Wow Joe Biden just made it illegal to ask a question that’s really more of a comment pic.twitter.com/MAXTTWtBr0
— Eric Haywood (@EricHaywood) January 22, 2021
President Joe Biden signed executive orders to fight the economic fallout of the pandemic. The orders would speed the delivery of pandemic stimulus checks to needy families and increase food aid for children who normally rely on school meals https://t.co/9RMg8L5Tlv pic.twitter.com/mYdywMPfLv
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 23, 2021
While Republicans are running their "unity" scam in the media, Biden just rolled out new policies that would channel large amounts of resources into rural America — into Trump country. I looked at how these policies constitute *actual* unifying efforts:https://t.co/5oTs2lTP4s
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) January 22, 2021
I don’t know, it seems like based on the last 24 hours things are running pretty smoothly and everyone is on the same page about next steps https://t.co/aHrRHfjHZ5
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) January 21, 2021
Opinion | Biden’s approach to covid-19: Flood the zone https://t.co/163exEbkxn
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 23, 2021
Federal flood protection standard is back. "President Biden’s forward-looking decision is acknowledgement that building to the climate of the past is no longer tenable." ?@joelscataNRDC? & ?@NRDC? https://t.co/Sd5oqgXLE7
— Rob Moore (@RobMooreNRDC) January 22, 2021
The fact that Biden has undone like a quarter of Trump's legacy in under a day shows how weak Trump was and how he was forced to resort to the president's most ephemeral powers.
— Tentin Quarantino (@agraybee) January 21, 2021
Still dazzled by the inauguration show? Here’s how it came together, and why Tom Hanks looked so cold. https://t.co/5nMzA869by
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 22, 2021
And one excellent read, now that we’ve stopped holding our breath…
… The concert was a triumph: a rousing call for American unity through soaring pop songs and tributes to people caring for their community.
The production? An unprecedented logistical puzzle that had to be solved in less than six weeks. The team faced a deeper challenge beyond the daunting details: how to reinvent the look and feel of a long-held national tradition — to give meaning to absence, incorporating both grief and optimism; to dazzle the 10.5 million TV viewers who watched the concert as it aired…
Every song was chosen for the story it told, says Elrod. That included Demi Lovato’s performance of Bill Withers’s “Lovely Day,” which the singer had never performed in public before, and learned only a few days before inauguration, says Elrod. And that moment where President Biden bopped along to the song with his baby grandson, Beau?
“Him holding his grandson was not planned,” says Elrod. “It was a beautiful moment because it was authentic.” (“LOVE YOU,” Lovato wrote on Instagram, with an image of the president watching her perform.)…
In normal times, only the people who shell out for pricey tickets get to attend inaugural balls — and those jaded ballgoers complain about how the food was bad and the coat check was slow, anyway. The inaugural concert was a great equalizer: Everyone got the same view of Katy Perry’s outfit. No one got blisters from hours of wearing heels. The production team hopes it will start a tradition.
“I think it’s important going forward that there be plenty of content to make people feel that no matter where they live, no matter if they can afford to travel to Washington, D.C. — do they feel like they can be a part of this?” says Elrod…
There were more than 20,000 fireworks, says Adam Biscow, whose Nashville company, Strictly FX — they do the fireworks at the Super Bowl, which explains the oomph factor — collaborated on the pyrotechnics with New Jersey’s Garden State Fireworks. They set up two launch sites — one near the Washington Monument, the other on the Tidal Basin — to accommodate the disparate camera angles for both Perry and the president. But having two locations made the show seem bigger…
The other reason the display was so grand: “As we started booking more acts, the finale compressed into just Katy’s song,” says Kirshner, but the number of fireworks remained the same.
“Typically that would be a 30- or 40-minute display, and they literally wanted to compress into four minutes,” says Biscow.
“Honestly,” says Kirshner, “we got a lot of bang for our buck.”
Saturday Morning Open Thread: Begin As You Mean to Go OnPost + Comments (229)