays for wall
Infrastructure week
Trump unveils healthcare plan
Purchase of Greenland

Weds morning:
Criminal pardons
Disgraceful pardons
Laughable pardons

Mid-morning:
Trump fleas to Florida. Yes, I'm spelling it flea, it seems to fit
Divorce announcement

12:00:00 Biden becomes President
12:00:01 Trump can be prosecuted
12:01 Kamala Harris sworn in
12:05 Joe Biden sworn in
12:10 boring Inauguration Speech, reminding us how good it is to be bored by politics

Mid-afternoon:
Visit to Arlington
Parades and stuff

Evening:
Biden takes to the stage with Lady Gaga and sings the latest hits

[Vertigowooyay]

12:00:01 Trump can be prosecuted

At the moment, the line up of Attorneys General, lawyers and plaintiffs waiting to start indictments is starting to look like the line up of the London Marathon just before the starting gun fires. But without the charity costumes, obviously.

[JQH]

I hope Biden's and Harris's protection details have been very carefully vetted. Especially Harris's - she's likely to become President during this term and the prospect of a Black-Asian woman Democrat being President will be too much for the Trumpists.

[lpm]

Tonight at 5:30 (ET) - the Inauguration Covid Memorial. Lighting stuff up and making bells ring. "A national moment of unity and remembrance."

[dyqik]

12:00:01 Trump can be prosecuted

At the moment, the line up of Attorneys General, lawyers and plaintiffs waiting to start indictments is starting to look like the line up of the London Marathon just before the starting gun fires. But without the charity costumes, obviously.

I'm willing to donate if they do do it in costume.

[dyqik]

Mid-morning:
12:00:00 Biden becomes President
12:00:01 Trump can be prosecuted
12:01 Kamala Harris sworn in
12:05 Joe Biden sworn in
12:10 boring Inauguration Speech, reminding us how good it is to be bored by politics, with lots of calls for unity and healing the divisions
12:11 Lindsay Graham deplores Biden's divisive speech with complaints that it didn't call for unity behind voter suppression measures to restore Americans' confidence in their fraudulent electoral system.
12:12 Mitch McConnell deplores Biden's divisive speech with complaints that he's nominating extreme leftist cabinet members, like former Wall St. bankers.
12:13 Ted Cruz blames Biden for the huge numbers of CoVID deaths and the pandemic spiralling out of control.

FTFY

[lpm]

23 hours and 59 minutes left. Trump's leaving the war on Iran pretty late.

[lpm]

I've just had an email inviting me and five friends to attend Trump's send-off at Andrews Airforce Base tomorrow. Says to please forward to anyone I know who might be interested. Anyone here able to pop along? There will be free food, drink and pardons.

[Little waster]

Pie's take.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvcwMcGWf-w

I might see if I can get a transcript of that printed off on a tea-towel. A big one.

Imagine in January 2016 I showed you that video and told you by January 2021 that would make perfect sense, you'd have me in a bouncey-wall room before I could blink.

[dyqik]

How long after the inauguration will we have to wait for the taco trucks to arrive on the corner?

I need a plan for lunch tomorrow.

[sTeamTraen]

I hope Biden's and Harris's protection details have been very carefully vetted. Especially Harris's - she's likely to become President during this term and the prospect of a Black-Asian woman Democrat being President will be too much for the Trumpists.

It's an interesting thought. If Biden isn't too stubborn he could step down around his 80th birthday, which is two weeks after the 2022 midterms, citing health reasons (his acuity is clearly failing, and it's no job for anyone over 70; old hands will remember how we laughed as Reagan, who was six months younger than Trump and 8.5 years younger than Biden on his inauguration day). Or perhaps two months earlier to see if they can get a poll boost out of a new President.

I'm not sure how well that would play, though. The understanding is that the VP is there "in case" something happens to the President, and it could be argued that anything that happens to Biden's health should kinda have been foreseen. Of course the knuckledraggers will be agin Harris whatever, but elections are won and lost on perceptions of fairness in the middle ground (everything being relative, of course), and there would be some amount of "not the President we voted for" that could stick.

Of course, one could also argue that many progressive Democrats voted for Biden not just because he wasn't Trump, but specifically because of the possibility of a non-white woman President, so maybe that balances out. I've argued before that Biden is possibly the only candidate who would have beaten Trump, and Harris was arguably the best possible balance on the ticket.

[lpm]

Incumbency is a big advantage. President Harris would have a far better chance of reelection than Vice President Harris would have of election.

Need to get to the 2 year mark, then President Harris can run in both 2024 and 2028 for a 10 year spell in office. After Kennedy was removed by the dozens of CIA snipers hidden on the grassy knoll, Johnson could have run as incumbent in both 1964 and 1968 for 9 years in office. He of course wimped out in 1968.

[lpm]

Ooh, the Georgia results just got certified. Presumably Senator Harris will resign her seat today as well. Can swear in the 3 new Senators tomorrow.

[monkey]

Ooh, the Georgia results just got certified. Presumably Senator Harris will resign her seat today as well. Can swear in the 3 new Senators tomorrow.

She resigned yesterday.

[lpm]

Ah. Presumably she's got some other job lined up.

[dyqik]

Incumbency is a big advantage. President Harris would have a far better chance of reelection than Vice President Harris would have of election.

Need to get to the 2 year mark, then President Harris can run in both 2024 and 2028 for a 10 year spell in office. After Kennedy was removed by the dozens of CIA snipers hidden on the grassy knoll, Johnson could have run as incumbent in both 1964 and 1968 for 9 years in office. He of course wimped out in 1968.

538 has mentioned several times that there's very little incumbency advantage for appointed senators. However, that's a job which doesn't make the news in the same way as President (even a non-orange one), so that probably doesn't carry over to a VP dropping the V.

[monkey]

My bet is that the Democrats win the next one whatever, because some Trumpist loon will stand as an Independent and take a significant enough number of votes from a more traditional Republican loon who wins the primary. So it doesn't matter that much if it's Biden or Harris running for the Dems.

[dyqik]

My bet is that the Democrats win the next one whatever, because some Trumpist loon will stand as an Independent and take a significant enough number of votes from a more traditional Republican loon who wins the primary. So it doesn't matter that much if it's Biden or Harris running for the Dems.

Yeah.

The mid-terms are more complicated, I think, but I can see the Democrats gaining there in a 2018 as the Trump voters stay home, and investigations into the Trump era hammer Republicans generally (these will break through into the Right wing news bubble - but it takes time), and the Republican party splits as it tries to find an identity.

[FlammableFlower]

My bet is that the Democrats win the next one whatever, because some Trumpist loon will stand as an Independent and take a significant enough number of votes from a more traditional Republican loon who wins the primary. So it doesn't matter that much if it's Biden or Harris running for the Dems.

Yeah.

The mid-terms are more complicated, I think, but I can see the Democrats gaining there in a 2018 as the Trump voters stay home, and investigations into the Trump era hammer Republicans generally (these will break through into the Right wing news bubble - but it takes time), and the Republican party splits as it tries to find an identity.

Especially as Fox News has looked at its behaviour around the election, people's comments and falling audiences and decided:

We need more opinion-based presenters as opposed to news.

[dyqik]

My bet is that the Democrats win the next one whatever, because some Trumpist loon will stand as an Independent and take a significant enough number of votes from a more traditional Republican loon who wins the primary. So it doesn't matter that much if it's Biden or Harris running for the Dems.

Yeah.

The mid-terms are more complicated, I think, but I can see the Democrats gaining there in a 2018 as the Trump voters stay home, and investigations into the Trump era hammer Republicans generally (these will break through into the Right wing news bubble - but it takes time), and the Republican party splits as it tries to find an identity.

Especially as Fox News has looked at its behaviour around the election, people's comments and falling audiences and decided:

We need more opinion-based presenters as opposed to news.

It's done that because it's losing the lucrative right wing nut job market to ONAN and NewsMax, which is why I think a split is plausible.

[sTeamTraen]

On an optimistic note, how does the line of succession work if the podium explodes killing Biden, Harris, Pelosi, and Schumer (a) five minutes before Biden is sworn in; (b) five minutes afterwards?

[monkey]

On an optimistic note, how does the line of succession work if the podium explodes killing Biden, Harris, Pelosi, and Schumer (a) five minutes before Biden is sworn in; (b) five minutes afterwards?

People argue about it and the Supreme Court decides.

'cos of the designated survivor thing, there'll always be someone though.

[lpm]

Senator Chuck Grassley is 4th in line, as oldest guy in Senate.

After him it's Pompeo. Cabinet Secretaries all resign with effect from noon Jan 20th. So I think Pompeo would be Pres if it happened 5 mins to noon. But not at 5 past?

[Vertigowooyay]

Can we just let the scheduler for TCM take a bow for their Jan 20th line up?

A4C18FEE-AB69-4B8A-B0CB-90EAF8ECCE24.png (19.7 KiB) Viewed 2000 times

52109A04-F1C7-41B0-9A98-E847383F83CF.png (19.97 KiB) Viewed 2000 times

[dyqik]

One of those was made before Biden was born.