______________________________
Imagine being willing to help states that didn't vote for you and spent tens of millions of dollars trying to nullify the election and funded terrorism against Congress to murder them to stop them from certifying the election you won
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/02/14/president-joseph-r-biden-jr-approves-texas-emergency-declaration/
President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Approves Texas Emergency Declaration
February 14, 2021 • Statements and Releases
Today, President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. declared that an emergency exists in the State of Texas and ordered federal assistance to supplement state and local response efforts due to the emergency conditions resulting from a severe winter storm beginning on February 11, 2021, and continuing.
The President's action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, and to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in all 254 Texas counties.
Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency. Emergency protective measures for mass care and sheltering and direct federal assistance will be provided at 75 percent federal funding.
Robert J. Fenton, Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Department of Homeland Security, named Jerry S. Thomas as the Federal Coordinating Officer for federal recovery operations in the affected areas.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION MEDIA SHOULD CONTACT: FEMA NEWS DESK AT (202) 646-3272 OR FEMA-NEWS-DESK@FEMA.DHS.GOV
______________________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/02/15/statement-by-president-joe-biden-on-the-2021-special-health-insurance-enrollment-period-through-healthcare-gov/
Statement by President Joe Biden on the 2021 Special Health Insurance Enrollment Period Through HealthCare.gov
February 15, 2021 • Statements and Releases
Health care is a right, not a privilege – and I will do everything in my power to ensure that all Americans have access to the quality, affordable health care they deserve. That is especially critical in the midst of a deadly pandemic that has already taken the lives of more than 470,000 of our fellow Americans and infected more than one out of every 12 additional Americans, often with devastating consequences to their health.
Starting today and running through May 15, 2021, we are opening HealthCare.gov for all Americans to have the opportunity to sign up for health insurance. Now, everyone will be able to use a special enrollment period to help secure some peace of mind as we work to beat the pandemic and strengthen and build on the Affordable Care Act.
As more Americans get covered, it is encouraging to see Congress moving quickly to pass the American Rescue Plan, which will ramp up testing, tracing, and our national vaccination program to get shots into as many arms as possible as quickly as we can. The American Rescue Plan will also take big steps to lower health costs and expand access to care for all Americans, including those who have lost their jobs. It will increase federal subsidies and decrease premiums in order to ensure that no one pays more than 8.5 percent of their income to purchase meaningful and comprehensive health coverage. And it incentivizes states to expand coverage to an additional four million people with low incomes, and provides states the opportunity to extend coverage for a year to low-income women who have recently given birth.
I encourage everyone who needs health insurance to go to HealthCare.gov from today through May 15. If you already have coverage, then help your family and friends sign up and enroll.
We will get through this crisis if we look out for one another and work together to expand coverage, lower costs, and ensure that health care truly is a right for all Americans.
______________________________
Lin Wood Doxed Georgia Officials to Hundreds of Thousands of QAnon Supporters
https://www.vice.com/en/article/7k9jd9/lin-wood-doxed-georgia-officials-to-hundreds-of-thousands-of-qanon-supporters
Blackouts are spreading across the central U.S. The Southwest Power Pool, which controls a power grid spanning 14 states from North Dakota to Oklahoma, ordered utilities to start rotating outages, after exhausting all other options | The brutal cold striking Texas -- ironically the capital of the U.S. energy industry and home of some of the world's largest oil and gas companies -- is emblematic of a world facing more unpredictable weather due to the rising impact of climate change. The outages underscore how as the globe moves away from fossil fuels into an all-electrified system that relies more and more on renewable energy, the grid becomes more vulnerable too. | Such weather conditions are very rare in much of Texas, and they have unleashed chaos on the ground. In Houston, the state's largest city, roads are iced over and there are long lines to refill household propane canisters. Firewood is selling out. Besides the human impact, the cold is wreaking havoc on the energy industry itself. Oil production in the Permian has dropped by 1 million barrels a day, helping U.S. crude prices to trade above $60 a barrel for the first time in more than year. The region's industrial plants built to cope torrid summers rather than arctic weather, and the biggest U.S. oil refinery went offline on Monday, reducing the supply of gasoline and other fuels.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-15/winter-s-fury-unleashes-brutal-cold-over-u-s-with-more-to-come
A Republican donor gave $2.5 million for a voter fraud investigation. He wants his money back. He says in a lawsuit that True the Vote did not spend his donations as it said it would, instead directing the money to people connected to the group's president. The account behind financier Fred Eshelman's donation to True the Vote provides new insights into the frenetic period when baseless claims led donors to give hundreds of millions of dollars to reverse the 2020 election results.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/true-vote-lawsuit-fraud-eshelman/2021/02/15/a7017adc-6724-11eb-886d-5264d4ceb46d_story.html
CA has now administered over 6 million shots. We're averaging over a million a week. And we now rank 7th in the world for vaccine administrations. Supply is our largest constraint.
https://www.kqed.org/news/11859259/newsom-says-california-still-not-receiving-nearly-enough-vaccine-doses-even-as-new-coronavirus-cases-plummet
Trump supporters held a rally in West Palm Beach today for the former president. About 600 people showed up in south Florida
http://weartv.com/news/nation-world/trump-supporters-hold-rally-in-west-palm-beach
"Jim Jordan called me crying, groveling, begging me to go against my brother, begging me, crying for a half-hour," DiSabato said Wednesday. "That's the kind of cover-up that's going on there."
https://www.si.com/more-sports/2020/02/12/jim-jordan-accused-cover-up-sexual-abuse-ohio-state
Historic winter storm batters nation's mid-section
https://www.accuweather.com/en/winter-weather/historic-winter-storm-batters-nations-mid-section/899860
Millions without power in Texas and one of its coldest nights on record ahead: Texas' power grid crumples under the cold
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/texas-power-grid-crumples-under-the-cold/
Iraq officials: Rockets strike outside airport near US base
https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-iraq-f3c981ad42d138a2df9a21b8ae7c39c8
An actual line in this letter they sent to their congressman cousin: "...you have lost the respect of Lou Dobbs, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Greg Kelly, etc., and, most importantly in our book, Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh and us!"
https://nytimes.com/2021/02/15/us/politics/adam-kinzinger-republicans-trump.html
Anthony Davis will be re-evaluated in two to three weeks after suffering a calf strain
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1361433026815811586
The Clippers have ruled out Paul George (right toe), Kawhi Leonard (left leg) and Patrick Beverley (rest) for tonight's home game against Miami
https://twitter.com/thesteinline/status/1361432206086971394
COVID-19 vaccinated individuals at All-Star -- per NBA health and safety -- are not required to undergo daily PCR testing following date of team's last game before All-Star Game through the date that the individual is required to report back to his or her team.
https://twitter.com/shamscharania/status/1361437550469140481
_________________________________
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/02/14/fbi-arrest-left-wing-violence/
The FBI warned about far-right attacks. Agents arrested a leftist ex-soldier.
By
Brittany Shammas and Gerrit De Vynck
Feb. 14, 2021 at 9:00 a.m. EST
TALLAHASSEE — Shortly after sunrise on Jan. 15, FBI agents descended with guns drawn on a squat, red-brick apartment complex here, broke open the door of one of the units and threw in a stun grenade, prompting the frightened property manager to call 911.
Inside the apartment, furnished with little besides books and a sign declaring "THE REVOLUTION IS NOT A PARTY," the agents found their target: a 33-year-old U.S. Army veteran and self-described "hardcore leftist" who had posted a flier on social media threatening to attack "armed racist mobs WITH EVERY CALIBER AVAILABLE."
The man, Daniel Baker, hardly fit the profile of those who had been expected to cause trouble in the run-up to President Biden's inauguration. After a mob of Donald Trump supporters invaded the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 in hopes of preventing Biden from taking office, the FBI had warned that far-right extremists were plotting armed marches in Tallahassee and other state capitals, as well as in D.C.
But Baker represents the flip side of that threat: As a far-right extremist movement wages an assault on American government and institutions, experts say an unpredictable battle is brewing, fueling potentially legitimate threats of violence from the opposite fringe of the political spectrum.
"It is ratcheting up and then getting a response and a back-and-forth," said Steven Chermak, a professor of criminal justice at Michigan State University.
Political violence remains far more common a feature of far-right groups than of those on the far left, according to law enforcement officials and data compiled by those who study extremist violence. Federal authorities have repeatedly described homegrown, right-wing extremists as the most urgent terrorism threat facing the nation.
But high-profile right-wing attacks could be spurring far-left extremists to respond in kind, Chermak said. And cases like Baker's can have a snowball effect, he said: Articles about Baker have been circulated online by members of the Proud Boys, a far-right group with a history of violence, who cite his arrest as evidence that left-wing activists are plotting against them.
"An important part of convincing people that there's an issue and there's truth to what you're saying is to hone in on an example or hone in on a particular case, and then that case becomes representative of a larger problem," Chermak said. "It's something to hang your hat on."
Despite warnings of violent plots around Inauguration Day, only a smattering of right-wing protesters appeared at the nation's statehouses. In Tallahassee, just five armed men wearing the garb of the boogaloo movement — a loose collection of anti-government groups that say the country is heading for civil war — showed up. Police and National Guard personnel mostly ignored them.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/state-capitals-national-guard-inauguration/2021/01/16/d010a97a-5833-11eb-89bc-7f51ceb6bd57_story.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/state-capitol-protests-small-trump/2021/01/17/327dc288-58c9-11eb-b8bd-ee36b1cd18bf_story.html
With no other significant law enforcement actions, Baker's arrest stands as one of the most dramatic events of that period.
A yoga devotee and advocate for the homeless who helped out at an arts center, Baker decried both Biden and Trump. Baker, a socialist idealist who volunteered to fight against Islamic State forces in Syria, also had traveled to Seattle last summer to support protesters for racial justice who briefly claimed an abandoned police precinct and declared the area around it an autonomous zone.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/seattle-police-clear-protest-zone/2020/07/01/10294366-bb98-11ea-8cf5-9c1b8d7f84c6_story.html
The Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol deepened Baker's belief that the United States was on the brink of civil war, according to court records, social media posts and interviews with Baker's friends. He felt certain that Tallahassee, where a man fueled by misogyny killed two women at a yoga studio in 2018 and a pickup truck driver accelerated through a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters last summer would see violence at the hands of far-right agitators. And he was convinced they had to be met with an armed resistance.
Public defender Randolph Murrell argued in court filings and during a Jan. 21 hearing that Baker's comments were "the product of the heated political dialogue of the day." They were no different, he said, from online posts by Republican officials telling their followers to "prepare for war" or to "take up arms" in the run-up to Inauguration Day. Baker's friends said he had a bombastic social media presence that he stepped up to match inflammatory right-wing rhetoric.
Those close to Baker say they see a double standard in his being targeted.
"None of his statement was saying 'On Inauguration Day, we're going to go out and hunt down all the right-wingers,'" said Warren Stoddard, who fought alongside Baker in Syria. "He said, 'We're going to stop people from taking the Florida Capitol.' And if no one went to the Florida Capitol, there's nothing to stop."
But the FBI agents who had been monitoring Baker's social media posts since October described him as being on a "path toward radicalization." They catalogued his Facebook musing about being "willing to do ANYTHING to ANYONE so I don't end up homeless and hungry again." They noted updates about "voting from the rooftops" and hoping "the right tries a coup on Nov. 3 cuz I'm so f------ down to slay enemies again." A post on his page in December announced, "Trump still plans on a violent militant coup. If you don't have guns you won't survive."
On Jan. 25, U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael J. Frank agreed that Baker posed a potential threat and ordered him held without bond, writing that the former soldier had "repeatedly endorsed violent means to advance the political beliefs that he espouses."
Baker's background
Baker grew up in the city of Jupiter on Florida's southeastern coast, the older of two sons of a deputy in the aviation unit of the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office. His parents divorced when he was very young, court records show, and the case stretched on for years.
Because of his mother's struggles with substance abuse, a court eventually awarded sole custody to his father, who remarried and had another son. His mother's illness loomed in Baker's childhood: When he was 12, he discovered that she had overdosed after she failed to show up at his school. Citing that and other occurrences in his life, a judge concluded that Baker had "experienced significant emotional and psychological harm."
Friends said Baker had a conservative, Christian upbringing and was taught to valorize the military, his father having served in the National Guard and the Coast Guard Reserve. (Baker's father, Glenn, died in 2019, and other relatives could not be reached for comment.)
At 18, Baker enlisted in the Army, but his military career would be short-lived. Army records indicate that he left after 20 months, at the lowest rank. Prosecutors said he had been separated from the Army with an "other-than-honorable" discharge after going AWOL in 2007 as his unit prepared to deploy to Iraq. Baker had told multiple friends that he refused to go to Iraq after hearing fellow soldiers boast about sexual assault. His service records do not indicate the reason for his discharge.
The decade that followed found Baker living on and off the streets. He became estranged from his family, his friends said, and found occasional work in private security, otherwise struggling to hold a job. He appears to have had one minor brush with law enforcement: a 2008 marijuana incident that prosecutors declined to pursue.
Desiree Gattis spotted Baker on the side of a Tallahassee road in 2011. She often handed out food to the homeless and stopped to make sure he was okay. The encounter sparked a years-long friendship, with Gattis eventually inviting Baker to sleep in her backyard while he got on his feet. He helped with her outreach to the homeless, despite frequently lacking stable housing himself.
"Once you get to a point where you're on that red line all the time, you start to feel like, 'Well, maybe this is what I deserve,'" Gattis, a music teacher, said during a hearing in Baker's case. "He just had a really hard time helping himself."
During those years, Baker began reading the books of anarchist philosopher Emma Goldman, political scientist Hannah Arendt and civil rights leaders Malcolm X and Angela Davis, his friends said. He drifted from the conservative ideology of his upbringing and embraced an anarchist worldview, advocating for bottom-up systems with decisions made by community consensus. Conflict with his family and firsthand experience with the shortcomings of public institutions pushed him to rely more on his surrounding community, said friend Jack Fox Keen.
Baker's search for a radically different form of government eventually took him to Syria, where Kurdish groups were seeking to build a socialist democracy underpinned by feminism and environmental sustainability. Baker was drawn to the concept, and he joined the Kurdish People's Protection Units, known as YPG, in their battle against Islamic State forces in 2017.
The Westerners who ventured to Syria as YPG volunteers usually were military veterans looking to continue the fight or idealists committed to the political project, said Stoddard, a Texas native and writer who joined the YPG in 2018. Baker, known by the Kurdish name Ali Sharem Ourecox, was a bit of both. He was at least partly driven by a desire to live up to the militaristic ideals of the father he seemed simultaneously to love and hate, Stoddard said.
"He wanted to be this great warrior," said Stoddard, 26, who returned to the United States after being wounded. "At one point, he told me that he wished that he had gotten shot, like he was jealous of me being shot. Like that was some kind of medal that I got."
A 2019 Vice News documentary, which Baker uploaded to his personal YouTube channel, shows him firing a sniper rifle during clashes with Islamic State forces. In the video, journalists find themselves pinned down in a house with several YPG fighters. The group decides to retreat, and Baker helps lead the reporters to safety. He appears confident and energized despite the danger. When an allied airstrike hits nearby, he grins widely and exclaims, "Yeah! That's our boys!"
The FBI made note of the footage and of Baker's online boasts of being a "trained sniper in the YPG," characterizing the group as linked to the terrorist-designated Kurdistan's Working Party despite the U.S. backing of the YPG. But Stoddard said much of the fighting was over by the time he and Baker arrived. They spent only two weeks on the front line, Stoddard said.
Stoddard described Baker as passionate about injustice but also "a little bit wild-eyed." He was known for doing wacky things to cheer up the fighters during long stretches of waiting and for making comments that "came across more as something stupid to laugh about."
Back in the States, Baker became deeply involved in liberal politics. As protests exploded last summer over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, Baker traveled the country to join them.
Eric Champagne, an artist and former monk who connected with Baker online over "spicy memes about social justice," took a road trip with him to the protest camp at Seattle's Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. The two wanted "to participate in whatever they were trying to accomplish there," Champagne said.
Baker was eager to offer his combat medical training in support of the demonstrators who claimed the area after police abandoned a local precinct. When shots were fired in the early hours of June 20, an incident that led to the death of a teenager and the eventual demise of the zone, Baker tried to help, Champagne said.
"Dan was among the first to run toward the sound of gunfire to see if anyone was injured," he said.
After leaving Seattle, Baker and Champagne returned to Tallahassee, where they camped in the woods before scraping together money to move into the apartment that agents eventually would raid.
Baker was seeking certification as an emergency medical technician and in the meantime recorded first-aid and self-defense training videos with Champagne. He urged vulnerable communities to learn to defend themselves, telling Fox Keen: "If you can feel like you can physically protect yourself, you will feel more empowered."
Susanna Matthews, a retired academic who owns and manages the property where Baker and Champagne lived, described them as "freewheeling, freelancing, good-Samaritan types."
But after the assault on the U.S. Capitol, friends said, Baker became deeply concerned that the Proud Boys, white supremacists and other groups would flood Tallahassee and that people would die. He told Matthews and Fox Keen to stay inside and called for "militant friends" to join him in his plan to "encircle" armed protesters and "trap them inside" the building.
And he printed the fliers that would become one of the FBI's main pieces of evidence against him.
"Armed racist mobs have planted the Confederate flag in the nation's Capitol while announcing their plans to storm every American state Capitol on or around Inauguration Day," the call to arms said. "We will fight back."
Alex Horton, Julie Tate and Jennifer Jenkins contributed to this report.
_________________________________
Tel Aviv University awards $1 million prize to Dr. Anthony Fauci for 'speaking truth to power' amid Pandemic
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/02/15/968059128/fauci-awarded-1-million-israeli-prize-for-speaking-truth-to-power-amid-pandemic
Antarctic sponges discovered under the ice shelf is perplexing scientists
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/15/world/antarctic-ice-shelf-sponge-discovery-scn/index.html
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Makes History As World Trade Organization's New Leader
https://www.npr.org/2021/02/15/968077810/ngozi-okonjo-iweala-makes-history-as-wtos-first-african-and-female-leader
PJ Tucker played through the injury on Saturday. His streak of 267 consecutive games played will end. It will be the first game he has missed with the Rockets. No one has played as many games as Tucker since he returned to the NBA in 2012.
https://twitter.com/jonathan_feigen/status/1361445032562221057
A lie about signature verification used in California elections went viral today on Twitter. How did we get here? There's certainly evidence this is a result of a game of conspiracy theory telephone.
https://twitter.com/CASOSvote/status/1361388630158155776
https://twitter.com/Sam_Mahood/status/1361498158858051585
Draymond Green's full post-game rant about Andre Drummond and treatment of players in the league
https://streamable.com/q6xq4n
https://twitter.com/JDumasReports/status/1361554890007355393
https://twitter.com/JDumasReports/status/1361555376412364800
https://soundcloud.com/warriors/draymond-green-postgame-21521
The Los Angeles Clippers (21-8), down four starters, defeat the Miami Heat (11-16), 125-118
Steph Curry and Draymond Green show off their elite chemistry and basketball IQ, leading to a Curry 3
https://streamable.com/p1og27
Ben Simmons Tonight: 42/9/12 on 15/26 shooting and 12/13 from the line, including a career high in Points
Julius Randle with 44 points (14/22 FG) 9 rebounds 5 assists as Knicks beat the Hawks and win their 3rd straight game
The Utah Jazz have won 19 of their last 20 games
Draymond Green's stat line tonight: 6 pts, 8 rebs, 16 asts, 1 stl, 2 blk, with only 1 TO. 16 asts matches Career high
Warriors with the great ball movement
https://streamable.com/fvmh3f
Trae Young gets "fouled" by Taj Gibson
https://streamable.com/chg2so
The Utah Jazz (23-5) defeat the Philadelphia 76ers (18-10), 134 - 123
Zach LaVine makes the tough go ahead three over Sabonis
https://streamable.com/0swrix
Steph invites Osman and Allen to a dance before drilling the midrange
https://streamable.com/g0cbxi
Curry clears the lane for Draymond with a screen on Allen
https://streamable.com/j8q70a
Free agent forward Andre Roberson has agreed to a deal with the Brooklyn Nets
https://twitter.com/shamscharania/status/1361559759929937921
Julius Randle knocks down a huge 3 to put the Knicks up 5 and give him 40 points on the night
Stepping in place for an injured Mike Conley, Joe Ingles has started 5 consecutive games and averaged 18/4/5 on 52/45/89 shooting splits with 3.2 threes per game.
The Brooklyn Nets (17-12) defeat the Sacramento Kings (12-15), 136 - 125 behind a franchise-high 27 made 3's on a blistering 57.4% from beyond the arc
Randle hits the tough baseline jumper to give him 42 points and put the Knicks up 8
https://streamable.com/26jkdw
Kyrie Irving Tonight: 40/4/3 on 15/22 shooting, 9/11 from three and 1/4 from the line.
Draymond Green this season: 198 assists, 137 rebounds, 125 points
Matisse Thybule is bewildered by the fact that guards can make three pointers
https://streamable.com/304t3j
The Washington Wizards (8-17) defeat the Houston Rockets (11-16), 131-119 in John Wall's return to DC behind 37 points from Bradley Beal
Marcus Morris Tonight: 32/3/2 on 11/15 shooting, 6/8 from three and 4/4 from the line
Tyler Herro attempts a practice free throw, refs count it as a miss
https://streamable.com/xsdvmn
Bradley Beal just put up 72 points in back to back wins on 57/41/89 splits (71.5 TS%)
Jazz bench out scored the Sixers' 57 to 25. Jordan Clarkson almost doubled the Sixers bench score by himself
Hassan Whiteside posts up 26PTS/16REBS, 12/15 FG, 5 blocks in 23 mins
Marvin Bagley III takes his time with his back away from the basket, turns and shoots it over Harden
https://streamable.com/f1c89p
Ariel, the 5-year-old-girl hurt in a crash involving former Chiefs employee Britt Reid, woke up late Monday night, according to family.
https://twitter.com/41actionnews/status/1361531858291482634
________________________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/02/16/fact-sheet-biden-administration-announces-extension-of-covid-19-forbearance-and-foreclosure-protections-for-homeowners/
Fact Sheet: Biden Administration Announces Extension of COVID-19 Forbearance and Foreclosure Protections for Homeowners
February 16, 2021 • Statements and Releases
As millions of Americans face continued hardship from the COVID-19 pandemic, President Biden is continuing to take action to help keep individuals and families in their homes. The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a housing affordability crisis. Today, 1 in 5 renters is behind on rent and just over 10 million homeowners are behind on mortgage payments. People of color face even greater hardship and are more likely to have deferred or missed payments, putting them at greater risk of eviction and foreclosure.
https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/tracking-the-covid-19-recessions-effects-on-food-housing-and
https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/new-data-suggest-covid-19-widening-housing-disparities-race-and-income
Today, as part of the President's commitment to deliver immediate relief for American families bearing the brunt of this crisis, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Veterans Affairs, and Department of Agriculture announced a coordinated extension and expansion of forbearance and foreclosure relief programs. These critical protections were due to expire in March, leaving many at risk of falling further into debt and losing their homes. Now, homeowners will receive urgently needed relief as we face this unprecedented national emergency. Today's action builds on steps the President took on Day One to extend foreclosure moratoriums for federally guaranteed mortgages.
The actions announced today will:
- Extend the foreclosure moratorium for homeowners through June 30, 2021;
- Extend the mortgage payment forbearance enrollment window until June 30, 2021 for borrowers who wish to request forbearance;
- Provide up to six months of additional mortgage payment forbearance, in three-month increments, for borrowers who entered forbearance on or before June 30, 2020.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Veterans Affairs, and Department of Agriculture worked in lock-step to make sure that the above actions will reach the greatest number of Americans. Last week, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the independent agency that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, extended forbearance by three months for borrowers coming to the end of their forbearance period. These coordinated actions will cover 70 percent of existing single-family home mortgages.
President Biden is committed to protecting homeownership and housing stability as America begins to turn a painful crisis into a robust recovery. Today's extended forbearance and foreclosure programs are an important step towards building stronger and more equitable communities.
To bolster these efforts, it is critical that Congress pass the American Rescue Plan to deliver more aid to struggling homeowners. The rescue plan creates a Homeowners Assistance Fund which will provide states with $10 billion to help struggling homeowners catch up on their mortgage payments and utility costs. This relief is critical for homeowners with mortgages in the private market who are not able to take advantage of today's actions and may face longer term challenges.
The Biden-Harris Administration's priorities in extending these protections are to:
Provide immediate relief to homeowners across America. Today's actions directly benefit the 2.7 million homeowners currently in COVID forbearance and extend the availability of forbearance options for nearly 11 million government-backed mortgages nationwide. Communities large and small need this assistance. That is why the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Veterans Affairs, and Department of Agriculture worked in concert to deliver across-the-board relief for urban, suburban, rural, and military homeowners, including seniors with reverse mortgages
Support hard-hit communities of color. The health and economic costs of this crisis have not been evenly felt, a pattern repeated over the course of the pandemic.Extending forbearance policies will provide critical support to homeowners of color, who make up a disproportionate share of borrowers with delinquent loans and loans in forbearance due to COVID-related hardship. On the first day of his Administration, President Biden committed to advancing racial equity across all government programs and policies. Today, agencies are stepping up with housing relief that will strengthen communities of color and build the foundation for an equitable recovery.
Provide a centralized resource for housing assistance. Homeowners and renters can visit consumerfinance.gov/housing for up-to-date information on their relief options, protections, and key deadlines. As federal agencies continue working to implement housing assistance for American families, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau offers this website as a one-stop shop for both homeowners and renters to learn about programs and resources that can help them stay in their homes by reducing the risk of eviction and foreclosure.
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/coronavirus/mortgage-and-housing-assistance/
________________________________
Spurs have four positive tests for the coronavirus and league is postponing their next three games, sources tell ESPN. Charlotte is undergoing contact tracing and will have next two games postponed.
http://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1361702595316899843
The Dallas Mavericks-Detroit Pistons game Wednesday in Dallas is being postponed due to the order of Texas governor Greg Abbott because of state of emergency in response to severe weather
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1361718782775996423
I've generally been supportive of teachers' unions but if their mentally ill deranged terroristic anti-science BS continues, that support will vanish. Next local election cycle should focus on PRO-SCIENCE union candidates.
https://vox.com/2021/2/15/22280763/kids-covid-vaccine-teachers-unions-schools-reopening-cdc
China Used Russian Strategy To Spread Lies That US Created COVID-19. New report traces the history of conspiracy theories claiming COVID-19 is a bioweapon. Nine-month research collaboration by the DFRLab and AP analyzes how narratives propagated in Russia, the U.S., China and Iran
https://apnews.com/article/pandemics-beijing-only-on-ap-epidemics-media-122b73e134b780919cc1808f3f6f16e8
https://medium.com/dfrlab/new-report-traces-the-history-of-conspiracy-theories-claiming-covid-19-is-a-bioweapon-49903924182e
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/weaponized-covid19-narratives
Monsanto owner and US Republican officials (during Trump presidency) pressured Mexico to drop glyphosate ban. Internal government emails show actions similar to those by Bayer and lobbyists to kill a proposed ban in Thailand in 2019. Internal government emails reveal Monsanto owner Bayer AG and industry lobbyist CropLife America have been working closely with US officials to pressure Mexico into abandoning its intended ban on glyphosate, a pesticide linked to cancer that is the key ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup weed killers. The moves to protect glyphosate shipments to Mexico have played out over the last 18 months, a period in which Bayer was negotiating an $11bn settlement of legal claims brought by people in the US who say they developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma due to exposure to the company's glyphosate-based products. | The emails reviewed by the Guardian come from the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) and other US agencies. They detail worry and frustration with Mexico's position. One email makes a reference to staff within Lopez Obrador's administration as "vocal anti-biotechnology activists," and another email states that Mexico's health agency (COFEPRIS) is "becoming a big time problem". Internal USTR communications lay out how the agrochemical industry is "pushing" for the US to "fold this issue" into the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) trade deal that went into effect 1 July. The records then show the USTR does exactly that, telling Mexico its actions on glyphosate and genetically engineered crops raise concerns "regarding compliance" with USMCA. Citing discussions with CropLife, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) joined in the effort, discussing in an inter-agency email "how we could use USMCA to work through these issues". The documents about the Mexico matter were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and shared with the Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/feb/16/revealed-monsanto-mexico-us-glyphosate-ban
https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/January-2020-USTR-email-regarding-glyphosate-and-meeting-with-Mexicos-de-la-Mora.pdf
https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/January-2020-USTR-email-saying-Mexico-health-agency-is-big-time-problem.pdf
https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/February-2020-USTR-email-about-meeting-with-industry-and-push-to-fold-issue-into-USMCA-certification.pdf
https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/August-2020-EPA-email-with-USTR-re-using-USMCA.pdf
The trial of Democratically-elected Aung San Suu Kyi, who was ousted in a military coup two weeks ago because she cracked down in Islamic terrorists who spent decades slaughtering Myanmar Buddhists, began on Tuesday. She faces fabricated charges.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/16/world/asia/myanmar-trial-aung-san-suu-kyi.html
The NAACP on Tuesday morning filed a federal lawsuit against Trump and Rudolph Giuliani, claiming that they violated a 19th century statute when they tried to prevent the certification of the election on Jan. 6. The civil rights organization brought the suit on behalf of Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi. Other Democrats in Congress — including Representatives Hank Johnson of Georgia and Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey — are expected to join as plaintiffs in the coming weeks, according to the NAACP. The lawsuit contends that Trump and Giuliani violated the Ku Klux Klan Act, an 1871 statute that includes protections against violent conspiracies that interfered with Congress's constitutional duties; the suit also names the Proud Boys, the far-right nationalist group, and the Oath Keepers militia group. The legal action accuses Trump, Giuliani and the two groups of conspiring to incite a violent riot at the Capitol, with the goal of preventing Congress from certifying the election.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/16/us/politics/naacp-sues-trump-giuliani-proud-boys-capitol.html
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/20484428/show_temp.pdf
An old Ted Cruz tweet mocking California's 'failed energy policies' resurfaces as storm leaves millions of Texans without power
https://www.businessinsider.com/ted-cruz-tweet-mocking-california-energy-policies-resurfaces-texas-storm-2021-2
The Public Utility Commission (PUC) of Texas has directed the state's main grid operators to illegally and unconstitutionally raise energy prices, as millions of people are enduring below-freezing weather without power in their homes.
https://www.newsweek.com/texas-utility-commission-orders-energy-price-hikes-1569554
Jayson Tatum says COVID has messed with his breathing a bit and there have been some games where he has gotten fatigued quicker running up and down the floor.
https://twitter.com/JaredWeissNBA/status/1361727292767162368
Nearly 77% of customers who have lost power currently in the US are located in Texas, as of a couple of hours ago: Over 5.6 million electric customers are without power across the USA. SPP has initiated load shedding across central USA as severe winter storms and low temps continue to impact the grid. Check out https://poweroutage.us for #PowerOutage information! [2021-02-16 10:22AM EST]
https://twitter.com/PowerOutage_us/status/1361699211163676674
The Biden administration will increase the vaccine supply to states to 13.5 million doses per week and send 2 million vaccine doses to local pharmacies this week, White House press secretary Jen Psaki says.
https://twitter.com/KateSullivanDC/status/1361728856462417924
Press secretary Jen Psaki says the White House called governors of states in the path of the winter storm that's causing power outages, including Texas. Governors of Kansas, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma were also called, Psaki said.
https://twitter.com/fran_chambers/status/1361730190351695874
Republican Attorney Generals' group sent robocalls urging march to the Capitol. "At 1 p.m., we will march to the Capitol building and call on Congress to stop the steal," said the voice on the recording, which was obtained by NBC News. The day before the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol, the Republican Attorneys General Association's fundraising arm, the Rule of Law Defense Fund, sent robocalls urging people to attend the "March to Save America" on Jan. 6.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/republican-ags-group-sent-robocalls-urging-march-capitol-n1253581
______________________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/02/16/the-mpp-program-and-border-security-joint-statement-by-assistant-to-the-president-and-national-security-advisor-jake-sullivan-and-assistant-to-the-president-and-homeland-security-advisor-and-deputy-na/
The MPP Program and Border Security Joint Statement by Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Assistant to the President and Homeland Security Advisor and Deputy National Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall
February 16, 2021 • Statements and Releases
Starting February 19, the United States will begin to process eligible individuals in the Migration Protection Protocols (MPP) program to pursue their asylum cases in the US, working closely with the Government of Mexico, as well as international and non-governmental organizations.
Individuals should not take any action at this time and should remain where they are to await further instructions. We will soon announce a virtual registration process that will be accessible from any location.
Once registered, eligible individuals will be provided additional information about where and when to present themselves. Individuals should not approach the border until instructed to do so.
We caution people seeking to immigrate to the United States that our borders are not open, and that this is just the first phase in the administration's work to reopen access to an orderly asylum process.
This new process applies to individuals who were returned to Mexico under the MPP program and have cases pending before the Executive Office for Immigration Review.
Individuals outside of the United States who were not returned to Mexico under MPP or who do not have active immigration court cases will not be considered for participation in this first phase of this program and should await further instructions.
If you seek entry into the US and do not have an active MPP case, you will be immediately expelled and will not be permitted to remain in the United States.
People who attempt to cross the border without going through ports of entry should understand that you are putting yourselves and your families in danger, especially during a global pandemic.
President Biden is committed to immigration reform in the long term, but it will take time. The immigration reform legislation that President Biden sent to the Congress only applies to individuals who were in the United States before January 1, 2021.
This is a crucial first step to communicate our respect for human rights and human dignity, which includes abiding by legal processes and health and safety protocols.
______________________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/02/16/statement-by-white-house-press-secretary-jen-psaki-on-cases-of-ebola/
Statement by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Cases of Ebola
February 16, 2021 • Statements and Releases
Infectious diseases are transnational health and national security threats. While the world is reeling from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Ebola has again emerged, simultaneously, in both Central and West Africa. The world cannot afford to turn the other way. We must do everything in our power to respond quickly, effectively, and with commensurate resources to stop these outbreaks before they become largescale epidemics.
President Biden has been briefed on the situation in both Central and West Africa, and his prayers are with the families of those who have died and those who are impacted by Ebola, COVID-19, and other ongoing global health challenges. The Biden Administration will do everything in its power to provide U.S. leadership to stop these outbreaks, working with the affected governments, the World Health Organization, the African Union and the African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, and neighboring states.
On February 16, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan spoke with the Ambassadors of Guinea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, and Liberia to the United States to convey the United States willingness to work closely with the governments of affected countries, and neighboring countries whose citizens would be at risk of the current outbreak spread. Mr. Sullivan emphasized President Biden's commitment to provide U.S. leadership to strengthen health security and create better systems for preventing, detecting, and responding to health emergencies.
Outbreaks require swift and overwhelming response in order to avoid catastrophic consequences. Since the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, the United States has endeavored to elevate and prioritize health security assistance with partners through the Global Health Security Agenda and with strong support from Congress. We cannot afford to take our foot off the gas – even as we battle COVID, we must ensure capacity and financing for health security worldwide. President Biden's first National Security Memorandum directed that U.S. leadership in health security and global health be elevated, prioritized, and strengthened. The United States stands ready to do everything in its power to ensure a robust global response and to stop these outbreaks.
###
______________________________
Good: Biden Administration Takes "Illegal Alien" Out Of USCIS Communication
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/illegal-alien-uscis-biden-term
The funny thing about the "basement" era Biden campaign is that it resembled an actual presidency more than most campaigns. Until Trump the idea of a president holding rallies all the time was unheard of. Typically candidates spend a bunch of time giving 20-minute speeches and holding town halls etc, then they get elected and you see them once or twice a day in the WH, maybe they give a prime time speech sometimes.
Utah state Republican party accepts Romney's vote to convict Trump | "Our senators have both been criticized for their vote. The differences between our own Utah Republicans showcase a diversity of thought, in contrast to the danger of a party fixated on 'unanimity of thought,'" the statement said. "There is power in our differences as a political party, and we look forward to each senator explaining their votes to the people of Utah." The statement called disagreement in the party "natural and healthy" based on principles. It also stressed that they did not want to look toward the past or be "punitive," and instead hoped to be optimistic and forward-looking.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/utah-gop-accepts-romneys-vote-convict-trump/story
Leader Hoyer, in a letter to Democratic colleagues, outlines the legislation the House will soon take up:
Democrats want to reform ICE and fire leadership, but Biden has no plans to go that far. ICE, CBP, DHS aren't hallowed US institutions but post-9/11 agencies created over a 4-month period from 2002 to 2003.
https://www.newsweek.com/some-democrats-want-reform-ice-fire-leadership-biden-has-no-plans-go-that-far-1569697
There was also news out this morning about a foreclosure moratorium extension. Some of you may have seen. The COVID crisis has triggered a housing affordability crisis, with more than 10 million homeowners behind on mortgage payments and communities of color at even greater risk of eviction and foreclosure. Today, the administration is taking another step to bring urgent action — relief to the American fam- — American families struggling to keep a roof over their heads. So, something the President talked about on day one, we talked about on day one. But today, the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Affairs, and Agriculture announced they will extend and expand the foreclosure relief programs, building on the steps President Biden spoke about a couple of weeks ago. These critical protections were due to expire in March. But as part of today's announcement, the foreclosure moratorium and the mortgage forbearance enrollment window will be extended through June 30th. The administration will also provide up to six months of additional mortgage payments to — forbearance for borrowers who entered forbearance on or before June 30th, 2020. These actions will bring needed relief to most of the 2.7 million homeowners currently in forbearance and extend forbearance options for nearly 11 million homeowners with government-backed mortgages across the country. It's critical — it remains critical that Congress pass the American Rescue Plan to deliver more aid to struggling homeowners.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/02/16/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-february-16-2021/
I will convey that we are outraged by last night's rocket attack in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region. Initial reports indicate that the attacks killed one civilian contractor and injured several members of the coalition, including one American service member and several American contractors. And we offer our condolences to the loved ones of the civilian contractor killed. The Iraqi people have certainly suffered for far too long from this kind of violence and violation of their sovereignty. I will also note — and I think the State Department provided this update, but just for all of you — Secretary Blinken has reached out to the Kurdistan Regional Government Prime Minister Barzani. And Secretary Austin is speaking with his counterpart to offer assistance with the investigation and to help hold accountable those responsible for this attack. But we have not determined attribution at this point.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/02/16/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-february-16-2021/
Well, our position on Nord Stream 2 has been very clear, and it remains unchanged. President Biden has made clear that Nord Stream 2 is a bad deal. It's a bad deal because it divides Europe, it exposes Ukraine and Central Europe to Russia — Russian manipulation, and because it goes against Europe's own stated energy and security goals. We're continuing to monitor activity to complete or to certify the pipeline. And if such activity takes place, we'll make a determination of the applicability of sanctions. Importantly, sanctions are only one among many important tools to ensure energy security. And we'll — of course, we'll do this all in partnership with our allies and partners, but our position has not changed on the — on the deal.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/02/16/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-february-16-2021/
Q The President is changing gears this week, obviously, looking beyond the Hill to get out and sell this plan to the American people. Is this a sign that he recognizes that he's not likely to get Republicans in Washington on board?
MS. PSAKI: He certainly wouldn't agree with that. I would say that the President's view of the package — well, one — I would say first — the President has not "shifting gears," he has been focused every single day — even as others have not, which is understandable — on engaging with partners, stakeholders, people who agree with him, people who don't agree with him on getting this package through. This is an opportunity, as you noted, to go out and have a conversation with the people of Wisconsin — people who agree with him, people who disagree with them. But if you look at the polls, they are very consistent. The vast majority of the American people like what they see in this package. And that should be an indication, or should be noted by member of Congress — members of Congress as they consider whether they're going to vote for it or not.
Q So is he hoping then that these visits will help build pressure on members of Congress?
MS. PSAKI: No, his objective is really to make sure he is engaging directly with the people who are impacted by the pandemic, who are impacted by the economic downturn, who are worried about whether they're going to get a shot, who are — don't know where — where to get information, who are worried about whether they're going to be able to put food on the table. That's the focus of this trip. Obviously, Republicans in Congress will have to make their own choice about whether they support the final package. It's still working its way through Congress. But the vast majority of the public supports it, including the vast majority of most members' constituents. So it's really a question for them.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/02/16/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-february-16-2021/
MS. PSAKI: I think the President leads by example, and I try to do the same. And on Saturday, when we announced that TJ Ducklo had resigned his position — something we all agreed was the right path forward — I made clear that every day we're going to try to meet the standard set out by the President in treating others with dignity and respect, with civility, and with a value for others through our words and our actions. He's no longer employed here, and I think that speaks for itself.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/02/16/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-february-16-2021/
Q Let me ask you about the President's ambitions in terms of getting Congress to pass gun control measures. In a statement you issued over the weekend, the President said the time for action is now. You're asking Congress to do a lot of things now. What is your timetable for action on what the President calls "commonsense" measures? And what's the realistic hope that you have that they'll pass both houses?
MS. PSAKI: Well, we haven't proposed a package at this point, so it's hard for me to make a prediction about its likelihood of passing. But I will say that the President is somebody, throughout his career, who has advocated for smart gun — smart gun safety measures. He has — not afraid of standing up to the NRA — he's done it multiple times and won — on background checks and a range of issues. And it is a priority to him on a personal level. But I don't have a prediction for you or a preview for you on a timeline of a package, and certainly not what it will look like and how it would go through Congress.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/02/16/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-february-16-2021/
MS. PSAKI: Well, first let me say, on Israel, I know there's been some questions about when the President will speak with Prime Minister Netanyahu, which was, I think, the root of that question or how the question started. So let me first confirm for you that his first call with a leader in the region will be with Prime Minister Netanyahu. It will be soon. I don't have an exact day for you, but it is soon. Stay tuned. Israel is, of course, an ally. Israel is a country where we have an important strategic security relationship. And our team is fully engaged — not at the head-of-state, yet, level quite yet, but very soon. But our team is fully engaged, having constant conversations at many levels with the Israelis.And on Saudi Arabia, I would say: You know, we've made clear from the beginning that we're going to recalibrate our relationship with Saudi Arabia and that — you know, President Biden — one of the questions there was also — just to go back to the context of it — whether he would be speaking with MBS. And part of that is going back to engagement, counterpart to counterpart. The President's counterpart is King Salman, and I expect that, in appropriate time, he would have a conversation with him. I don't have a prediction of the timeline on that. But I'll also say that, you know, we have — Saudi Arabia is in a position where they're defending themselves from threats from the region. You know, they are — they have critical self-defense needs, and we will continue to work with them on those, even as we make clear areas where we have disagreements and where we have concerns. And that's certainly a shift from the approach of the prior administration.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/02/16/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-february-16-2021/
Trump Fans Charged In Capitol Attack Didn't Like Antifa Getting Credit For Their Work
https://news.yahoo.com/trump-capitol-attack-antifa-202303502.html
Minnesota Timberwolves guard D'Angelo Russell will undergo arthroscopic surgery to remove a loose body in his left knee and is expected to miss four-to-six weeks.
http://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1361814664422821890
Chimezie Metu broke his wrist on a dangerous play by the Grizzlies' Jonas Valanciunas.
https://twitter.com/sacbee_news/status/1361807897877970948
Magic's Cole Anthony has a non-displaced fracture of his right first rib and will not return before the All-Star break
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1361800885974814722
It's Dame Time with the clutch step back three over Dort
https://streamable.com/hiz2zx
Chris Paul in a loss against the Nets: 29 PTS 7 AST 3 REB 1 STL on 63.2/57.1/100 shooting splits
Damian Lillard with 4 straight 3s in the final 4 minutes to beat OKC on an 18-2 run
https://streamable.com/c75w9z
OG Anunoby pulls out the wild spin move to get the and-one
https://streamable.com/r8fmy1
Anthony Edwards in loss to the Lakers: Career high 28 points on 10-20 shooting, 5-10 from three, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 1 steal and 2 blocks (3 turnovers)
Zion Williamson in tonights win against the Grizzlis: 31 pts, 7 rebs, 6 asts, 2 stls, 13/16 fg, 1/1 from 3, in 28 minutes
The Milwaukee Bucks have lost 4 games in a row for the first time since the 2019 Eastern Conference Finals
Covington and Lillard knock down back-to-back big 3s to put the game out of reach
https://streamable.com/svcf6l
Suns with the absolutely beautiful ball movement leading to the CP3 3-Pointer
https://streamable.com/v5o3e4
Giannis Antetokounmpo in the last 4 losses: 33.5 ppg, 13.3 rpg, 7.3 apg, 1.8 bpg, 2.8 spg on 60/31/77 splits
In the 4th quarter the Thunder started 23-4 only for Blazers to finish the last 4 minutes 11 seconds 18-2.
Josh Hart: 27 points, 9 rebounds, 2 assists on 10/16 shooting in 32 minutes, finishes 1 rebound shy of his 5th double double this year
The Nets trailed by 21 points at halftime of tonight's victory over Phoenix, marking the largest halftime comeback for the Nets since joining the NBA in 1976.
Jokic, Murray, and Campazzo combined for an absurd 84% of the Nuggets point in their 99-112 loss to the Celtics
Zion beats the zone with the wrap around to Willy Hernangomez
https://streamable.com/6y3z4m
__________________________________
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-16/arctic-sea-ice-dramatic-transformation-as-seen-by-satellites/12961584
The Vanishing Arctic
By Mark Doman, Katia Shatoba, Alex Palmer and Stephen Hutcheon
Digital Story Innovation Team
Updated 15 Dec 2020, 15:15pm
Published 15 Dec 2020, 14:14pm
For the locals of Verkhoyansk, a tiny town in the far-flung reaches of Siberia, today will be one of the last sunrises they see for the year.
The town that sits 10 kilometres inside the Arctic Circle is heading into the annual polar winter — a period of perpetual darkness and extreme cold.
The average temperature here in December is minus 43 degrees Celsius.
It sounds earth-shatteringly cold but for locals like Anna Sleptsova, the local librarian who's lived in Verkhoyansk her entire life, it's nothing compared to what the winters used to be like.
"It used to be very cold, but the climate is changing, this year it's very warm. We say, minus 40, minus 35, that's very warm for us," she said in a telephone interview.
Since the mid-80s the Arctic has been warming twice as fast as the entire world — a phenomenon the vast majority of scientists agree is the direct result of human-induced climate change.
In 2020, the Siberian Arctic was more than 5 degrees warmer than the long-term average. The period between October 2019 and 2020 was the second warmest in more than a century of records.
It resulted in the "lowest June snow extent across the Eurasian Arctic observed in the past 54 years", according to the US National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration's recently released 2020 Arctic Report Card. It also led to extreme fires across Siberia generating record levels of carbon dioxide.
https://arctic.noaa.gov/Report-Card/Report-Card-2020
It was so warm this year that Anna Sleptsova's hometown of Verkhoyansk experienced the hottest temperature ever recorded north of the Arctic Circle.
The town now holds the record for not just the coldest temperature in the Arctic, with a frosty -67.8C, but also the hottest as well at 38C.
"There were all of these extremes on Siberia. That is really the story of the year for climate," said Zack Labe, a climate scientist specialising in the Arctic with Colorado State University.
The result is causing dramatic and potentially irreversible changes not only for the people of Verkhoyansk and the Arctic, but for countries well beyond the reaches of the north pole.
As the Earth heats up, the Arctic — the Earth's air conditioner — is rapidly transforming and one of the clearest signals of this change is in the sea ice.
Every year, as temperatures plummet the sea freezes over, covering an area more than twice the size of Australia.
It's so large that it sustains countless lifeforms, regulates ocean temperatures and its bright white surface can reflect up to 90 per cent of the incoming heat from the Sun.
As the weather warms, the sea ice partially melts away again.
Since 1979, the ebb and flow of the ever-changing mass in the centre of one of Earth's most hostile environments has been captured by polar-orbiting satellites.
What started as a project of scientific curiosity by researchers at NASA, began to reveal troubling changes.
As climate change increased global temperatures, the sea ice began deteriorating.
By the mid-90s, enough data had been collected to show there was a clear trend in the decline of the sea ice extent.
This was most apparent in September, shown here, when the sea ice reaches its lowest point for the year.
Temperature increases in the Arctic were consistently two, sometimes three times as high as the rest of the globe. The more the Earth warmed, the more the sea ice shrank.
2002 was a record low for the ice extent — reaching 5.6 million square kilometres. A trend of sharp decline of the sea ice started to emerge.
2005 was yet another record low.
But when the sea ice extent of 2007 hit just over 4 million square kilometres, scientists like Walt Meier from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in the US, were floored.
"2007 was the real wake-up call, I would say, in that, we recognised that things could change a lot faster than we thought," he said.
It marked a major shift in the Arctic ice cover. In the 14 years since 2007, every year has been among the lowest ice extents ever recorded.
"That's telling you something really significant has changed," Dr Meier said.
2020 was no exception to the record-breaking decline.
A heatwave in Siberia — which makes up more than half of the Arctic's coastline — helped fuel unprecedented fires right across the region.
A marine heatwave in the Laptev and Kara seas also contributed to sea ice along the Siberian coastline melting away the earliest on record.
By September, the sea ice extent was the second-lowest ever recorded at just 3.74 million square kilometres. It was only the second time in satellite records that the ice had dropped below 4 million square kilometres. Only 2012 had a lower minimum extent at 3.39 million.
And it was the lowest the sea ice extent had ever been in October, meaning it was taking longer to refreeze.
It was nothing short of an extreme year for the Arctic, especially in Siberia. But for those studying the region, it did not come as a shock.
"If 2020 happened in 2007 it would have really blown everyone's mind. Now it's like, 'oh, yeah, big fires. OK, record temperatures in Siberia,'" Dr Meier said.
"We're just becoming acclimated to it. [But] you have to step back, though and go, 'Wow', it really was a pretty extreme year and it's really an indication of the big changes that are occurring."
Not only is the sea ice melting but it's also getting much younger as well.
Typically thicker multi-year ice that was once abundant in the ocean has made way for newer ice that is more vulnerable to melting in the summertime.
In 1985, one-third of the ice was more than four years old. In March this year, old sea ice accounted for just 4.4 per cent of the ice pack. According to NOAA, that equates to a loss of 2.36 million square kilometres of the ocean's oldest ice.
"Instead of being this Arctic where it was more covered with old multi-year sea ice, now it's like a new Arctic where it's very thin and vulnerable sea ice, completely changing the local weather conditions, changing the ocean, changing the land like melting permafrost," said climate scientist Zack Labe.
These extremes are now becoming so routine that scientists believe that this is now the new norm for the Arctic climate.
Upon release of the NOAA Arctic report card, one of its editors, Rick Thoman from the International Arctic Research Center, said the trend in the changing nature of the region was becoming clear.
"Taken as a whole, the story is unambiguous," he said. "The transformation of the Arctic to a warmer, less frozen and biologically changed region is well underway."
The rate of change in the Arctic is happening so fast that even climate models have struggled to keep up.
In 2007, when the dramatic loss of sea ice caused alarm in the scientific community, the consensus was that by 2100 the Arctic Ocean would see ice-free summers.
Dr Meier said that could now happen within the next 20 to 30 years.
One of the reasons for the discrepancies in the projections is the growing understanding of what's known as the feedback loops — the flow-on effects from the shrinking sea ice that cause more warming and even more ice loss.
A major benefit the sea ice has for the planet is that it acts as a shield against incoming heat from the Sun. That's because the vast mass of ice has what's known as high albedo, which basically means its bright-white surface reflects much of the Sun's heat back out into space.
The problem is that as the Arctic sea ice declines, there's more open ocean exposed to the Sun and because the water is dark it absorbs a lot more heat.
Scientists call this Arctic amplification and it's one of the reasons the Arctic is warming much faster than the rest of the planet.
The impact of this rapid warming is being felt well beyond the Arctic Circle.
"You're not going to change something the size of the lower 40 United States going from ice covered to completely ice free, that's a huge change in the environment without having impacts outside of the Arctic," Dr Meier said.
While there are still unknowns about the impact the dramatic changes are having on the rest of the Earth, there is evidence to suggest it's disrupting atmospheric circulation which could be triggering more extreme weather.
It may also be linked to changes to a deep-ocean process known as thermohaline circulation — a global conveyor belt fuelled by sea ice in the North and South poles that drives currents across the world and in turn influences global weather patterns.
Delphine Lannuzel is an associate professor at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies in Hobart. She led a team of more than 30 international experts in the field of sea ice chemistry and biology, researching how the dramatic sea ice changes were affecting the rest of the Arctic Ocean's ecosystem.
Their study, published in Nature Climate Change, found that changes to the ocean environment would have a drastic impact on the types of microscopic algae that live in the ocean — a change that would be felt all the way up the food chain.
"We are expecting greater dominance of zooplankton species with lower nutritional value for fish, leading to a decline in species such as the Arctic cod," Dr Lannuzel said.
"This also means sea-ice dependent predators like ringed seals, beluga whales and polar bears could face local and regional scale extinctions."
The situation in the Arctic is dire, but modelling shows that it's only going to get worse.
If greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase unabated, the warming of the planet will continue and an ice-free summer — when the minimum sea ice extent dips below 1 million km2 — is inevitable.
"It's a matter of when, not if. I would say, barring extreme action, we're probably heading to that point," Dr Meier said.
But scientists believe all is not lost in the Arctic. That's because the very reason the sea is so vulnerable to increasing temperatures means it's also likely to be responsive to efforts to reduce any future global warming.
"So if we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and the amount of future warming, the Arctic itself, both the ocean and the atmosphere is not going to warm as much, which will still allow sea ice to form and regrow and even thicken," said Zack Labe.
"I still think we have an opportunity to at least lower the probability or prevent an ice-free Arctic summer going forward in the future."
Even in remote Verkhoyansk, hundreds of kilometres from the ocean, this year's late freeze of the Laptev Sea is already having flow-on effects.
Pensioner Nikolai Potapov, 72, who has lived in Verkhoyansk almost all his life, says the warmer weather this year, has delayed the natural phenomenon the locals call Zimnic.
That's when the Yana River, which runs all the way to the Laptev, freezes over — transforming the waterway into a delivery route for essential supplies into town.
"They transport not only coal, also petroleum. Essential goods. Important goods for heating and cars. So that becomes harder," Mr Potapov said.
"They will begin later, after the New Year now. So the period will be much shorter before the spring comes."
Credits:
Reporting: Mark Doman
Additional interviews and research: Katia Shatoba and Stephen Hutcheon
Development: Katia Shatoba
Design: Alex Palmer
Data notes:
The daily and monthly average sea ice extent data was sourced from the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
https://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/archives
Arctic temperature data was sourced from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Web-based Reanalysis Intercomparison Tool. It uses data from Berkeley Earth. The Arctic temperature is classified as anything above 67°N.
https://psl.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/data/testdap/timeseries.pl
Siberian fire boundaries were processed using VIIRS NOAA-20 375m fire hotspot data from NASA's Fire Information for Resource Management System. It includes data from May 1, 2020, to August 31, 2020.
https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/active_fire/#firms-shapefile
__________________________________
Republicans Back Trump Because Of The Insurrection, Not Despite It. The former president's ruthlessness remains central to his appeal. America as a whole has had enough of Donald Trump. Voters hold him responsible for the January 6 insurrection, they believe the Senate should have convicted him for his role, and they want him to leave national politics. But the Republican Party is another country, and they do things differently there. Its rank-and-file members didn't support impeachment, don't want Trump punished, and prefer him over any other potential candidate for president in 2024. Many Republican voters supported Trump in 2016 and 2020 not out of particular policy affinities but because they saw him as someone who would actually fight for their vision of American culture, doing whatever it took to win. Trump's frantic attempt to overturn the election didn't work, but it was just the sort of furious effort his supporters wanted. Why would they object now? While the former president's protracted attempt to overturn the election confirmed for the majority of Americans that Trump was unfit for office, it proved to the majority of Republicans that he really would take drastic action to stand up for their beliefs. | A group of voters that believes the fate of the country sits in the balance is a group that will be willing to countenance attacking the bedrock of the nation—democratic elections and peaceful transfers of power—in order to defend it. They will also be more likely to subscribe to far-flung conspiracy theories like QAnon, which offers the illusory hope that there is a shadowy plan afoot that will save the country from whatever they perceive as a threat. | The notion that antifa was behind the insurrection, with which Trump's lawyers flirted during the Senate hearings, serves another purpose. The invocation of antifa is an effort to convince voters who backed or are sympathetic to Trump that however bad he might be, the other side is more of a threat, from which he's keeping his supporters safe. (The former president's attorneys pointed out that a self-described liberal activist was arrested and charged over the events at the Capitol; that person seems to not be a member of any antifa group, nor does his presence show he organized them.)
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/02/republicans-support-trump-because-not-despite-insurrection/618034/
Why So Few Absentee Ballots Were Rejected In 2020. Absentee-ballot rejection rates decreased in at least 20 places.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-so-few-absentee-ballots-were-rejected-in-2020/
The world's oldest-known DNA has been recovered from mammoths whose carcasses had been preserved in permafrost since the Ice Age
https://wsj.com/articles/worlds-oldest-dna-unlocks-lineage-of-ice-age-mammoths-11613577600
Warren and Schumer Statement on Why President Biden Can And Should Take Executive Action to Cancel Up to $50,000 in Student Loan Debt | Washington, DC - United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) today released the following statement on student debt cancellation: "Presidents Obama and Trump used their executive authority to cancel student loan debt. The Biden administration has said it is reviewing options for cancelling up to $50,000 in student debt by executive action, and we are confident they will agree with the standards Obama and Trump used as well as leading legal experts who have concluded that the administration has broad authority to immediately deliver much-needed relief to millions of Americans. An ocean of student loan debt is holding back 43 million borrowers and disproportionately weighing down Black and Brown Americans. Cancelling $50,000 in federal student loan debt will help close the racial wealth gap, benefit the 40% of borrowers who do not have a college degree, and help stimulate the economy. It's time to act. We will keep fighting."
https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-and-schumer-statement-on-why-president-biden-can-and-should-take-executive-action-to-cancel-up-to-50000-in-student-loan-debt
Earlier this month, the Senators reintroduced a resolution outlining a bold plan for President Biden to tackle the student loan debt crisis by using existing authority under the Higher Education Act to cancel up to $50,000 in student loan debt for Federal student loan borrowers. The resolution is co-sponsored by Senators Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawai'i), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), and Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.). In the House, the resolution is led by Representatives Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), Ilhan Omar (MN-05), Maxine Waters (CA-43), Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, Alma Adams (NC-12), Jamaal Bowman (NY-16), Mondaire Jones (NY-17), Richie Torres (NY-15), along with the following cosponsors: Nanette Barragan (CA-44), Earl Blumenauer (OR-03), Cori Bush (MO-01), Yvette Clarke (NY-09), Steve Cohen (TN-09), Veronica Escobar (TX-16), Adriano Espaillat (NY-13), Jesus "Chuy" Garcia (IL-04), Jimmy Gomez (CA-34), Vicente Gonzalez (TX-15), Raul Grijalva (AZ-03), Alcee Hastings (FL-02), Jahana Hayes (CT-05), Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), Hank Johnson (GA-04), Ro Khanna (CA-17), Al Lawson (FL-05), Barbara Lee (CA-13), Andy Levin (MI-09), Alan Lowenthal (CA-47), James P. McGovern (MA-02), Grace Meng (NY-06), Jerrold Nadler (NY-10), Grace Napolitano (CA-32), Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC), Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (NY-14), Jimmy Panetta (CA-20), Jan Schakowsky (IL-09), Albio Sires (NJ-08), Bennie Thompson (MS-02), Rashida Tlaib (MI-13), Nydia Velazquez (NY-07), Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12), Nikema Williams (GA-05), Frederica Wilson (FL-24), Madeleine Dean (PA-04), Brendan Boyle (PA-02), André Carson (IN-07), and Mark Pocan (IN-07).
https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-and-schumer-statement-on-why-president-biden-can-and-should-take-executive-action-to-cancel-up-to-50000-in-student-loan-debt
https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-schumer-pressley-colleagues-president-biden-can-and-should-use-executive-action-to-cancel-up-to-50000-in-federal-student-loan-debt-immediately
Frozen Wind Turbines Did Not Cause the Texas Blackouts
https://www.vice.com/en/article/88a7pv/no-frozen-wind-turbines-did-not-cause-the-texas-blackouts
THE PRESIDENT: By the end of July of this year. We have — we came into office, there was only 50 million doses that were available. We have now — by the end of July, we'll have over 600 million doses — enough to vaccinate every single American.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/02/17/remarks-by-president-biden-in-a-cnn-town-hall-with-anderson-cooper/
THE PRESIDENT: Here, look, we — what we did — we got into office and found out the supply — there was no backlog. I mean, there was nothing in the refrigerator, figuratively and literally speaking, and there were 10 million doses a day that were available. We've upped that, in the first three weeks that we were in office, to significantly more than that. We've moved out — went to the Pfizer and Moderna, and said, "Can you produce more vaccine and more rapidly?" They not only agreed to go from 200 to 400 — and they've agreed to go to 600 million doses. And that's — and they're — and we got them to move up the time because we used the National Defense Act to be able to help the manufacturing piece of it to get more equipment and so on.
MR. COOPER: So if, end of April — excuse me, end of July, they're available to actually get them in the arms of people who want them, that will take — what? — a couple more months?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, no, a lot will be being vaccinated in the meantime.
MR. COOPER: Okay.
THE PRESIDENT: In other words, it's not all of a sudden 600 million doses are going to appear. And what's going to happen is: It's going to continue to increase as we move along, and we'll have — we'll have reached 400 million by the end of May and 600 million by the middle of — by the end of July. And the biggest thing, though, as you remember when you and I — no, I shouldn't say it that way, "as you remember" — but when you and I talked last, we talked about — it's one thing to have the vaccine, which we didn't have when we came into office, but a vaccinator — how do you get the vaccine into someone's arm? So you need the paraphernalia. You need the needle, and you need mechanisms to be able to get it in. You have to have people who can inject it into people's arms.
MR. COOPER: That's been one of the problems is just getting enough people.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, now we have — we have made significant strides increasing the number of vaccinators. I've — I issued an executive order allowing former retired docs and nurses to do it. We have over 1,000 military personnel. The CDC is — I mean, excuse me, the — we have gotten the National Guard engaged. So we have significant number of vaccinators — people who would actually be there. Plus, we've opened up a considerable number of locations where you can get the vaccination.
And so, what we found out is, there are certain things that make it rational and easy to go back to the brick-and-mortar building. One, first of all, making sure everybody is wearing protective gear — it's available to students, as well as to teachers, the janitors, the people who work in the cafeteria, the bus drivers. Secondly, organizing in smaller pods, which means that's why we need more teachers. Instead of a classroom of 30 kids in it, you have three classes and that same — of 10 kids each in those. And I'm — I'm not making the number up; it might be less. It doesn't have to be literally 10. In addition to that, we also have indicated that it is much better, it's much easier to send kids K-through-8 back because they are less likely to communicate the disease to somebody else. But because kids in — sophomores, juniors, and seniors in high school — they socialize a lot more, and they're older, and they transmit more than young kids do, it's harder to get those schools open without having everything from the ventilation systems and — and having —For example, school bus drivers — you know, we — we got to make sure that you don't have 60 kids, or however many there — depending on the size of school bus — sitting two abreast in every single seat. And so there's a lot of things we can do, short of — and I think that we should be vaccinating teachers. We should move them up in the hierarchy as well. (Applause.)
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/02/17/remarks-by-president-biden-in-a-cnn-town-hall-with-anderson-cooper/
MR. COOPER: Well, let me ask you, you — your administration had set a goal to open the majority of schools in your first 100 days. You're now saying that means those schools may only be open for at least one day a week.
THE PRESIDENT: No, that's not true. That's what was reported; that's not true. There was a mistake in the communication. But what I — what I'm talking about is I said opening the majority of schools in K-through-eighth grade because they're the easiest to open, the most needed to be opened, in terms of the impact on children and families having to stay home.
MR. COOPER: So when do you think that would be — K-through-8, at least five days a week if possible?
THE PRESIDENT: I think we'll be close to that at the end of the first 100 days. We've had a significant percentage of them being able to be opened. My — my guess is they're going to probably be pushing to open all for — all summer — to continue like it's a different semester (inaudible).
MR. COOPER: Do you think that would be five days a week or just a couple?
THE PRESIDENT: I think — I think many of them are five days a week. The goal will be five days a week. Now, it's going to be harder to open up the high schools for the reasons I said — just like, if you notice, the contagion factor in colleges is much higher than it is in high schools or grade schools.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/02/17/remarks-by-president-biden-in-a-cnn-town-hall-with-anderson-cooper/
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Very good, thank you. Our 19-year-old son was diagnosed with pediatric COPD at the age of 14. We're told he has the lungs of a 60-year-old. He does all he can to protect himself. Last month, he even removed himself from the campus of UW-Madison, as he feels it's safer and he has less exposure here at home. We've tried all we can to get him a vaccine. I hear of others who are less vulnerable getting it based on far less. Do you have a plan to vaccinate those who are most vulnerable sooner, to give them a priority?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the answer is: Yes, there are. But here's how it works: The states make the decision on who is — or in what order. I can make recommendations, and for federal programs, I can do that as President of the United States. But I can't tell the state, "You must move such and such a group of people up." But here's what I'd like to do: If you're willing, I'll stay around after this is over, and maybe we can talk a few minutes and see if I can get you some help. (Applause.)
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/02/17/remarks-by-president-biden-in-a-cnn-town-hall-with-anderson-cooper/
AUDIENCE MEMBER: G-d bless you. Mr. President, hello. My name is Dr. Dessie Levy. And my question to you is: Considering COVID-19 and its significant impact on black Americans, especially here in Milwaukee, and thus the exacerbation of our racial disparities in healthcare, we have seen less than 3 percent of blacks and less than 5 percent of Hispanics, given the total number of vaccines that have been administered to this point. Is this a priority for the Biden administration? And how will the disparities be addressed? And that's both locally and nationally.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, it is a priority, number one. Number two, there's two reasons for it being the way it is. Number one, there is some history of blacks being used as guinea pigs and other experiments — I need not tell you, Doctor — over the last 50 to 75 to 100 years in America. So there's a — there is a concern about getting the vaccine, whether it's available or not. But the biggest part of it is access — physical access. That's why, last week, I opened up — I met with the Black Caucus in the United States Congress and agreed that I would — all — all of the fed- — all of the community health centers now, which take care of the toughest of the toughest neighborhoods in terms of illness, they are going to get a million doses, you know, a week, in how we're going to move forward, because they're in the neighborhood. Secondly, we have opened up — and I'm making sure that there's doses of vaccine for over 6,700 pharmacies, because almost everyone lives within not always walking distance, but within the distance of being able to go to the pharmacy, like when you got your flu shot. That is also now being opened. Thirdly, I also am providing for mobile — mobile vans, mobile units to go into neighborhoods that are hard to get to because people are on — for example, even though everyone is within, you know, basically five miles of a Walgreens, let's say, the fact is, if you're 70 years old, you don't have a vehicle, and you live in a tough neighborhood — meaning you're — it's a high concentration of COVID — you're not likely to be able to walk five miles to go get a vaccine. The other thing we found is — and I'm sorry to go on, but this is really important to me. The other part — portion is, a lot of people don't know how to register. Not everybody in the community — in the Hispanic and the African American community, particularly in rural areas that are distant and/or inner-city districts — know how to use — know how to get online to determine how to get in line for that COVID vaccination at the Walgreens or at the particular store. So we're also — I've committed to spend a billion dollars on public education to help people figure out how they can get in there. That's why we're also trying to set up mass vaccination centers, like places in stadiums and the like.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/02/17/remarks-by-president-biden-in-a-cnn-town-hall-with-anderson-cooper/
THE PRESIDENT: Layla. Beautiful name. First of all, kids don't get the vacci- — get COVID very often. It's unusual for that to happen. They don't — they — and there — the evidence so far is, children aren't the people most likely to get COVID — number one. Number two, we haven't even done tests yet on children as to whether or not the certain vaccines would work or not work, or what is needed. So that's — so you — you're the safest group of people in the whole world — number one. Number two, you're not likely to be able to be exposed to something and spread it to mommy or daddy. And it's not likely mommy and daddy are able to spread it to you either. So I wouldn't worry about it, baby. I promise you. But I know it's, kind of, worrisome. Are you in first grade, second grade?
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/02/17/remarks-by-president-biden-in-a-cnn-town-hall-with-anderson-cooper/
MR. COOPER: You know, let me ask you — (applause) — let me ask you, just for folks who are watching out there — there are a lot of people who are scared, and there's a lot of people —
THE PRESIDENT: Sure.
MR. COOPER: — who are hurting. When do you think this pandemic is — I mean, when are we — when is it going to be done? When are we going to get back to normal?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you know, all the experts, all the committee that I put together of the leading researchers in the world and in the United States who are on this committee of mine, headed by Dr. Fauci and others, they tell me: Be careful not to predict things that you don't know for certain what's going to happen because then you'll be held accountable. I get that. But let me tell you what I think based on all that I've learned and all that I've studied and all that I think that I know. It's fairly — it's a high probability that the vaccinations that are available today — and the new one, Johnson & Johnson, G-d willing — will prove to be useful; that with those vaccinations, the ability to continue to spread the disease is going to diminish considerably because of what they call "herd immunity." And now they're saying somewhere around 70 percent of the people have to constitute; some people said 50, 60. But a significant number have to be in a position where they are — they have been vaccinated and/or they've been through it and —
MR. COOPER: Have antibodies.
THE PRESIDENT: And have antibodies. And so, if that works that way — as my mother would say, with the grace of G-d and the goodwill of the neighbors — that by next Christmas, I think we'll be in a very different circumstance, G-d willing, than we are today. I think a year from now, when it's 22 below zero here — (laughter) — no, a year from now, I think that there'll be significantly fewer people having to be socially distanced, have to wear masks, et cetera. But we don't know. So I don't want to over-promise anything here. I told you when I ran and when I got elected: I will always level with you. To use Franklin Roosevelt's example, I'll shoot to give it "straight from the shoulder" — straight from the shoulder what I know and what I don't know. We don't know for certain, but it is highly unlikely that by the beginning of next year's school — traditional school year in September, we are not significantly better off than we are today, but it matters. It matters whether you continue to wear that mask. It matters whether you continue to socially distance. It matters whether you wash your hands with hot water. It — those things matter. They matter. And that can save a lot of lives while we're getting to this point, we get to herd immunity.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/02/17/remarks-by-president-biden-in-a-cnn-town-hall-with-anderson-cooper/
THE PRESIDENT: I'm committed to pass- — look, here's — some of you are probably economists or college professors or you're teaching in school. This is the first time in my career — and as you can tell, I'm over 30 — the first time in my career that there is a consensus among economists left, right, and center that is over- — and including the IMF and in Europe — that the overwhelming consensus is: In order to grow the economy a year or two, three, and four down the line, we can't spend too much. Now is the time we should be spending. Now is the time to go big. You may recall I managed the last experiment we had with stimulus, and it was 800 — (applause) — no, I don't mean it that way, but it was $800 billion. We thought we needed more than that. And we think we did. We got — we were — it ended up working, but it slowed things up by about — and it, depending who you talked to — between six months and a year and a half. We can come back — we can come roaring back. It's estimated that if we — by most economists, including Wall Street firms, as well as — as — as, you know, think tanks — political think tanks — left, right, and center — it is estimated that if we pass this bill alone, we'll create 7 million jobs this year. Seven million jobs this year. (Applause.) And so the thing we haven't talked about — and I'm not going to go on because I want to hear your question, and I apologize — we haven't talked about — I remember you and I talking during the campaign, and you had the former guy saying that, "Well, you know, we're just going to open things up, and that's all we need to do." We said, "No, you got to deal with the disease before you deal with the — with getting the economy going." Well, the fact is that the economy now has to be dealt with. And what is — look at all the people. You have over 10 million people unemployed. We need unemployment insurance. We need to make sure that, you know, you have — 40 percent of the children in America are — talk about food shortage — 60 percent of — did you ever think you'd see a day, Milwaukee — you'd see in the last six months, people lining up in their automobiles for an hour, for as far as you can see, to get a bag of food? What — I mean, this is the United States of America, for G-d's sake. We can't deal with that? We promised — look at all the people who are on the verge of being kicked out of their apartments because they cannot afford — they cannot afford the rent. What happens when that happens? Everything (inaudible). Look at all the mom-and-pop landL-rds that are in real trouble if we don't subsidize this in the meantime. Look at all the people who are on the verge of missing — and how many people have missed their last two mortgage payments and are able to be foreclosed on. That's why I took executive action to say they cannot be foreclosed on in the meantime. Because look at what the impact on the economy would be. You think it's bad now, let all that happen. Look at all the people who've lost their insurance. How many — I'm not asking for a show of hands. How many of you had jobs with corporations or companies that provided healthcare? The COBRA healthcare. Well, guess what? The company goes under, and guess what? You lose your health insurance. Well, we should be making sure you're able to pay for that so that we keep people moving. So there's a lot — so I think bigger. And the vast majority of serious people say bigger is better now, not spending less.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you. My partner and I own a small brewery in the Riverwest neighborhood of Milwaukee, and we have nine amazing employees. We rely primarily on selling our beer out of our tap room. And with the pandemic, our business has gone down about 50 percent. Now, we've relied primarily on loans, grants, as well as our own reserves to survive. However, the new assistance has been too slow, and recently it's gotten more restrictive on how we can apply it. What will you do so that small mom-and-pop businesses like ours will survive over large corporate entities?
THE PRESIDENT: Change it drastically, first of all, by making sure we have inspectors general. You may remember when the first bill passed, you may remember there was a guy running, saying, "What's going to happen is the banks aren't going to lend you the money. They're going to ask you a question, 'Do you have your credit with us? How many loans do you have with us? What is your — what credit cards do you have with us? How…" Because even though they were being underwritten, and we bailed their rear ends out — last time out, they weren't — it was too much trouble to lend to you. What did the President do? And I don't want to pick on the Pres- — I shouldn't — I don't — I'm tired of talking about Donald Trump. I don't want to talk about him anymore. But the last administration spent time — a lot of time talking about how there was no need for inspector generals. We find out that 40 percent of the money — the PPE loans to go to — PP — PPP loans that go to small businesses went to — went to corporations that were multimillion-dollar corporations. And you're going to see an investigation showing that a lot of this was fraudulent where it went. So what I'm doing is I'm providing $60 billion for you to be able to make capital investments in order to be able to open safely and make sure you're in a position that you can do the things that are recommended. If you've noticed, there's been very little federal direction for you all as to how to safely open your businesses. Yet, you know, if you're able to test your employees, if you're able to be in a situation if you — if you serve people, you have Plexiglas dividers; if you — a whole range. If you're able to have everybody with a — with a mask and the like, you can do so much to safely open, but you don't get that direction. So, the money, I guarantee you, is going to go to small businesses with people. And I'm shooting — and, by the way, the original definition of a small businesses is 500 or fewer employees. Well, that's not what I mean by small businesses. What we meant by small business is the mom-and-pop businesses that hold communities together and keep people together, and particularly in neighborhoods where if you don't have a beauty shop, a barber shop, a hardware store, a grocery store, et cetera, the center of the community begins to disintegrate some. So what I'd like to do is, if you are willing to give me an address, lay out for you precisely — without taking more time, I'm going to get in trouble; I'm supposed only took two minutes in an answer — is to let you know exactly how that $60 billion in part of the recovery package will go to small businesses. (Applause.)
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/02/17/remarks-by-president-biden-in-a-cnn-town-hall-with-anderson-cooper/
THE PRESIDENT: I'm not going to call names out. I — look, I — for four years, all that's been in the news is Trump. The next four years, I want to make sure all in the news is the American people. I'm tired of talking about Trump. (Applause.) It's done.
MR. COOPER: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said that the former President is, quote, "still liable for everything he did while he was in office." If your Department of Justice wanted to investigate him, would you allow them to proceed?
THE PRESIDENT: I made it clear: One of the things about — one of the most serious pieces of damage done by the last administration was the politic- — the politicizing of the Justice Department. Any of you who are lawyers know — whether you're a Democrat, Republican, conservative, or liberal — it has been more politicized than any Justice Department in American history. I made a commitment: I will not ever tell my Justice Department — and it's not mine; it's the people's Justice Department — who they should and should not prosecute. Their prosecutorial decisions will be left to the Justice Department, not me. (Applause.)
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/02/17/remarks-by-president-biden-in-a-cnn-town-hall-with-anderson-cooper/
AUDIENCE MEMBER: More seriously, Mr. President, like millions of my fellow citizens, I was shaken by the attack on the Capitol on January 6th, and on our democracy more broadly, by your predecessor and his followers. While I appreciate efforts being made to bring them to justice, I worry about ongoing threats to our country from Americans who embrace white supremacy and conspiracies that align with it. What can your administration do to address this complex and wide-ranging problem?
THE PRESIDENT: It is complex, it's wide ranging, and it's real. You may — I got involved in politics to begin with because of civil rights and opposition to white supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan. And the most dangerous people in America continue to exist. That is the greatest threat to terror in America: domestic terror. And so I would make sure that my Justice Department and the Civil Rights Division is focused heavily on those very folks. And I would make sure that we, in fact, focus on how to deal with the rise of white supremacy. And you see what's happening — and the studies that are beginning to be done, maybe at your university as well — about the impact of former military, former police officers, on the growth of white supremacy in some of these groups. You may remember in one of my debates with the former President, I asked him to condemn the Proud Boys. He wouldn't do it. He said, "Stand by. Stand ready." Or whatever the phrasing exactly was. It is a bane on our existence. It has always been. As Lincoln said, "We have to appeal to our better angels." And these guys are not — and women — are, in fact, demented. They are dangerous people.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/02/17/remarks-by-president-biden-in-a-cnn-town-hall-with-anderson-cooper/
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good evening, President Biden. I was a public defender in Kenosha County when the police shot Jacob Blake. I witnessed the city I worked in burned and devastated. And recently, District Attorney Michael Graveley denied to prosecute the police officers responsible. So my question to you is: What will your administration do to correct these wrongs that we witnessed not just in Kenosha, but across this country? And what will we do to bridge the gap between communities and their police?
THE PRESIDENT: Three things. First of all, I was a public defender as well, and I think it's high time that we had public defenders being paid the same as prosecutors. My son, by the way, was a great prosecutor; he was the attorney general of the state of Delaware, and he was a federal prosecutor before that. And so I'm not condemning all prosecutors, but I am saying that it matters that you have adequate defense and you are able to attract people who, in fact, can live on being able to be that public defender — number one. Number two — we are pushing very hard, and I think we'll get it done — is the legislation relating to what is appropriate police behavior and studying police behavior, and coming down with recommendations that are consistent with the legislation that was put in place as a consequence of all the world seeing one man shoved up against the curb and murdered after 8 minutes and 46 seconds. And so there's a number of things relating to everything from no-knock warrants and — and a whole range of things you know. But there's legislation that's being introduced separately. I hope it will pass. But thirdly, I think we have to deal with systemic racism that exists throughout society. And one of the things I'm going to recommend there is that we look at an entire panoply of things that affect whether or not people of color, primarily, are — are treated differently. And that goes through everything from prosecutorial discretion — you know, as a public defender what, by that, I mean. What happens is — it'll take too long to go through the whole explanation, but let me do it — try to go quickly. What happens now is, if you in fact are going to — you arrest someone because they had — and you want to charge them, you can charge them with robbery or armed robbery. If you charge them with armed robbery, you get a lot more time than if you don't charge with robbery. But if you want to make sure that someone who doesn't know much about their representation is able to (inaudible), you engage in prosecutorial misconduct by offering them to plead to, essentially — it's not the same — burglary, which gets them two years in probation and — so you don't even get a trial. You plead because you don't have adequate representation. You feel like everything is against you, and you're in trouble. When I did the sentencing act, that was designed to keep — make sure we had the same time for the same crime. As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, I looked at all 10 federal districts — and we took six months to do it — and found out if you're black, and you — or your first-time offense of being accused of burglary — and maybe you committed it and you were white and you did the same exact crime — in all 10 districts throughout the United States of America, a person — and don't hold me to the exact numbers, but the percentages are right — if you're a first-time white guy, you'd get two years; you'd get seven years if you were black. So in order to make sure that you could not send people to jail for the same crime, I came up with this pr- — this Sentencing Commission, which said that you — everybody who commits the crime has to receive between — instead of zero to 20 years, you drastically cut down the number of years you could go to jail. But say you have to — if you — if it's a one — first-time offense, you have to get sentenced between one and a half and three years. Okay? Well, what happens is prosecutors use that as a mechanism to send people to jail. It makes it look like they're — we're dealing with mandatory sentencing, which it wasn't designed to do at all. It was designed to make sure that people were treated fairly. There's much — I'm sorry to go on. There's much more to talk about, but —
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/02/17/remarks-by-president-biden-in-a-cnn-town-hall-with-anderson-cooper/
MR. COOPER: Yeah. We actually have a related question over here. This is Dannie Evans, a pastor in Janesville, who works as a supervisor for the juvenile justice diversion program in Rock County. He's an independent, voted for Donald Trump in 2020. He's also a member the state's 32-member Racial Disparity Task Force, created in the wake of the Jacob Blake shooting last summer. Dannie, welcome.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good afternoon, Mr. President. "Defund the Police" is discussed as an option for reforming policing; however, there are communities where people live in fear not of the police, but in fear of the violent gangs who commit crimes —
THE PRESIDENT: Exactly.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: — in those neighborhoods. How can we be sure that we don't over-legislate police officers so that they can't do their job to protect the law-abiding citizens who live in these high-crime neighborhoods, and yet train officers to police with compassion?
THE PRESIDENT: By, number one, not defunding the police. We have to put more money in police work so we have legitimate community policing and we're in a situation where we change the legislation. No one should go to jail for a drug offense. No one should go to jail for the use of a drug. They should go to drug rehabilitation. (Applause.) Drug rehabilitation. Number one. We should be in a position where we change the system — of sentencing system — to one that relates to a notion of — they start telling you to — as related to making sure that what you do is you focus on making sure that there's rehabilitation. The idea that we don't have people in prison systems learning how to be — spending the money — learning how to be mechanics, learning how to be cooks, learning how to have a profession when you get out; the idea that we deny someone, who served their time, access to Pell Grants, access to housing, access to — right now, as you well know, most places you get out of prison, you get 25 bucks and a bus ticket. You end up back under the bridge exactly where you were before. And the fact is that — the concern in many minority communities is black-on-black, Hispanic-on-Hispanic, not just — But here's the deal: There has to be much more serious –how can I say it? — much more serious determination as to what the background and the attitudes of the recruit is, where — what their views are. There should be much more psychological testing, like you would if you're going to the intelligence community. What is it? What are the things that make you respond the way you do? Because there is — there is inherent prejudice built into the system as well. And we also need to provide for — and it's happening — more African American and more Hispanic police officers. And, by the way, they don't get it all right either, by a long shot. But every cop, when they get up in the morning and put on that shield, has a right to expect to be able to go home to their family that night. Conversely, every kid walking across the street wearing a hoodie is not a member of a gang and is about to knock somebody off. (Applause.) So it's about education. I'd love to talk to you more about it because it's — it is the answer, in my view — that and education — actually, access to education. And one of the things that I talk a lot about — and I'm sorry to go on about this, but it's important: I don't think we can look at opportunity in the Af- — let's stick with African American community for a minute — in terms of the criminal justice system. That is only one small piece of why people are the way they are. You realize — I don't know what home you live in, but if you go ahead and you want to get insurance, and you're in a black neighborhood, you're going to pay more for the same insurance that I'm going to pay for the exact same home. Your car — you never had an accident in your car. If you live in a black neighborhood, you're going to pay a higher premium on your car. You're going to — So, there's so many things that are built in institutionally that disadvantage African Americans and Latinos that we — in fact, I think — and one of the great advantages — I'm sorry, but one of the great advantages — as bad as things are — I keep reading from presidential historians how I've inherited the worst situation since Lincoln, worse than Roosevelt, because — economic crisis, political crisis, racial crisis, et cetera. But the fact is that everyone has gotten a close-up look now and seen what's happened. That kid — that kid holding that camera for 8 minutes and 46 seconds awakened the whole world. When I met with his little daughter, after he was dead, she said, "My Daddy has changed the world." Guess what? Not only here in the United States. Around the world, people said, "Whoa, I didn't know that happened." Dr. King — when my generation — when I got involved in the Civil Rights Movement as a high school student in the early '60s — and you had Bull Connor and his dogs in the late '50s sicking on those ladies going to — in their black dresses going to church — and little kids and fire hoses ripping their skin off. He said, "What happened there was — it was a second emancipation." Because people in places where there weren't black communities said, "That really happens? I didn't believe it." They saw it happen. And so it generated the — the Voting Rights Act. It generated the Civil Rights Act. And he called it the "Second Emancipation." We have a chance now — a chance now to make significant change in racial disparities. And I'm going to say something that's going to get me in trouble, which — I couldn't go through the whole show without doing that. And that is that — think about it: If you want to know where the American public is, look at the money being spent in advertising. Did you ever, five years ago, think every second or third ad out of five or six you'd turn on would be biracial couples? (Applause.) No, no, I'm not — I'm not being fac- — the reason I'm so hopeful is this new generation — they're not like us. They're thinking differently. They're more open. And we got to take advantage of it. (Applause.)
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/02/17/remarks-by-president-biden-in-a-cnn-town-hall-with-anderson-cooper/
THE PRESIDENT: I take issue with what everybody says about the division. For example, my plan on COVID: 69 percent of the American people support it — 69. In this state — recent poll — 60 percent. Sixty percent. Forty-five percent of Trump voters and fifty-five percent of Republican voters. The nation is not divided. You go out there and take a look and talk to people. You have fringes on both ends, but it's not nearly as divided as we make it out to be. And we have to bring it together. You may remember how — trouble I get in. I said there were three reasons I was running: One, to restore the soul of the country — decency, honor, integrity; talk about the things that matter to people, treat people with dignity. Secondly, I said, to rebuild the backbone of the country, the middle class, and this time bring everybody along and have a chance. And the third reason was unite the country. On my own primary, I got la- — "Unite the country? What are you talking about?" You cannot function in our system without consensus, other than abusing power at the executive level. So I really think there's so many things that we agree on that we don't focus enough on. And that's, in large part, I think, because we don't just condemn the things that are so obviously wrong — obviously wrong — that everybody agrees on. The way they were raised. The way we were raised. As my mother would say, if half the things that occurred in the last campaign came out of my mouth, as she'd say as a kid, we'd wash my mouth out with soap. (Laughter.) I mean, we have to be more decent and treat people with respect, and just decency.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/02/17/remarks-by-president-biden-in-a-cnn-town-hall-with-anderson-cooper/
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, there's a whole range of things that relate to immigration, including the whole idea how you deal with — you know, what confuses people, is you talk about refugees, you talk about undocumented, you talk about people who are seeking asylum, and you talk about people who are coming from the — that are coming from camps or being held around the world. And there are four different criteria for being able to come to the United States. The vast majority of the people, those 11 million undocumented, they're not Hispanics; they're people who came on a visa — who was able to buy a ticket to get in a plane, and didn't go home. They didn't come across the Rio Grande swimming — excuse me. (Laughter.) And — and — sorry, that's the Irish in me. (Laughter.) But all kidding aside. So there are a lot of things that relate — but I think that we can no long- — look, you've he- — I'm — even if you're not involved in politics at all, you've probably heard me say this a thousand times, and matter of — that everyone is entitled to be treated with decency, with dignity. Everyone is entitled to that. And we don't do that enough. For the first time in American history, if you're seeking asylum — meaning you're being persecuted, you're seeking asylum — you can't do it from the United States. You used to come, have an asylum officer determine whether or not you met the criteria, and send you back if you in fact — but you can't even do that. You've got to seek asylum from abroad.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/02/17/remarks-by-president-biden-in-a-cnn-town-hall-with-anderson-cooper/
Come with me into Sierra Leone. Come with me into parts of Lebanon. Come with me around the world and see people piled up in camps, kids dying, no way out, refugees fleeing from persecution. We, the United States, used to do our part. We were part of that. We were — and, you know, that's — you know, "send me your huddled masses." Come on.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/02/17/remarks-by-president-biden-in-a-cnn-town-hall-with-anderson-cooper/
The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources will consider the nomination of Rep. Deb Haaland as U.S. Department of the Interior secretary during a hearing scheduled for Feb. 23. Haaland was a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal in 2019 and has been vocal in opposing fracking on public lands, including her ancestral homelands near Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. In the lead-up to her historic campaign victory in 2018 — one of the first two Native American women ever elected to Congress — Haaland joined thousands of other Indigenous Water Protectors and their allies at Standing Rock to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline. "I went to Standing Rock because I believe the health of our earth and environment are the most important factors for the future of our children," Haaland wrote on her blog about her campaign commitment to address climate change. Haaland's storied struggle —a single-mom who's faced food insecurity and homelessness all while earning a law degree of which she is still paying off student loans — is perhaps why an alliance of progressives activists, many of them Indigenous, relentlessly campaigned to elevate Haaland, over another Native American being considered for the Cabinet post. Micheal Connor, a career Interior bureaucrat of Taos Pueblo was also being considered by the Biden-Harris Transition Team, but he was quickly discounted over suspicions of seeming too "corporate".
https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/deb-haaland-s-senate-hearing-set-oSNXf1aXP062DygVHZeN9A
https://www.energy.senate.gov/hearings/2021/2/hearing-to-consider-nomination-of-the-honorable-debra-haaland-to-be-the-secretary-of-the-interior
https://medium.com/@deb4congressnm/more-than-politics-its-personal-60f791124b94
DOJ announces charges against North Korean hacker spies accused of stealing more than $1.3 billion in cash and cryptocurrency
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/north-korea-hackers-banks-theft/2021/02/17/3dccf0dc-7129-11eb-93be-c10813e358a2_story.html
Brexit forces Northern Ireland buyers to cancel orders for 100,000 trees | Ban on plants being moved across Irish Sea is major setback for tree-planting programmes in region
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/feb/17/brexit-forces-northern-ireland-buyers-to-cancel-orders-for-100000-trees
Hero of 'Hotel Rwanda', who protected hundreds during 1994 genocide, Paul Rusesabagina, arrested on fabricated charges (political prisoner)
https://www.theweek.in/news/world/2021/02/17/hero-of-hotel-rwanda-who-protected-hundreds-during-1994-genocide-charged-with-terrorism.html
American Ford Is Investing $1 Billion In Germany Because Americans Reject Clean Green Technology
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/17/business/ford-europe-electric-vehicles/index.html
Islamic terrorists murder student and kidnap 27 other students in attack on Nigerian school
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nigeria-security-kidnapping/gunmen-storm-nigerian-school-kidnap-27-students-idUSKBN2AH14Y
_________________________________
https://medium.com/@deb4congressnm/more-than-politics-its-personal-60f791124b94
More than Politics — it's Personal.
My Commitments To Our Environment That I Will Continue To Live By And Champion In Congress.
Deb Haaland
Sep 26, 2017·10 min read
Like many New Mexicans, I enjoy spending time outdoors and understand how important New Mexico's natural beauty and resources are. I'm concerned that if we don't do more to protect our open spaces and reduce climate change, there will be devastating and lasting impacts on us and future generations.
I learned from my parents to revere nature. Their way of teaching us to respect the environment was to be in it, and so we spent a great deal of time outdoors. I fondly remember a family vacation at Dismal Swamp — rowing a boat up and down the swamp fishing for several days, and once while at the beach in Virginia, my sister and I floated at least a mile out on the Chesapeake Bay on dime store blow up rafts. The Marine lifeguards had to swim out to rescue us. I was never scared, because the beach was a familiar place.
In June this year, former United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres, along with other prominent diplomats and scientists, wrote an open letter about the future of our environment. In their estimation, the world has three years before the worst effects of climate change take hold.
https://www.nature.com/news/three-years-to-safeguard-our-climate-1.22201
I'm going to spend those three years working to become and serve as your next Congresswoman and do whatever I can to push bold action on climate change and our environment.
I went to Standing Rock because I believe the health of our earth and environment are the most important factors for the future of our children and grandchildren and their ability to thrive, and I saw the #NoDAPL protest as a drum beat for true environmental change. Dependence on finite and scarce resources — like oil — hurts workers, the middle class, and our economy by continuing to drive profits to the few. Ignoring climate change sets up our students and workforce for failure by not educating them about the needs of the future.
Everything depends on our ability to sustainably inhabit this earth and true sustainability will require us all to change our way of thinking on how we take from the earth and how we can give back. In Congress, I'll work to protect New Mexico from irresponsible development that could change our state forever, harm public health and hurt our economy in the long run. I will fight the sale of public lands to private interests, expand the use of renewable energy, protect our air and water, and work for sensible development. I will not ignore the hard facts of climate change, and I will fight to regulate our biggest polluters and ensure accountability.
We cannot ignore the endless amounts of data, the scientific community at large, and what we are witnessing when it comes to our earth's response to carbon and other greenhouse gas pollution. Ice caps and permafrost are melting, and weather patterns are changing and becoming more violent; these are not opinions — these are the facts.
We need to keep and advance our global and national commitments to reducing carbon pollution, and ensure we have a well funded EPA to oversee regulatory requirements — including leadership, management and staff who know climate change is real and that we must act boldly and swiftly. Corporations that pollute must be regulated, and there must be real consequences for violations. Taxpayers should not be paying to clean up their mess.
Climate change is a national security threat and it should be treated as such. Just take a look what is happening in Florida, Houston and Puerto Rico. National defense spending must also include defense of our environment. We have world-renowned scientists and labs including right here in NM-01 with Sandia Labs, and they should be funded to explore and produce solutions for safe and sustainable environmental practices. Without a sustainable planet to inhabit, national defense has no purpose.
In Congress, I will not ignore the hard facts of climate change, and I will fight for the hard facts of science to inform environmental policy and how we use taxpayer dollars. I will also fight to regulate our biggest polluters and ensure accountability.
Clean Energy will save our planet — and our economy.
We cannot rely on finite energy resources, the extraction of which wreaks havoc on the air our children breathe and water they drink. New Mexico's economy would be so much stronger if we would fully capitalize on our solar, wind, and geothermal energy sources. I will work to make New Mexico the clean energy leader in the nation, which will also make our economy more secure with sustainable, good-paying jobs.
I will champion efforts in Congress that make it easier to transition to clean energy, and provide incentives for individuals, businesses, and states that make the transition. I will advocate for robust training programs to build a qualified workforce for the clean energy industry, and to ensure we don't leave oil and coal workers or anybody behind.
Water is life. We must ensure the availability and integrity of this resource for generations to come.
Fracking is a danger to the air we breathe and water we drink.
Fracking, as it is currently used, pollutes our nation's water supplies and primarily impacts rural and low income communities. In the case of New Mexico, these communities are also largely Native American.
The auctioning off of our land for fracking and drilling serves only to drive profits to the few. We must not destroy protected Native ancestral lands and important cultural and heritage sites for the sake of a relatively short-term oil and gas fix, especially when it results in the degradation of sacred sites, land, water, and air.
I will fight special interests in Washington who exploit Native, rural, and low income communities for the purpose of fracking and drilling that pollutes our environment. No short or long term gain is worth polluting our water. Water is life.
Climate change has had a devastating impact on the sustainability of freshwater.
As temperatures increase, industries like manufacturing and agriculture have to use more water to sustain their operations. Fighting climate change is water conservation.
Water conservation should be part of incentives for household energy efficiency and corporate reduction of carbon emissions; and, we need to promote strategies for water conservation like harvesting rainwater and protecting and utilizing groundwater resources. Strategies like these at scale would mitigate high water consumption industries, like agriculture, while also preserving their livelihoods.
We've had too many lessons from which to learn — offshore drilling is dangerous to our oceans, sea life, and shore-based economies.
Offshore drilling is not the solution to U.S. energy independence, and I am against opening parts of the Arctic, Pacific and Atlantic oceans to oil and natural gas production. We must learn from our past — disasters like Exxon and BP — and forge a new path for energy independence that does not rely on finite resources, or risk the health of our oceans that maintain a critical balance for our ecosystem.
Big Oil's bottom line depends on the American people believing and consuming as if we have no other options. We do have solutions — in solar, wind, geothermal, and wave energy — and we can have clean energy independence.
Methane pollution has cost New Mexico taxpayers millions and is a major part of the climate change problem — we must ensure the Methane and Waste Prevention Rule remains intact.
Methane is a greenhouse gas that is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. I support the Obama Administration's goal to cut methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by up to 45% from 2012 levels by 2025. The Methane Waste and Prevention Rule alone projects cutting these emissions by up to 35%.
In addition, states, tribes, and taxpayers are losing millions from the amount of wasted natural gas. Producers should be required to use the latest technology that reduces waste in order to ensure a fair return on investment.
Public lands are there for all of us — not for a few at the top to make a profit.
I support protecting and expanding our public lands. They are our heritage, and they support recreation economies that create revenue and jobs. Public lands also help preserve ancient histories of people who came before us — people who better understood the importance of honoring our land, water, and air.
I've stood up to Trump and Interior Secretary Zinke and their plans to shrink national monuments and auction off land for extraction and profits. In Congress, I will keep up the fight for what rightfully belongs to the people.
The number of animal species on this earth provide a critical balance to our ecosystem, we must respect that role and fight their exploitation by special interests for profit.
We must preserve the natural habitats of animals. We need broad protection for marine animals. Land and water conservation helps protect fish and wildlife by maintaining and growing their natural environments.
We must also stop the multi-billion dollar industry that is wildlife trafficking. This industry thrives on corruption, funds terrorism, and results in the extinction or near extinction of animals. We need tougher penalties for poachers and traffickers; we also need to work with under-resourced countries on anti-trafficking efforts.
Our environment and our health need clean food and green farming.
Our environment is impacted by how we grow and produce our food, and our environment impacts the food we eat and water we drink — which means it impacts our health.
Factory farms are not sustainable for our environment or our health. They emit dangerous greenhouse gases, causing immediate harm to the air we breathe and expediting climate change. They also often engage in torturous practices on animals for the sake of expediency.
It's sick and it's making us sick.
We need a new direction when it comes to agricultural practices — one that prioritizes a shift to sustainable and organic farming, creates opportunities to transition from factory to green farms, and incentivizes states, local jurisdictions, and taxpayers to make the transition. Small local farms and ranches should be made viable players for USDA grants, which would help to grow economies where it can do some good; grants shouldn't just be awarded for the large corporate farming operations.
Environmental Justice matters.
Whether it's the wild rice lakes on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota, water at Standing Rock or in Flint, Michigan, by and large, communities of color and low income communities are most impacted by environmental harms. Coal plants and nuclear waste facilities are built in areas where developers expect little political will or power, and the carrot of jobs is usually dangled to sweeten the deal. This level of manipulation — making underserved and underrepresented Americans choose between clean water or putting food on the table — is injustice at work.
In Congress, I will be a voice for communities that are targeted for industries dangerous to our environment, and work for remediation in those areas where the damage has been done — environmentally and economically. We all deserve clean air, water, and land.
I will fight the notion that our earth is simply a commodity to be bought and sold to the highest bidder.
The Pueblo people are agriculturalists, and we understand the relationship between people, land, and water in a high desert environment. Our cultural practices take into deep regard the harmony that must exist between people and the land — if we are to sustain ourselves and create such a path for future generations. Qwatsinas, Edward Moody, hereditary chief of the Nuxalk Nation in British Columbia once said: "We must protect the forests for our children, grandchildren and children yet to be born. We must protect the forests for those who can't speak for themselves such as the birds, animals, fish and trees."
For many decades I have worked to contain my own personal carbon footprint. I take many steps in my daily life to walk the talk. By remaining true to good environmental practices I can reduce my own carbon footprint significantly. Calculating all I do in the furtherance of our environment, I save more than 10,000 pounds of carbon from going into the atmosphere every year.
I will fight the short-sighted politics of extracting natural resources without a thought to our future. I will promote conservation and clean energy solutions that help our earth heal, and help sustain it for generations to come so that our children and grandchildren can thrive. I will be the champion for our environment that New Mexico and our nation needs and deserves — and I invite you to join me.
_________________________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/02/17/fact-sheet-biden-administration-to-take-steps-to-bolster-registered-apprenticeships/
Fact Sheet: Biden Administration to Take Steps to Bolster Registered Apprenticeships
February 17, 2021 • Statements and Releases
Registered apprenticeship programs train Americans and put them to work in good-paying jobs
Today, President Biden and Vice President Harris will meet with a group of labor leaders to discuss the American Rescue Plan and to get input on the President's infrastructure plan. They will discuss how to put millions of Americans to work in good-paying union jobs building roads, bridges, transit, electric vehicle charging stations, broadband, schools and child care centers, water infrastructure, and more. Major infrastructure investments will provide reliable, steady demand for products made by U.S. workers and supply chains of U.S. small businesses. These investments will provide opportunities to Americans who have been too often left behind. And, they will make America more competitive.
President Biden has called for the jobs created by rebuilding America's infrastructure to be filled by diverse, local, well-trained workers who have a choice to join a union. This starts by expanding registered apprenticeship programs and investing in pipelines into these programs.
Due in large part to the hard work of North America's Building Trades Unions and other unions, registered apprenticeships have been a reliable pathway to the middle class for decades – including for workers who don't go to college – by training workers for good jobs and allowing them to earn while they learn. A Mathematica study shows workers can earn $240,000 more over the course of their lifetime – $300,000 when including benefits – by participating in these programs. Registered apprenticeships are especially important as we recover from the pandemic, allowing workers who have lost their jobs or young people who are entering a weak job market to train for the jobs of the future while earning a decent income.
https://www.mathematica.org/our-publications-and-findings/publications/an-effectiveness-assessment-and-costbenefit-analysis-of-registered-apprenticeship-in-10-states
Today, President Biden is:
Reaffirming his commitment to expanding registered apprenticeships to reward work, rebuild the middle-class, and connect a diverse workforce to family-supporting, living wage jobs. President Biden endorses Congressman Bobby Scott's bipartisan National Apprenticeship Act of 2021, which will create and expand registered apprenticeships, youth apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeship programs. The House Education and Labor Committee estimates that the bill will create nearly 1 million new apprenticeship opportunities and generate billions of dollars in benefits for taxpayers. Importantly, this bill will ensure these programs draw in a diverse workforce, by supporting industry and equity intermediaries who can help recruit women and people of color. And, it'll bolster successful partnerships between apprenticeship programs and community colleges. This type of legislation is an urgently needed start, but even more investment is required to train Americans for good-paying jobs across industries ranging from construction to energy to manufacturing to technology to caregiving.
https://edlabor.house.gov/imo/media/doc/2021-01-25%20National%20Apprenticeship%20Reauthorization%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf
Reinstating the National Advisory Committee on Apprenticeships. President Biden believes that the voice of workers must be central to the development of strategies to rebuild the economy of the future. To that end, President Biden is asking the Department of Labor (DOL) to reinstate the longstanding National Advisory Committee on Apprenticeships. This Advisory Committee will appoint a diverse set of stakeholders from across the country – including unions, employers, apprentices, community colleges and other institutions – to build a registered apprenticeship program that works in all communities. As we rebuild our economy from this crisis, the Advisory Committee will have the opportunity to focus on expanding apprenticeships into new employment industries and sectors like clean energy, technology, and healthcare to create more high-quality training and employment opportunities. The Advisory Committee must also focus on making sure that Black and brown Americans, immigrants, and women can access the training and jobs of the future.
Reversing industry recognized apprenticeship programs (IRAPs), which threaten to undermine registered apprenticeship programs. Industry-recognized apprenticeship programs have fewer quality standards than registered apprenticeship programs – for example, they fail to require the wage progression that reflects increasing apprentice skills and they lack the standardized training rigor that ensures employers know they are hiring a worker with high-quality training. Today, President Biden is rescinding Executive Order 13801, which spurred the creation of these programs. He is also asking DOL to consider new rulemaking to reverse these programs and to immediately slow support for industry recognized apprenticeship programs by pausing approval of new Standards Recognition Entities and ending new funding for existing Standards Recognition Entities.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/02/17/fact-sheet-biden-administration-to-take-steps-to-bolster-registered-apprenticeships/
_________________________________
Rick Perry says that going days without power is a sacrifice Texans should be willing to make if it means keeping federal regulators out of the state's power grid
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Perry-says-Texans-wiling-to-suffer-blackouts-to-15956705.php
HUD has allowed lead painted houses to be rented to poor black people
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/how-companies-make-millions-off-lead-poisoned-poor-blacks/2015/08/25/7460c1de-0d8c-11e5-9726-49d6fa26a8c6_story.html
About 33 percent (!!!) of DOD servicemembers are declining COVID vaccines, Gen. Jeff Taliaferro, Vice Director for Operations for Joint Chiefs, tells HASC hearing on DOD response to COVID. That's a number the Pentagon has refused to share with reporters when asked repeatedly.
https://twitter.com/andclev/status/1362078965167493123
_________________________________
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/technology/slate-star-codex-rationalists.html
Silicon Valley's Safe Space
Slate Star Codex was a window into the psyche of many tech leaders building our collective future. Then it disappeared.
By Cade Metz
Feb. 13, 2021
The website had a homely, almost slapdash design with a light blue banner and a strange name: Slate Star Codex.
It was nominally a blog, written by a Bay Area psychiatrist who called himself Scott Alexander (a near anagram of Slate Star Codex). It was also the epicenter of a community called the Rationalists, a group that aimed to re-examine the world through cold and careful thought.
In a style that was erudite, funny, strange and astoundingly verbose, the blog explored everything from science and medicine to philosophy and politics to the rise of artificial intelligence. It challenged popular ideas and upheld the right to discuss contentious issues. This might involve a new take on the genetics of depression or criticism of the #MeToo movement. As a result, the conversation that thrived at the end of each blog post — and in related forums on the discussion site Reddit — attracted an unusually wide range of voices.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/05/07/5-httlpr-a-pointed-review/
http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/04/against-overgendering-harassment/
"It is the one place I know of online where you can have civil conversations among people with a wide range of views," said David Friedman, an economist and legal scholar who was a regular part of the discussion. Fellow commenters on the site, he noted, represented a wide cross-section of viewpoints. "They range politically from communist to anarcho-capitalist, religiously from Catholic to atheist, and professionally from a literal rocket scientist to a literal plumber — both of whom are interesting people."
The voices also included white supremacists and neo-fascists. The only people who struggled to be heard, Dr. Friedman said, were "social justice warriors." They were considered a threat to one of the core beliefs driving the discussion: free speech.
As the national discourse melted down in 2020, as the presidential race gathered steam, the pandemic spread and protests mounted against police violence, many in the tech industry saw the attitudes fostered on Slate Star Codex as a better way forward. They deeply distrusted the mainstream media and generally preferred discussion to take place on their own terms, without scrutiny from the outside world. The ideas they exchanged were often controversial — connected to gender, race and inherent ability, for example — and voices who might push back were kept at bay.
Slate Star Codex was a window into the Silicon Valley psyche. There are good reasons to try and understand that psyche, because the decisions made by tech companies and the people who run them eventually affect millions.
And Silicon Valley, a community of iconoclasts, is struggling to decide what's off limits for all of us.
At Twitter and Facebook, leaders were reluctant to remove words from their platforms — even when those words were untrue or could lead to violence. At some A.I. labs, they release products — including facial recognition systems, digital assistants and chatbots — even while knowing they can be biased against women and people of color, and sometimes spew hateful speech.
Why hold anything back? That was often the answer a Rationalist would arrive at.
And perhaps the clearest and most influential place to watch that thinking unfold was on Scott Alexander's blog.
"It is no surprise that this has caught on among the tech industry. The tech industry loves disrupters and disruptive thought," said Elizabeth Sandifer, a scholar who closely follows and documents the Rationalists. "But this can lead to real problems. The contrarian nature of these ideas makes them appealing to people who maybe don't think enough about the consequences."
The allure of the ideas within Silicon Valley is what made Scott Alexander, who had also written under his given name, Scott Siskind, and his blog essential reading.
But in late June of last year, when I approached Mr. Siskind to discuss the blog, it vanished.
What the Rationalists Believe
The roots of Slate Star Codex trace back more than a decade to a polemicist and self-described A.I. researcher named Eliezer Yudkowsky, who believed that intelligent machines could end up destroying humankind. He was a driving force behind the rise of the Rationalists.
The Rationalists saw themselves as people who applied scientific thought to almost any topic. This often involved "Bayesian reasoning," a way of using statistics and probability to inform beliefs.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/04/science/coronavirus-bayes-statistics-math.html
Because the Rationalists believed A.I. could end up destroying the world — a not entirely novel fear to anyone who has seen science fiction movies — they wanted to guard against it. Many worked for and donated money to MIRI, an organization created by Mr. Yudkowsky whose stated mission was "A.I. safety."
https://intelligence.org/topcontributors/
But it was the other stuff that made the Rationalists feel like outliers. They were "easily persuaded by weird, contrarian things," said Robin Hanson, a professor of economics at George Mason University who helped create the blogs that spawned the Rationalist movement. "Because they decided they were more rational than other people, they trusted their own internal judgment."
Many Rationalists embraced "effective altruism," an effort to remake charity by calculating how many people would benefit from a given donation. Some embraced the online writings of "neoreactionaries" like Curtis Yarvin, who held racist beliefs and decried American democracy. They were mostly white men, but not entirely.
https://techcrunch.com/2013/11/22/geeks-for-monarchy/
https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2009/07/why-carlyle-matters/
https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2008/06/ol8-reset-is-not-revolution/
The community was organized and close-knit. Two Bay Area organizations ran seminars and high-school summer camps on the Rationalist way of thinking.
"The curriculum covers topics from causal modeling and probability to game theory and cognitive science," read a website promising teens a summer of Rationalist learning. "How can we understand our own reasoning, behavior, and emotions? How can we think more clearly and better achieve our goals?"
The Rationalists held regular meet-ups around the world, from Silicon Valley to Amsterdam to Australia. Some lived in group houses. Some practiced polyamory. "They are basically just hippies who talk a lot more about Bayes' theorem than the original hippies," said Scott Aaronson, a University of Texas professor who has stayed in one of the group houses.
For Kelsey Piper, who embraced these ideas in high school, around 2010, the movement was about learning "how to do good in a world that changes very rapidly."
Yes, the community thought about A.I., she said, but it also thought about reducing the price of health care and slowing the spread of disease.
Slate Star Codex, which sprung up in 2013, helped her develop a "calibrated trust" in the medical system. Many people she knew, she said, felt duped by psychiatrists, for example, who they felt weren't clear about the costs and benefits of certain treatment.
That was not the Rationalist way.
"There is something really appealing about somebody explaining where a lot of those ideas are coming from and what a lot of the questions are," she said.
'The People Inventing the Future'
Last June, as I was reporting on the Rationalists and Slate Star Codex, I called Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, an artificial intelligence lab backed by a billion dollars from Microsoft. He was effusive in his praise of the blog.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/22/technology/open-ai-microsoft.html
It was, he said, essential reading among "the people inventing the future" in the tech industry.
Mr. Altman, who had risen to prominence as the president of the start-up accelerator Y Combinator, moved on to other subjects before hanging up. But he called back. He wanted to talk about an essay that appeared on the blog in 2014.
The essay was a critique of what Mr. Siskind, writing as Scott Alexander, described as "the Blue Tribe." In his telling, these were the people at the liberal end of the political spectrum whose characteristics included "supporting gay rights" and "getting conspicuously upset about sexists and bigots."
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/
But as the man behind Slate Star Codex saw it, there was one group the Blue Tribe could not tolerate: anyone who did not agree with the Blue Tribe. "Doesn't sound quite so noble now, does it?" he wrote.
Mr. Altman thought the essay nailed a big problem: In the face of the "internet mob" that guarded against sexism and racism, entrepreneurs had less room to explore new ideas. Many of their ideas, such as intelligence augmentation and genetic engineering, ran afoul of the Blue Tribe.
https://blog.samaltman.com/e-pur-si-muove
Mr. Siskind was not a member of the Blue Tribe. He was not a voice from the conservative Red Tribe ("opposing gay marriage," "getting conspicuously upset about terrorists and commies"). He identified with something called the Grey Tribe — as did many in Silicon Valley.
The Grey Tribe was characterized by libertarian beliefs, atheism, "vague annoyance that the question of gay rights even comes up," and "reading lots of blogs," he wrote. Most significantly, it believed in absolute free speech.
The essay on these tribes, Mr. Altman told me, was an inflection point for Silicon Valley. "It was a moment that people talked about a lot, lot, lot," he said.
He did not mention names. But Slate Star Codex carried an endorsement from Paul Graham, founder of Y Combinator. It was read by Patrick Collison, chief executive of Stripe, the billion-dollar start-up that emerged from the accelerator. Venture capitalists like Marc Andreessen, and Ben Horowitz followed the blog on Twitter.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190515030451/https://slatestarcodex.com/advertise/
And in some ways, two of the world's prominent A.I. labs — organizations that are tackling some of the tech industry's most ambitious and potentially powerful projects — grew out of the Rationalist movement.
In 2005, Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook, befriended Mr. Yudkowsky and gave money to MIRI. In 2010, at Mr. Thiel's San Francisco townhouse, Mr. Yudkowsky introduced him to a pair of young researchers named Shane Legg and Demis Hassabis. That fall, with an investment from Mr. Thiel's firm, the two created an A.I. lab called DeepMind.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/11/28/no-death-no-taxes
Like the Rationalists, they believed that A.I could end up turning against humanity, and because they held this belief, they felt they were among the only ones who were prepared to build it in a safe way.
In 2014, Google bought DeepMind for $650 million. The next year, Elon Musk — who also worried A.I. could destroy the world and met his partner, Grimes, because they shared an interest in a Rationalist thought experiment — founded OpenAI as a DeepMind competitor. Both labs hired from the Rationalist community.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/25/style/elon-musk-maureen-dowd.html
Life in the Grey Tribe
Part of the appeal of Slate Star Codex, faithful readers said, was Mr. Siskind's willingness to step outside acceptable topics. But he wrote in a wordy, often roundabout way that left many wondering what he really believed.
Mr. Aaronson, the University of Texas professor, was turned off by the more rigid and contrarian beliefs of the Rationalists, but he is one of the blog's biggest champions and deeply admired that it didn't avoid live-wire topics.
"It must have taken incredible guts for Scott to express his thoughts, misgivings and questions about some major ideological pillars of the modern world so openly, even if protected by a quasi-pseudonym," he said.
It was the protection of that "quasi-pseudonym" that rankled Mr. Siskind when I first got in touch with him. He declined to comment for this article.
As he explored science, philosophy and A.I., he also argued that the media ignored that men were often harassed by women. He described some feminists as something close to Voldemort, the embodiment of evil in the Harry Potter books. He said that affirmative action was difficult to distinguish from "discriminating against white men."
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/31/radicalizing-the-romanceless/
https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/21/links-1-18-helink-of-troy/
In one post, he aligned himself with Charles Murray, who proposed a link between race and I.Q. in "The Bell Curve." In another, he pointed out that Mr. Murray believes Black people "are genetically less intelligent than white people."
https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/05/23/three-great-articles-on-poverty-and-why-i-disagree-with-all-of-them/
He denounced the neoreactionaries, the anti-democratic, often racist movement popularized by Curtis Yarvin. But he also gave them a platform. His "blog roll" — the blogs he endorsed — included the work of Nick Land, a British philosopher whose writings on race, genetics and intelligence have been embraced by white nationalists.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/10/20/the-anti-reactionary-faq/
https://web.archive.org/web/20200426140027/https://slatestarcodex.com/
In 2017, Mr. Siskind published an essay titled "Gender Imbalances Are Mostly Not Due to Offensive Attitudes." The main reason computer scientists, mathematicians and other groups were predominantly male was not that the industries were sexist, he argued, but that women were simply less interested in joining.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/01/gender-imbalances-are-mostly-not-due-to-offensive-attitudes/
That week, a Google employee named James Damore wrote a memo arguing that the low number of women in technical positions at the company was a result of biological differences, not anything else — a memo he was later fired over. One Slate Star Codex reader on Reddit noted the similarities to the writing on the blog.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/07/business/google-women-engineer-fired-memo.html
Mr. Siskind, posting as Scott Alexander, urged this reader to tone it down. "Huge respect for what you're trying, but it's pretty doomed," he wrote. "If you actually go riding in on a white horse waving a paper marked 'ANTI-DIVERSITY MANIFESTO,' you're just providing justification for the next round of purges."
https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/6rv2ib/did_the_ssc_post_on_gender_imbalances_and/dl84whf/
Who Needs a Safe Space?
In 2013, Mr. Thiel invested in a technology company founded by Mr. Yarvin. So did the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, led in the investment by Balaji Srinivasan, who was then a general partner.
That year, when the tech news site TechCrunch published an article exploring the links between the neoreactionaries, the Rationalists and Silicon Valley, Mr. Yarvin and Mr. Srinivasan traded emails. Mr. Srinivasan said they could not let that kind of story gain traction. It was a preview of an attitude that I would see unfold when I approached Mr. Siskind in the summer of 2020. (Mr. Srinivasan could not be reached for comment.)
https://techcrunch.com/2013/11/22/geeks-for-monarchy/
"If things get hot, it may be interesting to sic the Dark Enlightenment audience on a single vulnerable hostile reporter to dox them and turn them inside out with hostile reporting sent to *their* advertisers/friends/contacts," Mr. Srinivasan said in an email viewed by The New York Times, using a term, "Dark Enlightenment," that was synonymous with the neoreactionary movement.
But others, like Mr. Thiel, urged their colleagues to keep quiet, saying in emails that they were confident the press would stay away. They were right.
In late June of last year, not long after talking to Mr. Altman, the OpenAI chief executive, I approached the writer known as Scott Alexander, hoping to get his views on the Rationalist way and its effect on Silicon Valley. That was when the blog vanished.
The issue, it was clear to me, was that I told him I could not guarantee him the anonymity he'd been writing with. In fact, his real name was easy to find because people had shared it online for years and he had used it on a piece he'd written for a scientific journal. I did a Google search for Scott Alexander and one of the first results I saw in the auto-complete list was Scott Alexander Siskind.
Mr. Siskind said in a late-night post on Slate Star Codex that he was going to remove his blog from the internet because The Times threatened to reveal his full name. He said this would endanger him and his patients because he had attracted many enemies online.
I woke up the next morning to a torrent of online abuse, as did my editor, who was named in the farewell note. My address and phone number were shared by the blog's readers on Twitter. Protecting the identity of the man behind Slate Star Codex had turned into a cause among the Rationalists.
More than 7,500 people signed a petition urging The Times not to publish his name, including many prominent figures in the tech industry. "Putting his full name in The Times," the petitioners said, "would meaningfully damage public discourse, by discouraging private citizens from sharing their thoughts in blog form." On the internet, many in Silicon Valley believe, everyone has the right not only to say what they want but to say it anonymously.
Amid all this, I spoke with Manoel Horta Ribeiro, a computer science researcher who explores social networks at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. He was worried that Slate Star Codex, like other communities, was allowing extremist views to trickle into the influential tech world. "A community like this gives voice to fringe groups," he said. "It gives a platform to people who hold more extreme views."
https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.08313
But for Kelsey Piper and many others, the main issue came down to the name, and tying the man known professionally and legally as Scott Siskind to his influential, and controversial, writings as Scott Alexander. Ms. Piper, who is a journalist herself, for the news site Vox, said she did not agree with everything he had written, but she also felt his blog was unfairly painted as an on-ramp to radical views. She worried his views could not be reduced to a single newspaper story.
I assured her my goal was to report on the blog, and the Rationalists, with rigor and fairness. But she felt that discussing both critics and supporters could be unfair. What I needed to do, she said, was somehow prove statistically which side was right.
When I asked Mr. Altman if the conversation on sites like Slate Star Codex could push people toward toxic beliefs, he said he held "some empathy" for these concerns. But, he added, "people need a forum to debate ideas."
In August, Mr. Siskind restored his old blog posts to the internet. And two weeks ago, he relaunched his blog on Substack, a company with ties to both Andreessen Horowitz and Y Combinator. He gave the blog a new title: Astral Codex Ten. He hinted that Substack paid him $250,000 for a year on the platform. And he indicated the company would give him all the protection he needed.
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/logistics
In his first post, Mr. Siskind shared his full name.
Cade Metz is a technology correspondent, covering artificial intelligence, driverless cars, robotics, virtual reality, and other emerging areas. He previously wrote for Wired magazine. @cademetz
A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 14, 2021, Section BU, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Silicon Valley's Safe Space. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe
_________________________________
Nearly three-quarters of contiguous US covered in snow amid polar vortex
https://twitter.com/fox5dc/status/1362163801383186433
https://www.fox5dc.com/news/nearly-three-quarters-of-contiguous-us-covered-in-snow-amid-polar-vortex
_________________________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/02/17/president-joseph-r-biden-jr-approves-alaska-disaster-declaration/
President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Approves Alaska Disaster Declaration
February 17, 2021 • Statements and Releases
Today, President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. declared that a major disaster exists in the State of Alaska and ordered federal assistance to supplement state and local recovery efforts in the areas affected by severe storms, flooding, landslides, and mudslides from November 30 to December 2, 2020.
Federal funding is available to state and eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency work and the repair or replacement of facilities damaged by the severe storms, flooding, landslides, and mudslides in the Chatham Regional Educational Attendance Area, Haines Borough, City and Borough of Juneau, Petersburg Borough, and the Municipality of Skagway Borough.
Federal funding is also available on a cost-sharing basis for hazard mitigation measures statewide.
Robert J. Fenton, Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Department of Homeland Security, named Thomas J. Dargan as the Federal Coordinating Officer for federal recovery operations in the affected areas.
Additional designations may be made at a later date if requested by the state and warranted by the results of further damage assessments.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION MEDIA SHOULD CONTACT THE FEMA NEWS DESK AT (202) 646-3272 OR FEMA-NEWS-DESK@FEMA.DHS.GOV.
_________________________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/02/17/readout-of-president-joseph-r-biden-jr-call-with-prime-minister-benjamin-netanyahu-of-israel/
Readout of President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel
February 17, 2021 • Statements and Releases
President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. spoke today by phone with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel. The President affirmed his personal history of steadfast commitment to Israel's security and conveyed his intent to strengthen all aspects of the U.S.-Israel partnership, including our strong defense cooperation. Together, the leaders discussed the importance of continued close consultation on regional security issues, including Iran. The President emphasized U.S. support for the recent normalization of relations between Israel and countries in the Arab and Muslim world. He underscored the importance of working to advance peace throughout the region, including between Israelis and Palestinians. Together, they affirmed their shared interest in continued strategic cooperation to confront the many challenges facing the region.
_________________________________
Congressional Democrats and the White House have crafted an immigration bill that would reshape US immigration laws and allow millions of undocumented immigrants to obtain legal status, per a 66-page section-by-section summary
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/immigration-bill-overhaul-democrats-biden/
TEXAS BLACKOUT UPDATE: Right now, @ERCOT_ISO is supplying **less** power than it did yesterday at the very same time. More than 60 hours into the blackout, there's little sign of improvement (other than potential demand is a bit lower, so that gives breathing room) #TexasBlackout
https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1362152952392278017
The man holding the Israel-Palestinian file at the State Department, Hady Amr, isn't working on a sweeping plan for peace, but on incremental steps to improve the situation on the ground. Why it matters: American presidents have for decades arrived in office hoping to reach a historic peace deal. President Biden doesn't see that as achievable under the current circumstances. With Israel-Palestinian conflict far down the priority list at the White House, the issue will be handled mainly by the State Department, where Amr serves as deputy assistant secretary for Israeli-Palestinian affairs (unlike Barack Obama, Biden declined to appoint a special envoy for Middle East peace). Secretary of State Tony Blinken has made clear that he doesn't expect a Nobel Peace Prize. Instead, Amr has been tasked with building trust from the bottom up. Amr was the "bottom-up" guy during his four years of dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian issue during the Obama administration. He worked closely with the Israelis to advance projects like 3G networks for Gaza or sewage systems in the West Bank. During the 2014 Gaza War, Amr worked around the clock to redistribute all U.S. assistance to the Palestinians into humanitarian aid for Gaza. It fell to Amr to implement policies agreed to at the top level - often between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Secretary of State John Kerry - in a very difficult political environment. Amr was born in Beirut in 1967 and grew up mostly in New Jersey and Virginia. An economist and foreign policy expert, he joined the Department of Defense during the Clinton administration, spent time in the private sector and then joined the Brookings Institution in 2006, founding its Doha Center. Amr returned to government during the Obama administration, first at the Department of Homeland Security and then as deputy assistant administrator for the Middle East at the U.S. Agency for International Development. In 2013, he was brought in by then-Middle East peace envoy Martin Indyk - also Amr's former boss at Brookings - to work on economic issues relating to the Palestinians. Amr stayed on through the end of Obama's second term. He was a foreign policy adviser to Biden's campaign and involved in its outreach to the Arab American community. Gen. Yoav (Poli) Mordechai, the Israeli government's former coordinator in the West Bank and Gaza, says he found Amr to be a knowledgeable professional who didn't engage in political arguments but rather wanted to get things done. Israeli deputy national security adviser Reuven Azar, who was a close interlocutor of Amr's while serving in the Israeli Embassy in Washington, found him to be pragmatic, humane and focused on improving the living conditions of the Palestinians. Palestinian officials tell me they've been impressed with Amr based on their engagements so far. "We would always joke that new American envoy would never know the difference between Sheikh Jarrah and Kafr 'Aqab [two neighborhoods in East Jerusalem]," one Palestinian official said. "He knows. We haven't spoken to the Americans for years and finally there is someone who listens." Amr is developing plans to re-engage with the Palestinian Authority, roll back some of Trump's policies and resume financial aid to the Palestinians, likely beginning with $75 million already allocated by Congress for aid and development projects. Those issues are at the top of his to-do list until Israel's election on March 23. Amr will have two short-term political challenges: resetting U.S. policy on West Bank settlements without sparking a fight with the Israeli government and drafting a policy on the Palestinian parliamentary elections planned for May 22. He has already held calls with officials from both sides, including the Israeli ambassador to Washington, the Israeli deputy national security adviser, the Palestinian prime minister and the Palestinian director of intelligence. Amr's debut on the world stage will be at the meeting of international donors to the Palestinian Authority on Feb. 23 to discuss steps to improve the Palestinian economy. Israelis, Palestinians and members of the international community will be watching closely. Due to unusual circumstances, Amr is wearing at least two other hats beyond his deputy assistant secretary role: Without a special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Amr will represent the U.S. in formats like the Quartet, which includes diplomats from Russia, the UN and the EU. That group met over Zoom on Monday. And Amr is also the de facto U.S. head of mission to the Palestinians because the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem was merged by the Trump administration into the embassy to Israel in 2019. The Palestinians ceased almost all communications with U.S. diplomats in the embassy at that time, so Amr will be the key point of contact for Palestinians hoping to communicate with the administration. Former and current U.S. officials praise Amr's knowledge of the nitty-gritty and skill at moving difficult issues forward, and they say he was a mentor to the young foreign service officers who worked with him on the Israeli-Palestinian file. He's the right person for these times because he knows the mechanics, the concerns and sensitivities of both sides, and his job is to improve the situation and that builds on the experience he has.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hady_Amr
President Biden's allies are preparing to create a new nonprofit advocacy organization, with the White House's approval, that will be funded by donors and seek to build support for his policy agenda, senior administration officials said. The nonprofit, whose working name is "Building Back Together," is expected to run advertisements promoting the president's policies and coordinate with existing nonprofit advocacy organizations on issues such as Covid-19, climate change and the economy. White House officials won't directly oversee the nonprofit, but senior Biden officials have been involved in discussions about its structure and have chosen a group of Biden campaign veterans and allies to establish it. The officials said Mr. Biden and senior White House advisers have been briefed on the planning.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-allies-to-launch-advocacy-group-to-promote-covid-19-relief-plan-other-policies-11613601833
Trump lost. Every Republican politician needs to say this. https://businessinsider.com/fox-hosts-let-trump-lie-about-election-first-interview-insurrection-2021-2
https://twitter.com/RepKinzinger/status/1362127993296932866
Doc on NPR says 100+ cases of carbon monoxide poisoning at Memorial Hermann in Houston as people try to stay warm at home. More than half are children.
https://twitter.com/henrygrabar/status/1362169926270791686
7,000,000 Texans having to boil water now because of the #TexasBlackout, according to TCEQ.
https://twitter.com/JasonWhitely/status/1362165352256270338
ERCOT and Texas did not properly winterize the states various generation systems because they didn't want to spend the money. These include outside power plants, wind turbines and fortifying natural gas pipelines. Multi-system failure and millions suffer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_Limbaugh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_Limbaugh#Views
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_Limbaugh#Controversies_and_inaccuracies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Teuber
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kōjirō_Akagi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irit_Amiel
The Jan. 6 commission bill needs bipartisan support in the Senate - 60 votes - in order to overcome a filibuster in the chamber. Pelosi has not released the bill text but Republicans are not yet signaling they'll embrace it.
http://cnn.com/2021/02/17/politics/pelosi-capitol-attack-commission-gop-resistance/index.html
How Defense leaders tried to make sure Trump didn't sabotage the careers of 2 female generals: Promotions for Female Generals Were Delayed Over Fears of Trump's Reaction
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/17/us/politics/women-generals-promotions-trump.html
Republicans could trip over their own shoelaces and they'd still find a way to blame me, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, the Green New Deal, BLM, anything but accept responsibility for their own actions and dealings. Ineptitude, bigotry, and corruption. Disasters in their own right.
https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1362154790118162436
You're the governor of a state where millions don't have power, where people are literally dying of exposure, and you go on Fox news to call Democrats and the Green New Deal the most dangerous threat to America? You are the governor. Your party has run Texas for 20 years. Accept responsibility and help your state get out of this.
https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1361866553998909442
Natural disasters reveal how brutal & inhumane our system of inequality is. No one should be left to fend for themselves in a natural disaster. This is why we insist on justice in climate policy. In a modern society, equity is as important as technology. We must modernize.
https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1362075902541201409
President Biden's allies are preparing to create a new nonprofit advocacy organization, with the White House's approval, that will be funded by donors and seek to build support for his policy agenda, senior administration officials said. The nonprofit, whose working name is "Building Back Together," is expected to run advertisements promoting the president's policies and coordinate with existing nonprofit advocacy organizations on issues such as Covid-19, climate change and the economy. White House officials won't directly oversee the nonprofit, but senior Biden officials have been involved in discussions about its structure and have chosen a group of Biden campaign veterans and allies to establish it. The officials said Mr. Biden and senior White House advisers have been briefed on the planning.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-allies-to-launch-advocacy-group-to-promote-covid-19-relief-plan-other-policies-11613601833
Trump lost. Every Republican politician needs to say this. https://businessinsider.com/fox-hosts-let-trump-lie-about-election-first-interview-insurrection-2021-2
https://twitter.com/RepKinzinger/status/1362127993296932866
Doc on NPR says 100+ cases of carbon monoxide poisoning at Memorial Hermann in Houston as people try to stay warm at home. More than half are children.
https://twitter.com/henrygrabar/status/1362169926270791686
7,000,000 Texans having to boil water now because of the #TexasBlackout, according to TCEQ.
https://twitter.com/JasonWhitely/status/1362165352256270338
ERCOT and Texas did not properly winterize the states various generation systems because they didn't want to spend the money. These include outside power plants, wind turbines and fortifying natural gas pipelines. Multi-system failure and millions suffer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_Limbaugh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_Limbaugh#Views
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_Limbaugh#Controversies_and_inaccuracies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Teuber
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kōjirō_Akagi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irit_Amiel
The Jan. 6 commission bill needs bipartisan support in the Senate - 60 votes - in order to overcome a filibuster in the chamber. Pelosi has not released the bill text but Republicans are not yet signaling they'll embrace it.
http://cnn.com/2021/02/17/politics/pelosi-capitol-attack-commission-gop-resistance/index.html
How Defense leaders tried to make sure Trump didn't sabotage the careers of 2 female generals: Promotions for Female Generals Were Delayed Over Fears of Trump's Reaction
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/17/us/politics/women-generals-promotions-trump.html
Republicans could trip over their own shoelaces and they'd still find a way to blame me, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, the Green New Deal, BLM, anything but accept responsibility for their own actions and dealings. Ineptitude, bigotry, and corruption. Disasters in their own right.
https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1362154790118162436
You're the governor of a state where millions don't have power, where people are literally dying of exposure, and you go on Fox news to call Democrats and the Green New Deal the most dangerous threat to America? You are the governor. Your party has run Texas for 20 years. Accept responsibility and help your state get out of this.
https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1361866553998909442
Natural disasters reveal how brutal & inhumane our system of inequality is. No one should be left to fend for themselves in a natural disaster. This is why we insist on justice in climate policy. In a modern society, equity is as important as technology. We must modernize.
https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1362075902541201409
Dr. LeRoy Sims, the NBA's Senior VP of Medical Affairs, completed 20 presentations to individual teams on the benefit of the vaccines and expects to complete virtual meetings with all 30 teams by Monday.
http://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1362154927150288896
Fake Meat Goes Beyond Burgers With Money for Printing Steaks
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-16/fake-meat-moves-beyond-burgers-with-money-for-printing-steaks
They razed the Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/17/nyregion/atlantic-city-trump-plaza-implosion.html
The photos and stories surfacing of the cold reality in Texas and elsewhere is yet another example of the immediate need to address the climate crisis. More than ever we need elected officials that take action before disaster strikes. Impossible if we can't agree on the science.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas is getting a lot of attention as millions of Texans remain without power while the state faces extreme cold. Five members of the ERCOT board of directors live out of state. The chair lives in Michigan, and the Vice Chair is an economics prof in Cologne Germany. Experts, but not people affected by the failure.
https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/ercot-board-vice-chair-texas-cold-power-outage-15953854.php
Guns, knives, bombs and bear spray: Here are the weapons Trump supporters brought to DC on the day of the Capitol attack
http://cnn.com/2021/02/17/politics/capitol-insurrection-weapons-ron-johnson/index.html
KEEPING WARM: Thousands of cold-stunned sea turtles are inside the South Padre Island Convention Centre after volunteers collected more than 3,500 of them from freezing temperatures amid a record-breaking winter storm. Residents, some of whom lack heat or basic amenities in their own homes due to the unusually chilly weather, have been rescuing cold-stunned sea turtles and taking them to a convention center in a South Texas resort town. | The South Padre Island Convention Center started pitching in Monday when it's neighbor, Sea Turtle Inc., could no longer handle the number of sea turtles being dropped off, and their mostly outdoor operation had lost power. He said the convention center itself didn't have power or water till early Wednesday morning. He said with power returned they have been able to bring the convention center's temperature to 60 degrees.
https://abcnews.go.com/Weird/wireStory/thousands-cold-stunned-sea-turtles-rescued-texas-75955079
https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1362187796945993731
President Joe Biden's White House is giving its support to studying reparations for Black Americans, boosting Democratic lawmakers who are renewing efforts to create a commission on the issue amid the stark racial disparities highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. A House panel heard testimony Wednesday on legislation that would create a commission to examine the history of slavery in the U.S. as well as the discriminatory government policies that affected former slaves and their descendants. The commission would recommend ways to educate the American public of its findings and suggest appropriate remedies, including financial payments from the government to compensate descendants of slaves for years of unpaid labor by their ancestors. Biden backs the idea of studying the issue, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday, though she stopped short of saying he would sign the bill if it clears Congress.
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-race-and-ethnicity-legislation-coronavirus-pandemic-slavery-e3c045ece4d0e0eae393a18a09a4a37e
Trump on Newsmax says it's "too early to say" about 2024 but he sees a "lot of great polls out there."
SpaceX raised $850 million last week at $419.99 a share. The round jumps the valuation of Elon Musk's company to near $74 billion as it continues to develop Starlink and Starship, two capital intensive projects.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/16/elon-musks-spacex-raised-850-million-at-419point99-a-share.html
FBI and the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn launch an investigation into the Cuomo administration's handling of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities during the pandemic.
https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/cuomo-investigation-fbi-covid-nursing-homes-15957401.php
Harlem Artist Guy Stanley Philoche Spends Over $70K Buying Art From Struggling Creatives During Pandemic. For one New York City creative, Guy Stanley Philoche, a massive art collection started as a random act of kindness, helping a close friend in a desperate situation
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/harlem-artist-spends-over-70k-buying-art-from-struggling-creatives-during-covid-pandemic/2891428/
1. Who cares what school someone went to? Entire generations of working class kids were encouraged to go into more debt under the guise of elitism. This is wrong.
2. Nowhere does it say we must trade-off early childhood education for student loan forgiveness. We can have both.
https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1361910873380519937
The case against student loan forgiveness is looking shakier by the day. We've got the *Senate Majority Leader* on board to forgive $50k. Biden's holding back, but many of the arguments against it just don't hold water on close inspection. We can and should do it. Keep pushing!
https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1361916293738192896
Very wealthy people already have a student loan forgiveness program. It's called their parents. The idea that millionaires and billionaires are willingly letting their kids drown in federal student loans & that's why we can't go big on forgiveness is about as silly as it sounds.
https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1362181256457379846
MS. NEUBERGER: Good afternoon. It's great to be here with you today. So I'll give an update across our SolarWinds work — what happened, how did it happen, and what are we doing about it. So, first, what happened? Hackers launched a broad and indiscriminate effort to compromise the network management software used by both government and the private sector. The intelligence community is looking at who is responsible. Until that study is complete, I'll use the language we previously used, which was to say an advanced persistent threat actor, likely of Russian origin, was responsible. As of today, 9 federal agencies and about 100 private sector companies were compromised. As you know, roughly 18,000 entities downloaded the malicious update. So the scale of potential access far exceeded the number of known compromises. Many of the private sector compromises are technology companies, including networks of companies whose products could be used to launch additional intrusions. So why does this matter? Why is this significant? The techniques that were used lead us to believe that any files or emails on a compromised network were likely to be compromised. The scope and scale of our investigation is underway, and we look forward to providing you future updates in the future. So, how did this happen? There's two parts to that: them and us. The actor was a sophisticated advanced persistent threat. Advanced: Because the level of knowledge they showed about the technology and the way they compromised it truly was sophisticated. Persistent: They focused on the identity part of the network, which is the hardest to clean up. And threat: The scope and scale to networks, to information, makes this more than an isolated case of espionage. And then, us: There's a lack of domestic visibility, so as a country, we choose to have both privacy and security. So the intelligence community largely has no visibility into private sector networks. The hackers launched the hack from inside the United States, which further made it difficult for the U.S. government to observe their activity. Even within federal networks, a culture and authorities inhibit visibility, which is something we need to address. I want to take a moment to thank the public and private sector network defenders who have been working very hard to find and expel these adversaries from both government and private sector networks. So, finally, and most significantly, what are we going to do about it? Three things: First, finding and expelling the adversary. Second, building back better to modernize federal defenses and reduce the risk of this happening again. And finally, potential response options to the perpetrators. So, first, finding and expelling the adversary. We're coordinating the interagency response from the National Security Council. I was on the Hill last week, had Hill discussions this week, and will be on the Hill next week, as well. We're working closely with daily conversations with our private sector partners. They have visibility and technology that is key to understanding the scope and scale of compromise. There are legal barriers and disincentives to the private sector sharing information with the government. That is something we need to overcome. And then, finally, this is challenging. This is a sophisticated actor who did their best to hide their tracks. We believe it took them months to plan and execute this compromise. It'll take us some time to uncover this, layer by layer. Second, building back better to modernize federal defenses. We're absolutely committed to reducing the risk this happens again. If you can't see a network, you can't defend a network. And federal networks' cybersecurity need investment and more of an integrated approach to detect and block such threats. We're also working on close to about a dozen things — likely eight will pass — that will be part of an upcoming executive action to address the gaps we've identified in our review of this incident. And, finally, in terms of response to the perpetrator, discussions are underway. I know some of you will want to know what kind of options are being contemplated. What I will share with you is how I frame this in my own mind. This isn't the only case of malicious cyber activity of likely Russian origin, either for us or for our allies and partners. So as we contemplate future response options, we're considering holistically what those activities were. I look forward to coming back and keeping you posted as we continue identifying the scope and scale and begin — and continue our execution. And thank you so much for your time.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/02/17/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-and-deputy-national-security-advisor-for-cyber-and-emerging-technology-anne-neuberger-february-17-2021/
Q Thanks, Anne, for doing this. Just to 30,000 foot it, do you have a timeframe in terms of how long this investigation will take? And then, obviously you're not going to lay out specific details of what you will do in response, but do you have a timeline on the response as well? Is it tagged to whenever the investigation ends, or how are you guys thinking through that?
MS. NEUBERGER: So, most importantly, as we're looking at what caused the SolarWinds, we're also executing the three things I talked about. We're working to expel the adversary, we're working to build those networks and improve the cybersecurity of federal networks, and we're also carefully thinking through how we respond. So the investigation, as I noted, because of the sophistication, is taking us layer by layer, but we're working at the same pace to ensure we lock down networks and really think through how to ensure this doesn't happen again in the future.
Q And do you have a timeline? I understand it's complicated, but how long it would take to go layer by layer and really understand the scope.
MS. NEUBERGER: I think we're estimating several months. But as I said, literally, you know, day by day, hour by hour, we're making progress in understanding it.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/02/17/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-and-deputy-national-security-advisor-for-cyber-and-emerging-technology-anne-neuberger-february-17-2021/
MS. PSAKI: No, neither the President nor the Vice President believes that — that it should be — it is a requirement. The CDC guidelines included a range of mitigation steps, including vaccinations, as recommendations. But the mitigation steps also included steps like social distancing, the need for a smaller class sizes, the need for sanitation. So these are — this was one of several steps recommended in the CDC guidelines. Now, at the same time, the President and the Vice President both believe that teachers should be prioritized. And as you all know, that's up to states to determine; there are federal recommendations. About half of the country — half — about half of the states in the country have prioritized teachers, and they both feel that's important, including child healthcare workers. And they both feel that that's something that is impacting working women and moms who are trying to go back to work and trying to make sure that their kids have the attention and childcare they need. So it's not a requirement to reopen schools, but they believe that teachers should be prioritized.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/02/17/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-and-deputy-national-security-advisor-for-cyber-and-emerging-technology-anne-neuberger-february-17-2021/
MS. PSAKI: Well, I will say one of the reasons that the President has put $130 billion of funding in his American Rescue Plan is because he knows that schools across the country need funding to satisfy some of the mitigation steps that are recommended in the CDC guidelines. I talked with him about this this morning and his concern, as you have raised, that this is deeply impacting women. We're seeing that statistically with every week and every month of jobs numbers. We've seen it anecdotally. And his concern is about the impact, of course, on working women today, but also on how it will — it will bring us back in the years ahead. Because if there are fewer women who are in the workplace; there are fewer women climbing the corporate ladder; there are fewer women who are getting law degrees, getting doctorates — and that has a long-term impact. So, you're right that — or, I should say, what I'm taking from your question is, you know, can we can we get this done if we don't have funding, if we don't have the different components. When he announced his goal of opening the majority of schools, he made clear we need to have funding because most — many schools will tell you across the country, they were waiting for the CDC guidelines. They want to know how to do it safely, but they don't have — they need the funding to hire more teachers. They need more bus drivers. They need the ability to implement the mitigation steps that are going to work for their school districts.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/02/17/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-and-deputy-national-security-advisor-for-cyber-and-emerging-technology-anne-neuberger-february-17-2021/
Q On the issue of teachers, you're making it clear that a vaccination isn't a must, as the CDC recommends, but that you hope that states prioritize this. Is this administration sharing that message with teachers? Has the President been reiterating that with governors, urging them to put teachers at the front of the line?
MS. PSAKI: The President — absolutely. It's something he said at a nationally televised town hall meeting last night and something that he will continue to communicate at every opportunity. And, you know, I think what I was conveying — just for full clarity — is that it's a recommendation. It's a number — one of many mitigation steps. But the CDC guidelines are guidelines; they're not requirements. But at the same time, the President and the Vice President believe that teachers should be prioritized. And in many states, they already are.
Q But you do agree with the guidelines? You do agree with the CDC recommendation that vaccinations are not a must for teachers?
MS. PSAKI: That it is one of — correct. That is one of mitigation — a number of mitigation steps that should be taken by schools to keep things safe. Now, it's important to also reiterate — and when I talked to the President this morning, he conveyed this again — that we need money. These school districts need money to deliver on these guidelines. And when his Secretary of Education is confirmed, hopefully next week — I'll knock on some wood — then he will be leading this effort. This will be his number-one priority is working with the school districts to safely reopen as quickly as possible.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/02/17/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-and-deputy-national-security-advisor-for-cyber-and-emerging-technology-anne-neuberger-february-17-2021/
Q Jen, you've said that — you've said that the President's preference is that states prioritize teachers.
MS. PSAKI: Mm-hmm.
Q This is a vaccine that's being provided for free to the states by the federal government. Can't you mandate that states prioritize teachers?
MS. PSAKI: We can provide federal guidelines, which is exactly what we've done. But we work in close partnership and coordination with states to make recommendations on the prioritization, and they implement.
Of course, the power of the presidency and the power of the vice presidency is certainly convening what their preference is, which they have both done over the last 24 hours, but that's not how the process has worked, and I don't anticipate it would be — that's how it would work moving forward.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/02/17/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-and-deputy-national-security-advisor-for-cyber-and-emerging-technology-anne-neuberger-february-17-2021/
Q Another follow-up on last night. The President said pretty clearly that he doesn't think he has the authority to cancel $50,000 in student loan debt. Today, Senator Schumer and Warren said in a statement that they were told the administration is still working on figuring out if it has the authority. So if your lawyers would determine that canceling this is legal, would the President go ahead with this? And if not, why not?
MS. PSAKI: Well, first, on last night — last night's town hall, for those of you who didn't see the whole thing, he was reiterating his previously stated position, which is he doesn't favor $50,000 in student loan relief without limitation. And he used some examples of the types of schools or when it should be reimbursed or refunded. He said previously that relief above $10,000 should be targeted based on the borrower's income, based on the kind of debt in question, public schools versus private schools, graduate schools versus undergraduate. Obviously, there's a lot of considerations at play. What the President has told Senators Schumer and Warren is that once this team is in place at the Justice Department — and they are not, of course; they're not confirmed at this point — he will ask them to conduct a legal review of his authority to act by executive action, in conjunction with a policy review from his Domestic Policy Council on his executive — on how executive action debt relief, if any, should be targeted.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/02/17/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-and-deputy-national-security-advisor-for-cyber-and-emerging-technology-anne-neuberger-february-17-2021/
Q So he hasn't yet ruled it out if all of these ifs and buts are still in place? And obviously, you need your team in place and the review to take place?
MS. PSAKI: That's right. There needs to be a team at the Justice Department to make a recommendation on his legal authority. And obviously, the domestic policy team is in place, but they would be a part of that conversation, certainly, as well. And in the meantime, if Congress moves forward and sends him a package that, you know, provides $10,000 of student debt relief, he'd be eager to sign that. So there are several levers here, and he's — he's looking forward to that process moving forward.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/02/17/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-and-deputy-national-security-advisor-for-cyber-and-emerging-technology-anne-neuberger-february-17-2021/
MS. PSAKI: Well, we're in the middle of the legislative process for the American Rescue Plan, and we fully recognize, as does the President, having served in the Senate for 36 years, that his bill that he proposed — that included a $15 minimum wage increase, included many other key components — may not look exactly the same on the other ends when it comes out of the sausage-making machine. But he put it in there — a raise of the minimum wage — because he feels it's important, it's a priority, and that men and women who are working hard, who are living an hon- — you know, making an honest living shouldn't be living at the poverty level. We will let that process see itself through. It's not even through the Senate yet. And it will move its way through the Senate process and hopefully soon. But I'm not going to get ahead of the process in Congress.
Q So you're still optimistic, Jen, that $15 will make it into this package and will become a reality?
MS. PSAKI: We'll see. It's up to members of Congress to determine what the final package looks like. It's a priority to the President; that's why he put it in the package. But he also — and I appreciate you referencing, you know, the — the — sorry, the — the —
Q The rollouts.
MS. PSAKI: Right, exactly. I just like stumbled over 100 words. I appreciate you referencing that when he was asked this question last night, it was by a small-business owner who was concerned that immediately he would — or this is what the President's takeaway was: That immediately he would be in a place where he had to pay his workers $15 an hour next month or soon. And the President was explaining to him that this would be a, you know, progressive increase. Right? And that's something that Senator Sanders supports as well. So he was explaining it would go to 12, then it will go to 13. It would be over a series of time — over a couple of years. So that was how he was explaining it. But again, the process is ongoing. We look forward to it moving forward rapidly, and we'll see what comes out on the other side.
Q So he definitely supports even a gradual rollout as an option on the table?
MS. PSAKI: Oh, absolutely, he supports a gradual increase — that it wouldn't be an immediate — and as does Senator Sanders and as do many advocates for increasing the minimum wage. Absolutely.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/02/17/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-and-deputy-national-security-advisor-for-cyber-and-emerging-technology-anne-neuberger-february-17-2021/
Q Thanks. I want to get back to the Texas crisis. So, about a decade ago, federal regulators suggested — they urged Texas to weatherize its power grid. That largely did not happen, or it certainly didn't happen enough. And, of course, it was only a suggestion because Texas is not part of the national grid. You may have seen that Rick Perry, the former Energy Secretary and Governor of Texas, has said today that Texans would rather endure days of blackouts than submit to federal regulation. Is the President willing to leave 30 million Texans off of the national grid?
MS. PSAKI: There's a lot packed into that question. I will do my best to answer it. Let me first say that building resilient and sustainable infrastructure that can withstand extreme weather and a changing climate will play an integral role in creating millions of good-paying union jobs, creating a clean energy economy, and meeting the President's goal of reaching a net-zero emissions future by 2050, and also will be beneficial in future storms. I will say that there has been some inaccurate accusations out there — I'm not sure if former Secretary Perry made these — but that it was the — that suggested that renewables caused failures in Texas's power grid. And actually, numerous reports have actually shown the contrary: that it was failures in coal and natural gas that contributed to the state's power shortages. And officials at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state's power grid, have gone so far as to say that failures in wind and solar were the least significant factors in the blackout. And I know that wasn't exactly your question, but I just wanted to convey that since there's been a lot of confusion about it. Beyond that — about the power grid — I would certainly send you to the Department of Energy for any further comment on that particular line of questioning.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/02/17/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-and-deputy-national-security-advisor-for-cyber-and-emerging-technology-anne-neuberger-february-17-2021/
Q Also, on the crisis, a lot of Texans are concerned that their homeowners insurance is not going to cover, for instance, pipes that burst. Some policies might cover that, some might not. Will FEMA make people whole for that kind of damage?
MS. PSAKI: I would certainly send you to FEMA. They obviously, as I noted at the top, are very involved in providing generators, water — essential steps. But in any crisis and the recovery of it, there are typically many agencies involved. FEMA is a coordinating body, as you all know, but just for others. But I would send you to them for any other update on that.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/02/17/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-and-deputy-national-security-advisor-for-cyber-and-emerging-technology-anne-neuberger-february-17-2021/
Q — about Texas. Does the White House believe that more should have happened earlier to better prepare Texas power grids and water systems for climate change? And what does the White House believe needs to happen there and in other states going forward? And does the kind of crisis we're seeing right now make any of those things more urgent?
MS. PSAKI: That's a really important question. I think our focus, though, right now is on providing relief to the emergency situation that we're seeing in Texas and in surrounding states. I'm sure there'll be time to look back and evaluate what better preparations — if better preparations should have been done, could be — could have been made. But at this point in time, we're just focused on getting relief to the people and the state — and the surrounding states, I should say.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/02/17/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-and-deputy-national-security-advisor-for-cyber-and-emerging-technology-anne-neuberger-february-17-2021/
_______________________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/02/17/remarks-by-president-biden-before-meeting-with-labor-leaders-to-discuss-the-american-rescue-plan-and-infrastructure/
Remarks by President Biden Before Meeting with Labor Leaders to Discuss the American Rescue Plan and Infrastructure
February 17, 2021 • Speeches and Remarks
Oval Office
4:06 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Everybody, come on in. Don't get hurt.
Every once in a while, as President, you get to invite close friends into the Oval. (Laughs.) I was kidding these guys before.
This is American labor. And I said from the beginning of my campaign, throughout my whole career: The middle class built this country, and labor built the middle class. And I think we have an incredible opportunity to make some enormous progress in creating jobs — good-paying jobs, Davis-Bacon and prevailing wage jobs — to rebuild the infrastructure of this country in a way that everybody knows has to be done.
I promised — and a lot of these folks have been my friends for a long, long, long time. As they say in parts of my state, "These are the folks that brung me to the dance." And I appreciate their friendship.
And as I said — when some of you were in here when I was with the business community, I said I want to make it clear I'm a labor guy, and there's no reason why it's inconsistent with businesses growing either.
So what we're doing here today, we're — I asked them to come in — we want to talk about the Recovery Act we have here that we're trying to pass — and I think it's going to get done — and building infrastructure in this country.
We are so far behind the curve. We rank something like 38th in the world in terms of our infrastructure — everything from canals to highways to airports to — everything we can do, and we need to do, to make ourselves competitive in the 21st century.
And so the Vice President and I are looking forward to this meeting, and we're going to have a good conversation. And I think, you know, American workers and the whole economy is going to grow in a way that we haven't seen it grow in a long time. This is the time for us to move.
So, anyway, I'll let you know. We're going to have a long conversation here. I don't know how long, but we're going to have a conversation as long as they're willing to put up with me, and talk about how we're going to get this done.
So, thank you all for coming in.
Q Mr. President, what did you learn from Americans last night about what they want in this plan?
THE PRESIDENT: I learned, based on the polling data, they want everything that's in the plan. Not a joke. Everything that's in the plan. I — the fact is that I'd like to — I asked a rhetorical question: Those who oppose the plan, what don't they like? What particular program don't they like? Don't they want to help people with nutrition? Don't they want to help people be able to pay their mortgages? Don't they want to help people get their unemployment insurance? Don't they want to make sure that people are able to stay in their homes without being thrown out of their homes in the middle of this G-d-awful pandemic? What don't they like?
And the truth of the matter is, the polling data from last night, and all the polls you've all done — they come from you guys; not you personally, but your networks and your organizations — show that somewhere between 64 and 69 percent of the American people think we have to do this. And it's not about the money; it's about in order to do everything from open schools, as we should, to make sure that we're generating income for people who are in real trouble. It's about how much it costs. The federal government has to chip in, make sure we get this done.
And as I said, almost every major economist in the country, and International Monetary Fund as well, says it's going to grow the economy.
And that's what we're talking about here. We're going to talk about how we grow the economy.
So thank you all for coming in. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Thank you very much.
Q Anything about Netanyahu?
THE PRESIDENT: A good conversation.
END 4:10 P.M. EST
_______________________________
Zach LaVine easily dribbles through 4 Pistons and dunks
https://streamable.com/xyx1b9
Rubio drops a nice dime to the cutting Towns for the slam
https://streamable.com/jzgiv0
Jaylen Brown attempts the 360 noscope
https://streamable.com/itcy5x
Westbrook with the perfect pass for Alex Len
https://streamable.com/ykgkg8
Robert "Timel/rd" Williams deletes Danilo Gallinaris layup attempt
https://streamable.com/j9r5qe
Logo Lillard showing up early for his 3rd three of the 1st quarter
https://streamable.com/gl19jx
Anthony Edwards goes right at Myles Turner, showing no fear of the league leader in blocks
https://streamable.com/e32e1w
Anthony Edwards finishes all over Doug McDermott
https://streamable.com/32vlw5
Great Barrier Reef failing
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/18/great-barrier-reef-found-to-be-in-failing-health-amid-calls-for-urgent-action
Bodies with gunshot wounds lay in the streets for days in Ethiopia's holiest city, Axum. Witnesses describe what might be the deadliest massacre of the Tigray conflict, with some 800 people killed. At night, residents listened in horror as hyenas fed on the corpses of people they knew.
https://apnews.com/article/eritrea-ethiopia-massacres-only-on-ap-kenya-fa1b531fea069aed6768409bd1d20bfa
Solomon Islands: Ship Crew Dumping 1,000 tonnes of oil in sea
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/18/solomon-islands-ship-crew-accused-of-dumping-1000-tonnes-of-oil-in-sea
Federal Regulators Plan to Investigate Massive Texas Power Outage
https://www.nbcdfw.com/investigations/federal-regulators-plan-to-investigate-massive-texas-power-outage/2555819/
Idaho Rep. Republican Russ Fulcher under investigation by Capiol Police. Fulcher shoved a U.S. Capitol officer to avoid metal detectors outside the House chambers.
http://www.ktvb.com/amp/article/news/politics/fulcher-investigation-capitol-report/277-f7de4bee-e001-4d0a-9c5c-141b5b5c2b9f
Californians with low incomes to receive $600 checks under California state's $9.6-billion COVID-19 economic package
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-02-17/newsom-covid-19-stimulus-agreement-legislature
Good: Millionaires Get a Lot More Tax Audits in Democrat's IRS Bill
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-18/millionaires-get-a-lot-more-tax-audits-in-democrat-s-irs-bill
Nearly 5,000 National Guard troops to stay in DC over concerns of potential violence in March | Thousands of National Guard troops will remain in Washington, D.C., in early March amid concerns over followers of the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory, some of whom hold out conspiracy theory hope Trump will be returned to office March 4. | "Stuff like that circulates all the time. Does it mean it's going to happen? Probably not, but if you want to help, tell them not to do that. Tell them that the election is over. Joe Biden won," Smith said. "It was a free and fair election, and let's get to work. That too would help reduce the, well, I don't know, fear or paranoia that people feel that requires everything that we're seeing around here."
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/539328-nearly-5000-national-guard-troops-to-stay-in-dc-over-concerns-of-potential
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/17/politics/national-guard-qanon-concerns/index.html
The Blazers just played 5 games in 7 nights and won all of them
Steph loses the ball, picks it up and hits the 3
https://streamable.com/ortv00
Golden State Warriors (16-13) come back to defeat Miami Heat (11-17) by 120 - 112 in OT behind 26 points from Kent Bazemore from the bench
Damian Lillard Tonight: 43/4/16 on 14/28 shooting, 7/16 from three and 8/8 from the line
Curry hits another 3 to put it away
https://streamable.com/yueo1y
With tonight's win against the Clippers, the Utah Jazz are 20-1 in their last 20, and more importantly, 20-1 against the spread
Damian Lillard in the clutch*: 82 PTS (1st), 63.2 FG% (1st**), 58.8 3P% (1st**), 100 FT% (1st), 12-3 record (1st).
Dame with the clutch drive and-1 to give the Blazers the lead with 16 seconds left
https://streamable.com/y55911
Wiggins wiwitwiwith the clutch 3 to give the Warriors a 6 point lead in the final minute of OT
https://streamable.com/hbri1q
The Chicago Bulls complete the largest comeback in the nba this season (25 Points), Behind Zach Lavine's 37/5/5
The Utah Jazz (24-5) defeat the Los Angeles Clippers (21-9), 114 - 96 behind 23 Points and 20 Rebounds from Rudy Gobert
Campazzo gets speared but still hits the three
https://streamable.com/cevddj
Zach Lavine steals the ball straight out of Josh Jackson's hands and talks trash afterwards
https://streamable.com/ep4973
Beal draws the foul with 0.1 seconds left.
https://streamable.com/0nyd1l
Embiid with a ridiculously powerful block on Nwaba (foul call was reversed after coach's challenge)
https://streamable.com/cm0low
Jerami Grant Tonight: 43/2/0 on 15/24 shooting, 4/8 from three and 9/9 from the line
Curry in tonight's win: 8/25 FG, 5/20 from 3, 25 points
Domantas Sabonis tonight: 34/17/10 on 13/21 shooting, 1/2 from three and 9/11 from the line
Zion Williamson Tonight: 36/6/4 on 12/18 shooting, 1/2 from three and 11/15 from the line
Oubre and Curry take turns blowing air kisses after hitting back to back 3s
https://streamable.com/psvr8m
The Bulls go on a 46-16 run over a 19-minute span to turn a 25-point deficit into a 5-point lead
Pelicans can't get a score on the final possession
https://streamable.com/eqrvrx
Davis Bertans drops in 35 pts on 9/11 shooting from 3
Tobias Harris is having a career year averaging 20.7/7.4/3/0.8/0.8 on 52/42.5/90.2
Jeff Teague in 9 minutes of play: 0 points, 0 assists, 3 turnovers, 3 fouls
Thaddeus "Thadgic Johnson" Young picks Mason Plumlee's pocket and drops the no look dime on the break
https://streamable.com/o9fucc
The Washington Wizards have won three straight games against the Celtics, Rockets, and Nuggets
Trae Young splashes the deep triple on an expiring shot clock
https://streamable.com/n58lvp
Joel Embiid in a win over Houston tonight: 31 points (1-3 3PM; 10-12 FT), 11 rebounds, 9 assists, 1 block, and 2 steals.
Demarcus Cousins against Joel Embiid tonight: 19 pts, 6-12 FG, 4-9 3pt, 8 rebs, 4 asts, 2 stls, 2 blks
Brogdon drills the dagger 3 over the Wolves
https://streamable.com/79fmio
________________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/02/17/statement-by-president-joe-biden-on-ash-wednesday/
Statement by President Joe Biden on Ash Wednesday
February 17, 2021 • Statements and Releases
Today, I join Christians across our country and around the world in observing Ash Wednesday. As we enter into the season of Lent, we know this moment of repentance, reflection, and renewal comes in the midst of a painful winter for our nation and the world.
On this Ash Wednesday and every day, we hold every family with an empty place at their table in our hearts. We pray for all those who have fallen on hard times and are worried about what morning will bring. Let us find strength in each other and faith that provides us purpose. And let us look with hope and anticipation toward Easter and brighter days ahead.
________________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/02/17/readout-of-labor-leaders-meeting-to-discuss-the-american-rescue-plan-and-infrastructure/
Readout of Labor Leaders Meeting to Discuss the American Rescue Plan and Infrastructure
February 17, 2021 • Statements and Releases
Today, President Biden and senior White House officials hosted a meeting with a group of labor union leaders to discuss the importance of the American Rescue Plan and the President's plans to create millions of jobs in R&D, manufacturing and clean energy. The meeting included unions representing workers from across the country — the backbone of our nation, the working class.
During the meeting, the labor leaders underscored a shared commitment to collaborating and coordinating with the federal government to ensure we build back better after this pandemic and that the future of America is made in America, by American workers.
Additionally, President Biden engaged the labor leaders during the meeting in a conversation about their priorities, recommendations, and the importance of ensuring union workers play a key role in building a resilient and sustainable infrastructure that can withstand extreme weather and a changing climate all while creating millions of good paying union jobs in the process.
The full list of labor leaders in attendance at today's meeting is as follows:
James T. Callahan, General President, International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE)
Eric Dean, General President, Iron Workers International Union (IW)
Robert Martinez, Jr., International President, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW)
Sean McGarvey, President, North America's Building Trades Union (NABTU)
Mark McManus, General President, United Association Union of Plumbers, Fitters, Welders, & Service Techs (UA)
Terry O'Sullivan, General President, Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA)
Kenneth E. Rigmaiden, General President, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT)
Elizabeth H. Shuler, Secretary-Treasurer, American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)
Lonnie Stephenson, International President, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW)
Richard Trumka, President, American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)
###
________________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/02/17/readout-of-the-white-houses-meeting-with-community-violence-prevention-experts/
Readout of the White House's Meeting with Community Violence Prevention Experts
February 17, 2021 • Statements and Releases
Today, Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice and White House Deputy Public Engagement Director Adrian Saenz hosted a virtual discussion with community leaders from cities across the United States to discuss community-based violence intervention programs and other evidence-based programs to reduce gun violence and make our communities safer.
Every single day people are dying in America from gun violence. Ambassador Rice and Deputy Director Saenz expressed gratitude for the participants' advocacy efforts, policy recommendations and their leadership in addressing the public health crisis ripping through America's communities, especially Black and Brown communities. They underscored President Biden's commitment to taking further steps to make our communities safer, including an expansion of community-driven interventions with a proven track record of success. Participants agreed to continue working together to advance policies that address this crisis and the root causes of gun violence.
Participants in today's meeting included:
Eddie Bocanegro, Heartland Alliance
Dr. Shani Buggs, University of California – Davis
Antonio Cediel, Faith in Action
Mike De La Rocha, Revolve Impact
Erica Ford, Life Camp, Inc.
Greg Jackson, Community Justice Action Fund
Fatimah Loren, Health Alliance for Violence Intervention
Oresa Napper-Williams, Not Another Child
Anthony Smith, Cities United
Dr. Chico Tillmon, YMCA
###
________________________
Oakley, CA school board members caught on tape threatening physical violence against parents who desperately need their kids back in the classroom: "Are we alone?" one says. "Bitch, if you’re going to call me out, I'm going to f*** you up!" Another adds, "They want their babysitters back."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3XaJHU7QlY
Ted Cruz accused of flying to Cancun amid Texas power outages as photos of him in airport and on plane goes viral
https://www.newsweek.com/ted-cruz-accused-flying-cancun-texas-power-outages-photo-goes-viral-1570118
Ted Cruz went on vacation in Mexico instead of America. He refused to spend money on an American vacation, preferring instead to spend money in Mexico, a country of rapists and murderers, a country that refused to pay for a border wall to stop illegal immigration. He and his family fled Texas when the power collapsed.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ted-cruz-airport-power-crisis-texas
Beto O'Rourke is organizing wellness checks for seniors during Texas' blackouts. Ted Cruz is in Cancun.
https://theweek.com/speedreads/967589/beto-orourke-organizing-wellness-checks-seniors-during-texas-blackouts-ted-cruz-cancun
Ted Cruz is already returning from Cancun amid severe backlash
https://www.businessinsider.com/cruz-returning-texas-cancun-vacation-backlash-over-leaving-amid-storm-2021-2
Federal Judge Dismisses Devin Nunes Aide's Lawsuit Against CNN
https://lawandcrime.com/first-amendment/federal-judge-dismisses-devin-nunes-aides-lawsuit-against-cnn/
Republicans seek to illegally and unconstitutionally shorten Iowa's early voting, tighten absentee ballot rules, set criminal charges for county auditors who don't obey
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2021/02/17/legislature-republicans-advance-bills-shorten-early-voting-iowa-restrict-absentee-ballots/6780255002/
Texas power outages below 500,000
https://apnews.com/article/texas-power-outages-icy-weather-186cf801ead7e2d21f001a99b3aaa936
____________________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/02/18/president-joseph-r-biden-jr-approves-oklahoma-emergency-declaration/
President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Approves Oklahoma Emergency Declaration
February 18, 2021 • Statements and Releases
Yesterday, President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. declared that an emergency exists in the State of Oklahoma and ordered federal assistance to supplement state, tribal, and local response efforts due to the emergency conditions resulting from a severe winter storm beginning on February 8, 2021, and continuing.
The President's action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, and to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in all 77 Oklahoma counties.
Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency. Emergency protective measures for mass care and sheltering and direct federal assistance will be provided at 75 percent federal funding.
Robert J. Fenton, Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Department of Homeland Security, named Adam D. Burpee as the Federal Coordinating Officer for federal recovery operations in the affected areas.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION MEDIA SHOULD CONTACT THE FEMA NEWS DESK AT (202) 646-3272 OR FEMA-NEWS-DESK@FEMA.DHS.GOV.
____________________________
Japan puts woman in charge of Tokyo Olympics after sexist remarks by ex-chief
https://news.sky.com/story/japan-puts-woman-in-charge-of-tokyo-olympics-after-sexist-remarks-by-ex-chief-12221505?dcmp=snt-sf-twitter
Gulf War syndrome likely caused by sarin nerve gas not depleted uranium munitions, study finds
https://news.sky.com/story/gulf-war-syndrome-likely-caused-by-sarin-nerve-gas-not-depleted-uranium-munitions-study-finds-12221410
India offers to vaccinate all 95,000 U.N. peacekeepers
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-un-india-idUSKBN2AH21Y
Former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole announces stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/18/kansas-senator-bob-dole-lung-cancer-469766
VA suspends debt collections through September 2021
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2021/02/18/va-suspends-debt-collections-through-september-2021/
Good: Utah House passes proposal to excludes mentally ill sexual deviant males from female athletics in public schools
https://sltrib.com/news/politics/2021/02/17/utah-house-passes/
Cruz implies in his statement he was always planning to come back today, but the suitcase he was spotted with in the airport was more than an overnight bag, and he booked his return flight at 6:00am this morning. So in sum: either Cruz decided to take a vacation to a Mexican resort in a pandemic and while millions in his state are without power and water, or he backed his daughters' taking that vacation while school was canceled because millions in his state are without power and water.
https://twitter.com/IsaacDovere/status/1362467656247484417
Spoke to a source at United Airlines, Senator Ted Cruz rebooked his flight back to Houston from Cancun for this afternoon at around 6 a.m. today (Thursday). He was originally scheduled to return on Saturday.
https://twitter.com/ByERussell/status/1362447404310609921
Philadelphia has agreed to trade Carson Wentz to the Indianapolis Colts in exchange for a 2021 third-round pick and a conditional 2022 second-round pick that could turn into a first, league sources tell @mortreport and me.
https://twitter.com/adamschefter/status/1362442800344752141
.@Sen_JoeManchin met with min. wage and tipped min. wage workers today advocating for a $15 min. wage
He told them he was opposed, supports $11, per the workers who spoke with him
Rev. Barber said he was "amazed" Manchin heard their stories and still opposed the policy.
https://twitter.com/taragolshan/status/1362450118696394756
Ivanka Trump will not run against Marco Rubio for one of Florida's Senate seats.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/us/ivanka-trump-florida-senate.html
South Dakota Attorney General Charged in Fatal Car Crash
https://www.thedailybeast.com/south-dakota-attorney-general-jason-ravnsborg-charged-in-fatal-crash
The Biden administration is revamping a key infrastructure grant program to prioritize projects that address climate change and racial equity. The Transportation Department included the new criteria in its announcement Wednesday that it will award $889 million in grants to major freight and highway projects in fiscal 2021 through the Infrastructure for Rebuilding America program. "We are committed to not just rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, but building back in a way that positions American communities for success in the future — creating good paying jobs, boosting the economy, ensuring equity, and tackling our climate crisis," Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. The department will evaluate projects this year on whether they were planned as part of a larger strategy to address climate change, or if they help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Priority projects could involve zero-emission vehicle infrastructure or multimodal options to help people drive less. The department will also consider racial equity and whether projects help underserved communities. Eligible projects could address barriers to opportunity, like dependence on automobiles, or previous inequities. The program requires that at least a quarter of the funding for the grants be used for projects in rural areas. Last year, under the Trump administration, 53% of the $906 million in funding went to rural projects. In addition to the $889 million available this year, the department said it could award as much as $150 million in previously unspent funds. The department also announced it was launching a program for projects that don't win INFRA grants to apply for Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act loans that would cover 49% of their project costs.
https://www.transportation.gov/buildamerica/financing/infra-grants/infrastructure-rebuilding-america
Mets will still be paying Bobby Bonilla after Fernando Tatis Jr.'s 14-year deal ends
https://sports.yahoo.com/the-mets-will-still-be-paying-bobby-bonilla-after-fernando-tatis-jrs-14-year-deal-ends-164451048.html
'An Excellent Pick': Labor Advocates Applaud Biden Nomination of Jennifer Abruzzo for NLRB General Counsel (
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/02/17/excellent-pick-labor-advocates-applaud-biden-nomination-jennifer-abruzzo-nlrb
WHO says more than 11,000 Ebola vaccines will go to Guinea
https://apnews.com/article/matshidiso-moeti-geneva-health-guinea-ebola-virus-e598052cb54101eb59a63dca5b6dd760
_______________________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/02/18/statement-by-president-joseph-r-biden-jr-on-introduction-of-the-u-s-citizenship-act-of-2021/
Statement by President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. on Introduction of the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021
February 18, 2021 • Statements and Releases
Immigration is an irrefutable source of our strength and is essential to who we are as a nation. The last four years of misguided policies have exacerbated the already broken immigration system and highlighted the critical need for reform. I applaud the important work done by Senator Bob Menendez and Representative Linda Sánchez to modernize our immigration system and introduce The U.S. Citizenship Act. I look forward to working with leaders in the House and Senate to address the wrongdoings of the past administration and restore justice, humanity, and order to our immigration system. This is an important first step in pursuing immigration policies that unite families, grow and enhance our economy, and safeguard our security.
The legislation I sent to Congress will bring about much needed change to an immigration system where reform is long overdue. It will responsibly manage the border with smart investments. It will address the root causes of irregular migration from Central America. It will modernize our legal immigration pathways and create an earned path to citizenship for so many – including Dreamers, farmworkers and TPS holders.
These are not Democratic or Republican priorities – but American ones. I've laid out my vision for what it'll take to reform our immigration system and I look forward to working with leaders in Congress to get this done.
_______________________________
_____________________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/02/18/president-joseph-r-biden-jr-approves-louisiana-emergency-declaration/
President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Approves Louisiana Emergency Declaration
February 18, 2021 • Statements and Releases
Today, President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. declared that an emergency exists in the State of Louisiana and ordered federal assistance to supplement state and local response efforts due to the emergency conditions resulting from a severe winter storm beginning on February 11, 2021, and continuing.
The President's action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, and to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in all 64 Louisiana parishes.
Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency. Emergency protective measures for mass care and sheltering and direct federal assistance will be provided at 75 percent federal funding.
Robert J. Fenton, Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Department of Homeland Security, named John E. Long as the Federal Coordinating Officer for federal recovery operations in the affected areas.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION MEDIA SHOULD CONTACT THE FEMA NEWS DESK AT (202) 646-3272 OR FEMA-NEWS-DESK@FEMA.DHS.GOV.
_____________________________
https://www.state.gov/joint-statement-by-the-secretary-of-state-of-the-united-states-of-america-and-the-foreign-ministers-of-france-germany-the-united-kingdom/
Joint Statement by the Secretary of State of the United States of America and the Foreign Ministers of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom
Media Note
Office of the Spokesperson
February 18, 2021
The following statement was released by United States Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, and UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab following today's ministerial meeting:
Begin text:
The Foreign Ministers of France, Germany and the United Kingdom and the U.S. Secretary of State held a virtual meeting, for the second time in this format since Secretary Blinken took office, to discuss Iran and other pressing issues. They reaffirmed the centrality of the transatlantic partnership in dealing with the security, climate, economic, health and other challenges the world faces.
Regarding Iran, the E3 and the United States expressed their shared fundamental security interest in upholding the nuclear non-proliferation regime and ensuring that Iran can never develop a nuclear weapon. In this context, the conclusion of the JCPOA was a key achievement of multilateral diplomacy. The E3 welcomed the United States' stated intention to return to diplomacy with Iran as well as the resumption of a confident and in-depth dialogue between the E3 and the United States. The Ministers affirmed strong interest in continuing their consultations and coordination, including with China and Russia, on this key security issue, recognizing the role of the High Representative of the European Union as Coordinator of the Joint Commission.
The E3 and the United States affirmed their shared objective of Iran's return to full compliance with its commitments under the JCPOA. Secretary Blinken reiterated that, as President Biden has said, if Iran comes back into strict compliance with its commitments under the JCPOA, the United States will do the same and is prepared to engage in discussions with Iran toward that end.
In this context, the E3 and the US called on Iran not to take any additional steps, in particular with respect to the suspension of the Additional Protocol and to any limitations on IAEA verification activities in Iran. The E3 and the United States are united in underlining the dangerous nature of a decision to limit IAEA access, and urge Iran to consider the consequences of such grave action, particularly at this time of renewed diplomatic opportunity. They reiterated their full support for the professional and impartial role of the IAEA and its Director General and their efforts to implement the necessary verification and monitoring of Iran's nuclear commitments under the JCPOA.
The E3 and the United States also expressed their shared concerns over Iran's recent actions to produce both uranium enriched up to 20% and uranium metal. These activities have no credible civil justification. Uranium metal production is a key step in the development of a nuclear weapon.
The E3 welcomed the prospect of a U.S. and Iranian return to compliance with the JCPOA. The E3 and the United States affirmed their determination to then strengthen the JCPOA and, together with regional parties and the wider international community, address broader security concerns related to Iran's missile programs and regional activities. We are committed to working together toward these goals.
The Ministers also called on Iran to release all our arbitrarily detained nationals and reunite them with their families. They also expressed deep concern about the continuing grave human rights violations in Iran.
The E3 and the United States look forward to engaging with partners in order to work together toward these key objectives.
They expressed their joint determination to work toward de-escalating tensions in the Gulf region. They stressed in particular the urgency of ending the war in Yemen, while reaffirming their steadfast commitment to the security of their regional partners. On Yemen, the Ministers agreed to work closely together to support United Nations Special Envoy Griffiths' efforts to end the war and to address the humanitarian crisis. They expressed concern about the recent Houthi offensive against Marib and strikes against civilian infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, calling upon the Houthis and all Yemeni parties to engage constructively in the political process.
On Iraq, the Ministers reiterated their condemnation of the February 15 rocket attack in Erbil. They expressed their condolences for the victims, their families, and the Iraqi people and emphasized that attacks on U.S., Coalition and NATO personnel and facilities will not be tolerated. Ministers reiterated their support for the Iraqi Government.
Discussing the evolving challenge posed by ISIS, ministers re-committed to continuing critical efforts to target and eliminate the ISIS threat in Iraq and Syria, including efforts via the 83-member Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. They also emphasized the growing importance of coordinating efforts to target the threat posed by ISIS branches and networks worldwide.
The Ministers agreed to closely coordinate to address the global challenges posed by China, as well as the need for cooperation across a range of issues, including climate change.
On Myanmar, they condemned the military coup. They called on military leaders to immediately end the state of emergency, restore power to the democratically elected government, refrain from violence, release all those unjustly detained, and respect human rights and the rule of law.
The Ministers agreed on the importance of further strengthening NATO and ensuring it is positioned to address today's strategic realities building on the NATO Reflection Group's Recommendations.
Ministers agreed that strong international and multilateral cooperation was essential to ending the COVID 19 pandemic and building back better collectively. They reviewed efforts on the global response, including support for rapid deployment of vaccines globally, primarily through the ACT-A/COVAX facility.
They agreed to work with urgency to address the climate crisis ahead of the 26th UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties in Glasgow in November. They agreed that significant collective action was needed to implement the Paris Agreement, including keeping a 1.5 degree Celsius temperature rise within reach. They look forward to the upcoming U.S.-hosted Leaders' Climate Summit as an important forum to for enhanced climate ambition.
End text.
_____________________________
6 Capitol Police officers suspended, 29 others being investigated for alleged roles in riot
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/18/politics/capitol-police-officers-suspended/index.html
President Biden will announce plans to contribute up to $4B to a global Covid-19 vaccine program aimed at assisting developing countries, a move officials argue will bolster U.S. national security interests by helping control the pandemic globally.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/u-s-will-send-2-billion-global-covid-vaccine-program-n1258295
Today, @StateDept took additional action against individuals involved in efforts to thwart the democratic aspirations of the Belarusian people and their right to free and fair elections. We stand with the people of Belarus.
https://www.state.gov/imposing-visa-restrictions-on-additional-individuals-undermining-belarusian-democracy/
Western Conference All-Star Starters: Stephen Curry, Luka Doncic, LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, Nikola Jokic
https://twitter.com/chrisbhaynes/status/1362554802740240385
Eastern Conference All-Star Starters: Kyrie Irving, Bradley Beal, Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid
https://twitter.com/ChrisBHaynes/status/1362557261785178117
__________________________________
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/us/politics/native-americans-biden.html
Native Americans 'Left Out in the Cold' Under Trump Press Biden for Action
After showing political clout in the 2020 election, tribal communities are hoping for more attention and money to address their long-running problems with poverty, health care and other issues.
By Mark Walker
Feb. 18, 2021Updated 5:14 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON — When President Biden introduced Representative Deb Haaland of New Mexico as his pick for interior secretary, making her the first Native American to be selected for a cabinet position, he acknowledged the country's long history of failing the land's first citizens.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/17/climate/deb-haaland-interior-department-native-american.html
"The federal government has long broken promises to Native American tribes who have been on this land since time immemorial," he said. "With her appointment, Congresswoman Haaland will help me strengthen the nation-to-nation relationship."
But with Mr. Biden's election and Ms. Haaland's nomination, tribal communities are looking for more than vague pledges.
Angry over their treatment during the Trump administration, which oversaw a deeply flawed response to the pandemic on tribal lands and pursued other policies at odds with Native American priorities, they are now hopeful that Mr. Biden, who benefited from their enthusiastic support in battleground states like Arizona last year, will back a far-reaching agenda to address the poverty that has long ravaged their communities.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/03/us/politics/indian-health-service-hospital.html
They are pushing to ensure that any infrastructure plan the Biden administration pursues includes substantial money to improve access to water and electricity and to improve roads and bridges. They want more funding for their woeful health care service. They want changes to federal land use policy to minimize environmental damage from energy projects. And they want a renewed commitment to improving their schools.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/us/politics/coronavirus-indian-health-service.html
In more than a dozen interviews with tribal leaders, health officials and lawyers across the country, many expressed cautious optimism that the Biden administration would follow through on efforts to address 150 years of systematic failures and breaches of treaty agreements.
"The Trump administration left us out in the cold when it came to the pandemic — all the federal aid that came as a result of the stimulus act, and other acts, throughout this year were meant to try to help entities deal with the pandemic, but we were left out in the cold," said Tim Davis, the chairman of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montana.
"There is so much we are going to have to do, and we are hoping we will get that opportunity with the new administration," he added.
One main reason for their optimism is the nomination of Ms. Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe.
If confirmed, she would oversee about 500 million acres of public land and federal policies affecting the 574 federally recognized tribal governments. She would run an agency responsible for shaping policy on Native American education, tribal law enforcement and the use of the country's natural resources.
https://www.doi.gov/
During the campaign, Mr. Biden released a policy agenda outlining his plans for Native Americans and tribal communities. It included proposals to immediately reinstate the annual White House Tribal Nations Conference, nominate judges who understand federal Indian law and fully fund the Indian Health Service.
https://joebiden.com/tribalnations/
That agenda partly reflected the importance of the Native American vote to Democrats. A New York Times analysis of precinct data found that the Biden-Harris ticket received more than 80 percent of Navajo Nation and Hopi reservation votes in Arizona, which Democrats narrowly won.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-arizona.html
Mr. Biden received about 13,500 more votes from the reservations than Hillary Clinton did in 2016. He won Arizona by about 11,000 votes, or three-tenths of a percentage point. Donald J. Trump won the state by 3.5 percentage points in 2016.
Jonathan Nez, the president of the Navajo Nation, one of the hardest-hit areas by the pandemic in the country, was among the Native American voters who helped Mr. Biden win Arizona. The tribe, which is in parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, has suffered more than 1,000 coronavirus-related deaths and over 28,000 positive cases among the reservation's more than 170,000 residents.
Mr. Nez campaigned for Mr. Biden, including taking part in a series of television ads that ran through Election Day. He said the new administration was already having a positive effect.
In early February, Mr. Biden signed a major disaster declaration for the Navajo Nation to provide more federal funding to support vaccine distribution, medical staffing and resources. With the help of the additional resources, Mr. Nez said the tribe had been able to administer 98 percent of the vaccine doses it was given.
Mr. Nez said he would now like to see the administration focus on aging infrastructure.
"Our roads, our bridges, our water lines, our electricity lines: Here on the Navajo Nation, 30 to 40 percent of our people don't have running water, 30 to 40 percent of our people don't have electricity," he said. "So if there's going to be a major emphasis on infrastructure, we want Navajo Nation to get running water and electricity."
Esther Lucero is the chief executive of the Seattle Indian Health Board, a community health center that serves more than 6,000 urban American Indians and Alaska Natives. She said she hoped to see significant investment in the current public health system for Native Americans.
The Indian Health Service, based in Rockville, Md., consists of 26 hospitals, 56 health centers and 32 health stations. The hospitals range in size from four beds to 133. The agency is broken into a dozen service regions across the country, each one serving tribes living in that area.
For decades, the Indian Health Service has been underfunded, understaffed and routinely criticized for providing inadequate care to the 2.2 million members of the nation's tribal communities. Its performance during the pandemic came under especially intense criticism.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/us/politics/coronavirus-indian-health-service.html
"We have to put together an aggressive budget formula to get the Indian Health Service fully funded," Ms. Lucero said. Providing additional funding to the 12 tribal epidemiology health centers, for example, was key to maintaining and tracking health care data about their citizens, she said.
The intersection of federal land use and environmental and energy policy is also at the heart of the tribal agenda for the new administration. Mr. Biden is facing calls to shut down the Dakota Access pipeline after a court ruled that the Trump administration broke the law when allowing for its construction. That would mean victory for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, which touches North and South Dakota. The pipeline crosses just north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/us/dakota-access-pipeline.html
The pipeline, which carries oil from North Dakota to Illinois, has drawn significant opposition from environmentalists and tribes over the years, spurring widespread protests.
It was completed in 2017 after it was revived by Mr. Trump, who reversed an Obama administration decision to deny it a permit.
The push comes after Mr. Biden revoked a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have transported oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/20/climate/biden-paris-climate-agreement.html
"As the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, we have been engaged with our congressional delegation to put forth a number of priorities," said Ira Taken Alive, the tribe's vice chairman. "As much of the world knows, for the past four and half years, we have prioritized passionately opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline."
Rodney M. Bordeaux, the president of the Rosebud Sioux, said that the federal government's responsibility for improving the overall quality of life for tribal residents started by honoring the trust and treaty responsibilities across all areas of government.
"We are always on the bottom of everything, but it's a trust responsibility and a treaty responsibility — and they have to step up," said Mr. Bordeaux, whose tribal nation is in southwestern South Dakota.
In 2016, President Barack Obama created the Bears Ears National Monument in southern Utah. "The land is profoundly sacred to many Native American tribes, including the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah Ouray, Hopi Nation and Zuni Tribe," Mr. Obama said at the time.
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/12/28/proclamation-establishment-bears-ears-national-monument
Nearly a year later, Mr. Trump drastically shrank the monument, a sprawling region of red rock canyons. Oil was the central factor in driving the decision, setting off a legal battle over the land.
Matt Campbell, a lawyer for the Native American Rights Fund, has represented a number of tribes across the country on legal issues, including the rollback of the federal land protection of Bears Ears.
"Bears Ears National Monument is something we are advocating the administration on," he said. "The Obama administration had created the monument. It is the first ever monument that was created at the request of tribal nations, and President Trump revoked that monument."
Bill Sterud, the chairman of the Puyallup tribe in Washington State, said he voted for Mr. Biden because he thought a new administration could change the tone in Washington.
Mr. Sterud said he viewed the nomination of Ms. Haaland as a breakthrough for Native Americans. But he said he still planned to closely monitor the new administration's performance on delivering promises of change. Upholding tribal nations' treaty rights, addressing climate change and improving the education system are top priorities the administration should address, he said.
"Education is one of those things that's the most important for our young people," he said. "We have our own school that has 800 students, and making sure that school continues to be and gets better and becomes a top-flight school is important."
Mark Walker is the FOIA coordinator in the Washington bureau of The New York Times. He was raised in Savannah and graduated from Fort Valley State University. Previously, he was an investigative reporter at the Argus Leader in South Dakota. @bymarkwalker
__________________________________
Florida county commissioner limited vaccine drive to the two richest zip codes and then created a 'VIP list'
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/18/politics/manatee-county-vaccine/index.html
Ted Cruz Ditched His Poodle for Cancun | Snowflake was left at home while the senator and his family slipped away to Mexico.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/02/ted-cruz-flees-texas-for-cancun-ditches-family-poodle.html
Hannity keeps saying Cruz was just going to drop off his kids in Cancun to make a "quick roundtrip." Yet Cruz admitted he was planning to stay through the weekend. Texts leaked show his wife planned a getaway with neighbors. Cruz now says he planned to "work remotely" from beach.
https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1362591142496395264
Los Angeles Clippers announce that Nicolas Batum (concussion), Paul George (bone edema right toe), Luke Kennard (sore right knee) and Kawhi Leonard (left lower leg contusion) are all QUESTIONABLE for tomorrow's game against the Utah Jazz.
https://twitter.com/FlyByKnite/status/1362572953418833921
Republicans in 33 states have now proposed more than 165 bills that would restrict voting. That's more than four times as many bills of this kind that had been introduced at this point last year.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/17/politics/republican-election-commission-voting-bills-2021/index.html
Ted Cruz traveled to Jamaica for July 4th last year, defying public health guidelines during the pandemic, report says
https://www.businessinsider.com/ted-cruz-went-jamaica-july-4-flouting-health-guidelines-wapo-2021-2
__________________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/02/18/fact-sheet-president-biden-to-take-action-on-global-health-through-support-of-covax-and-calling-for-health-security-financing/
Fact Sheet: President Biden to Take Action on Global Health through Support of COVAX and Calling for Health Security Financing
February 18, 2021 • Statements and Releases
As the virus continues to spread throughout the world, and with new variants emerging, the facts are clear that it is critical that we vaccinate as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. Tomorrow at the G7, the President will announce that he is taking concrete steps to improve the health and the safety of Americans by protecting vulnerable populations worldwide. He will also call on G7 partners to prioritize a sustainable health security financing mechanism aimed at catalyzing countries to build the needed capacity to end this pandemic and prevent the next one.
COVID has shown us that no nation can act alone in the face of a pandemic. Today, President Biden is taking action to support the world's most vulnerable and protect Americans from COVID-19.
Using money appropriated by a bipartisan Congressional vote in December 2020, the United States will provide an initial $2 billion contribution to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance for the COVAX Advance Market Commitment, the innovative financing instrument of the COVAX Facility, which supports access to safe and effective vaccines for 92 low- and middle-income economies.
The United States will also take a leadership role in galvanizing further global contributions to COVAX by releasing an additional $2 billion through 2021 and 2022, of which the first $500 million will be made available when existing donor pledges are fulfilled and initial doses are delivered to AMC countries. In close cooperation with Gavi, this additional $2 billion in funding will serve to expand COVAX's reach. We also call on our G7 and other partners to work alongside Gavi, to bring in billions more in resources to support global COVID-19 vaccination, and to target urgent vaccine manufacturing, supply, and delivery needs.
Finally, at the G7 President Biden will reaffirm the U.S. commitment to global health security and advancing the Global Health Security Agenda. All countries should have the capability to prevent, detect, and respond to outbreaks. The COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing outbreaks of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Guinea highlight the need for sustainable health security financing to catalyze country capacity to prevent biological catastrophes.
Today, the President is announcing that he will:
Protect the most vulnerable, protecting America: The United States' contribution is designated to help Gavi prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus through vaccine procurement and delivery for the world's most vulnerable. In partnership with Gavi, the bulk of these funds will be targeted to support direct vaccine procurement, and a portion will also support broader country readiness and vaccine service delivery.
Encourage the global community to action: Under President Biden, the United States will take a leadership role in galvanizing new donor commitments toward the COVAX Facility. The next $2 billion of support from the US government, which will be additional to today's initial $2 billion contribution, will be released as we work with other donors to elevate pledge commitments. The goal is clear: vaccinate vulnerable populations, and reach those without other options. This funding from the Administration will enable Gavi to address urgent needs, while also supporting efforts to diversify and increase contributions from other donors in 2021.
###
__________________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/02/18/readout-of-the-white-houses-meeting-with-young-community-violence-prevention-advocates/
Readout of the White House's Meeting with Young Community Violence Prevention Advocates
February 18, 2021 • Statements and Releases
Today, Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice and White House Public Engagement Director and Senior Advisor Cedric Richmond hosted a virtual discussion with a wide cross-section of youth advocates for community violence prevention. Participants shared their perspectives around the intersectionality of gun violence, how to craft successful community-based violence interventions, and the importance of survivor-led and victim-centered policymaking in the community violence prevention space.
Ambassador Rice and Senior Advisor Richmond expressed gratitude for the participants' central role in elevating the issue of gun violence as a public health crisis and ensuring that youth, in particular Black and Brown young people, are at the tables where the violence prevention policies impacting their communities are created. They underscored President Biden's commitment to taking action to make our communities safer and to ensure that equity drives our policymaking across the federal government.
Participants in today's meeting included:
Alycia Moaton, GoodKids MadCity
Brent Cohen, Generation Progress
Daud Mumin, March for Our Lives
Jamira Burley
Jordan Gomes, Jr., Newtown Action Alliance
Kina Collins, Gun Violence Prevention Education Center and IL Council Against Handgun Violence
Lamar Johnson, BRAVE, St. Sabina Church
Luis Hernandez, Youth Over Guns
Max Markham, March for Our Lives
Maxwell Frost, March for Our Lives
Riley Burns, Jr. Newtown Action Alliance
Ronnie Mosely
Tabitha Escalante, March for Our Lives
Tatiana Washington, March for Our Lives
__________________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/02/18/readout-of-president-joseph-r-biden-jr-call-with-governor-greg-abbott-of-texas/
Readout of President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Call with Governor Greg Abbott of Texas
February 18, 2021 • Statements and Releases
President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. spoke this evening with Texas Governor Greg Abbott about the severe winter weather situation facing central and southern parts of the United States, including Texas.
President Biden conveyed his support to the people of Texas in this trying time. He reiterated that the federal government will continue to work hand-in-hand with state and local authorities in Texas to bring relief and address the critical needs of the families affected. He also shared his intentions to instruct additional federal agencies to look into any immediate steps that could be taken to support Texans at this time.
The President also expressed that his administration was at the ready should the State of Texas or any other impacted region need additional federal disaster support or assistance as severe storms move across the US.
__________________________
The United States Officially Rejoins the Paris Agreement
https://www.state.gov/the-united-states-officially-rejoins-the-paris-agreement/
Ocasio-Cortez raises $1 million for Texas relief, plans trip to Houston
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/539550-ocasio-cortez-raises-1-million-for-texas-relief-plans-trip-to-houston
Today's the day. We're officially back in the Paris Agreement - again part of the global climate effort. No country can fight this fight on its own. We look forward to a productive year and a successful #COP26 in Glasgow. #GoodToBeBack
https://twitter.com/ClimateEnvoy/status/1362753331547041793
"We have a backlog of about 6 million doses due to the weather. All 50 states have been impacted...let me first walk you though the situation and then tell you how we, as an entire nation, will have to pull together to get back on track."
https://twitter.com/i/status/1362812585461055490
https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1362812585461055490
An update on how the winter storms have impacted vaccines from the WH COVID team:
- Backlog of about 6 million doses due to the weather (~ 3 days of delayed shipping)
- All 50 states have been impacted
- Backlog doses will be delivered within next week, most in next few days
Texas grid operators say system back to normal operations nearly week after 4 million lost power, but outages remain.
https://twitter.com/ZekeJMiller/status/1362811227983011849
Republican legislatures in multiple states are preparing to illegally and unconstitutionally pass racist voter suppression laws like the one, banning early voting held by Black churches
https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/20488034-hb-531-lc-28-0215
Schumer tells colleagues in letter that the Senate will confirm Linda Thomas-Greenfield as UN ambassador in the coming week. He also wants to move on Biden's nominees to EPA, HUD, USDA, Energy, Education, Commerce and Labor soon.
https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1362820445280628738
Last month, Texas resident Royce Peirce paid $387.70 to heat his two-story house. This month, he owes $8,162.73 — and counting. Amid freezing temperatures and another looming winter storm, Texans are facing a second crisis: astronomical power bills.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/dollar5152-power-bill-texas-winter-storm-hell-only-gets-worse
Don't vote for anyone you wouldn't trust with your dog.
https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1362800416900153344
House Science Committee Hearing on Encouraging Vaccine Uptake - 02/19/2021 | Live - 11:00am EST
https://www.c-span.org/video/?509101-1/house-science-committee-holds-hearing-vaccination-efforts
________________________
https://www.state.gov/remarks-at-the-america-is-all-in-launch-event/
Remarks at the "America Is All In" Launch Event
John Kerry, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate
February 19, 2021
As prepared
Marcene – thank you very much. I'm delighted to be with all of you on such an important day.
I know many of you were there at Le Bourget a little over five years ago when we gaveled in the historic Paris Agreement. It was the product of many hard and many hands – a diplomatic balancing act, and at one point it felt like success or failure could come down to a single word.
And for the last four years, there were times when many feared failure would depend on a single word – Trump.
Yet, five years later, the Paris Agreement and the international climate regime are is still standing – all because cities, states, businesses – organizations across the country – stepped up and said, "We are still in."
We Are Still In was much more than a slogan. In 2017, only 1 state and 33 cities had committed to get 100% of their energy from clean sources; now, 13 states, Puerto Rico, and 165 cities have 100% clean energy commitments.
And since 2017, 16 states have passed or committed to pass regulations and legislation that would phase down the use of HFCs.
You showed the world the real face of the United States, even before 81 million Americans last November changed the public face of leadership that Americans choose to show the world.
And now, we need you to make "all-in" have even more urgency and meaning.
We come to this work with humility knowing that the United States' global absence did have consequences.
We come to this work with honesty knowing that Paris isn't enough.
And we come to this work with ambition knowing that even though the U.S. is thankfully back in the Paris Agreement, we need every major economy, including ours, to achieve what Paris never guaranteed: to increase our action to keep 1.5
degrees of warming within reach, and to get on a track to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
That means we need all of America and all of the world to be "All In."
We need you to join us. Even with the United States back in officially, we need you to represent the best of the United States abroad because your accomplishments of the last four years are proof that progress is possible, and that progress comes with prosperity.
You're our success stories. So, if you came to the COPs the last three years, keep coming! And if you didn't, promise that this year we'll see you in Glasgow, so we all meet this moment and we meet it together.
Let's get the job done. I look forward to your partnership and your questions.
________________________
Biden To Authorize Broader Disaster Relief For Texas
https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-winter-storms-2021/2021/02/19/969465887/biden-to-authorize-broader-disaster-relief-for-texas
Endangered North Atlantic right whale calf was struck by a vessel and found dead over the weekend. It had deep propeller cuts on its back and head, broken bones and a cracked skull. Act now, before it's too late! https://bit.ly/3qxjmxK #RightWhaleToSave
https://act.oceana.org/page/47981/action/1
https://twitter.com/oceana/status/1361710680538157060
Sign the petition to support LA legislation that reduces unnecessary waste and saves restaurants money. #SkipTheStuff requires takeout and delivery "extras", like single-use utensils, straws, condiments, and more, to be provided only *upon request*.
https://p2a.co/skipthestuffLA
https://twitter.com/HealTheBay/status/1357440470360592385
For those who don't understand what state of emergency means & keep pawttacking dad @POTUS for doing everything pawssible for them: it means IMMEDIATE help - generators, supplies, hundreds of warning centers opened in TX. http://tdem.texas.gov/warm PS: Abbott should have first
https://twitter.com/TheOvalPawffice/status/1362836551797940231
"I called Governor Greg Abbott" - We hope to never again hear that our dad @POTUS does not put Americans and our country first. Crossing the aisle is no big deal for him if that means helping those who suffer, regardless of their pawlitical affiliation. #Bipawrtisan
https://twitter.com/TheOvalPawffice/status/1362836551797940231
NASA posts first color image from rover Perseverance following its landing on Mars.
https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1362832074546302981
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eum_gvXXYAUz408?format=jpg&name=large
NASA kicks off new era of Mars exploration with successful landing of Perseverance, a car-size robotic explorer that will search for traces of ancient life and collect what could be the first rocky samples from Mars that are sent back to Earth.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/nasas-mars-rover-perseverance-touches-red-planet-rcna295
We made a grammar mistake, we just noticed: it's "states of emergency", plural. We'd blame it on our pawgenies, like Ted, but we don't have any, so...
https://twitter.com/TheOvalPawffice/status/1362597162245263360
We pawpprove this message
https://twitter.com/TheOvalPawffice/status/1362819006374109186
Friends, this month we are collecting funds for @bestfriends - largest special needs animal sanctuary and working to render kill shelters extinct by 2025. Most of the pawceeds will go to them, pls read #HowWeHelp section on the site. Woof!
https://twitter.com/TheOvalPawffice/status/1362538143111520260
What's left goes into pawrchasing, designing and printing more / new pawducts to repeat the pawcess each month for a different animal welfare organization. And yes, we are working our paws off to bring more kitty items. Woof!
https://twitter.com/TheOvalPawffice/status/1362539263506571265
For once, we pawgree with Faux News' Tucker Carlson, who said that our parents' love is "as real as climate change". These pawdorable camels will help us get our pawint across visually, they are in Saudi Arabia, in the middle of a snowstorm. #ClimateChangeIsReal
https://twitter.com/TheOvalPawffice/status/1362469030884347905
It's worth mentioning, that even us, doggies, know that the general trend shows the planet is getting hotter and hotter. Just like our parents' 40 years long happy marriage. We pawlieve that's a hard to grasp concept for hoomans who live in an emotional ice castle. - #DOTUS
https://twitter.com/TheOvalPawffice/status/1362469474566172673
Gun violence cost America $280 billion in 2018: "This is not a one-time cost. Every year we pay."
https://abcnews.go.com/US/gun-violence-cost-america-280-billion-2018-report/story?id=75954550
Q Mr. President, (inaudible) the Texas governor's request for a major disaster declaration?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I had a chance to speak with the governor again last night, and I asked him whether he was about to ask for another effort to — because the circumstances Texas finds itself in — whether he was going to seek additional assistance. And we talked — I talked with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA — the administrator. This afternoon, I'm going to ask him to accelerate our response and request for, quote — it's a different declaration — a "Major Disaster Declaration" so that we can get everything done that we need that's possible to get done with federal government help. FEMA is already there and providing support — generators, diesel fuel, water, blankets, and other supplies. But I've directed Health and Human Services — HHS — Housing and Urban Development, U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Department of Defense to identify other resources — other resources that can provide and address the growing needs of the folks in — in Texas. And as a little bit along the lines I was just talking about, when any state — as I said when I ran, I'm going to be a President for all of America — all — red, blue; there's no red or blue. It's all about commitment to — the American people make to one another. And so we're going to sign that declaration once it's in front of me. And G-d willing, it will bring a lot of relief to a lot of Texans.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/02/19/remarks-by-president-biden-at-the-2021-virtual-munich-security-conference/
Humans are making Earth a broken and increasingly unlivable planet through climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.
https://wedocs.unep.org/xmlui/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/34948/MPN.pdf
https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/press-encounter/2021-02-18/secretary-generals-joint-press-conference-executive-director-of-unep-inger-andersen-launch-unep-report-entitled-%E2%80%9Cmaking-peace-nature-scientific-blueprint-tackle
Six Individuals Affiliated with the Oath Keepers Indicted by a Federal Grand Jury for Conspiracy to Obstruct Congress on Jan. 6, 2021
https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/six-individuals-affiliated-oath-keepers-indicted-federal-grand-jury-conspiracy-obstruct
Now, I want to give an update on how severe weather across the country has impacted vaccine deliveries and administration, and how we intend to catch up. As of now, we have a backlog of about 6 million doses due to the weather. All 50 states have been impacted. The 6 million doses represents about three days of delayed shipping, and many states have been able to cover some of this delay with existing inventory. So let me first walk you through the situation and then tell you how we, as an entire nation, will have to pull together to get back on track. There are three places along the distribution chain that have been impacted by the weather. First, FedEx, UPS, and McKesson — our logistics and distribution teams — have all faced challenges as workers have been snowed in and unable to get to work to package and ship the vaccines, kits, and the required diluent. Second, road closures have held up delivery of vaccines at different points in the distribution process, between manufacturing sites to distribution, and to shipping hubs. Third, more than 2,000 vaccine sites are located in areas with power outages, so they're currently unable to receive doses. General Perna's guidance to the team was to ensure safety of personnel, preservation of the vaccines and supplies, and constant communication with the states. Because of 72-hour cold chain constraints, we don't want to ship doses to those locations and have them sitting at a site where they might expire. So the vaccines are sitting safe and sound in our factories and hubs, ready to be shipped out as soon as the weather allows. Now, as weather conditions improve, we're already working to clear this backlog. 1.4 million doses are already in transit today, and we anticipate that all the backlog doses will be delivered within the next week, with most being delivered within the next several days. And we expect we will be able to manage both this backlog and the new production coming online next week. With everybody's hard work and collective effort, we will be able to catch up, but we understand this will mean asking more of people. UPS and FedEx both will support Saturday deliveries tomorrow. We are working with the jurisdictions to see which ones are able to take Saturday deliveries. The packaging plant for Moderna vaccines is just now coming online. Roads are being cleared for the workforce to leave their homes. They're working today through Sunday to package the backlogged orders, and will put the vaccines and ancillary supplies on aircraft on Sunday night for Monday-through-Wednesday delivery. As we get back on track, we're asking states, sites, and ventilate — and vaccinators to help us catch up and to get Americans vaccinated. We know many Americans are awaiting their second dose, and many more, their first dose. We're asking vaccine administration sites to extend their hours even further and offer additional appointments, and to try to reschedule the vaccinations over the coming days and weeks as significantly more supply arrives. States and vaccination sites are going to want to be prepared for the additional volume.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/02/19/press-briefing-by-white-house-covid-19-response-team-and-public-health-officials-5/
For weeks, the public messages about vaccines have been more negative than the facts warrant. Now we are seeing the cost: A large percentage of Americans wouldn't take a vaccine if offered one.
https://twitter.com/DLeonhardt/status/1362767520764203011
- About 1/3 of military troops who've been offered vaccine shots have declined.
- When shots became available to Ohio nursing-home workers, 60% said no.
- Among frontline workers in SoCal, the share was 40-50%.
- N.B.A. stars are wary of doing public-services ads.
https://twitter.com/DLeonhardt/status/1362768083899793413
Nationwide, nearly half of Americans would refuse a shot if offered one immediately, polls suggest. Vaccination skepticism is even higher among Black and Hispanic people, white people without a college degree, registered Republicans and lower-income households.
https://twitter.com/DLeonhardt/status/1362768252766683138
The evidence so far suggests that a full vaccine dose:
1. effectively eliminates the risk of Covid death
2. nearly eliminates the risk of hospitalization
3. drastically reduces the ability to infect somebody else.
All of that is also true about the virus variants.
https://twitter.com/DLeonhardt/status/1362769128784883718
As part of the Biden's efforts to roll back Trump's MPP, 25 people who've been waiting in Mexico to seek asylum in the U.S. were granted entry in San Diego. Next week, more asylum-seekers will be allowed in through El Paso & Brownsville.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/first-25-asylum-seekers-made-wait-mexico-under-trump-policy-n1258375
Feds charge a Pennsylvania cop with civil disorder after they say he charged a police line during the Capitol insurrection... and posted the video on Facebook.
https://huffpost.com/entry/police-trump-capitol-attack-insurrection_n_603026b3c5b66dfc101ea10d
We obtained records from the Justice Department with more of former AG Barr's calendars. The records include an Aug. 2019 meeting with then-DNI Coats and an Oct. 2019 meeting with Rep. Kevin McCarthy.
https://americanoversight.org/document/attorney-general-barrs-doj-calendars-and-phone-logs#annotations
The calendars also include a March 2020 White House meeting about FISA. You can see details about these and previous Barr calendars we've obtained here:
https://americanoversight.org/document/attorney-general-barrs-doj-calendars-and-phone-logs
"Big protest in D.C. on January 6th," Trump wrote on Dec. 19. "Be there, will be wild!" | "Trump said It's gonna be wild!!!!!!! It's gonna be wild!!!!!!! He wants us to make it WILD that's what he's saying," Kelly Meggs allegedly wrote in a Facebook post on Dec. 22. "He called us all to the Capitol and wants us to make it wild!!! Sir Yes Sir!!! Gentlemen we are heading to DC pack your s***!!" | "I recommended your training to the team. To that effect, four of us would like to train with you, specifically in your UTM rifle class," he added, abbreviating ultimate training munitions. The grand jury charged all nine militia members with four counts, starting iwth conspiring to commit an offense against the United States, with the purpose of corruptly obstructing, influencing, or impeding an official proceeding. Young, who allegedly deleted his Facebook account, has been charged with tampering with documents.
https://lawandcrime.com/u-s-capitol-siege/he-wants-us-to-make-it-wild-indictment-of-nine-oath-keepers-ties-together-alleged-pro-trump-conspiracy/
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/20489137/caldwell_crowl_watkins_parker_parker_young_steele_meggs_meggs_-_indictment.pdf
As snow blanketed much of Texas on Sunday, an 11-year-old gleefully played outside. It was his first time seeing snow. Less than 24 hours later, as temperatures plunged to near single digits and homes lost power, the boy died.
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/19/texas-power-outage-winter-storm-deaths/
Erik Prince (brother of Betsy DeVos, Trump's Sec of Education), the ex-head of Blackwater and prominent Trump supporter, violated a United Nations arms embargo on Libya by sending weapons to a militia commander who was attempting to overthrow the government, according to U.N. investigators. The U.N. report obtained by The New York Times reveals how Erik Prince deployed a force of foreign mercenaries, armed with attack aircraft, gunboats and cyberwarfare capabilities, to eastern Libya.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/19/world/middleeast/erk-prince-libya-embargo.html
Arizona Republicans have launched a "full-scale assault" on democracy, voting rights groups warned, pointing to the introduction of bills that would restrict ballot access and overhaul the state's election system
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/arizona-republicans-voting-rights-attack_n_602d5ad0c5b66da5db9e903d
Isaiah Thomas scores 19 points in return to court as U.S. beats Bahamas. Isaiah Thomas scored 19 points in his first competitive game in more than a year, helping the U.S. to a 93-77 victory over the Bahamas in Friday's FIBA AmeriCup qualifying game.
https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/30931181/isaiah-thomas-scores-19-points-return-court-us-beats-bahamas
Eagles are releasing WR DeSean Jackson
https://twitter.com/mysportsupdate/status/1362864744378564609
COVID-19 hospitalizations are now under 60k for the first time since November 9, bringing us back down to the peak levels of hospitalizations we saw in the spring and summer surges.
https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1362916493013311488
Justin Turner on COVID-World Series controversy: "It was obviously something that I regret. It was a mistake. If I had to do it all over again, I obviously would do it a lot different. I know there's probably still people out there who are pretty upset with me & I understand."
https://twitter.com/ESPNLosAngeles/status/1362911552643325952
Seeing 'Political Grandstanding' in Election Lawsuit, Judge Orders Attorney Attorney Erick Kaardal to Face Grievance Committee. Attorney Erick Kaardal filed the lawsuit in December on behalf of several Republican state lawmakers and groups, targeting then-Vice President Mike Pence, the Electoral College and other institutions and leaders in an apparent attempt to block President Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of the District of Columbia in early January rejected the lawsuit, and suggested it was an act of "gamesmanship or symbolic political gesture."
https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2021/02/19/seeing-political-grandstanding-in-election-lawsuit-judge-orders-attorney-to-face-grievance-committee/
Reporters wrote articles from cars and backyard sheds, searched for cell service on overloaded towers and met deadlines as their water pipes burst and gas leaked into their homes. Among millions of Texans who survived without electricity or water this week were hundreds of local journalists, responsible for publishing crucial information about the deadly winter storm
https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2021/02/19/texas-winter-storm-journalism/
Advocates are in talks with the Biden administration about how to roll out a policy that will allow mentally ill sexual deviants to refuse to identify their natural born gender
https://19thnews.org/2021/02/biden-administration-suggests-it-will-add-x-gender-markers-to-federal-documents/
Nikola Jokic drops yet another triple-double: 16 points on 5-8 shooting (1-2 from 3, 5-5 from the FT line), 12 rebounds, 10 assists in a win over the Cavs
Payton Pritchard leapfrogs over Brandon Goodwin to get back on defense
https://streamable.com/8puzid
Nikola Vucevic drops a MONSTER triple double to beat the Warriors: 30pts/16reb/10ast with 0 turnovers on 13/23 FG
Jamal Murray checks out of the game with 50 points on 21/25 FG, 8/10 3PT
Magic's double team Curry for the entire position and forces an airball
https://streamable.com/47ejfo
Jamal Murray breaks the record for the most points in a game without a free throw with 50 points.
Anthony Edwards puts Watanabe on a poster
https://streamable.com/vh6s6p
Joel Embiid bolsters his MVP campaign as he stuffs the stat sheet with 50 points, 17 rebounds, 5 assists, 4 blocks and 2 steals as Sixers defeat the Bulls
Mitchell hits another 3 to bring the Jazz within 2
https://streamable.com/6nuh6i
Lonzo Ball in a loss tonight against a tough Suns team: 21 points, 1 rebound, 12 assists, 3 steals, 2 blocks, zero turnovers, 6-13 FG, 6-12 3PFG, 3-4 FTs in 36 minutes of play
Down 4, Mitchell purposely misses the 3rd free throw attempt with 2 seconds left in the game.
https://streamable.com/85frnd
The Jazz leave Beverley wide open and he makes them pay for three
https://streamable.com/8p9zi2
Kemba Walker tonight against Atlanta - 28/5/6 with 3 steals on 63% from the field, 63% from 3
Norman Powell tonight : 31 points, 10/19 FG, 6/10 3PT in the win against the Wolves
Terence Davis knocks down the clutch go-ahead three against the Wolves
https://streamable.com/15apdl
Chris Paul Tonight: 15 points, 19 assists, 4 Rebounds, 2 steals, and a Team High +20
The Phoenix Suns outscored the New Orleans Pelicans 41-12 in the fourth quarter. That 4th quarter performance by the Pelicans should be streamed in the dictionary next to "meltdown"
Myanmar Police Open Fire on Protesters, Killing 2
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/world/asia/myanmar-protesters-killed.html
The U.S. Agency for Global Media has reinstated five whistleblowers who were fired last year by Trump officials.
https://thehill.com/policy/international/539583-us-agency-for-global-media-reinstates-those-dismissed-under-trump
Beto O'Rourke, who nearly unseated Senator Ted Cruz in 2018, has organized volunteers to make over 784,000 wellness calls to senior citizens in Texas this week.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/19/us/beto-orourke-texas.html
He also pushed the lie that Democrats gunned him down, he ran campaign videos saying Democrats gunned him down and wanted to steal guns from Republicans and gun down Republicans (the man who shot him was a Republican who support Sanders and Trump): I would love for someone at ABC to explain in good faith why Steve Scalise, a Jan. 6 terrorist who is still pushing the Big Lie that the election was stolen and oh by the way deliberately spread covid19 misinformation, is a trusted source for a live news interview.
https://twitter.com/ThisWeekABC/status/1362899769237118980
Venezuelan Women Lose Access to Contraception and Control of Their Lives. Affordable birth control disappeared, pushing many women into unplanned pregnancies at a time when they can barely feed the children they already have. Around Caracas, the capital, a pack of three condoms costs $4.40 — three times Venezuela's monthly minimum wage of $1.50. Birth control pills cost more than twice as much, roughly $11 a month, while an IUD, or intrauterine device, can cost more than $40 — more than 25 times the minimum wage. And that does not include a doctor's fee to have the device put in. With the cost of contraception so far out of reach, women are increasingly resorting to abortions, which are illegal and, in the worst cases, can cost them their lives.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/world/americas/venezuela-birth-control-women.html
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/17/world/americas/venezuela-children-starving.html
______________________
2nd Texas Disaster Declaration
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/02/20/president-joseph-r-biden-jr-approves-texas-disaster-declaration/
President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Approves Texas Disaster Declaration
February 20, 2021 • Statements and Releases
Yesterday, President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. declared that a major disaster exists in the State of Texas and ordered federal assistance to supplement state and local recovery efforts in the areas affected by severe winter storms beginning on February 11, 2021, and continuing.
The President's action makes federal funding available to affected individuals in the counties of Angelina, Aransas, Bastrop, Bee, Bell, Bexar, Blanco, Brazoria, Brazos, Brown, Burleson, Caldwell, Calhoun, Cameron, Chambers, Collin, Comal, Comanche, Cooke, Coryell, Dallas, Denton, DeWitt, Ellis, Falls, Fort Bend, Galveston, Gillespie, Grimes, Guadalupe, Hardin, Harris, Hays, Henderson, Hidalgo, Hood, Jasper, Jefferson, Johnson, Kaufman, Kendall, Lavaca, Liberty, Madison, Matagorda, Maverick, McLennan, Montague, Montgomery, Nacogdoches, Nueces, Orange, Palo Pinto, Panola, Parker, Polk, Rockwall, Sabine, San Jacinto, San Patricio, Scurry, Shelby, Smith, Stephens, Tarrant, Travis, Tyler, Upshur, Van Zandt, Victoria, Walker, Waller, Wharton, Wichita, Williamson, Wilson, and Wise.
Assistance can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, and other programs to help individuals and business owners recover from the effects of the disaster.
Federal funding is also available to state and eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency protective measures and hazard mitigation measures statewide.
Robert J. Fenton, Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Department of Homeland Security, named Jerry S. Thomas as the Federal Coordinating Officer for federal recovery operations in the affected areas.
Additional designations may be made at a later date if requested by the state and warranted by the results of further damage assessments.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION MEDIA SHOULD CONTACT THE FEMA NEWS DESK AT (202) 646-3272 OR FEMA-NEWS-DESK@FEMA.DHS.GOV.
______________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/02/19/statement-by-president-joseph-r-biden-jr-on-the-day-of-remembrance-of-japanese-american-internment/
Statement by President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. on the Day of Remembrance of Japanese American Internment
February 19, 2021 • Statements and Releases
Seventy-nine years ago today, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which stripped Japanese Americans of their civil rights and led to the wrongful internment of some 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent. In one of the most shameful periods in American history, Japanese Americans were targeted and imprisoned simply because of their heritage. Families were forced to abandon their homes, communities, and businesses to live for years in inhumane concentration camps throughout the United States. These actions by the Federal government were immoral and unconstitutional — yet they were upheld by the Supreme Court in one of the gravest miscarriages of justice in the Court's history.
America failed to live up to our founding ideals of liberty and justice for all, and today we reaffirm the Federal government's formal apology to Japanese Americans for the suffering inflicted by these policies. The internment of Japanese Americans also serves as a stark reminder of the tragic human consequences of systemic racism, xenophobia, and nativism. I reflect on the bravery of so many Japanese Americans who stood up against this hateful policy, including civil rights leaders like Fred Korematsu who fought against Japanese internment and were a symbol of hope. Their legacies remind us all that civil liberties must be vigorously defended and protected.
###
______________________
Update: The entire board resigned, as they should.
https://reason.com/2021/02/18/oakley-union-schools-babysitters-reopening-video-meeting/
https://twitter.com/robbysoave/status/1363143928447385601
4 More States Propose Harsh New Illegal And Unconstitutional Penalties For Protesting Fossil Fuels. Industry-designed bills to silence climate protests are under consideration in Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota and Montana. More are likely to come.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fossil-fuel-protest_n_602c1ff6c5b6c95056f3f6af?1n9
Good: NEWS: @RepTerriSewell tells @TiffanyDCross "we'll look very closely" at running for U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Richard Shelby, who announced he's not running for re-election in 2022. Sewell says Black women deserve a seat at the table given their role in our democracy.
https://twitter.com/emarvelous/status/1363145847635075081
DOJ and FBI are investigating whether there was any command and control of the Capitol rioters, looking at ties between Roger Stone, Alex Jones and the rioters:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/stone-jones-capitol-riot-investigation-radicalization/2021/02/19/97d6e6ee-6cad-11eb-9ead-673168d5b874_story.html
An Ex-KGB Agent Says Trump Was a Russian Asset Since 1987
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ex-kgb-agent-trump-russian-asset-mueller-putin-kompromat-unger-book.html
Republican Senate memo says DeJoy personally ordered USPS overtime cuts, contradicting DeJoy's prior testimony
https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-investigations/gop-senate-memo-says-dejoy-personally-ordered-usps-overtime-cuts-contradicting-dejoys-prior-testimony/
California's case and hospitalization numbers keep improving; nearly 7 million vaccines administered https://mercurynews.com/2021/02/20/coronavirus-californias-cases-and-hospitalizations-numbers-keep-improving-nearly-7-million-vaccines-administered/
Russia reports first human cases of H5N8 bird flu
https://bnonews.com/index.php/2021/02/russia-reports-first-human-cases-of-h5n8-bird-flu/
Trump is speaking at CPAC next weekend in Florida. Topic is "Trumpism is the future of the Republican Party and the conservative movement".
Judge Orders Pro-Trump Attorney Who Sued Mike Pence to Face Grievance Committee Over 'Baseless Fraud Allegations and Tenuous Legal Claims'
https://lawandcrime.com/2020-election/judge-orders-pro-trump-attorney-who-sued-mike-pence-to-face-grievance-committee-over-baseless-fraud-allegations-and-tenuous-legal-claims/
This week, wholesale electric prices in Texas, normally $50 per megawatt-hour, busted over $9,000. One shop owner, Akilah Scott-Amos, showed the Daily Beast her electric bills which blew up from $34 per month to $450 for a single day.
https://gregpalast.com/texas-gets-layd-how-the-bush-family-turned-off-the-lights/
________________________________
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ex-kgb-agent-trump-russian-asset-mueller-putin-kompromat-unger-book.html
9:00 A.M.
An Ex-KGB Agent Says Trump Was a Russian Asset Since 1987. Does it Matter?
By Jonathan Chait
In 2018, I became either famous or notorious — depending on your point of view — for writing a story speculating that Russia had secret leverage over Trump (which turned out to be correct). The story's most controversial suggestion was that it was plausible, though hardly certain, that Russia's influence over Trump might even date back as far as 1987.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/07/trump-putin-russia-collusion.html
Here is what I wrote in that controversial section:
During the Soviet era, Russian intelligence cast a wide net to gain leverage over influential figures abroad. (The practice continues to this day.) The Russians would lure or entrap not only prominent politicians and cultural leaders, but also people whom they saw as having the potential for gaining prominence in the future. In 1986, Soviet ambassador Yuri Dubinin met Trump in New York, flattered him with praise for his building exploits, and invited him to discuss a building in Moscow. Trump visited Moscow in July 1987. He stayed at the National Hotel, in the Lenin Suite, which certainly would have been bugged. There is not much else in the public record to describe his visit, except Trump's own recollection in The Art of the Deal that Soviet officials were eager for him to build a hotel there. (It never happened.)
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/19/trump-first-moscow-trip-215842/
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/18/collusion-luke-harding-review-how-russia-helped-trump-win-the-white-house
Trump returned from Moscow fired up with political ambition. He began the first of a long series of presidential flirtations, which included a flashy trip to New Hampshire. Two months after his Moscow visit, Trump spent almost $100,000 on a series of full-page newspaper ads that published a political manifesto. "An open letter from Donald J. Trump on why America should stop paying to defend countries that can afford to defend themselves," as Trump labeled it, launched angry populist charges against the allies that benefited from the umbrella of American military protection. "Why are these nations not paying the United States for the human lives and billions of dollars we are losing to protect their interests?"
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ilanbenmeir/that-time-trump-spent-nearly-100000-on-an-ad-criticizing-us
I conceded it was probably just a coincidence that Trump came back from his trip to Russia and started spouting themes that happened to dovetail closely with Russia's geopolitical goal of splitting the United States from its allies. But there was a reasonable chance — I loosely pegged it at 10 or 20 percent — that the Soviets had planted some of these thoughts, which he had never expressed before the trip, in his head.
If I had to guess today, I'd put the odds higher, perhaps over 50 percent. One reason for my higher confidence is that Trump has continued to fuel suspicion by taking anomalously pro-Russian positions. He met with Putin in Helsinki, appearing strangely submissive, and spouted Putin's propaganda on a number of topics including the ridiculous possibility of a joint Russian-American cybersecurity unit. (Russia, of course, committed the gravest cyber-hack in American history not long ago, making Trump's idea even more self-defeating in retrospect than it was at the time.) He seemed to go out of his way to alienate American allies and blow up cooperation every time they met during his tenure.
He would either refuse to admit Russian wrongdoing — Trump refused even to concede that the regime poisoned Alexei Navalny — or repeat bizarre snippets of Russian propaganda: NATO was a bad deal for America because Montenegro might launch an attack on Russia; the Soviets had to invade Afghanistan in the 1970s to defend against terrorism. These weren't talking points he would pick up in his normal routine of watching Fox News and calling Republican sycophants.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/07/trump-doesnt-get-why-u-s-has-to-defend-nato-allies.html
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/trump-defends-soviet-invasion-of-afghanistan-for-some-reason.html
A second reason is that reporter Craig Unger got a former KGB spy to confirm on the record that Russian intelligence had been working Trump for decades. In his new book, "American Kompromat," Unger interviewed Yuri Shvets, who told him that the KGB manipulated Trump with simple flattery. "In terms of his personality, the guy is not a complicated cookie," he said, "his most important characteristics being low intellect coupled with hyperinflated vanity. This makes him a dream for an experienced recruiter."
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/635379/american-kompromat-by-craig-unger/
That's quite similar to what I suggested in my story:
Russian intelligence gains influence in foreign countries by operating subtly and patiently. It exerts different gradations of leverage over different kinds of people, and uses a basic tool kit of blackmail that involves the exploitation of greed, stupidity, ego, and sexual appetite. All of which are traits Trump has in abundance.
This is what intelligence experts mean when they describe Trump as a Russian "asset." It's not the same as being an agent. An asset is somebody who can be manipulated, as opposed to somebody who is consciously and secretly working on your behalf.
Shvets told Unger that the KGB cultivated Trump as an American leader, and persuaded him to run his ad attacking American alliances. "The ad was assessed by the active measures directorate as one of the most successful KGB operations at that time," he said, "It was a big thing — to have three major American newspapers publish KGB soundbites."
To be clear, while Shvets is a credible source, his testimony isn't dispositive. There are any number of possible motives for a former Soviet spy turned critic of Russia's regime to manufacture an indictment of Trump. But the story he tells is almost exactly the possibility I sketched out. And it fits the known facts about how Russian intelligence works and what Trump has done pretty tightly.
One thing I have changed my mind on since my story ran is the effect any this would have on the American public even if it were proven.
There is an allure to the mysterious that gives certain unknown facts outsize meaning. Uncovering the secret identity of "Deep Throat" was considered one of journalism's greatest prizes, until Associate FBI Director Mark Felt admitted it was him, after which hardly anybody cared. If Jimmy Hoffa's body had turned up shortly after his disappearance, its location would have been forgotten almost immediately, rather than becoming the subject of decades-long speculation and probing.
The nature and origins of Donald Trump's relationship with Russia probably falls into this category. The full story will probably never be known for certain. Robert Mueller was thought to be pursuing it, but steered clear of the counterintelligence investigation to focus more narrowly on criminal violations; the Senate Intelligence Committee produced tantalizing evidence of 2016 campaign collusion, but did not have access to Trump's inner circle. In theory, the Trump lieutenants who clammed up, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone, or their Russian contacts, like Manafort partner Konstantin Kilimnik, could eventually furnish some kind of deathbed confession, but even that would be rendered inconclusive by its source's fundamental lack of credibility.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/with-mueller-gone-threat-of-a-lawless-president-is-alive.html
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/08/bipartisan-senate-report-shows-2016-trump-russia-collusion.html
If something like the most sinister plausible story turned out to be true, how much would it matter? Probably not that much. Don't get me wrong: Russia having secret channels of leverage over an American president isn't good. I have merely come to think that even if we could have confirmed the worst, to the point that even Trump's supporters could no longer deny it, it wouldn't have changed very much. Trump wouldn't have been forced to resign, and his Republican supporters would not have had to repudiate him. The controversy would have simply receded into the vast landscape of partisan talking points — one more thing liberals mock Trump over, and conservatives complain about the media for covering instead of Nancy Pelosi's freezer or antifa or the latest campus outrage.
One reason I think that is because a great deal of incriminating information was confirmed and very little in fact changed as a result. In 2018, Buzzfeed reported, and the next year Robert Mueller confirmed, explosive details of a Russian kompromat operation. During the campaign, Russia had been dangling a Moscow building deal that stood to give hundreds of millions of dollars in profit to Trump, at no risk. Not only did he stand to gain this windfall, but he was lying in public at the time about his dealings with Russia, which gave Vladimir Putin additional leverage over him. (Russia could expose Trump's lies at any time if he did something to displease Moscow.)
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/anthonycormier/trump-moscow-micheal-cohen-felix-sater-campaign
Mueller even testified that this arrangement gave Russia blackmail leverage over Trump. But by the time these facts had passed from the realm of the mysterious to the confirmed, they had become uninteresting.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/07/mueller-testifies-russia-blackmail-leverage-trump.html
We don't know what other sources of leverage Russia had, or how far back it went. Ultimately, whatever value Trump offered to Russia was compromised by his incompetence and limited ability to grasp firm control even of his own government's foreign policy. It was not just the fabled "deep state" that undermined Trump. Even his own handpicked appointees constantly undermined him, especially on Russia. Whatever leverage Putin had was limited to a single individual, which meant there was nobody Trump could find to run the State Department, National Security Agency, and so on who shared his idiosyncratic Russophilia.
The truth, I suspect, was simultaneously about as bad as I suspected, and paradoxically anticlimactic. Trump was surrounded by all sorts of odious characters who manipulated him into saying and doing things that ran against the national interest. One of those characters was Putin. In the end, their influence ran up against the limits that the character over whom they had gained influence was a weak, failed president.
________________________________
The Houston Rockets and center DeMarcus Cousins are planning to part ways in coming days, sources tell @TheAthletic @Stadium. Houston wants to go smaller, younger in frontcourt when Christian Wood returns and this allows Cousins to find an opportunity elsewhere.
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1363263875219664896
'Multiple deaths' investigation reported in Metairie; Jefferson Parish authorities investigating | Authorities in Jefferson Parish are investigating a shooting that involved "multiple deaths" in Metairie on Saturday, according to the sheriff's office.
https://www.nola.com/news/crime_police/article_b143eb5a-73c3-11eb-8e00-038ccf3489c1.html
Ocasio-Cortez Fundraising Drive For Texas Relief Raises $4 Million
https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-winter-storms-2021/2021/02/20/969809679/ocasio-cortez-fundraising-drive-for-texas-relief-raises-4-million
Draymond gets ejected with the Warriors up 2 with 9 seconds left in the game.
https://streamable.com/dmu27l
Westbrook with an efficient triple double in tonights Wizards win: 27pts, 11 rebs, 13 asts on 11-17 fgs
Full Incredible Sequence of Hornets/Warriors. Hornets win jump ball and call timeout, Draymond gets called for 2 techs back to back and gets ejected, Rozier hits 2 FTs, and Rozier drains the game winner at the buzzer
https://streamable.com/l5dxea
Adebayo Bams Lebron's layup attempt
https://streamable.com/r67nmg
Logo Lillard hits it from the logo to end the 3rd
https://streamable.com/i4r9r0
Patrick Williams yeets the ball from 52 feet to end the 3rd
https://streamable.com/1ct6el
Terry Rozier in the final 4:28 of tonight's game against Golden State: 15 points on 5/5 shooting, 3/3 from 3, 2/2 from the line and the game-winner. He outscored the Warriors 15-9 over those final 4+ minutes.
https://streamable.com/j72xvh
LaVine escapes the Kings defenders and knocks down the clutch two to put the Bulls up 8 with 17.6 left
https://streamable.com/6k6nku
The Phoenix Suns have broken a franchise record with 24 made 3 pointers tonight against the Grizzlies
Thadgic Johnson makes an appearance
https://streamable.com/7r71ul
Bradley Beal in tonights Wizards win: 37 pts, 7 rebs, 3 asts, 2 stls, on 16/27 fgs, 2/8 from 3
The Blazers and Wizards give us an absolute mess of a sequence in the clutch
https://streamable.com/gabaoc
Israel: Oil spill hits 100 miles of coastline as beaches shut after 'one of country's worst ecological disasters'
https://news.sky.com/story/israel-oil-spill-hits-100-miles-of-coastline-as-beaches-shut-after-one-of-countrys-worst-ecological-disasters-12224794
If the entire Democratic messaging strategy for the foreseeable future is gonna be to point at Republicans and say "lol look at how dumb and racist and incompetent these people are!" then Democrats are going to get trashed in the midterms. That didn't work against Trump in 2016 and only barely in 2020
A leader in an alleged Oath Keepers conspiracy claims she was given a VIP pass to the pro-Trump rally on Jan 6, met with Secret Service agents and was providing security for legislators and others, including in their march to Capitol
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/21/politics/oath-keepers-vip-security-capitol-riot/index.html
Biden Administration Drops Trump Administration's Legal Battle To Strip Native Tribe's Reservation Status
https://www.wbur.org/news/2021/02/20/mashpee-wampanoag-tribe-legal-victory
US surpasses 500,000 reported coronavirus-related deaths
Total cases 28,206,650
Total deaths 500,002
Nearly double the number of doses of COVID-19 vaccine will be delivered in the next 5.5 weeks than have been delivered in the 2+ months since the first EUA. How the Biden admin is turning to the challenge of getting them all in arms.
https://apnews.com/article/7969686ebe0b19caa8a3c7b5eda0faba
Turn on the Sunday shows and this is what you get—
ABC: The election was stolen
NBC: The election was stolen
CBS: The election was stolen
Fox: The election was stolen
https://twitter.com/MattNegrin/status/1363530812759678979
Turn on the Sunday shows on a different day and this is what you get—
ABC: The election was stolen
NBC: The election was stolen
CBS: The election was stolen
Fox: The election was stolen
https://twitter.com/MattNegrin/status/1363531201806491651
The election was stolen the election was stolen the election was stolen the election was stolen the election was stolen the election was stolen the election was stolen the election was stolen the election was stolen the election was stolen the election was stolen the election was
https://twitter.com/MattNegrin/status/1363532027258101760
JJ Reddick throws a bad bounce pass to the ref and he gets ejected for his 2nd technical
https://streamable.com/ncyx6i
The New Orleans Pelicans (13-17) defeat the Boston Celtics (15-15) in OT, 120 - 115
The Pelicans have just came back from down 24 points, making this the biggest comeback in franchise history
Robert Williams destroys Zion's shot attempt
https://streamable.com/rllf6k
Ingram gives the Pelicans a 3 point lead in OT
Josh Hart has another double double, with 17 points, 10 rebounds, and 3 blocks and terrific defense all game log
Brandon Ingram Tonight: 33/6/3 on 11/22 shooting, 5/12 from three and 6/6 from the line
Zion Williamson just floats up for the putback power layup
https://streamable.com/4wh7zc
Aleksej Pokusevski calls for the ball from his OKC Blue teammate despite being on the bench, forcing a turnover.
https://streamable.com/llbcsh
Zion Williamson Tonight: 28/10/3 on 11/21 shooting, 0/1 from three and 6/10 from the line
Zion dribbles the length of floor, euro steps and scores just before the end 3rd quarter.
https://streamable.com/sudy5m
The Minnesota Timberwolves have dismissed coach Ryan Saunders
http://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1363700615189303296
Kawhi commits a costly offensive foul on Harden
https://streamable.com/vazvqh
Raptors record went from 2-8 to 16-15
One day after Joel Embiid claimed he was unguardable, Aron Baynes and Chris Boucher hold him to 25 points on 6-20 shooting
Kawhi Leonard on offensive foul: "My take from it is, if we're gonna play bully ball at the end of the game, let both sides play. But they didn't call it, so good defense. Thought I got grabbed early, but like I said, no call, so great defense."
https://streamable.com/w394k7
Trae Young Tonight: 33/6/15 on 10/19 shooting, 4/7 from three and 9/11 from the line
Jeff Green has been diagnosed with a right shoulder contusion
https://twitter.com/malika_andrews/status/1363702742464798720
James Harden on donating thousands of meals down in Houston: "I call Houston home. It's devastating obviously." Thinks this was worse than Hurricane Harvey because the extent of damage is unknown. Said he's been on the phone all day trying to help. Has called plumbing companies.
Nicola Vucevic Tonight: 37/11/3 on 14/27 shooting, 2/6 from three and 7/7 from the line
https://twitter.com/Alex__Schiffer/status/1363704963009019909
Harden said he's been on the phone with Houston's mayor and his other contacts down there, too. Has been using his unopened restaurant and Body Armor endorsement to help families.
https://twitter.com/Alex__Schiffer/status/1363704736789237766
No comments:
Post a Comment