He’s like a code-filled zombie, steadily enacting long-ago ways, while dead to the present’s need for new ones.
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pretty much everyone i know already lives that way. think all these people who are currently called “front line workers” – grocery workers, nursing home workers, nurses working for private equity hospitals – will have any options other than to work till they drop of old age?
no savings because the rent is so high and wages are so low. no pensions because no unions ( or barely any )
nobody i know feels like social security will provide a retirement. it already seems its just padding for those who have other ways to save.
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Not to mention all the exploited “entrepreneurial” workers, patching together a precarious, anxiety-ridden existence from their various “gigs” and “side hustles.”
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They really shouldn’t. It was always intended to be a last-ditch programme to ensure that old people didn’t end up on the street and eating out of trashcans like they did during the first years of the Great Depression. It was never intended as a state pension, but it’s a critical programme that has effectively functioned as “padding” in the way you describe.
As I’ve said elsewhere here, I suspect the plan in both party establishments is to phase out Social Security and other programmes and replace them with a neoliberal-friendly UBI that will still keep 80-90% of Americans working until they drop while enriching landlords and large corporations.
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President-elect Joe Biden is signaling that he’s ready to move quickly with nominating judges once he’s sworn into office. And he specifically wants Democratic senators to recommend nominees to him who are diverse, not just in terms of race or gender, but professionally ― something progressives have been clamoring for for years.
“With respect to U.S. District Court positions, we are particularly focused on nominating individuals whose legal experiences have been historically underrepresented on the federal bench, including those who are public defenders, civil rights and legal aid attorneys, and those who represent Americans in every walk of life,” reads the Dec. 22 letter.
Promising start.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/12/31/top-10-questions-for-neera-tanden/
1. You supported an attack on Libya that proved fraudulently marketed, illegal, and catastrophic in results, after which you argued in an email to your colleagues for trying to force Libya to pay via oil profits for the privilege of having been bombed. You wrote that this would be a good solution to a U.S. budget deficit. One of your colleagues replied that such a policy might create a financial incentive for attacking more countries. What countries, if any, would you most favor attacking and then billing for the service?
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Facebook and Ethics. Two words which should never appear together unless the work lacking is involved. A rule. It is known.
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I can’t quite tell if Team Biden is going for some “hair of the dog” approach here, or if Hertz is a semi-disgruntled “I know where [some or all of] the bodies are buried” Fb ex-retainerer who would be able to hold her own in her new position against the utter shitshow that is Fb. Maybe it’s one of those “she’s a bastard, yeah, but she’s our bastard” kinda deals.
She’s a Harvard lawyer with a JD from U of Chicago, and clerked for Justice Sotomayor. She’s married to an attorney for Oracle. She was associate general counsel for Fb “until recently.”
I shoulda gone for a minor in practical Kreminology in U.S. politics, but my university didn’t offer that. 
I’m already squicked looking at Biden’s choice of Vilsack for head of U.S. Dept of Ag. His career history includes (surprise!) plenty of corporate shillery if that’s a word:
… during his previous occupation of the post, he was responsible for the ongoing, historical, well-documented mistreatment of American black farmers and he didn’t help family farmers much either.
The secretary of agriculture is an underrated and important Cabinet member whose work intersects with climate change, workers’ safety, racial justice, antitrust, rural development, and of course, feeding the country.
Yikes.
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What flavor is Iran Contra? Or Ignoring the AIDS Crisis?
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Blood and ashes?
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Seriously. Why are they even mentioning that name? Is this some kind of candy kiss-up to conservatives? 
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What flavor is race baiting or aligning with far right religious figures?
Yes.
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(Hey Mitch, fuck you!)
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I’m curious to see, once the next Congress and Biden’s administration get sworn in, if several of his picks have arcs that go like Tom Wheeler’s. As in: Their initial proposals are garbage. The public reacts to those proposals loud enough and it turns out (in surprising fashion) that the cabinet pick or appointee is someone that’s responsive to the people rather than moneyed interests.
If enough organizing and action occurs, in numbers too big to ignore and volume too loud to drown out, we could wind up with almost all of the administration’s cabinet picks and appointees acting as truly responsible civil servants that take their job and oath seriously.
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… oh yeah, there’s gonna be a new president in a week. How’s that going?
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I don’t know much about Eric Lander but I like the sound of a cabinet-level science advisor.
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