Shortly before holding a candle lighting ceremony and a moment of silence at the White House honoring the more than 500,000 Americans who have died from COVID-19 thus far, President Biden delivered emotional remarks in which he spoke of his personal experience with grief while empathizing with families who lost loved ones amid the pandemic.
What, no coverage of the Mar-e-Coli memorial?
Biden’s Revolution Is Doing What Obama and Clinton Did Not
‘MAKE ME DO IT’
One month in, the 46th president is respecting the left even when it wants to go further than he will, and he’s dismissing bad-faith conservative complaints about his agenda.
Michael Tomasky
Special Correspondent
Updated Feb. 22, 2021 7:12AM ET / Published Feb. 22, 2021 4:05AM ET
We’re one month and change into the Biden presidency, and let’s just say it. He’s been staggeringly good. He has way surpassed my expectations. And it’s small wonder he has a 63 percent approval rating. Most people like what they see.
What’s he done, in big-picture terms? Three things. First and foremost, he and his team are not letting themselves be bullied by the economic supply-siders and neoliberals who’ve spent the last few decades transferring $50 trillion in wealth from the middle class to the rich.
Second, the Biden team understands that the standard Beltway definition of bipartisanship is useless with today’s Republican Party. The Biden people get that congressional Republicans don’t even really represent most rank-and-file Republicans anymore—hence these polls showing significant support even among Republicans for most aspects of the COVID relief bill. This administration shows every sign of not letting itself get suckered into the false promise of trying to win Republican votes that aren’t likely to materialize.
Third, they don’t have contempt for Democrats to their left, which is a great thing to see. History tells us pretty clearly in my view that progress is made in this country when activists on the left go out and agitate and change public opinion and liberals codify that change by writing laws. The Biden people clearly agree with this view.
more…
I am grateful for this man in this moment. Nothing can undo the 500,000 deaths. We can only mourn.
I don’t personally know anyone who’s died. But I know what sorrow is. Biden knows it all too well, and my God can he speak to it. Fifty years ago he found a way, for his surviving children’s sake, to keep his sanity and find a positive way forward. A half a million dead is a terrible toll, but it helps that Joe is there to help us deal with it. The nation showed its unreliable but familiar intuitive wisdom choosing him.
This language is going to bother no one more than those who deny that neoliberalism exists.
“It is what it is.”
vs.
“We can’t accept such a cruel fate.”
I know which side of that equation I want to be on.
My family and friends have been fortunate enough to have been untouched so far, but the man can get me misty-eyed anyway. This won’t be the last time Joe Biden needs to celebrate a horrible coronavirus milestone, but let it be one of the last.
A little late.
We passed the 500,000 COVID deaths six days ago, back on February 16.
We currently have 28,822,352 confirmed cases and 512,477 deaths from COVID-19 in 359 days, which is more than 172 attacks on 9/11.
Averaging 3,009 COVID deaths per day since Dec 1, that translates into another 9/11 attack every 0.98 days.
With 512,477 deaths in 359 days from COVID-19 and averaging 3,009 deaths per day since Dec 1, it’s now the leading cause of deaths in the United States.
The previous leading cause of death – heart disease – was 1,774 deaths per day according to the CDC.
For context, 512,477 deaths from COVID-19 in just 359 days, is more than the total U.S. combat deaths (506,837) during the 49 years and 23 days fighting in the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea and World War II … combined.
Trump’s Legacy, Forever:
Amen, mattinpa
This is how a real President handles the results of this catastrophe, and we see in many other ways how he is mobilizing the government, industry, and society to combat the catastrophe itself.
I hope they are all successful, since doing something has to have better results than doing nearly nothing.
I watched in awe, about what one person can do to bring us together in grief. I didn’t make comparisons with the other guy, as he was in a position to blunt the impacts of the virus… and did nothing. There is no better man to help us recover, and feel the loss, than Joe Biden. I have lost a family member to Covid. I have close friends who have suffered loss due to this virus. We need to remember each person. Each loss. Redouble our efforts to prevent more loss. Joe reminds us we can do better.
We often hear people described as ordinary Americans. There’s no such thing. There’s nothing ordinary about them. The people we lost were extraordinary,” Biden said. “They spanned generations. Born in America, immigrated to America. But just like that so many of them took their final breath alone in America.”
I believe the way to honor the victims of Covid is to always remember them, as we do the victims on 9/11, to work hard to defeat or at least control Covid, and to vote for people who believe in government and in good governance. We simply cannot let this happen again, and we have the power as citizens to ensure it doesn’t.
exactly, no hype, no bull shit, just out working his ass off. note it has been a month and zero vacation, golf, “executive” time, refreshing…
I didn’t hear him speaking but with reading some of his thoughts I have tears. Might of been the beer with dinner. Yeah, that’s it.
Jim Clyburn knew…and I am glad that he made his SC Primary endorsement in a setting that is familiar to Jim and Joe.
In my eyes, It was, essentially, Over when that happened.
He was the only one who could have beaten Trump. And Trump knew it. For a long time. Amazing that.
George, thanks for passing this along. I will share this with family members…and I will always connect you with the unwavering faith in Stacey Abrams and the voters of Georgia with Ossoff and Warnock when so many people counted them out.
OT: More of this please.
