This week in America

Some of the best reading on the new administration: from a fighting "comma-la" to Lady Gaga

David Smith comments on the enormous significance of the inauguration of Joe Biden.

He writes: "Many hope that the bipartisan tableau will herald a return to political norms and a turning of the page after four years of turmoil under Trump, who has announced that he will be the first president in 150 years to boycott the ceremonial handover to his successor."

See the full article here: https://www.theguardian.com/us...

But already the importance of building and maintaining good relations between the White House and Congress has been evident in responses to his planned covid rescue plan. From the same paper, Maanvi Singh writes that he will face resistance from both his own party, in the shape of both conservative (who question the need for a another huge package) and liberal factions (who feel the President elect's proposals don't go far enough), as well as Republicans on the other side of the aisle.

See here for further reading: https://www.theguardian.com/us...

I also came across this online extract from the VPOTUS elect's book. From the publisher's US website, we learn that her thoughts on the Trump years: "In the years since, we’ve seen an administration align itself with white supremacists at home and cozy up to dictators abroad; rip babies from their mothers’ arms in grotesque violation of their human rights; give corporations and the wealthy huge tax cuts while ignoring the middle class; derail our fight against climate change; sabotage health care and imperil a woman’s right to control her own body; all while lashing out at seemingly everything and everyone, including the very idea of a free and independent press."

And how she plans to change the US:

"We cannot build an economy that gives dignity and decency to American workers unless we first speak truth; that we are asking people to do more with less money and to live longer with less security. Wages haven’t risen in forty years, even as the costs of health care, tuition, and housing have soared. The middle class is living paycheck to paycheck.

We must speak truth about our mass incarceration crisis—that we put more people in prison than any country on earth, for no good reason. We must speak truth about police brutality, about racial bias, about the killing of unarmed black men. We must speak truth about pharmaceutical companies that pushed addictive opioids on unsuspecting communities, and payday lenders and for-profit colleges that have leeched on to vulnerable Americans and overloaded them with debt. We must speak truth about greedy, predatory corporations that have turned deregulation, financial speculation, and climate denialism into creed. And I intend to do just that."

Source: https://www.penguinrandomhouse...

Quite radical words.

Oh, and: "...my name is pronounced “comma-la,” like the punctuation mark."

And of Inauguration Day itself, here is an idiot's guide: https://www.theguardian.com/us...