Biden Tracker (2 Viewers)

MT15 said:

I don’t think it’s common, but it has happened before. You just aren’t old enough to remember the Vietnam War.

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You saying it has happened before doesn't make it true. If it happened before then show us when it happened. Even the guy at the Daily Beast who's job it is to cover Fox News said it's unprecedented.

SaintForLife said:

You saying it has happened before doesn't make it true. If it happened before then show us when it happened. Even the guy at the Daily Beast who's job it is to cover Fox News said it's unprecedented.

Pentagon Blasts Tucker Carlson for Dissing Military Women

The Department of Defense called out the Fox News blowhard after he said it was a “mockery of the U.S. military” to provide pregnant women with “maternity flight suits.”

www.thedailybeast.com

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It's actually highly unusual. I don't know for sure if he had approval do say what he said, but normally, unless you're the SecDef or CoCom, you better have approval from superiors before making those comments. I pretty much agree with his sentiment, but there's normally a process for making what could be construed as a political commentary from his place of employment.

Had I said something like that from my government position, I probably wouldn't be working right now.

SFL, there wasn’t any internet during the Vietnam War. I said it was unusual, but if you weren’t alive back then it’s hard to explain the tension between the military brass and the press.

It is unusual, but unprecedented is probably hyperbole. Carson’s remarks were also highly unusual, and he is just making it worse from what I have seen.

MT15 said:

SFL, there wasn’t any internet during the Vietnam War. I said it was unusual, but if you weren’t alive back then it’s hard to explain the tension between the military brass and the press.

It is unusual, but unprecedented is probably hyperbole. Carson’s remarks were also highly unusual, and he is just making it worse from what I have seen.

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Tucker is Tucker. Nothing surprises me from that snake. I love my TV, but I want punch it when I see his face on there. Yeech.

DaveXA said:

It's actually highly unusual. I don't know for sure if he had approval do say what he said, but normally, unless you're the SecDef or CoCom, you better have approval from superiors before making those comments. I pretty much agree with his sentiment, but there's normally a process for making what could be construed as a political commentary from his place of employment.

Had I said something like that from my government position, I probably wouldn't be working right now.

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Pretty sure he, Kirby, did, it was in prepared remarks, after talking COVID related issues. he also flat out said the SecDef shared the revulsion to the comments. Other service members, maybe.

"
And finally, I'd like to briefly address some recent comments made by the host of a popular cable show about who serves in the military, and what that service means. I want to be very clear right up front that the diversity of our military is one of our greatest strengths. I've seen it for myself in long months at sea and in the combat waged by our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. I've seen it up on Capitol Hill just this past month, and I see it every day here right at the Pentagon. One of the best decisions I ever made was becoming a Navy spouse myself; married to a terrific young naval officer who gave birth to our first child, and then went right back to work doing civil engineering for an airbase in Jacksonville.

We are better and more effective not only when we represent the American people -- all the American people -- but also, when we have the moral courage to include other perspectives and ideas into our decision-making; perspectives that, as the secretary himself noted Monday, are based on lived experience. It's that experience, and the professionalism and commitment of our people, that has always been our decisive advantage.

A major but specific contributor to that advantage are the women who serve, civilian and military alike, and today, they serve in just about every skill set we put to sea and in the field. They're flying fighter jets and commanding warships. They're leading troops on the ground. They're making a difference in everything we do because of what they bring to the effort.

To be sure, we still have a lot of work to do to make our military more inclusive, more respectful of everyone, especially women. We're proud that two great leaders like Generals Van Ovost and Richardson have been nominated to combatant command, but we recognize the lack of female leadership across the senior ranks. We pledge to do better and we will.

What we absolutely won't do is take personnel advice from a talk show host or the Chinese military. Now maybe those folks feel like they have something to prove; that's on them. We know we're the greatest military in the world today, and even for all the things we need to improve, we know exactly why that's so.

"

Later he, Kirby, was asked some follow up questions.

"

Q: On this subject, a number of follow-ups.

Is -- you haven't mentioned Tucker Carlson by name and I am curious why.

MR. KIRBY: I think you know who we're talking about. Yes, we're referring to what Mr. Carlson said in his monologue.

Q: Thank you.

My second question -- two additional questions. Does the secretary have a reaction to this?

And third, it's my understanding the Armed Forces Network does carry Tucker Carlson's show on your military broadcast distribution network. Will you -- there is some social media discussion that is -- is opposed to the continuing carrying of that show by the Pentagon. Will you continue to carry his show?

MR. KIRBY: The secretary certainly shares the revulsion of so many others to what Mr. Carlson said in his opening statement. And, yes, Tucker Carlson's show, as well as a lot of other programming, airs on Armed Forces Network. As I think you know, by instruction, we are required to broadcast and to make available for men and women and their families overseas the same type of content -- news, information, and sports content -- that their fellow citizens can get, so his show is aired on AFN."

and..

"
Q: I want to go back to the Tucker Carlson incident. You and the secretary are both political appointees, so you're held to a different status. But there are also -- there have also been a number of general officers who've gone onto social media to directly criticize/attack Tucker Carlson by name for -- for the piece that they didn't like. Is that sort of a proper behavior for serving officers to -- to get that sort of deep in the weeds? And is that some sort of new (CROSSTALK) --

MR. KIRBY: If you're asking -- if you're asking, does the secretary have concerns about the fact that active-duty leaders are also expressing their revulsion to these ridiculous comments, no, he doesn't have concerns about the -- their -- their willingness to do that.
"

Then he ended, going back to an earlier question (that I didn't quote here).

"MR. KIRBY: I don't have any updates on the Iraqi investigation.

Before I go, I want to go back to one question. This was Jeff's question about whether or not Mr. Carlson should apologize to all women in the military. Again, as I said, I won't speak for -- to that specifically, but I would hope that in the reaction he has seen, and hopefully in our reaction here today, that he'll realize the mistake he made and express some regret about the manner in which he essentially demeaned the entire U.S. military and how we defend and how we serve this country.

Okay. With that, see you."

wardorican said:

Pretty sure he, Kirby, did, it was in prepared remarks, after talking COVID related issues. he also flat out said the SecDef shared the revulsion to the comments. Other service members, maybe.

"
And finally, I'd like to briefly address some recent comments made by the host of a popular cable show about who serves in the military, and what that service means. I want to be very clear right up front that the diversity of our military is one of our greatest strengths. I've seen it for myself in long months at sea and in the combat waged by our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. I've seen it up on Capitol Hill just this past month, and I see it every day here right at the Pentagon. One of the best decisions I ever made was becoming a Navy spouse myself; married to a terrific young naval officer who gave birth to our first child, and then went right back to work doing civil engineering for an airbase in Jacksonville.

We are better and more effective not only when we represent the American people -- all the American people -- but also, when we have the moral courage to include other perspectives and ideas into our decision-making; perspectives that, as the secretary himself noted Monday, are based on lived experience. It's that experience, and the professionalism and commitment of our people, that has always been our decisive advantage.

A major but specific contributor to that advantage are the women who serve, civilian and military alike, and today, they serve in just about every skill set we put to sea and in the field. They're flying fighter jets and commanding warships. They're leading troops on the ground. They're making a difference in everything we do because of what they bring to the effort.

To be sure, we still have a lot of work to do to make our military more inclusive, more respectful of everyone, especially women. We're proud that two great leaders like Generals Van Ovost and Richardson have been nominated to combatant command, but we recognize the lack of female leadership across the senior ranks. We pledge to do better and we will.

What we absolutely won't do is take personnel advice from a talk show host or the Chinese military. Now maybe those folks feel like they have something to prove; that's on them. We know we're the greatest military in the world today, and even for all the things we need to improve, we know exactly why that's so.

"

Later he, Kirby, was asked some follow up questions.

"

Q: On this subject, a number of follow-ups.

Is -- you haven't mentioned Tucker Carlson by name and I am curious why.

MR. KIRBY: I think you know who we're talking about. Yes, we're referring to what Mr. Carlson said in his monologue.

Q: Thank you.

My second question -- two additional questions. Does the secretary have a reaction to this?

And third, it's my understanding the Armed Forces Network does carry Tucker Carlson's show on your military broadcast distribution network. Will you -- there is some social media discussion that is -- is opposed to the continuing carrying of that show by the Pentagon. Will you continue to carry his show?

MR. KIRBY: The secretary certainly shares the revulsion of so many others to what Mr. Carlson said in his opening statement. And, yes, Tucker Carlson's show, as well as a lot of other programming, airs on Armed Forces Network. As I think you know, by instruction, we are required to broadcast and to make available for men and women and their families overseas the same type of content -- news, information, and sports content -- that their fellow citizens can get, so his show is aired on AFN."

and..

"
Q: I want to go back to the Tucker Carlson incident. You and the secretary are both political appointees, so you're held to a different status. But there are also -- there have also been a number of general officers who've gone onto social media to directly criticize/attack Tucker Carlson by name for -- for the piece that they didn't like. Is that sort of a proper behavior for serving officers to -- to get that sort of deep in the weeds? And is that some sort of new (CROSSTALK) --

MR. KIRBY: If you're asking -- if you're asking, does the secretary have concerns about the fact that active-duty leaders are also expressing their revulsion to these ridiculous comments, no, he doesn't have concerns about the -- their -- their willingness to do that.
"

Then he ended, going back to an earlier question (that I didn't quote here).

"MR. KIRBY: I don't have any updates on the Iraqi investigation.

Before I go, I want to go back to one question. This was Jeff's question about whether or not Mr. Carlson should apologize to all women in the military. Again, as I said, I won't speak for -- to that specifically, but I would hope that in the reaction he has seen, and hopefully in our reaction here today, that he'll realize the mistake he made and express some regret about the manner in which he essentially demeaned the entire U.S. military and how we defend and how we serve this country.

Okay. With that, see you."

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Definitely some interesting comments there. Didn't ignore the questions, but obviously his responses were careful and measured. That last comment though, he says he wouldn't speak to that (Carlson apology) but then goes right into saying he essentially hopes Carlson sees the need to apologize. That was laying it on a bit too thick imo.

As for leaders expressing revulsion to the comments, the SecDef isn't gonna muzzle them, but, there's a catch. They can express them privately, But those leaders know that doing so publicly from their workplace won't be tolerated unless they have prior approval to do so from superiors. Obviously, they're not going to come out and state that publicly. But there are rules governing comments to the public while representing the DOD.

Put it this way. If I'm in that position, I'm not going to make those type of comments unless it's coming from a superior officer and appropriate of course.

SaintForLife said:

Only in the context of preventing another Covid spike which is on the rise now.

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You know I said in my original post we would revisit this topic in a month. We could then see who was right, and who was wrong. You seem to be saying you had this right all along. Let's go over it.

I remember your argument being we would see another spike(possibly caused by variant resistance, or virulence), and the reasoning being because we wouldn't have enough people vaccinated. The reason for not having enough people vaccinated was daily administered rate never climbing. You were pushing hard for the delayed 2nd shot. Don't agree with that summary? I can dig through your post if you really want.

My stance was the daily vaccination rate was going to climb dramatically. That the issue would end up being the anti-vaxx crowd. That there would be plenty of supply, and not enough demand in short order.

As far as covid being on the rise, I guess you can use the word "rise". The daily infection rate isn't moving much even with states lifting all restrictions. This is the current infection rate in a graph.




However, the daily vaccinated average is almost 3 million per day going by the 7 day average. That's almost double from when you made your original argument when the vaccination rate was 1.7 million. Louisiana, along with approximately 20 other states, has already lifted all restrictions on getting the vaccine before the end of March.

So what about the anti-vaxx crowd? Well, this news about 40% of Republicans say they won't get the vaccine: https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_r...cle_7d1a1d52-92f6-11eb-8673-77132814c4b5.html

You were wrong on the vaccine rollout. You have so far been wrong on vaccine resistant strains. You have been wrong on another spike. I don't know how you can claim otherwise. I had long forgotten this discussion until you downplayed the vaccine rollout you predicted would never happen.

What sucks about the anti-vaxxers is it looks like if we can just get to 50% of the population vaccinated the R0 goes below 1.

Uh oh, there's trouble in the WH...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/white-...bson-to-step-down-at-end-of-month-11618001762

Finally someone is falling on their sword for this administrations horrible and inept border policy. I am not sure she is the actual problem though, Harris has yet to even go visit the 'crisis' they created.

Farb said:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/white-...bson-to-step-down-at-end-of-month-11618001762

Finally someone is falling on their sword for this administrations horrible and inept border policy. I am not sure she is the actual problem though, Harris has yet to even go visit the 'crisis' they created.

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What makes you unsure that she was part of the problem?

Have you studied immigration policy and done an analysis of the current administration’s policies and the decisions made by those responsible for their implementation?

Or do you have Kamala derangement syndrome?

Farb said:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/white-...bson-to-step-down-at-end-of-month-11618001762

Finally someone is falling on their sword for this administrations horrible and inept border policy. I am not sure she is the actual problem though, Harris has yet to even go visit the 'crisis' they created.

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They forked up with the border and pretty clearly didn't think any of this shirt through thoroughly enough to realize that they were likely to create a sudden and sustained surge that they weren't prepared to deal with.

You've now broken the system worse than it already was so you had better figure out something now.

samiam5211 said:

What makes you unsure that she wasn’t part of the problem?

Have you studied immigration policy and done an analysis on the current administration’s policies and the decisions made by those responsible for their implementation?

Or do you have Kamala derangement syndrome?

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KDS! Historically, vice presidents do nothing, anyway. Pence didn't do much of anything aside from the Coronavirus Task Force and we all know how well that turned out.

samiam5211 said:

What makes you unsure that she wasn’t part of the problem?

Have you studied immigration policy and done an analysis on the current administration’s policies and the decisions made by those responsible for their implementation?

Or do you have Kamala derangement syndrome?

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Unless I've missed something(s), which is entirely possible and I'm fine being corrected.. it does seem like she's been kind of MIA publicly in regards to speaking about what's going on or visiting holding facilities, the border itself, etc.

Brandon13 said:

They forked up with the border and pretty clearly didn't think any of this shirt through thoroughly enough to realize that they were likely to create a sudden and sustained surge that they weren't prepared to deal with.

You've now broken the system worse than it already was so you had better figure out something now.

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They say she was scheduled to leave after 100 days all along. I guess I’ll take them at their word on that.

If Trump was president, 2021 would still have been near the highest numbers we’ve seen in the past 20 years.

The numbers only went down during Trumps first year. It was going up ever since until covid hit.

The covid backlog would be coming now even if Trump was the president. I’m not saying Biden being president didn’t lead of an increase, but it’s not nearly as much as most people think.

Unaccompanied minors crossing the border have not been treated any differently since about 2012 when a combination of anti trafficking laws and court decisions essentially made them all eligible for green cards.

This is why people are sending their children , and there isn’t anything any president can do about it without Congress passing some type of comprehensive immigration reform. We are still using the INA from 1964 plus a few patches we’ve made in 1986 and 1996, and a minor update in 2004.

Brandon13 said:

Unless I've missed something(s), which is entirely possible and I'm fine being corrected.. it does seem like she's been kind of MIA publicly in regards to speaking about what's going on or visiting holding facilities, the border itself, etc.

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I wasn’t defending her.

They don’t want to talk about what’s happening right now. The flood of kids didn’t wait for them to have time to build adequate facilities.

They don’t want to show a picture of today, because in a couple of weeks that picture will look much better.

Well fox will still be complaining, but they won’t be complaining about how poorly we are treating abandoned children. They will be saying that those aren’t our children, why do they deserve all that.

samiam5211 said:

They say she was scheduled to leave after 100 days all along. I guess I’ll take them at their word on that.

If Trump was president, 2021 would still have been near the highest numbers we’ve seen in the past 20 years.

The numbers only went down during Trumps first year. It was going up ever since until covid hit.

The covid backlog would be coming now even if Trump was the president. I’m not saying Biden being president didn’t lead of an increase, but it’s not nearly as much as most people think.

Unaccompanied minors crossing the border have not been treated any differently since about 2012 when a combination of anti trafficking laws and court decisions essentially made them all eligible for green cards.

This is why people are sending there children , and there isn’t anything any president can do about it without Congress passing some type of comprehensive immigration reform. We are still using the INA from 1954 plus a few patches we’ve made in 1986 and 1997.

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That's fair. And yes, I'll admit to not knowing that the numbers were lower than they were in 2019 under Trump.

samiam5211 said:

They say she was scheduled to leave after 100 days all along. I guess I’ll take them at their word on that.

If Trump was president, 2021 would still have been near the highest numbers we’ve seen in the past 20 years.

The numbers only went down during Trumps first year. It was going up ever since until covid hit.

The covid backlog would be coming now even if Trump was the president. I’m not saying Biden being president didn’t lead of an increase, but it’s not nearly as much as most people think.

Unaccompanied minors crossing the border have not been treated any differently since about 2012 when a combination of anti trafficking laws and court decisions essentially made them all eligible for green cards.

This is why people are sending there children , and there isn’t anything any president can do about it without Congress passing some type of comprehensive immigration reform. We are still using the INA from 1954 plus a few patches we’ve made in 1986 and 1997.

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Brandon13 said:

That's fair. And yes, I'll admit to not knowing that the numbers were lower than they were in 2019 under Trump.

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Though to also be fair, I just realized that that graph is not really current.. and that they say 172,000 apprehensions happened in March?! Wow.. I think that's a scary part about it more than anything, how quickly it's gotten there and how long will it take to reverse the trend?

Brandon13 said:

Though to also be fair, I just realized that that graph is not really current.. and that they say $172,000 apprehensions happened in March?! Wow.. I think that's a scary part about it more than anything, how quickly it's gotten there and how long will it take to reverse the trend?

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Yea, we’re hitting a parabolic curve. It will have to go down in a couple of months, but we’ve got a serious problem on our hands, and a potential humanitarian crisis in the making.

It’s not the time to worry about who’s fault it is.