The Biden Administration (No Lago)

[angelfromanotherpin]

The part where you keep simultaneously:

i) Admitting that your specific claim of Kamala not making issue opinions for months was not true or intended to be seen as true; and also
ii) Trying to discredit any evidence that contradicts that claim as 'staff work' or something

is really weird.

But it's not as weird as the part where you claim that I'm somehow defending any of Kamala's positions or actions or inactions. As far as I'm aware, that's a thing that exists entirely inside your head, dude.

[Kaelik]

The part where you keep simultaneously:

i) Admitting that your specific claim of Kamala not making issue opinions for months was not true or intended to be seen as true; and also
ii) Trying to discredit any evidence that contradicts that claim as 'staff work' or something

is really weird.

The part where you keep pretending that a criticism of the VP elect who is a sitting senator for not you know, using their position in the senate to actually do things is somehow a fake criticism because their website has posts that have nothing to do with the current actions of the Senate is really pathetic.

If Kamala Harris was a blogger maybe it would make sense to argue that she really can't be criticized for not weighing in on important issues because her blog posts them. But she's a senator, so blogging isn't actually using her power to weigh in. If she was having daily press conferences or you know, speaking on the floor of the senate, that would be an example of her weighing in on things.

I don't personally know that her staff even has posted statements on her website, because absolutely no one in the entire world cares if they have even you. But literally no amount of PR statements would in fact demonstrate that she was doing her job as Senator.

But it's not as weird as the part where you claim that I'm somehow defending any of Kamala's positions or actions or inactions. As far as I'm aware, that's a thing that exists entirely inside your head, dude.

Hey wow fucked up that you think me explicitly defending Kamala Harris from correct criticism is some kind of defense of Kamala Harris. I'm just posting defenses of Kamala Harris. Can't believe you would think I think Kamala Harris should be defended!

Yes, everyone can see that your weirdly stupid bad faith pretending not to understand sentences to defend Harris is you defending Harris.

[angelfromanotherpin]

The part where you keep pretending that a criticism of the VP elect who is a sitting senator for not you know, using their position in the senate to actually do things is somehow a fake criticism because their website has posts that have nothing to do with the current actions of the Senate is really pathetic.

You're the one who keeps insisting that the only evidence I might present must be website posts. Just saying.

If she was having daily press conferences or you know, speaking on the floor of the senate, that would be an example of her weighing in on things.

Okay, so how many of those would I have to link from the last few months for you to retract your criticism? How many times does a thing have to actually happen before you won't characterize it as 'none at all'?

edit:

Hey wow fucked up that you think me explicitly defending Kamala Harris from correct criticism is some kind of defense of Kamala Harris. I'm just posting defenses of Kamala Harris. Can't believe you would think I think Kamala Harris should be defended!

You assume the correctness of your own criticism. I can point out that your criticism is full of shit without endorsing the person you're criticizing. That you can't make that distinction is troubling.

[Kaelik]

Okay, so how many of those would I have to link from the last few months for you to retract your criticism? How many times does a thing have to actually happen before you won't characterize it as 'none at all'?

Why don't you try with literally any at all and see. Spoiler alert, the answer is you won't be able to do it because you are too busy, as here, pretending you don't understand things in bad faith, so you are incapable of addressing my complaints.

That's the disadvantage to being deliberately dumb as shit. You will be too busy posting a video her saying "Present" for the continuing resolution to fund the government or praising a Raytheon executive and saying "look WORDS" to ever even try pointing to any instance of Harris using her power in the senate. But by all means, instead of pretending you don't understand sentences for the third or fourth or fifth time, if you are so sure you can show Kamala Harris using her power as the VP elect in the Senate, why not just do that?

I'm sure other readers will totally be convinced by your very good examples. You should definitely do that!

You assume the correctness of your own criticism. I can point out that your criticism is full of shit without endorsing the person you're criticizing. That you can't make that distinction is troubling.

"I'm just taking time out of my day to pretend I don't understand sentences in defense of this person. I'm not ENDORSING them." Cool. Literally no one said you were endorsing them.

Literally one post ago what you had to say was "somehow defending any of Kamala's positions or actions or inactions" was a thing you weren't doing. To which point remains, that you definitely were defending her from my criticism and still are.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Well, I have (twice now) asked how much evidence to the contrary would get you to retract a statement, and apparently the answer is 'I can only imagine you providing meaningless bullshit and also I am moving the goalposts.' I mean, your original statement was about issue opinions and now you are talking about 'using her power as VP-elect in the Senate' and those are very much not the same thing. Since you refuse to commit to a standard of evidence that you'll accept, either in quality or quantity, I don't think there's any point in continuing.

I won't be interrupting your Two Minutes' Hate any more.

[Kaelik]

Well, I have (twice now) asked how much evidence to the contrary would get you to retract a statement, and apparently the answer is 'I can only imagine you providing meaningless bullshit and also I am moving the goalposts.' I mean, your original statement was about issue opinions and now you are talking about 'using her power as VP-elect in the Senate' and those are very much not the same thing. Since you refuse to commit to a standard of evidence that you'll accept, either in quality or quantity, I don't think there's any point in continuing.

I won't be interrupting your Two Minutes' Hate any more.

My post that you first responded to was about the current veto override in the senate for military spending and how Sanders and Markey are using it to get $2000 checks while the democratic establishment such as the Minority Whip are trying to avoid giving people checks because military funding and their vacations are more important and that Kamala Harris has nothing to say on the issue.

I understand that you exists solely as a bad faith attempt to pretend that all conversations about about your inability to understand the word literally when used in a figurative manner but actually no amount of "evidence" of something unrelated to my point could ever convince me my point is incorrect and your constant need to reframe the conversation to avoid what I was talking about demonstrates that you will never provide evidence related to what I actually said.

"using her power as VP elect in the Senate" about specifically this one issue, the military spending veto override filibuster to get $2k checks was in fact the ENTIRE point I was making in the post you replied to. If you want to talk about something else, then I'm not moving the goal posts.

In fact, the very sentence that you are quoting half of includes the words "used her new found power and prominence as the number 2 Democrat in the country and still being in the Senate to" which to anyone not engaging solely in bad faith should have tipped them off to the fact that rest of the sentence probably has something to do with their position as senator and VP elect, not just whether they called their kids on their birthday.

But it's okay, just keep swearing up one side and down the other that the evidence totally exists that Kamala Harris has been doing things without posting it because you don't actually know of a single thing she has done in the last two months and are afraid if you look you won't find anything that doesn't make you look really stupid for defending her as actually engaging on the issue.

[PhoneLobster]

So if Angel can just technically get Kaelik to say that Kamala hasn't even made an appearance at the Empty Motherhood Statement Foundation and it turns out she HAS, kinda, on Twitter or Quibi or something!!! Oh boy oh boy! What very real and important egg will be on Kaeliks face then.

The empty motherhood statement foundation twitter post or whatever is a big deal that deserves a lot of build up so it doesn't misfire and become an embarrassing anticlimax or something.

So better talk it up super hard for a few dozen posts first.

People will then DEFINITELY believe Kamala Harris of all people, someone who accepted the role of VP to Joe Biden, of all people, has unrelenting political virtue. That she never ever backs down for personal advancement *cough* Joe Biden segregationist record *cough*. This exact lack of integrity certainly it might not be the one thing she is very well known for other than her comedically bad record as an AG and prosecutor.

Yep. Kamala Harris, a politician you should and even can defend. You just need Kaelik to say exactly the right thing to activate your trap card first then it's definitely all fixed and not terrible!

[deaddmwalking]

I just want to go on record saying this whole thread is bullshit. It's a perfect example of making the perfect the enemy of the good. Magical rainbow land of full socialism was never an option and won't be without revolution.

Biden may not have been the best candidate, but he won the primary and won the general election. That's a huge relief to me. I had real concerns that we could survive 4 years of Trump. There's clearly lasting damage to our democracy, and I'm afraid of what that means. But Biden means we at least have a chance to build toward incremental improvements.

It's my cherished belief that EVERYONE should get a chance to bitch and moan. Even male porn stars should be able to complain that their work is too hard and they're tired of getting chaffed. But every now and again it's good to have some perspective.

I think most people recognize the complaint of 'so and so isn't doing enough to advance my agenda' is very different from 'so and so is literally separating children from their parents and losing them'.

I don't know what the next four years holds, but I fervently believe that it will be better than the last four years.

[MGuy]

I just want to go on record saying this whole thread is bullshit. It's a perfect example of making the perfect the enemy of the good. Magical rainbow land of full socialism was never an option and won't be without revolution.

Biden may not have been the best candidate, but he won the primary and won the general election. That's a huge relief to me. I had real concerns that we could survive 4 years of Trump. There's clearly lasting damage to our democracy, and I'm afraid of what that means. But Biden means we at least have a chance to build toward incremental improvements.

It's my cherished belief that EVERYONE should get a chance to bitch and moan. Even male porn stars should be able to complain that their work is too hard and they're tired of getting chaffed. But every now and again it's good to have some perspective.

I think most people recognize the complaint of 'so and so isn't doing enough to advance my agenda' is very different from 'so and so is literally separating children from their parents and losing them'.

I don't know what the next four years holds, but I fervently believe that it will be better than the last four years.

This is a perfect example of my point from earlier.

... When I talk to normal liberals I can get them to agree with me on most things. The issue is what they think is within the realm of possibility. For liberals 'right now' seems to be the only time that's ever existed and things like people's history, inclinations, and actually convincing people of anything seems to be off the table. It's a lot like talking to a Trumpist except that where a Trump supporter will drum up lies and present them as facts these more center leaning folks will look at the same facts I'm looking at and look at them in a fundamentally different way.

So I can talk to one of these people and we can both note that 'hey it's kind of fucked up that Biden keeps talking down to any activist/person that challenges him'. My take away will be that Biden is a prideful man who doesn't actually care about the people he's talking to. A liberal's take seems to be 'Eh, he's not Trump and that's all that counts'. Which is worrisome. It makes me 'feel' that my fellow Democrat is not as energized to remove someone like Biden from office. If these normal Democrats continue to shrug their shoulders at things like this, lack of competence among the dem leadership, etc then I, a leftist, am doomed to have to watch this cycle repeat over and over again...

So people like this will complain about kids in cages and promptly forget that Biden was in office when the cages were being built. The political landscape 'right now' is all they can focus on. They will 'hope' that something better comes along in the future but have no interest in helping a better future along. They are more offended by the act of pointing how bad the deal they made was more than they are offended by the fact that they had to make a bad deal. So any dumb actions, or lack of action taken, by the Biden administration will be seen as perfectly fine because, in their mind, it cannot be any other way.

[PhoneLobster]

I just want to go on record saying this whole thread is bullshit. It's a perfect example of making the perfect the enemy of the good...
...I don't know what the next four years holds, but I fervently believe that it will be better than the last four years.

Many people long since warned dumb asses like you that Biden was a BAD option, not a less worse kinda good one, a bad one in it's own right. If you gave a shit about reality you would want to keep a close eye on what he actually does from the beginning to see if that warning was true.

Now if you didn't care about reality and just wanted to comfort yourself emotionally you would I don't know, pull out some bullshit content free diversion about perfect vs good, ignore Biden's actions, demand everyone else ignore Biden's actions, and declare Biden a probable moral victory maybe you don't want to check and people should stop checking and shut up because it hurts your feelings.

But as long you firmly believe the next four years will definitely better then damn sure on that basis people should shut the fuck up about what is actually happening as those four years roll out because you don't want to hear that shit. Right?

And you want to make that demand at the very very first obviously bad things that happen because you are so thin skinned about how bad Biden is. It's almost like you KNOW that this isn't a perfect vs good situation at all but cannot cope with that fact.

[Kaelik]

I think most people recognize the complaint of 'so and so isn't doing enough to advance my agenda' is very different from 'so and so is literally separating children from their parents and losing them'.

This is the funniest fucking thing that anyone has ever said.

"My Agenda" is providing homes for homeless people, so if someone is not advancing that, they are making people homeless.

"My Agenda" is providing people with healthcare, so if someone is not advancing that they are killing the people who die from lack of healthcare.

"My Agenda" is creating a democracy in the United States, so if someone is not advancing that they are anti democratic.

"My Agenda" is fighting to abolish the violent tools of white supremacy putting people in concentration camps so if someone is not advancing my agenda they are helping put people in camps.

Which by the way, is a thing Joe Biden will continue to be doing, because one of the things I talked about in this thread is that Joe Biden's advisors are currently telling people that despite Biden's promise to on day 1 reverse Trump's border policy changes that he won't be doing that! He won't be starting that process, he won't be doing the executive order, and he damn sure won't be putting people in charge who are willing to do what is necessary to stop it. So Joe Biden will in fact be "literally separating children from their parents and losing them" because they don't think it's a good idea to RUSH INTO changes on the border and they don't think it's a good idea to change the people doing the children caging on the border at all.

So even before how locking kids in cages who were separated from their parents (by someone else) was the US policy during the Obama administration and the best case we can get during the Biden admin is "locking kids up in concentration camps, but WITH their parents" EVEN THAT WON'T BE HAPPENING FOR A LONG TIME ACCORDING TO BIDEN'S TEAM.

The absolute delusion to say that people need to recognize the difference between doing the bad things that deadDM doesn't care about and doing the bad things deadDM does care about. Fuck off.

Being literally unable to do better things because you are constrained from doing so is a defense against accusations that you should have done better. The problem is that deadDM and Joe Biden don't believe that they should have to do as good as they could do. They believe that all the have to do is slightly better than Hitler and then everyone needs to shut up and praise them. This thread is about the things Joe Biden could do better with absolutely no one fucking stopping him but his conservative ideology and commitment that profits for the rich are more important than human welfare. DeadDM is very sure that absolutely no one should be upset about that, whether it's homeless people suffering any number of issues, immigrants in concentration camps being abused by CBP staff, immigrants being picked up off the street by ICE, black people in communities suffering under the weight of cop boots that Biden wants to buy fancier boots for, or the people of Venezuela who will soon enjoy the wonders of a US coup to install a right winger who will privatize their oil. To deadDM these are all people who need to shut up and stop complaining because Joe Biden is mildly less bad.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

I don't know what the next four years holds, but I fervently believe that it will be better than the last four years.

That's not a high fucking bar to cross, man. As long as there are still people dying due to the greed and negligence of our elected officials whom we have bestowed political power upon, then we are fucked up and stupid. Maybe Biden will engage in tokenism like appointing more black women to bomb hospitals or let trans people join the military to go shoot foreign children, but the war machine and medical industries will never stop ruining people's lives for money. As long as that's true, people are going to continue to be pissed off no matter how many bones some asshole in Washington tries and fails to toss them.
You can bitch about the perfect being the enemy of the good when we've arrived at the fucking good.

[deaddmwalking]

You can bitch about the perfect being the enemy of the good when we've arrived at the fucking good.

That's why I'm bringing this up here and now. You don't have to believe that this is a good outcome - just like Trump supporters don't have to believe that we've arrived at a good outcome.

But for all the complaining about what we have now, there's no reasoned discourse on how or why anyone would change the process. My 13 year old could explain why a parliamentary system would be more representative, but let's face it - if you're demanding revolution, Kaelik and company are the absolute worst ones to put in charge.

I'm not willing to throw out our Constitution and current political system for the HOPE that maybe the people who seize power will implement something better.

So let's be clear - bitching that the last election didn't deliver what you, personally, hoped for is exactly like going to a steak house, finding out that there are no vegan options on the menu, ordering the porterhouse rare, and then complaining that what you wanted all along was a vegan option. Why did you go to a steakhouse in the first place? Because you're not driving, and nobody else in the car felt like catering to your preferred tastes.

But really, that's what it'd be like if the Republican's won. Because the Democrats actually accept that there are vegetarians (and vegans) so you're at Applebees and you actually do have some things that are aimed at you. The only problem, you're more interested in telling your 'friends' that meat is murder.

That is to say, you (and I use that in the original collective sense it was meant in English) are being insufferable elist pricks who are more focused on why everyone else needs to just listen to you rather than accepting that your opinion isn't only shared by a small minority but that your opinion is rejected by a large majority. I can respect vegetarians and vegans, but I don't want them ordering for the table.

[Kaelik]

I guess deaddm is doing a challenge where each post is supposed to be stupider than the last.

Cant wait for the next entry about the hegelian dialectic of murdering half the homeless people.

[MGuy]

There's no reasoned discourse on how to change the process? The thread isn't about discussing possible changes in processes. It's about discussing what we have gotten ourselves into. Of course dead can't talk about what is being discussed here because that would be Nintendo hard to do without dismissing a helluva lot of concerns people that aren't him have. So what does he go with? Nonsense. "Yea we COULD have a system that would be better in literally all ways but could you then imagine that people I don't like might be in charge of it?!" Now let me make a meaningless appeal to the constitution with an argument that would've been used by people who wanted to make sure slaves didn't count as a whole person when they voted. Appealing to the constitution and then fearmongering about change? I am now wondering if dead is actually a conservative.

Added to that the steakhouse analogy is bad on so many fucking levels. Off the top of my head 1) Most people didn't have a fucking choice to be in this steakhouse so any complaints made are clearly valid 2) There was a vegan item on the table and people threw it away for no good reason 3) The reason given for throwing it away was because a lot of stupid people assured other gullible people that no one wanted what it came with despite something like 70-80% of those in the car being in favor of it 4) Anyone who complained that they didn't want to order anything had their morals called into fucking question. I could go on but god damn what a fucking braindead analogy to make. Even if you took it at face value the minute you back up and understand what is being represented in this analogy you wouldn't be able to get most people on board. Now it might not be a deliberate thing that deadDM is very specifically avoiding actually saying anything concrete when it comes to exactly what the demands of others are. As long as he keeps saying things like Dems > Reps and diminishing what people want to something vague and personal like an agenda or what 'personally' hoped for he doesn't have to actually verbalize what is being lost or fucked up.

The hilarious thing is that deadDM is actually giving away more than he thinks he is. He had absolutely no problem complaining about Trump for the time that we had him. He did not lecture people for being really ass pained that Trump was elected and further no complaint that people complained about him for his entire time in office. It is interesting to see someone rewrite history in their brain to fashion a narrative like this despite discontent with Trump's win setting off one of the largest global protests ever. If Trump had won again deadDM wouldn't be sitting here complaining about a Trump thread where we were talking about how shitty Trump was just because someone brought him to an Olive Garden.

[Pseudo Stupidity]

This Applebees fucking sucks, much like all Applebees. I wanted to go to Femboy Hooters (communism).

I can't wait for DeadDM's next post.

[Kaelik]

I would say that 1) The difference between Trump and Biden is less than the difference between Biden and Sanders in harm.

2) While it is really funny so far DeadDM has mentioned exactly one policy, and he got that wrong because Biden's team is making clear they will be continuing Trump's border policies.

3) Right now a bunch of the people complaining about Biden (elsewhere) are the people who advocated for him in the primary over Sanders, but are feeling betrayed by him..... being Joe Biden. While there is certainly the "I Told You So" response as Phone Lobster demonstrates, it is very sad to watch DeadDM just immediately file the people who are complaining that Biden has repudiated his campaign promises from both the primary and general election campaigns and stiffed supporters left and right in as literally people who should not be allowed to speak because who cares if Joe Biden is keeping Trump's border policies! He's Not Donald Trump!

[Kaelik]

Kamala Harris has expressed her opinion the issue of giving people $2000k checks. Her opinion is that she would like to pay Raytheon and go home for vacation and fuck poor people.

Markey, Merkley, Van Hollen, Warren, Wyden, and Sanders were the only democratic caucus members to vote against Mitch McConnell's Cloture motion to pay Raytheon and go home.

So if you are wondering if your democratic senator would rather poor people die than miss their vacation, the answer is yes if one of your senators is:

Kamala Harris, Baldwin, Blumenthal, Booker, Brown, Cantwell, Cardin, Carper, Casey, Coons, Masto, Duckworth, Durbin, Feinstein, Gillibrand, Hassaan, Heinrich, Hirono, Kaine, Kelly, Klobuchar, Leahy, Manchin, Menendez, Murphy, Murray, Peters, Reed, Rosen, Schatz, Schumer, Shaheen, Sinema, Smith, Stabenow, Tester, Udall, Warner, or Whitehouse.

I honestly though there would be a few democratic defectors and that most would vote against this as pretend principles because they knew it would fail, but apparently the democratic party just REALLY agrees that congress vacations are more important than people's lives.

But in a blast from the past, this vote will, on those pretend sorting algorithms that tell you who is more left vs right, tell you that Sanders and Markey and Warren are slightly more right wing because of this vote and Sinema, Coons, and Manchin who are slightly more LEFT wing because of this vote to put their vacation as more important than lives and help McConnell kill legislation.

[Wiseman]

As someone who's spent the last few years heavily depressed bordering on suicidal and is only just now starting to come out of it a bit and pay attention to things beyond Trump and Biden bad, what CAN we do to fix this shit? What activism or actions can we take to try and actually fix this shit? I know it's possible, but have no idea where to even start.

[MGuy]

Organize. That's what we need. The big issue I have with accelerationists or a lot of reformers is when they talk about how 'we' will rise up is that there is no 'we'. People like AOC are starting to do it in congress and its a slow process. A lot of what we as individuals can do is join local organizations and talk to people. Try to get into and support local activists or left leaning organizations. kaelik already says he contacts his local representatives and while I don't know how effective that is, with enough people doing it anything is possible. Basically we need a recognizable left and organizations that can effectively threaten to withhold or direct votes reliably. As long as we're all individual subjects blowing in the wind its incredibly hard to get a coherent message together and to reliably effect the electorate.

[Kaelik]

What we need to do is to convince people that the democratic establishment are in fact our enemies who want bad things that hurt us, as opposed to good things that help us. From there, we can move to pressuring them when that is appropriate and electing people who support our goals when that is appropriate.

While theoretically you can convince your normy lib friends and family and coworkers of this on your own, in practice you probably aren't equipped to do that alone and you definitely can't spend all the time with each needed to counteract the brainwashing of their media sources and general societal claims. What you want is a structured way to bring people around you into a group and to use that group to gather more people and push on issues. That means you probably want activism groups.

I recommend joining a local BLM or DSA chapter. If you live in the south west there are usually immigration activist groups. The important thing is you want a group that focuses on activism as a group of people, not one that has experts acting to address problems and uses it's members as a funding source, but that sort of distinction is usually easy to pick up from basic descriptions.

[Kevin Mack]

I do find it fasinating that depending who you talk to Biden is either only steps away from trump in terms of ideology or a full on communist.

[MGuy]

I do find it fasinating that depending who you talk to Biden is either only steps away from trump in terms of ideology or a full on communist.

If you talk to the right people you'll find that there are people who believe Biden is part of a cult that tortures babies in order to extract their essence for him and other Washington/Hollywood (((elites))) to imbibe as part of their satanic worship ritual. I wish I was joking.

[Kaelik]

I do find it fasinating that depending who you talk to Biden is either only steps away from trump in terms of ideology or a full on communist.

The biggest problem with Biden is that he is in some ways SIGNIFICANTLY better than Trump, but the vast majority of those are in his willingness to accept good things pushed on him by other people, and almost none of those are his actual priorities or things he is willing to fight for.

In areas of almost total executive power where congress can't do anything to stop him, like bombing countries, doing coups, and putting immigrants in concentration camps, he's almost identical to Trump. He is probably slightly better on the margins on immigration and slightly worse on the margins for most victims of US imperialism with a hopeful exception for Iran (though even that is probably only because he feels obligated to carry over Obama policy, not because he wouldn't personally be fine with continuing to escalate bullshit sanctions forever). But the differences are VERY marginal because he doesn't want to fire a single CBP officer even though more than half were in a facebook group where they talked about raping AOC, and his advisors are right now saying they don't want to actually change any policies at all until ...... no explanation given of why they wouldn't start immediately with whatever reforms they want to do. Or for example, US attempts to coup Venezuela that are bad dumb Trump things while Trump is in office, the same horrific CIA ghouls will be trying to install former coup figures and their henchmen, but it will be good now because democrats do it.

But in areas of for example, healthcare, or tax raises/vs cuts, or stimulus, a President Biden will sign legislation that congress passes which Trump would veto. But since democrats are busy prioritizing Loeffler and Perdue's ability to campaign over actually associating democrats with stimulus relief we probably won't see a Democratic congress in 2021 and even if we did Joe Manchin won't allow any law to pass that helps a single poor person except a single still underfunded stimulus.

But the important thing to realize here is that the president COULD actually be a tremendous force for good by using their almost total powers to systematically thwart the US military and CIA and CBP, and ICE, and FBI in their ongoing white supremacist and imperialist projects.

A President Sanders could, with a few picks (and supporting them when necessary), reduce more of the harm caused by the US than any president since FDR ever has by drastically reducing all the harm we already do to MOST of the world.

[Kaelik]

The Current fun news is that the Biden team released some disclosures, and while all of them are predictably bad, but the specific one everyone is focusing on is the one where Yellen was a bank regulator, then stopped being one, and started taking speaking fees from the Wall St. banks to which she regulated and presumably would regulate in the future. In this case at least 7 million dollars.

Now she will be in charge of regulating the people who paid her that again in the Biden admin.

Republicans may or may not be putting for bad faith attacks, I honestly don't waste my time keeping track, but all the democrats have turned on their defensive programming and are calling millions of dollars being paid to a once and future bank regulator by the banks she did and would regulate "good actually" exactly as you would expect if you paid any attention to democrats at all in the last 30 years.